Elegy for Númenor – Volume 2: The Darkening by elfscribe

---

1. The Talisman

Chapter Summary: Ar-Pharazôn sails home to Númenor with his captive, Sauron. About a week before they are due to land, the ship becomes stuck in the doldrums. Bored, Sauron riles tempers and makes mischief — with consequences.

---

Second Age 3262

A single drum commanded the rowers in the cockle boats that towed the King’s ship, the Zimrazra. The sound reverberated through the wooden hull into Sûla’s spine— thud, thud, thud.

Sûla wafted a fan to the beat, attempting to cool those seated around Ar-Pharazon’s table. The door was open to invite any stray ocean air to circulate in the cabin where the King, his captive, Lord Annatar, the ship’s captain, and Manwë’s high priest had gathered to dine. Today, more than usual, these four made for a volatile combination.

They were dressed minimally in their knee-length cotton tunics pinned at the shoulders with broaches of varying value, all except Ikar-lak, the priest, who must be suffering valiantly in his feathered robe and eagle-beaked headdress. The air hovered dense and still, too hot for anything other than stoking tempers. Despite the best efforts of their exhausted crew, their progress was minimal as long as the sea remained glassy and the wind non-existent. Becalmed. That’s what they were, for three days now. Sûla had never seen it so bad in any of his previous voyages including the first one when, newly auctioned off as a slave in Umbar, he had been shipped to Númenor in chains. But he wasn’t going to dwell on that horror, not when his current status, despite some drawbacks, was so much better.

Until the wind had quit, they had been barely a sennight out from the docks at Rómenna, but now, well, Sûla hadn’t seen any other ships from the fleet for days, so he could only fret about what had happened to his friend Tigôn, who sailed with Lord Nimruzîr. Lately, because Sûla had time, he’d been thinking—of how and why his life had changed from the time he’d accompanied the army to challenge Sauron, who then unexpectedly surrendered to the King, to when Sûla had been imprisoned in Umbar, flogged, and nearly hung for a crime he did not commit, to his lot now, returning to Númenor as Annatar’s slave rather than the King’s. Remarkable how Lord Zizzûn, Master of Fate, liked to play with him. Most of all, he’d been thinking of Tigôn, the King’s former messenger, who in a series of strange events had become his forbidden lover, and of the promise Sûla had made to him. He wondered if their scheme could actually work or if he had the courage to even try.

“It’s supposed to be winter, for Eru’s sake,” Ar-Pharazôn said. “What aberration of nature is this? This heat, this uncanny stillness.” He turned to Annatar, who was sullenly slashing a knife through a tuna fillet. “Can’t you do something about this? After all, you summoned the wind when we first left Umbar. Pray, humor us all and do it again. Or are you refusing to use your power to spite me?”

Annatar raised a chunk of fish on the knife-point, dripping sauce. “As I’ve explained numerous times,” he said, as if trying to teach basic addition to an idiot, “I do not have the power to create a breeze from nothing. I must have something to work with, and at the moment, the airs above us are stagnant as a stinking cesspool. Sire.” He popped the bite into his mouth.

“So, Gorthaur, I have to take your word for it?” The King leaned forward with a scowl. Sûla’s master curled his lip at the derisive name given him by the Sindar. A name Ar-Pharazôn rather consistently used when needling him. The King continued, “Perhaps you are revenging yourself upon me by refusing to call the airs, hmm? Or merely delaying your fate once we disembark upon the shores of Anadûnê and I parade you in chains before my subjects?”

Annatar’s luminous golden eyes narrowed to slits. “I would have thought you’d had enough of that sort of spectacle in Umbar, my Lord. I assure you, I’m as anxious to get off this beastly barge as anyone here.”

Captain Nadroth scowled behind his short beard, carefully clipped to a point. “Be careful of your words, prisoner,” he said. “I’ve heard many say you are a great sorcerer. But what use is a wizard who can’t perform simple weather-casting?”

