Far is the high gods' song and low by AdmirableMonster

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Far is the high gods' song and low

Warning for a non-explicit discussion of (recent) past sexual assault, of a particularly ugly nature, and also impending major character death.

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Dark is the world our fathers left us,
    Heavily, greyly the long years flow,
Almost the gloom has of hope bereft us,
    Far is the high gods’ song and low.

--Geoffrey Bache Smith, in A Spring Harvest

The waters are rising.  The island shudders beneath Míriel’s feet.  The skies are black.

She walks through empty stone streets, trailing her fingers across the stone buildings.  Cracks are forming in the buildings and in the cobblestones.  Many of the people have already fled, but Míriel is not fleeing.  She moves towards the Meneltarma, not away.  For the first time in many years, there is no one to direct her, no one to control her.  Ash floats down from the sky and lands on her skin.  Her island is dying.  She is the last ruler of Númenor.

Well, Papa, is this what you foresaw for my reign?

What reign?  She has never ruled; she has always been ruled.  A pawn, never a queen.

The lightning lines have snapped.  Here and there one lies in the street, sparking.  Armenelos has never been so dark.  Almost, she feels as if she stands already at the bottom of the ocean.  Angry clouds boil overhead, gathering around the summit of the Meneltarma.  The brightest light in her vision is the red glow at its peak, which only grows as the rest of the illumination fades.  She halts at the base of the sacred road, gazing upward.

Another light catches in the corner of her eye.  She turns, grateful for a momentary reprieve—apparently still not quite ready for her death—and realizes it is the light of a lantern, still shining strongly in the growing dimness.  She picks her way toward it, wondering if there can possibly be a soul who has not yet fled from the growing wrath of the sacred mountain.  

Indeed, it seems there is.  After making her way down the grassy slope, she finds a crudely-constructed shelter—oilcloth thrown over a prefabricated metal frame.  Inside, cross-legged, sits a fat man in ragged, dirty blue robes before what appears to be an upturned crate, covered in a lace cloth.  He looks up with a flinch as she enters, holding up his hands in sudden supplication.  “Please,” he croaks.  “Leave me be.”

Míriel raises her own hands, flat, palm out.  “I have not come to injure you, good man,” she tells him bluntly.  “I only wondered why there remained another who had not yet fled from the mountain’s fury.”

He relaxes slightly, upon seeing her, and then a small frown worms its way down the center of his forehead.  He shrugs.  “I am awaiting the arrival of my god,” he says.

A Faithful man?  Or does he mean the terrible god of the Black Temple?  “I think the gods have forsaken this island,” Míriel says, tossing her head, testing him.

The man rubs his hands along his arms, as if trying to hold himself whole, as if he fears he will crack and come apart.  It is a familiar gesture, and Míriel’s eyes suddenly go back to his robes—ragged, yes, and dirty, but they were once richer.  There is a solitary pearl clinging to his left shoulder.  And some of those rips look more deliberate than she first realized.  He gives her a slightly crooked smile.  “I think if they have, we turned our faces away first.  And right now, I would rather meet my god, even if it is only to behold his wrath, than another human soul.”  With shaking hands, he pulls from inside his robes a small conch shell which he lays onto his makeshift altar. 

Míriel squats before him.  “What is your name?” she asks.  “I am Míriel.”

He seems unsurprised—she guesses he recognized her earlier.  “Uilon,” he returns.  “And why have you come here, lady?”

She is grateful he does her no false honor.  “I will climb the Meneltarma,” she says.  “To pray, I suppose.  There is little else that can be done.”

“And yet you say the gods have forsaken this island,” says Uilon, with the interested snap of a man who enjoys debate.  His face is grey and pale, but there is a glimmer of a good-humored intelligence in his brown eyes.

“The gods and her king,” retorts Míriel.  “Who else is left but me?”

He hums in acknowledgment.  “Break bread with me, lady?” he suggests.  “It is a long climb, and I have no shortage of good food.  It would be a shame for it to drown with us.”

“You think we will drown,” says Míriel, with her own wry humor.  “That is very optimistic.”  But she goes from a squat to a cross-legged seat, mimicking his own.

Flashing her a surprisingly sweet smile, he digs around in his packs before producing two flat wedges, one which he hands to her, the other which he sets in front of his own place.  “I think I will drown,” he says, sounding almost cheerful.  “I make no claims as to your fate, lady—oof.”  He grunts with pain as he turns further around and pulls out a thermos wrapped in a white cloth.  “Well, they may have left me with bruises, but who has the last laugh now?  I’ve no cups, but this is miruvor, if the priests of Manwë are to be believed.”

“Miruvor?” echos Míriel in surprise.

“Well, who knows, really, but it has been aging in the cellars of the temple for at least a century, so it ought to be good, whatever it is.”

The wedge he handed her turns out to be a flattened sandwich, filled with a generous portion of meat, mushrooms, and spices.  When she tastes the alcohol, passed across the table for her, it is sweet and cold and good, and she could believe that somehow there was a hidden stock of Elven ale beneath a Faithful temple.

“I have found that drink does help,” she offers.  “For some little time, at least, and it seems you will not need much more than that.”  It is a pitiful piece of comfort, and she almost feels embarrassed to have said it.

The smile that crawls crookedly across his face does not reassure her.  “They say many things about you, lady, among the Faithful,” he says, after a moment.  “I cannot tell you how sorry I am for this confirmation of your virtue.”

