A Game of Chess by Lilith

And we shall play a game of chess,

Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.  

— Eliot, A Game of Chess, The Waste Land    

The king's summons came late at night as they so often did.  Pharazôn seldom summoned her when a clear sky and brilliant sunlight burned his fears away. But, at night, when there was no one to comfort him, when Miriel, the Queen, would have savored his fear as Mairen's wolves had savored the taste of human flesh, when the work of the day could no longer distract him, he would send for her.

At first, he was careful to have a purpose behind his summons, a pretext for his call.   The first time he commanded her presence a seafaring captain had discovered a stone no one had seen before in Numenor and of which no reference might be found in any of the ancient books, even those gifted by the Elves and secreted in the king's own library. The second time his engineers had met with an accident when designing the defenses intended to guard the Western Havens from assault. The third time his mathematicians had been baffled by a problem he would have them solve.

He dangled each problem before her, framing each one as a test, a tool by which she would demonstrate the good will and faith both he and she knew she did not possess. He needn't have worried. As he'd intended, she found herself stifled in the hothouse atmosphere of the palace. She remained confined to her chambers with few ways to pass the time, save for the brief outings she was granted in the palace gardens or the embroidery he sent to her when she requested a diversion from the hours she must spend in her rooms.

"A pursuit suitable for a lady of Númenor," he had written on the note he'd included with needle, thread and material.

She'd laughed. The only stitches she knew were the careful lines of rivets binding sheets of armor, whether on man, beast or machine.  

So she was careful to devote her full attention to each problem, aware that proof of the trust she does not possess earned her hours outside her rooms and additional freedoms. Pharazôn may not trust her. He may never trust her. But she may yet prove herself to be indispensable.

But, later, when each problem was solved more quickly than the king expected and he remained frightened and lonely late into the night, he summoned her with little pretext. At first, she was uncertain. She had believed him uninterested in her body, his fear of her exceeding the degree to which he coveted her form, and she'd thought him too clever to attempt to exert his dominance over her by taking possession of it. Pharazôn  was a canny fighter, and he well knew that would ensure her enmity. He sought to woo her differently, to acquire her allegiance and fealty in a more subtle way, by showing her that she could not escape his custody but that he would prove a more generous master than the one she'd served before.

It was not his fault she had little interest for the things he had to offer.

Yet, when the guards arrived after the moon had set and when no stars might be seen above the streetlights of Armenlos, she wondered at his purpose and she was, though she sought to stifle it, afraid.

Her fear only grew when they brought her not to the council chambers but to his personal suite. She entered the rooms only to find Pharazôn seated at a table with a board aligned with different pieces, handsome ones, a sturdy king, a delicate queen, a strong tower and a knight astride his horse, one set made of ivory and the other of the blackest onyx. He indicated the chair across from him.

"Did they wake you?" he asked.

"No," she answered. "I seldom sleep."

"I had not wanted them to wake you. I gave them instructions that if they saw no light, they would not disturb you."

"I was not disturbed. What does Your Majesty require?"

"Do you play?" He gestured towards the board before him.

"Of course,” she replied and sat.  

Their game consumed most of the night.  Only when the grey light signalling the approach of dawn slowly filtered into the room did Pharazôn tip his king to her.  He appeared to be neither angry nor surprised that he had lost. Instead, he thanked her for playing against him and apologized for interrupting her rest.  Then he called the guards and sent her back to her rooms.

Three weeks later, he requested a second game.   A week after that, he asked her to play a third.

A full month passess before he called her to play a fourth time.

The fifth request came two nights later.  The sixth arrived the night after that.  

At no time did he speak of the reasons he sent for her so long after the sun had set.  He was not ready to acknowledge the fears and worries that drove him to summon a woman he knew  to be his enemy and to ask her to sit with him and while away the hours through which he cannot sleep.  

In fact, he said very little to her each time they played.  He would ask her how she was and if she would like to play. But these questions were asked with little attention to the response.  After the first match, Pharazôn understood that she would come if he summoned her; her curiosity, if not her position as his prisoner, ensured she would make the long walk across the palace to his private chambers.

Little was also said during the course of the game itself.  Neither of them wished to waste time or concentration upon the nicities of conversation when there was a contest at hand.  Pharazôn was a formidable player and unaccustomed to losing, and he wanted to win against a woman he perceived to be a rival.  He remained focused upon the pieces on the board before him. She enjoyed playing but it has been years since she has had a partner, much less one of skill, against whom to set herself.  She thus found herself moderately, though not unduly, challenged, so she carefully considered each move and its consequences before deciding upon her course. When the game is finished, no discussion was had.  He neither congratulated her upon her victory nor celebrated a rare win. He simply bade her good night and sent her away.  

