Saltation by pandemonium_213

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Saltation

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Ulmo hates the sensation of the wind that swirls around his body, this mockery of his lover's Children, but Manwë insists that the Enkeladim wear them when they gather in these conclaves, and so he complies out of respect for his leader. The cold air sucks the moisture from him, diminishing him, and he yearns to return to his lover, to immerse himself in her fluids. Yet here he is, exposed, shriveling in the rarified air, where he waits with the others. They shift, uncomfortable in these imperfect, corporeal forms: hands with four fingers but no opposable thumbs, noses too small, ears set too high or too low, or, in Yavanna's case, too pointed. Their bodies are grotesque, for they know nothing of his lover's Children, yet they have the arrogance to don their forms and decide upon their fate.

Ulmo glances at Aulë, who also broods. His brother was compelled to put his own creations to sleep until this vaunted new folk comes forth. Ulmo is too exhausted to offer consolation to Aulë although he understands his anger, for he, too, made his arguments against Manwë and lost the battle.

He remembers how it had been, when they first came to this jewel of a world, after Melkor sent his jubilant message to Ellor Eshúrizel: "They sing!"

Ulmo had entered the Sea, his lover, and she had taken him to her shores and through her rivers and streams to show him her Children catching fish, pulling mussels from the rocks, using tools, and just as Melkor had said, singing songs.

He followed the tribes who left their searing homeland that could no longer feed them, and watched them trudge north, west, and east out of the vast country where they and their kin – those with low foreheads, thick brows, and thicker tongues - had their roots. Ulmo sang to them through the patter of rain and the rush of rapids. He sustained them on their journeys, for they carried the Sea's blood within their bodies, and he loved them.

His brothers and sisters of the Enkeladim doted upon the Children, too, these brilliant animals whose minds gave rise to tools and art, who cared for their young, their old, and their afflicted. But they were so fragile, dying from the least little thing, and if they did not succumb to disease, wounds, or an attack by larger, fiercer creatures, they all died from age, withering and drying up, just as Ulmo did now in Manwë's frigid halls when the winds always roar.

This fragility grieved the Enkeladim, who craved the Children's company. It was so rare to find such intelligence in the vast mansions of Eä, yet here it dwelt, even if it was snuffed out so quickly.

"How can they truly learn as we have," argued Manwë, "if their lives are so swift?" and that sparked the debate: "Let us take them and make them stronger, let them age slower than the stones of their world, and then we may speak with them and they with us. Let us teach them so that they may pass on our wisdom learned over the long-years to their mortal kindred."

Ulmo returned to the Sea and told her of the Enkeladim's ideas. "It is not the way here," his lover sighed as her waves crashed upon the shores of the world. "Death and decay are as natural as birth and fruition. If your kind succeeds in this, they will create abominations."

Ulmo had argued and argued against the plan, but in the end, he failed. Manwë ascended into the vaults of heaven, for only he could approach The One now, and returned to say he had been given permission to create this new race. There would be no more debate, and it was when Manwë and snake-eyed Námo, the keeper of the dead, laid their hands on his lover's hapless Children that Ulmo began to question the true nature and intentions of The One.

Now the Enkeladim wait. The Lord of the Winds' eyes fly open, eyes as blue as the sky that arches above them all.

"They awaken."

In an instant, the misshapen forms of the Enkeladim twist into columns of light, and they streak to the midnight shores of an inland sea. They shroud themselves as a tree, a fox, a stone, a cloud, or a bird's lonely song, but Ulmo chooses to sink into deep waters, relieved to find his lover's arms again. She holds him close while he watches the hillside, dotted with lumps lying on the grass. Manwë blows their dark brother's murk from the sky, so that when these folk open their eyes, they will look upon the stars.

They awaken in no particular order: men and women with light skin and eyes, some with golden hair, others with dark locks, and some with silver, whose substrates (for that is what Námo coldly calls their abducted ancestors) were plucked from the fog-bound northlands. Others have thick black hair and skin that is like burnished copper or pale subtle gold. Yet others have umber skin or so dark as to gleam like ebony. Yet for all their differences, each and every man and woman who has awakened is more beautiful, more graceful than his lover's Children who have sacrificed their lives to birth these extraordinary creatures, who will age slower than stone.

Ulmo watches from the lake, and his heart fills with as much love for these people as he has for their ancestors. Yes, they are strong, but they are also weak in many ways, and quickly fall prey to the hunters of sharp tooth and claw that stalk these lands, and worse, to the corruptions that Melkor has made from their heavy-browed, thick-tongued kin.

His lover whispers, "Yes, they are beautiful, but they are monsters. You love them though."

"I do."

"Then protect and guide them, these beautiful monsters, but promise me this: you will bring them back to me as they are supposed to be."

He promises. Then he calls from the water to the wind, his voice roaring from the cataracts that feed the lake. "We must protect them! We must teach them!"

So a dozen Maiar are sent to the awakened ones, for the Maiar are more like the Children than Ulmo and his kin are or ever will be, and they move among them, even mingling their seed with them. With the guidance of the Maiar, these beautiful people soon regain the strength of their speech, learn once more how to defend themselves, and their songs soar to the stars.

Soon, the people become restless. This does not surprise him, for their ancestors always looked to the horizon, too. Ulmo and his lover watch as the people group themselves, like with like, forming tribes again. Then there are fights over property, wives, and stupid things like whether pale skin and blue eyes are better than brown, and so blood is spilled. Oromë comes to them to prevent the fighting, and the decision is made to leave the lake. The pale tribes follow Oromë and march to the west; the gold and red people go east with their Maiar leading the way; and the brown and black folk return with their Maiar to the south, as if they seek the lands of their ancestors.

Ulmo keeps watch when they encounter his lover's Children, their mortal kindred, who greet them with wonder and fear, and who give them new names: jinn, yaksha, kitsune, xian, elf. And Ulmo remembers his promise.

 

Many, many years later, Ulmo floats on his lover's currents near a ship where two mortals — a man and a woman — stand together and look over the sea toward the shores of the vast southern land that gave birth to all people. He knows the man's name. He is a great captain and a king's son, and he carries the blood of the beautiful people and a Maia in his veins, not much, but enough. Ulmo knows her name, too, knows she shares the same blood as the captain even if she is not of the line of kings.

"This theory of yours. I cannot say I am altogether comfortable with it," says the man.

"I see only the evidence, Captain Anardil, and you surely see it, too. How can you deny that those apes are so much like us? We must share a common ancestor with them. I am sure of it."

"I hear your arguments, even if they disturb me, but others will deem your theory to be heresy. If you publish your work when we return to Númenor, I fear you will put yourself in great danger, Lady Darwen."

"I know, but it is not right to suppress knowledge, just because it makes us uncomfortable. There is something, though, that just does not fit neatly with my theory."

"What is that?"

"The Elves. How does one explain the Elves?"

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Chapter End Notes

Notes:

Saltation references Ulmo's Wife. I have used the Quenya names for the Valar rather than contorting myself into a linguistic pretzel in an attempt to use their Valarin names.

Enkeladim and Ellor Eshúrizel. I have borrowed these terms from "The Notion Club Papers," HoMe IX, Sauron Defeated. Ramer's explanation of them is vague enough to allow extrapolation to identify them with the Valar and whatever plane of existence they inhabit. See also Chosen.

Lady Darwen the naturalist and Captain Anardil (Tar-Aldarion) have appeared in Chronicles of the Fifth Voyage of the Númerrámar: The Loremaster Arrives.