“I, too, am sorry that we share—this.”  She bites savagely into the sandwich, and he takes a long drink of the supposed miruvor.  

“Well,” he says, softly, after a moment.  “It is over now, and it will all be washed away soon enough.”

“Except for that which burns,” Míriel agrees.  “I hope he is dead now,” she says, vicious, angry—but who knows?  He is no longer upon the island, and for all that she has heard the whispers that this is the judgment of the Valar come upon them for her husband’s transgressions, it would be just like him to escape it.

Another long drink.  “Is it wrong that I hope they survive?” says Uilon, with a painful smile.  “They—I do not think—that is,” he sighs.  “Men do—very terrible things when they are afraid.  I wish they had not done them at all.  But I do not wish them dead, it seems.”

“I will wish them dead for you,” says Míriel, with a toss of her head.  “I am not offended, as long as you do not wish him living.”

“It would not be my place,” he agrees, with a dip of his head.

They eat in silence for a while longer.  In spite of herself, Míriel feels strength and purpose returning to her limbs.  The body will still condescend to take in fuel and use it.  She hears the rain begin, a heavy drumming on the top of the oil-cloth, as she finishes her last bite.  “Damn,” she mutters.  Salt in the wound, to go to her death soaked.

“Here,” says Uilon, digging out a long, oil-cloth coat.  “I won’t need it.”

“Arguably, neither will I, but I thank you,” she returns.  Then she puts out a hand.  “Will you speak of it?” she asks, impulsively.  “For a long, long time, I swallowed the words of what he did to me, and it burned me from the inside out.  I know there is little time, but—if it will ease suffering, even a little…I will listen.”

He opens his mouth, closes it, looks away.  “Almost like a confession,” he says softly.  “But not of my own sin.  Well, I should not face my god in bitterness, I think.  Thank you, lady.”

She nods, seating herself again, and he puts his hands tight about the conch shell.  “My god is Ossë,” he says, and Míriel sees before her the mosaic in her father’s house when she was a girl—Númenor, shining, in the center of the sea, with the great Ulmo rising behind it, Ossë to his left, roped with strands of spray like pearls, and Uinen to his right, with seaweed in her hair.  “I have been devoted to him since I was very young.  I have always loved the sea.”

Míriel nods, slowly, her eyes fixed upon his face.

“There isn’t actually that much to tell,” Uilon says, after a moment.  “My god is Ossë, and in recent years, that has become a troublesome dedication among the Faithful.  There are whispers of his seduction by the darkness.  I’ve long argued that to face the darkness and return is a mark of his strength and understanding, and—” His voice half-breaks.  “Poicenda said if I liked the darkness so much, I could face it myself.  They were all—they were looking for a scapegoat, a sacrifice.  There was no way to fight against the Black Temple, so they looked for someone without its protection.  If it hadn’t been me, it might have been one of the others, and they were all younger than me and afraid, and they renounced Ossë.  I wouldn’t.  So they—well.”  His brows draw together.  “I’m glad they renounced him,” he says, softly.  “I don’t believe he will hold it against them.”

Míriel forbears to retort that she feels it unlikely that any of the gods will have any forgiveness for anyone on Númenor, Faithful or otherwise.  She knows she would have renounced her god, under those circumstances.  It’s strange to her that Uilon did not, but clearly he has his reasons, and they give him comfort.

“I’m sorry,” she says.  “I’m sure he won’t.”

He gives her a sly grin.  “You don’t believe any of the gods—if they exist—will forgive any of us, lady,” he points out.  “But I thank you.  Your words mean the more for it.”

“It’s little enough,” she says, not contesting his rather accurate assessment.  She sits back on her heels.  “I suppose I should continue my pilgrimage.”

He nods seriously.  “Here,” he says.  “Take this.”  He holds out the conch shell.  “You can hear the sea in it.”

“But isn’t it your icon?” she protests, though she puts out her hand for it automatically.

He presses it into her hands.  “I’ll either see my god himself soon, or I won’t see him at all.  I think—you’re going towards something more fearful.”

She thinks of mad red-gold eyes, of a golden ring lying heavy in the pocket of her waistcoat.  “You may be right,” she concedes, her hands closing around it, though she cannot see what help a seashell will be to her.  It is a freely-offered gift, though.

“Ossë understands what it’s like to face the darkness,” Uilon says, and he raises his eyes to her face with a direct, piercing look that seems to punch directly to her core.  “Remember that.”

She lifts the shell to her ear.  “I do hear the sea,” she says, a little surprised.  It’s loud, despite the almost shatteringly-loud thunder of the rain on the makeshift oil-cloth roof.  “I suppose it will be a nice diversion when I’m burning alive.”

He looks away and raises the miruvor to her.  “And this will warm my bones as I drown.  Fare thee well, lady.”

“Fare thee well, priest,” she tells him, and she rises to her feet, queenly, and ducks out of the tent, pulling the oil-cloth coat about her as she does.  She tucks the conch shell deep into one of the pockets and turns her face towards the Meneltarma and the one who waits for her there.

She does not think Ossë can help her.  She will not be returning from this darkness.  But at least, she supposes, she has a token of friendship to accompany her there.  “Thank you,” she whispers again.  “May your death be a gentle one, Uilon.”

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Chapter End Notes

"Uilon" is Quenya, from chestnut_pod's fantastic name-list and it means "seaweed man."  We can presume he chose it himself.