An End to All Things by Thorveig

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An End to All Things

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Mairon stood in utter stillness for it seemed to him that the voice of his master mocked him from afar: ‘Is this the extent of thy wizardry, to grovel gormlessly before the footstool of Manwë?’

He had been pacing the tent of Eönwë, the walls of which encompassed an ever narrowing span the longer he dwelt in thought.

‘A thrall thou wert and a thrall thou shalt be,’ continued the voice, ‘ever crawling on thy belly. A slave of slaves.’

‘The slaves have thrown down the gates of Angband,’ said Mairon. ‘They grew mighty, while you grew weak. Or do I fail in my memory of thy hobbled step?’

In the night, the hounds of Oromë bayed, hunting still. The dark king could not have run from them even if he so wished. In those last days, he leant on his great hammer as an old man would his staff, and to walk had been a pain and an encumbrance, for his left foot was lame and would not bear his weight.

The shade of Melkor made no answer to this charge. Mairon could not tell if it had been more than an echo of the past. The dawn was drawing nigh. He searched the tent until he found a drinking horn to raise to his lord’s former triumph, as if to soothe a wounded pride: ‘I remember the first rays of the sun. How feeble they did shine upon the earth.’

‘Yet thou wouldst say our spring has passed into winter,’ murmured the voice out of memory.

‘All things die in these Hither Lands,’ replied Mairon.

‘All things save one,’ Melkor spat. ‘You and I are not bound for a season only. My servant you pledged to be for all time.’

‘And what would you have this servant do?’ said Mairon half-mockingly.

Where might the lesser triumph once the greater had fallen.

‘I would not have thee recant all that has been or all that could be,’ said Melkor, first and mightiest; ‘The root of the tree of Finwë lies bare. Hast thou no fire left to see it burn? Or wilt thou make of thy vastnesses an inheritance for usurpers and latecomers?’

The words came from the very storehouse of his own thought. Ever had Mairon’s heart decried a lesser fate than that he should rule, and the chorus of thanksgiving, given freely to the Valar all throughout the encampment, only inflamed this desire.

‘Let the base, debase themselves. It does not befit a king to bow,’ yet even as he said this he did not speak loudly. Cunning would be required to slip the noose he had willingly wound about his neck. He would think a while longer on how escape might be won against the watchful eyes of Tulkas.

But in that hour, fate, not cunning, was with him. The voices that had been singing joyous praises turned to shouts of alarm. The whole of the camp was roused to battle. Swords were drawn. Horns were sounded. Coats of mail that had been laid aside were thrown on in haste. Mairon parted the tent flap and basked in the disorder as a desert creature will sun itself upon a rock. Some unexpected ruin had crept into the stronghold of his enemies.

A servant of Oromë’s hurried past, buckling his scabbard while he ran. Another went by unshod, armed with naked steel. They took no notice of Eönwë’s guest and Mairon trailed after them, slinking from shadow to shadow. Had he been alone, he would have needed no guide. The sky had kindled before its appointed hour, and all who beheld that light were drawn to it.

Far under the earth, in chasms that had never known the sun, the Elder King had imprisoned it. The cost for its radiance was pain. Only once had it been his to hold, to house in an iron crown, and his hand had not forgotten the agony of that brief meeting. His eyes, though, had been subject to its lash more often, for he would not bow his head in Melkor’s presence. To look upon the Lord of All was to know suffering.

‘This shall be my weregild,’ said Melkor, and his voice was subtle as a spider weaving it web; ‘Reach out thy hand and take it. For what was mine, should pass to thee.’

‘Am I wholly without craft, that I have need of the playthings of Fëanor?’ Mairon spoke in pride. ‘My treasures shall be my own and not the cast offs of a lesser race. Let them be destroyed by their own baubles.’ And he hoped in truth that he would see the princes of the Noldor cruelly slain.

Death had encircled Maedhros and Maglor. They stood back to back, each clutching a Silmaril to his breast, with no hope of cutting through the net of surrounding swords. In their grim, woe-stricken faces Mairon read torment and despair, and this was a cause for his own laughter. It was plain to him that they too were chastised by the hallowed vessels. And as if to punctuate this shame, the slow drip of newly spilt blood could be heard as it fell from their blades.

Mirth bubbled forth in him, and Mairon knew not if he spoke to himself or his master: ‘See how these wretches yearn to take death to wife. These once proud lords that scorned thy favour and dared to raise a hand against their king.’