Annatar gave him a withering look. “Weather-casting, you’d have from me, huh, and here I thought we carried an expert on board for that very purpose.” He turned to the priest.

Ikar-lak, head of the Bawîba Manô sect, raised a heat-reddened face visible through the eagle-beaked headdress and said in his deep voice, “Your ‘guest,’ my Lord, is not known to be one of the Maiar with power over either the deeps or the airs. I believe his stunt at Umbar’s quay was mere serendipity.”

“Was it?” Ar-Pharazôn poked Annatar.

“It worked, didn’t it.” Annatar shrugged. “And after all your machinations failed, Ikar-lak. So, then, High Priest of Manwë, if you have so little faith in what you saw with your own eyes, pray tell me, what have you done to court the winds?”

Ikar-lak’s beak quivered with indignation. “From the time I was a boy, I have devoted myself to our Lord Manwë and I’ve risen through the ranks to my present position of service to Anadûnê. For this voyage, I’ve said the prayers, done the rituals that have been proscribed for generations.” He made a series of gestures. “I have no doubt Manwë will favor us once he perceives the prayers I’ve sent. The Valar have much to occupy themselves so they don’t always hear us immediately.”

Annatar threw back his head and laughed. “Nonsense! Who else among us has actually met the Valar. Mmm? The reason they don’t answer prayers is they don’t give a gnat’s reflection for what happens to men. You, my friend, wouldn’t know how to get any of the Ainur to pay attention to you if you balanced naked on top of that mast out there and spit at each passing cloud.”

“My Lord King!” Ikar-lak thumped his hands down flat on the table, trembling the cutlery. “Sacrilege comes so easily to his lips. He regularly insults the Valar with his sly insinuations. How can you allow this unnatural villain to keep his blasphemous tongue! I daresay, our present becalmed state may be due to the Valar’s displeasure at having him on board. Maybe we’d merit a wind if we roped him to the mast and bled him into a bowl.”

Annatar hissed. Sûla’s temples throbbed in response and Ikar-lak recoiled. For a moment, it seemed a shadow fell on the room. The priest made the sign against evil.

Ah, don’t, don’t fuck with him, Sûla thought. We none of us know what he’s capable of.

Although Sûla had only known his master a scant three fortnights, and only about half that closely, he likely knew the Dark Lord better than anyone here. Annatar was capable of an astonishing amount of self-control, but his patience was tactical. Underneath seethed a deep well of malice and resentment, which occasionally erupted to the surface. And Ikar-lak seemed to bring out the worst of his master’s ill will. A volcano was brewing. Sûla mouthed a calming spell he’d overheard Annatar use. And waved the fan.

Ar-Pharazôn looked disgusted. “Enough squabbling, or I’ll banish you both to the hold,” he growled, gesturing at the guards standing by the door. “Since we’ve only one, you’ll be confined to the same cell for the rest of the voyage in rather close proximity. Whichever one of you emerges alive, I’ll appoint head of the Council of the Sceptre.”

“I’ll happily wager on that outcome as I don’t require sleep.” Annatar smiled like a shark. And oh gods, he appeared both beautiful and deadly. Sûla couldn’t help but be moved by him.

Within the shadow of his beaked headdress, Ikar-lak’s mouth twitched.

“Captain Nadroth,” Ar-Pharazôn continued. “Can’t you get more out of the rowers? Increase the beat. Perhaps we could pick up a wind once we get closer to Anadûnê.”

Nadroth plucked at his beard. “With all deference, my Lord, they are already exhausted. I was about to let them off for the night and put in a new shift rowing just enough to maintain position. If we keep up the current pace, they’ll start dying, which would not suit our long-term goals. Maybe our Head Priest had the right idea: a sacrifice to our lord Ossë is in order.” He eyed Annatar balefully.