But, after the seventh game ended more quickly than usual, he asked her to stay for a second match.  She agreed. Little more than an hour into the match, with the sun still very far from rising, as she considered the possible implications of two different moves with her knight, Pharazôn said simply and plainly, “I have dreams.  They disturb me.” 

“These dreams are why you have sent for me?” she asked, reaching a decision and moving her knight forward to rest before a soldier and a priest.

“Yes, they are,” he replied, answering her move swiftly with his own knight.  She had not expected that manuever. It was risky with less reward than she considered wise.   “However, I do enjoy these games with you. I feel that I have learned more about you in seven matches than I have in the numerous conversations we have had since you have come to Númenor.”

“How so?” 

“You are a careful opponent.  You weigh each possible path and its outcome carefully before you decide upon your course.   You favor and are the most successful at strategies requiring patience and subtlety rather than simple force; perhaps brute force interests you less.  But this confirms what I had suspected; you will not venture onto a battlefield, given a choice, unless you are certain of your victory. If victory is uncertain, you pursue other forms of action.  I don’t believe you a coward or averse to risk, simply very careful in the calculation of it.”

She inclined her head in acknowledgment.   “I do not like waste in any of its forms. Even orcs are not numberless and there is little sense in wasting lives for an outcome that cannot be altered.”   

Pharazôn nodded.

She returned her attention to the board before her and examined the options available to her.   As she did so, she asked, as he meant her to ask, ”And what are these dreams that drive you from your rest?”  

“They are dreams of the future.”

“Prophetic dreams?  I had not known you had the sight,” she replied, moving her priest forward and to her right.

He smiled at the move.  She could not tell whether he smiled because she has played into a trap he had set or merely because he appreciated it.  “I do not. Zimraphel has the sight as her father did before her. But I have not been so cursed. Not until now.” 

“Before we continue this conversation, my king,” she answered, “I should tell you that I place little stock in dreams.” 

“Even ones of the future?”

“The future is not set,” she said simply.

“Then how is it that some have visions of the future?”

“Are those visions of the future or merely visions of one possible outcome? Why would we hear of the dreams and prophecies that do not come true?”

He considered her answer, moving his own priest several places.   

“Many of the queen’s father’s visions came to pass.”

“You are a clever man.  What sort of events did his visions portend?  Where these events that could not have been anticipated?  Or were they, in fact and despite the wishes of some involved, the likeliest outcome of a given situation?  Simply not the desired outcome?”

Pharazôn frowned as she moves her castle into action.

“Perhaps.  But what of the children of Húrin?”

“What of them?  Túrin should have remained in Doriath.”   

“The tales say he believed he was to be banished or imprisoned unjustly.”   Pharazôn moved a soldier forward.

“He might have waited to Beleg to come to his aid.  He might have waited to hear the judgment to be pronounced upon him.   Was it fate or the product of a Man who was both very proud and very aware of his position as a ward dependent upon the toleration of an Elven king?”  She answered by moving one of her own pawns.

“So you think his character determined his fate?”   Pharazôn lifted the decanter and refilled his goblet.  She began to place her hand over hers. He shook his head slightly.  She moved her hand and he filled hers as well.

“I think his fate was shaped by circumstances beyond his control and by the choices he made, choices that were limited by circumstance and by his own temperament.”  She watched as Pharazôn retreated by shifting his priest a pace along the board.

“Were there any choices he might have made to avoid his fate?”

“As I said, he should have stayed in Doriath.”  

“Barring that?”

“Marry the elf.”

“Which one?  Beleg or Finduilas?”

She laughed and moved another soldier forward.  “Either.”

“And you think that might have made a difference?”  He moved his soldier forward to take hers.

“It may have saved Nienor her fate which would have made a difference to her,” she answered. Pharazôn nodded his head in concession to her point.  Mairen continued, moving her knight. “In truth, though, I feel Túrin‘s end was shaped both by the circumstances of the world in which he lived and … ”

“Which were?”  Pharazôn has moved his priest forward to threaten her queen.

“It was at war.  Any home he claimed was under siege.”  She claimed his priest.

“And?”

