After the Victory by Caranthol

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After the Victory

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AFTER THE VICTORY

The earth heaved and groaned with a tremendous noise. The dead, broken trees on the hillsides quivered, danced to and fro like a horde of Huorns gone insane. The very air seemed to shake with the rumbling and cracking sound that echoed for miles around. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, a patch of land began to sink. A narrow valley formed where there had been level ground only moments before. It deepened and crept northwards, and the remains of the trees toppled to its bottom as the sides steepened.

Then, quite suddenly, a crack appeared at the bottom of the valley's southern end. A deafening crash of breaking stone rang to a great distance. Flocks of birds, such as there were still left, took to wing and cried in panic as they fled the ruin, eastwards as all other living things had already done much earlier. The black hole in the ground widened and lengthened. Grindging and crushing through the bedrock it ran all the length of the newly formed valley. A black cloud of smoke rushed from its depths, and the ruined trees on the slopes and on the brink of the rend were lit aflame in a string of fire, as the chasm ran onwards. Even through the smoke the glow of red molten stone could be seen in the depths. A northernly wind swept down on the woods and carried the clouds of acrid smoke towards the distant beach of a bay of the Sea – a beach that had been firm land only a few months previously. The wind carried on its wings also sparks and flaming branches, which lit new patches of destroyed forest to huge bonfires as they descended on the dead, dry wood.

On a stony slope just above the highest foothills of the Crissaegrim, a man rose to his feet and groaned. His companion, a tall elf with long face and black hair flowing down to his shoulders, remained sitting and said in a subdued voice:

”Well, there goes another patch of land. Please, Bregor, sit down! It is of no use being so agitated.”

”How can I help being agitated, when my homeland is irreparably ruined before my eyes?” Bregor said with some heat.

The elf shrugged.

”A good reply. Still, you cannot help it, tear your hair and pace as you may. And it was you who insisted on coming to watch this.”

”And it was you, friend Amdirlain, that insisted accompanying me,” said Bregor with a dry, forced smile. His lips still quivered, and his tightly knotted fists trembled slightly. ”I wonder why?”

Amdirlain pondered for a moment, then replied:

”Out of friendship. But also, and perhaps more importantly, because I wanted to have a last look at the land which I have fed with so much of my blood. And a bit of my flesh, also.”

As he spoke, he flexed his left hand. The last two fingers were ruined, the little finger completely gone and the third finger having only one joint left.

”But I wonder why you wanted to come, when seeing all this pains you so much?”

Bregor sat down and leaned his elbows on his knees. His gaze remained fixed on the flaming chasm in the distance, as he spoke:

"I wonder the same, now. Maybe I just wanted some kind of a close, like in a story. 'Thus ends the tale', and then I could go on my way happily and leave all this behind me. It does not seem to work that way in real life, however.”

Amdirlain nodded and said:

”No, it does not. We carry the tales of our lives with us, and in a way they never end.”

He sighed and went on:

”Take our last struggle against Morgoth, now. When the forces of Valinor were gathered strengthened by the remnants of our armies and we made our assault on Angband, my soul was aflame. It felt to me as if everything was culminating in those fateful days. As if it would be the end of everything, be the conclusion what it may. The whole affair felt too great, too epic that there could be anything else left after it. Yet, here we are. Morgoth is defeated, but the world and our lives go on. That victory was not the whole tale, but merely a chapter in it.”

”Victory?” Bregor said. ”Yes, we won, but at what price? It feels almost like a defeat to me, now.”

He pointed towards the remnants of the Brethil Woods below, which were now even more marred with the newly opened rend in the earth.

”There collapses and burns the land of my birth! Only my son and you have been left to me of all my kin and friends. All others are dead by Morgoth's malice. Is that truly a victory?”

The elf set his hand soothingly on his friend's shoulder and said:

”It is understandable that you feel so. But think about it some more, please. You yourself still live, and your son also. You cannot, indeed should not, forget those who have died. But you can make new friends, build your life anew on the ruins of the past.”

Bregor shook his head and suddenly wiped his eyes. His voice was tight when he replied:

”If only I had time for that. I am already fifty years old, Amdirlain! Already I can feel the first chill of old age creeping on me. I will die before two or three decades more are gone, and the ruin is so great. So damnably great! However I toil, I have time only to make a pale shadow of my former life.”