“To Ossë you say!” Annatar sneered. “By the wheeling stars, what a waste of time. For all your experience as mariners, haven’t you figured out yet what a moody bastard my brother is? He simply doesn’t care. Do you think that nailing that pathetic oiolairë branch on the bow of your ship means anything to him?” He gestured in the vague direction of the prow.

“We’re here, aren’t we?” Ikar-lak said. “We rode through that storm a fortnight ago with no damage. Personally, I have seen what happens if a ship doesn’t affix its branch and there is no resident priest aboard. The vessel is nearly always lost to the sea.”

“Superstitious tripe!” Annatar declared. “You forget who you’re speaking to, Priest. At this moment, it’s likely my brother lounges in the depths, high on fumes issuing from a warm volcanic vent, and fucking a squid or perhaps eating one, he often doesn’t differentiate. Nothing you say will move him if he does not wish to be moved.”

Ar-Pharazôn chuckled.

“That does it!” Ikar-lak pushed away from the table and stood, quivering with fury. “First you defame my Lord Manwë on the docks of Umbar and now this. You’ve insulted our gods and likely we’ll pay the price. My Lord, I beg of you, do something!”

Ar-Pharazôn held up a hand. “You are right, Ikar-lak. Annatar, you’ve gone too far.”

“Oh, that was too far?” Annatar replied with soft menace. Sûla’s body prickled with the elixir of his master’s anger. “You want a sacrifice? You haven’t seen anything yet, oh King.” Abruptly Annatar stood, his sheaf of crimson hair sliding over his broad shoulders. “You all are praying to the wrong gods. I personally served one much greater. Here, I’ll show you the limits of your feeble pratings.”

Before anyone could stop him, he shoved past Ikar-lak, charged out of the cabin, down the steps to the main deck, bare legs a blur. Dismayed, they all followed. Annatar pushed past three of Ikar-lak’s astonished acolytes on their knees praying for wind, blew past Tala, the navigator, sampling the current, up a set of stairs past the drummer giving the beat and out to the bowsprit. There he leaned over the railing and with a sharp snap of dry wood, wrenched the withered oiolairë branch from the clutches of the carved eagle figurehead, held it aloft, then tossed it into the brine, where it bobbed to the surface and floated off. “There,” Annatar said with satisfaction. “See if that makes one jot of difference in our progress.”

A collective gasp went up from nearby crew. The drummer faltered, then stopped. “Gentlemen,” Annatar shouted to the rowers below. “You have me to thank for your moment of relief from toil.” Standing behind Annatar, Sûla choked back a laugh. Ar-Pharazôn’s face blossomed red. The King could not tolerate such insolence from a prisoner, no matter who he was and particularly not in front of the others. His master had indeed gone too far. What now?

The King got right up in Annatar’s face, even though he had to tilt his head back as Annatar stood half a head taller. He snapped his fingers at the guards who had trailed behind. “Bane of Middle-earth,” he snarled. “I banish you henceforth to the bilge, until you can learn to hold your Valar-forsaken tongue and cease desecrating our beliefs. Take him below!”

The guards hesitated. Annatar had gentled all the King’s guards weeks ago with spells, an easy enough task during the boring voyage. But this was Hazûn, the Captain of the King’s Guard, and an underling named Narûkh, who were less susceptible. They had no choice but to obey as Ar-Pharazôn gestured violently at them. “Now!” he roared.

Hazûn and Narûkh seized Annatar by the arms and dragged him struggling to the hatch. Narûkh climbed down first, while Hazûn shoved Annatar after him. The last Sûla saw was the top of his master’s head, furious golden cat eyes glaring above the hatch before he allowed himself to be spirited off. Allowed himself was the correct interpretation, Sûla knew, even if no one else there did.