“His own choices.  Being who he was, with his past and his temperament, there were certain paths he simply would not take.  His promise to Nienor not to fight was an unusual one for him and one he likely could not have kept, Glaurung or no.  Still is that the doing of the curse? Or is it Túrin exercising his ability to choose but having those choices limited by virtue of his own nature?”

“I see,” Pharazôn answered as he claimed her knight.

“That seems to me a more realistic explanation than fate, doom or a curse.  That said, I fear it may be sacrilege for me to say this.” Her soldier moved toward to take his knight.

“I had not expected you to advocate marriage as a solution to one’s problems.”  He shifted his castle to the right.

“I offered it as a solution to Túrin‘s particular problem.  And, provided she was not the bride, Nienor’s. Did I suggest it would be wise for Beleg or Finduilas?  Túrin, by virtue of being Túrin, broke most of those who loved him as if they had no more matter than a twig.”

“Still many of the tales appear to do this.”

“Have you found marriage to be a solution to your problems, my lord?”  She slipped her priest forward several paces.

Pharazôn chuckled and drank some of his wine.  “To a degree, I suppose. Through it, I acquired the throne.”  He moved his queen into play.

“Besides of which of those mouldering tales do you speak? Beren and Lúthien?  Idril and Tuor? In those cases, it seems the marriage brought as many problems as they did solutions.”  She moved another soldier forward two paces.

“How so?”  He moved his queen back a pace.

“The desire to wed Lúthien led Beren on his quest for the Silmaril.”  She shifted her castle to her right.

“And he succeeded.”  He moved his second priest into play.

“To a degree.”  She shifted another soldier forward.

“He won the jewel and married her,”  Pharazôn continued, moving one of his soldiers forward in response and claiming hers. “How is that not success?”

“He did not win the jewel,” she demurred, answering with her soldier. “They won the jewel; the two of them and Huan.  Then he died. And she died. Twice. And Thingol. And Dior. Caranthir. Celeborn and Curufin. The twins lost in the forest.  And untold others whose names we don’t know.”

“Was it the desire to wed?  Or the bride price set?”  

“Had he not desired her, would her father have set the price?  Had he not desired her, would he have sought it? Had she not desired him, would he have succeeded?”

“Or merely died in your dungeons?”  He queried as he castled his king.

“He was trespassing,” she answered with more than a touch of petulance in her voice.  Pharazôn laughed in response. “But she came to save him, and I was bested by a lovestuck girl and a hound.”  

She settled back into her chair and frowned, and then she moved her castle forward.  “That still smarts, and I cannot say I agreed with her decisions.”

“Unlikely you would,”  he commented, moving his priest sharply back.  “Unlikely you would understand.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t understand,” she corrected mildly, moving her knight.  “Perhaps full understanding was late in coming but some understanding was there at the time.  I simply said I didn’t agree. There is a difference. The point on which I differ was that she failed to comprehend the consequences of the choice she made and that those consequences would be felt by more than she herself and Beren.  Their desire allowed them to underestimate the price; their love made them irrational, allowed them to make the choice that ended in their doom and Doriath’s. Any other choice would have kept them safer but they could not choose it because of what they desired and loved.  That is true whether we speak of Beren’s desire for Lúthien and hers for him or her father’s desire for a Silmaril.”

“Isn’t love by nature irrational?”  He too moved his knight.

“And so untrustworthy.”  She slid her queen back.

“Perhaps.  But we arrive at fate again.  Fëanor’s Silmarils.” His knight takes her priest.  She smiled and moved her soldier to take his knight.

“How so?”  She watched as he moved a soldier forward.

“The Oath.  The Curse.”  

“How was the Oath foretold?”  She moved her own soldier forward. “Cannot the Oath be explained through Melkor’s desire to possess the light?  If we speak of love, could it not be explained through a son’s love and grief and the desire of a maker to have his greatest and most loved work, the work for which his father died, returned to him? And his very real fear that others would take that work from him?  Even if he was mistaken about who those others were.”

“To swear an oath such as that?”  He moved another soldier forward.

“Have you nothing that is so dear to you? Since we speak of love and desire.”  

“The Doom, then.”

“A curse or merely common sense?  Fëanor and his sons chose to wage war against the greatest of the Valar with little aid or assistance,”  she answered and then moved her queen. “They alienated those who would help them and they swore to challenge any who laid claim to the gems they believed to be their own.  What else would happen to them? For the choices they made in pursuit of such a goal? I understand the oath, but I think it foolish to have sworn.”