A small bitter chuckle left his lips, and then more words poured out:

”Such as it was, anyway. I have known mostly fear and hatred all my life, indeed my father's generation before me had already the same fate – a hundred years of fear and violence. Always hiding from the Orcs or killing them from ambush, or fortifying any dwelling place against them, however brief the stay. A lifetime of trying to evade Morgoth's wrath, like some animal fleeing from a greater predator. I never knew a moment of carefree play or a night without fear when I was a boy, and neither did my father or my son. Two of my great-grandfathers were tossed on the Hill of Slain and left there to rot, the others the Orcs hunted down one by one, as they also did to all my grandparents. All because of the defeat of the Unnumbered Tears. All because you Noldor and us Men proved weak at the moment of truth, and because the Valar were so slow in coming to our aid.”

Amdirlain's brow furrowed and he said rather sharply:

”Do not speak of the Valar like that! They bided their time, and struck when the moment was right as Morgoth had spread his forces thin and did not expect an assault from the West.”

”Only because Ëarendil practically begged for it!” Bregor spat. ”Without him, they would most likely had went on enjoying their happy leisure in their Valinor and forgetting our suffering here.”

The elf tried to interrupt, but Bregor shook his finger at him and continued forcibly:

”You say they waited for the right moment? Well, they could afford it! They have life eternal, after all, and so all the time they could wish for. But us Men do not have that boon. While the Valar waited, we spent our brief lives struggling in pain and fear. In pain, do you understand? Is that truly life as it should be? How many thousands would have had a chance to do something better with their lives, if only the Valar had acted right after the Unnumbered Tears, or better yet after Dagor Bragollach? Or best of all, if they had killed Morgoth right after they first captured him? That would have saved us Men from the yoke of the Shadow that has tainted us. We Men are not Orcs, after all. We live not for fighting and killing, but to build and cultivate. We could have been spared to do that, instead of this grim fate.”

”You are not entirely wrong,” Amdirlain said slowly. ”The Valar can and do make mistakes. It can certainly be argued that those were made in the treatment of Morgoth. Yet, the lost lives you speak of were not spent needlessly. The errors of the past could not be undone, but future ills could be prevented. By your valiant resistance you Edain contributed to buying time for the eventual rescue. If you had not stood by the side of us Eldar, Morgoth's victory would have been inevitable. After he would have had Middle-Earth in his grip, who knows what he could have done even to Aman, or the whole Eä? But thanks to you, this fate was averted. Some of the heroes of your people outshine even those of us Noldor. So, you Edain may have long lived in pain, but also in glory. Is there not some consolation in this thought?”

Bregor shook his head.

”Very little, I'm afraid. You Elves can speak so lightly of waiting, of glory and death. You, even as the Valar, have all the time in the world at your disposal. Even death is not a great terror for you. If, for instance, you were to die at this very moment, you would merely go to Mandos for a while. Then you would be clothed in a new body, one that would be young again and was not mutilated by years of battle as your present flesh is. But we Men – we have to bear our wounds to the grave, and then leave who knows where.”

”Precisely!” Amdirlain exclaimed. ”You can leave the confines of Arda. And that is a mercy, my friend.”

Seeing the dubious look the Man gave him, he waved his hand and went on:

”Even were your lives filled with sorrow and pain, as many have been, at least you know the suffering will end. You look at this ruin before you, but you only have to look at it once. But I – I do not know how many times I have to witness destruction like this, or live through a war like the one just ended. Do you think seeing this does not pain me? That having to leave my home twice now has not given me grief? I have lost first Valinor, then Beleriand.”

”I hear the Valar have pardoned you Noldor, except for some of the most guilty. You could always go back to the bliss of Valinor,” Bregor said. The elf chuckled sourly at this and said:

”I suppose I could. Yes, I could go back there and face the kin of those I and my brethren slew in Alqualondë. What bliss would that be, to have the reminder of my sins every day before me? To have to remember every moment that the land was stained with blood by my hand also? No, it is better that I remain here in Middle-Earth where I at least fought evil and can do so in future.”

He raised his mutilated hand aloft and turned it slowly around to study it.

”This was the hand that wielded a deadly knife in Alqualondë, as my right hand was trying to untie ropes fastening a ship onto the dock. Those poor people were only trying to defend their property, and to prevent us carrying out our folly and rebellion. Yet we killed them. I have often thought that the Orc who struck this hand was an unknowing agent of retribution.”

He lowered his hand and looked Bregor straight in the eyes.