‘And now they shall feel the bootheel of the Valar upon their necks. I am avenged in this at least,’ said Melkor.

A figure broke through the hedge of swords to stand before the captives. He was young, and very fair to look at in both form and dress, for he was garbed in a corslet of burnished gold of the colour of a summer sunrise. This alone would have been accounted princely, but in the reflected light of the Silmarils he recalled a majesty out of the West sitting upon the high seat of Ilmarin. His palms he held outward in sign of truce, or as a king who wishes to be heard: ‘Kanafinwë, Nelyafinwë, put down your weapons of war. You have entered a place of peace, though you do not bring peace with you.’

None gainsaid the clear voice of Eönwë, and so he continued, ‘You have seized by force what was denied you by writ. These jewels were to be returned to Valinor from whence they came. We did not take them as spoils of war nor do any here lay claim to what the Valar have deemed perilous. For my part, I would see them placed beyond the hope of either Ainur or Eruhin. But, it is not my charge to decide their fate, nor should it be yours. I pray thee, take thy foot off the path of madness, and turn aside to better council.’

The brothers neither moved nor spake. They were as prisoners who had come to the end of a long sentence. Freedom they would not have, lest it be given by the executioner’s axe.

Mairon would have slayed them himself if he wore some other form, but Eönwë used naught but coaxing words: ‘Will neither of ye parley?’

‘We have spoken with our swords,’ said Maedhros at last. ‘And we will not yield what is ours. It is not the Valar’s to dispose of the possessions of Fëanor, Finwë’s son. Any who dare to dispossess us now will be answered by what strength is ours to wield.’

‘Is this thy resolve also, Kanafinwë?’ Eönwë asked.

Maglor said nothing though he had begun to weep in bitterness.

‘Thy choice need not be thy brother’s,’ said Eönwë. ‘Come willingly, and thou mayest yet find peace. Thy remorse is plain to see, as is the evil that drives thee. Let it not be the victor this night.’

The Elf-lord had bowed his head and now he raised it, and the look he wore was half-wild, half-despairing. Suddenly, he ran at the circle of swords with a loud, desperate wail. The nearest warrior did not hesitate to strike, but Eönwë leapt between them before he could slay the prince in his madness.

‘Nay!’ he shouted. ‘Nay! It is not permitted to hinder the Children in whatever they may choose. They will leave as they came, unchallenged. Though I may beg them to remain. I say again, will ye not return with us across the sea?’ And with this he held out his hand to Maglor.

The surprise in Maedhros’ face was mirrored in Mairon’s own, and also the disappointment.

‘Fools! Kill them and be done with it,’ he hissed.

‘You see it now,’ whispered the voice of his master, ‘they have no stomach to wield the whip. They will let these maggots fester across the whole of Arda. Thy kingdom shall fall to rot, and thou? Thou wilt do naught, bound as thou shalt be to the will of cringing slaves, permitted only to watch from afar. Go, if this be thy wish: to be a wolf among wolfhounds.’

The host of the Valar had parted before the sons of Fëanor. Maedhros took a halting step forward. The younger stood hesitating, unable to meet the gaze of Eönwë.

‘Come,’ said Maedhros hoarsely. ‘Our oath is fulfilled.’

‘Is it?’ said Maglor, and though he stumbled after Maedhros he looked back now and then at Manwë’s messenger.

As the light of the Silmarils dimmed with their retreat, a fey mood overtook Mairon. He began to chant a curse of death and doom, but before the spell could take hold he heard again that cold voice so like the rumbling of an avalanche upon a mountainside or the howling of the wind in high, forlorn peaks.

‘Their end comes shortly. Do not confuse it for thine own.’

The fell words faltered in his mouth and took on new shape. They cloaked him in a dark form that flew high above the encampment. There were still places in this Middle-earth where no hallowed foot dared tread and that is where he would make his beginning. The age of the Quendi had ended. This was to be his age.

The last that was seen of Mairon in the Elder Days was a winged shadow flying past the rising sun.

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Chapter End Notes

In the tenth volume of The History of Middle-Earth, it is stated: you 'represents the Elvish pronoun of polite address', while thou, thee 'represent the familiar (or affectionate) pronoun'.

I have kept this distinction in the speech of Melkor and Mairon.