Whatever had gotten into his master? It must be the heat, Sûla thought. Over the past few days, he noticed his master’s temper getting shorter and shorter, especially when crossed or reminded of his subservient position to the King. But being banished below decks was a revolting development, as now Sûla would have to take Annatar’s meals down to the bottommost level, brushing past every fuck-deprived sailor who had eyed him lustfully over the past three weeks. And likely in the Zigûr’s absence, the King would want his services again too. So much for his arse’s vacation. Well, he’d done service under the King before; he could grit his teeth and suffer it again. As for the handsy sailors, Sûla had ways to protect himself, although sadly, he couldn’t be caught using them. He eyed his golden armlet in the shape of a dragon that curled around his right bicep. Wearing it was a necessary evil, given his situation. Then he patted the dagger strapped to his thigh, hidden under his tunic. Never again would he allow himself to be as vulnerable as he had been the first time he made this voyage. As much as others aboard ship were dangerous, Sûla counted himself their match.

---

Chapter End Notes

Anadûnê — (Adûnaic) meaning Westernesse or Númenor. Anadûni means western from an-Adûn, ‘of the West.’
Hazûn—(elfscribe-invented Adûnaic name) guard who “captured” Annatar and later becomes Captain of the King’s guard.
Ikar-lak— (elfscribe-invented name) Chief of the Bawîba Manô, Eru’s high priests of the sect of Manwë. Bawîba Manô (Adûnaic, bawîba means ‘wind’ and manô ‘spirit’ - combined by elfscribe into a new term). They wear helms shaped like an eagle’s head with an open beak for the visor.
Captain Nadroth — (canon Adûnaic, meaning "hind-track", the wake of a boat) [I used this name in Ossë’s Gift]
Narûkh—(elfscribe-invented Adûnaic name combining man ‘naru’ and shout ‘rûkh’) The guard who accompanied Tigôn to the sorcerer Magân’s shop in Elegy, vol. 1.
Nimruzîr – canon Adûnaic for Elendil.
Sûla— (canon Adûnaic, meaning ‘trump’) Ar-Pharazôn’s former cupbearer and zirâmîki. Currently Annatar’s slave.
Tala – (Adûnaic. Meaning unknown) Navigator aboard the Zimrazra and one of the few female crew members.
Tigôn—(elfscribe-invented Adûnaic name) Ar-Pharazôn’s former messenger and now part of Elendil’s household.
zirâmîki — (plural zirâmîkin; elfscribe-invented Adûnaic term, meaning ‘beloved boys’ from canon Adûnaic ziran meaning ‘beloved’ or ‘desired’ and mîk, ‘young boy’) male courtesans.
Zizzûn — (elfscribe-invented Umbarian name) Master of Fate, a god of the peasants around Umbar.

***********
On the design of the Númenórean ships:
I spent some time researching the type of ships the Númenóreans likely used, poring over images of ancient Phoenician, Greek, and Roman galley type ships that used oars as well as sails; as well as later 16th - 17th century workhorse vessels like Spanish galleons and carracks. I read what fans have to say on the subject; as well as Tolkien’s descriptions. He describes Ar-Pharazôn’s fleet as having “many oars and many strong slaves to row beneath the lash.” (The Silmarillion, 1977, Ballantine Books, NY, p. 344) He describes Ar-Pharazôn’s ship Alcarondas, the ‘Castle of the Sea’ as “many oared” and “many masted.” However, near as I can tell by researching historical examples, the oared galleys were primarily ships that stayed close to land and were prized for their maneuverability. They were relatively small compared to the large cargo ships of a later age and usually had one mast or at most two. An extended voyage across the seas, especially on a mission of conquest to Middle-earth such as Ar-Pharazôn had undertaken, would have required considerable cargo space as they would have to carry enough food and fresh water to make a month-long trip, not to mention war supplies, horses, fodder, wagons, tents and equipment, and whole armies of men. Accordingly, I think, a better model is a Spanish galleon, which relied on sails, not oars. However, even the tall sailing ships occasionally required manual power. In those instances, the sailors would get into cockle boats normally mounted on deck (life-boats) and tow the main ship by rowing. So, that’s what I’ve depicted in this fic. I freely admit that I am far from an expert and that other interpretations are quite possible.