”So as you see, an unending life on Arda is not only a blessing. Six hundred years have passed since I shed innocent blood, and it still shames me. And I have to carry that shame until the very End of Eä. Unlike Men, I cannot escape the world, nor the remembrance of things that have passed here. The only thing I can do is to endure, and try to do what little good I can after taking part in that one great evil.

And 'endure' is the word even for those Eldar who have not done any ill. Whatever happens in Arda, we have to experience it. Let us for instance suppose that Morgoth came back, or some other evil arose and conquered the world even including Aman. We would have to see that evil reigning, whether we fought it or fled from it. It would hunt us down, but we still would have to either be born again to suffer anew, or watch its crimes unfold as helpless, wandering spirits. It could torment and kill our bodies many times, whereas you Men it could kill only once and not be able to hold you from fleeing. But we Eldar would be its perpetual prisoners, until the One decided it was time to end the world's tale. And that could be our annihilation, since we do not know if our souls can live after the world.”

Bregor looked at his friend with sympathy in his eyes and sighed. Then he said softly:

”I wonder why the One created us like this? As two kindreds that are so similar, yet so wholly different in their fates?”

”Do you have any thoughts about it?” Amdirlain said. Bregor thought for a while, and replied:

”It has to be because He knew no one thing in itself could be perfect here on Arda. So, there had to two kinds of Children to fully accomplish his vision. One, that would live as long as the world and would thus drink fully from its joys and sorrows and wisdom. They world's life would be theirs and they would be able to recall its whole tale even to the days before the Sun and Moon. But with that long life would come an inevitable weariness and indifference, because eventually they could not see or experience anything they had not already seen a thousand times.

So there would have to be another kindred, which would wonder for a little while at the world's great wonders since their brief lives would make everything new and marvelous to them. Then they will move on before they become weary of the world, to still greater wonders if the lore is to be believed. So the glory of the One's works would always be seen and admired by new eyes. Also, the second kindred will get the release from all the ills of the world that the firstborn cannot have, since the Men are not truly tied to the world as you elves are. That is the best answer I can think of.”

”'Tis a fair guess, and must have some truth in it,” Amdirlain mused. ”Is that not also a consolation to you, when you think of death?”

"Not truly, since what I said must remain as a guess,” Bregor said sadly. ”That is because there is no sure knowledge given us about what awaits us beyond. We can only trust, and how can we do that easily when He who made us allows us to suffer so much here? If the gift of life can be sullied to this degree, cannot the same be true of the gift of departure? The only certainty we have is this bodily life we have here. Thus, the fear and doubt about death we Men must experience.”

He fell suddenly silent, as a new rumble shook the earth. They both looked down upon the northern edge of the Brethil.

”That hill is going next, I guess,” Amdirlain said, pointing with his hand. ”Look how it quivers. Oh, there are remnants of the palisade and some houses on it! I wonder who lived there once?”

Bregor looked closer at the hill and the terrain surrounding it, then leaped on his feet.

”I know the place! It must be the village where I was born and raised!” he exclaimed in an anguished voice.

Even as the last word left Bregor's lips, the hill exploded. It burst into a chaos of stony rubble, earth and splinters of wood, which flew to all directions. A fiery cloud of steam and smoke stabbed high into the air. A short while later, a deafening blast of cracking sound and wind hit the mountainside where the friends sat. A silence followed, only broken by the sound of debris falling on the stone far below. For a long while Bregor and Amdirlain could only stand where they were, staring awestruck at the point where the hill had been. In its stead was now a flame-wreathed circular hole in the ground, in the bottom of which smoke and molten stone whirled.

”I – I think we had better leave,” Amdirlain said at last. ”The pace of the ruin is accelerating. Look at that hole, and how a storm is gathering over the distant sea! I fear that even before the dawn of tomorrow fire and water have consumed a great piece of poor Beleriand. The very bones of the earth must have taken grave wounds. Let us return to Lindon while we still can.”

”Yes, let us leave,” Bregor said and cast one more mournful look over the tortured landscape below. ”At least Lindon still stands fast.”

”And with it, a small portion of Beleriand the fair will still be preserved,” Amdirlain said with a melancholy voice. ”It gives me heart, now that I think of it. No evil can triumph fully, no ruin can be so complete that it leaves nothing untouched. A seed of good must always remain, to grow anew or at least to survive.”

Bregor strapped his pack on his back and said:

”I wish I could be so sure.”

”Were you sure of the outcome, when we battled Morgoth?” was the Noldo's reply. ”No, but you still fought on because you had to. So, let us face our fates with the same steadfastness. Whatever comes, that at least is within our power.”