“The others in his family ensnared by the doom?”  He advanced the same soldier another pace forward.

“Did not his brother chose to come to Middle Earth?”  She shifted her castle a pace to the side.

“Not all who came to Middle Earth chose.”  He drew his priest forward.

“Innocents are harmed in every war by every power. It would be foolish to believe otherwise.  Were only the forces of Melkor harmed when Beleriand drowned? That isn’t fate; it is merely the nature of war.”  She slid her king to the side.

“Was his grandson an innocent?”  He moved his queen in position to take her pawn and threaten her king.

“Do you think his fate the result of his grandfather’s Oath and not my hand?” She replied and then moved her knight in position to protect her king. “He would not thank you for that assessment. He would not have wanted to be a mere pawn in the hand of destiny. He valued his own ability to choose. He chose his fate, and I chose mine. He chose and I chose, and the consequences of those choices led us to that end. But those choices were ours and not the Valar’s.”

“And what did he choose that led him to his end? He was once dear to you and you to him.”

“To betray me. To take from me. To break a promise to me. What would you do if someone betrayed you, even and especially if he had been closer to you than any other and if you had trusted him with knowledge you had given to no other?”

Pharazôn gazed closely at her and then deliberately moved a soldier one step forward. “And what promises were made?”

“Perhaps it is less that there was a promise made and more that one I trusted broke it,” she looked down at her hands and touched a roughly-shaped ring made of mithril with a single vein of gold and then a second ring made of gold alone.

“I see,” he reclined in his chair and stroked his beard. “I have little intention of breaking a promise made to you, lady. I have been forthright with the demands I have made of you and willing, in many ways, to negotiate. I see no reason to alter our arrangement, though it may be less pleasing to you than you might wish. I am a man of my word; I shall keep my promises.”

She kept her eyes fixed upon her hands and said quietly, “He had his reasons, your majesty. He always had reasons for what he did, and he was of his grandfather's house. He would hold to those reasons no matter the cost.“   She turned the golden ring one and then twice upon her index finger.  “But enough of that. It is done and it cannot be undone. Let us speak of your dreams, majesty. I have said I do not believe in Doom. But you say you have dreams. Tell me of your dreams.”

“I would like to know why it is that you do not believe in the fates decreed by the Powers.”

“I shall tell you whatever it is that you would like to know.  But, to understand, I need to know what the dreams are that you fear.  If you dare to trust me with that knowledge.”

Pharazôn sighed but then he began to speak, “I have promised to be worthy of your trust.  I suppose I must offer you mine. When we met, you performed a wizard’s searching. Do you remember it?”

“When we met, a searching occurred.  Forgive me, I am being very precise but it is essential to understanding what happened.  I intended to show you certain images in order for you to accept who I am, but then the connection we share through your ancestors’ heritage brought other visions to life.  Not all the things you saw were things I shaped.”

“Did you see what I saw? Did you hear what I heard? Did you see Zimraphel running and did you hear the sea?”  He watched her closely. 

“Yes, that was one of the images I saw.”

“I see the sea, a wave, a very large wave looming upon the horizon and threatening to engulf everything I hold dear.   Númenor. Zimraphel.”

“What do you believe caused the wave?” She noticed the fear in his voice.  She could almost taste it.

“Did you?”  The questioned seemed to be forced from his lips.

“I was born of fire,” she replied.  “I hold little sway at sea.”

“Do you not?” he querried.

“I do not.”

“I see those images over and over and over,” Pharazôn continued, words beginning to rush over one another as if he could no longer hold them back once he had begun to speak.  “Sometimes I am there with her, and I try to protect her. But there is no protection I can offer. No matter what I do. No matter what I promise the wave comes and she vanishes and Númenor.”

“You believe this is a vision of the future.”

“What else, my lady?”

“It may be a possible future, but no one can decree the future.  Not the Valar. Not Eru.”

“How can you know that?”

“You can choose differently,”  she spoke gently, soothingly, as if to a child. 

“You argue for choice.  But why cannot choice be part of that Doom?”

“Because there are some choices Eru did not anticipate and those choices opened the way for others.”  She returned her attention to the game before her and advanced one of her few remaining soldiers a pace towards his.

“Of what choices do you speak?”  He has not noticed. He no longer has an interest in the game.  His focus was soley upon her.

“It is a long story, one that begins before time, one that begins with the music.”

“Continue.”  

“I shall if it is your wish, but the knowledge you seek is perilous and may not be to your liking.”