The Election Farce of Nargothrond: Of Dumbness, Treachery, and Brotherly Love by Dawn Felagund

Author's Prologue

Imagine an extensive realm being run by the fairest and brightest of its people, a realm that is beautiful and secure and prosperous. Now imagine that realm after being abandoned by its leader and how quickly his successors can run it into the ground.

Such is Tolkien’s Elvish kingdom of Nargothrond as described in The Silmarillion.

What? You didn’t think I was talking about something else, did you? Some other dominating kingdom full of safety and prosperity that is slowly sinking beneath the waves with all of the doom and irony of the Titanic?

As far as I know, such a realm exists only in fiction, in Nargothrond. Nargothrond was the largest of the Elvish kingdoms in First Age Beleriand, governed by Finrod Felagund, a wise and gentle King who kept his treasured kingdom hidden in a series of beautifully wrought caverns beneath the earth. Unfortunately for Finrod, he took the low road of so many of his kin. He swore an Oath.

When it came time to make payments on his Oath, Finrod left the kingdom in the hands of his brother and successor Orodreth. Unfortunately, Orodreth is not the brightest of Elves. And waiting in the wings were his cousins Celegorm and Curufin, aching for a kingdom of their own. Unfortunately, Celegorm and Curufin are not the least treacherous of Elves, and we end up with a power struggle almost inane enough to belong in a session of Congress. So what happens when you have one dumb brother with über family connections, a couple of treacherous revolutionaries, and a sensible son with the personality of a block of wood?

Why, Nargothrond happens.

What did you think I was talking about?

Chapter 1: Finrod Has Visitors

Finrod Felagund swept a lock of blond hair the color of summer sunbeams behind his ear and sat down at his desk. He sighed and looked around him. He wondered why he was suddenly so unhappy, why dread seemed to be constantly peeking over his shoulder like his dumb little brother Orodreth during lettering tests back in their schooldays in Valinor.

“Perhaps it is because I live in a cave?” Finrod wondered aloud and looked around himself again.

Yes, he did live in a cave. But when that cave was actually a massive underground palace carved from rock the color of blushing marble, when the light was that of starlight captured in stone and when the air was laden with the scent of roses and sang with the music of fountains, it almost ceased to count as a cave. In his study, it was certainly easy to forget that he was underground and not sitting in a fragrant forest with the stars winking overhead, even if the trees and vines that curled around him were carved from stone and colored with the dust of emeralds and the starlight came from a sprinkling of Fëanorian lamps strung overhead. He sighed again, moved his diamond paperweight aside, and opened his diary.

“Dear Diary,” he wrote,” I cannot dispel the feeling of foreboding that suddenly weighs upon my chest like a bag of rocks. Even my fair Nargothrond is darkened by my apprehension. What could be the cause? Possibly the Oath? Perhaps I should have listened to my father when he said that the Noldor should never swear Oaths--”

Finrod planned to launch into a diatribe about the un-wisdom of his Uncle Fëanor and his unruly pack of sons swearing that infamous Oath, topped off by a scathing longueur about the absolute dumbness of his Uncle Fingolfin previously swearing an Oath of allegiance to Uncle Fëanor when he knew that Uncle Fëanor was a couple rocks short of a lavalier, but he was interrupted by a sudden pounding on his door. He tried to ignore it, thinking instead about how his Oath was different: After all, it was sworn to a Man, and everyone knew that the lives of Men were but flickers against the interminable existence of the Eldar; furthermore, Men had a strange habit of losing their minds long before they succumbed to death, memories flooding from their heads like sand from a cracked hourglass. So Finrod felt fairly safe in swearing an Oath to a creature that would likely be dead long before he could collect on his debt and had a memory that faded faster than Finrod got out of the bathtub in the evenings. But all of these comforting thoughts were interrupted by the insistent pounding on his door.

He stood up, went to the door, and threw it open in a very un-Kingly manner. “What?” he barked.

It was hard to believe that the little Elf who stood on the other side could have possibly been the cause of such ruckus. The young page bowed low. “My King, I am sorry to interrupt your study, but we have visitors at the gate.”

“Visitors?” He pondered the little Elf in front of him, his big, earnest eyes and his small, trembling hands. “We don’t get visitors here. Is this another one of Orodreth’s pranks?”

His younger brother Orodreth came up with the most tedious, unimaginative pranks of anyone Finrod had ever known. In the midst of Orodreth’s pranks, Finrod missed even the humiliating, painful capers of the Fëanorians.

“No, my King. There are two … individuals … waiting outside the doors. They might be Elves, but it is hard to tell through all the mud and blood--”

“Blood!?”

“Yes, my King. But they claim to be kin of yours and demand entry, although they look rather unsavory, even for Men, much less Elves--”

Finrod pushed past the young page and headed in the direction of the front doors of his palace.

“But my kingdom is supposed to be secret!” he cried to no one in particular, cursing Orodreth for the loud harp music that he had a tendency to play after drinking too much wine in the evening. He had told his brother at least four hundred times that it was only a matter of time before such hubbub drew Orcs.

And now it seemed that it had.

His palace guards were all assembled in the vestibule, looking nervous. They had stuck a couple of chairs against the doors. “Who calls upon us?” Finrod shouted to the guard, but the only answer he got was a couple of shifty glances. “Who will answer his King?”

“We know them not,” a perky little upstart by the name of Yaman replied at last.

Yaman’s reply started a flood of echoes from the rest of the guard, a senseless babble of “Yes, sirs” and “They call you kin!” Finrod strode to the middle door--he had three, aptly named the Doors of Felagund--and looked out the peephole.

All he saw was pouring rain.

“There’s no one out there!”

“Perhaps they moved to one of the other two doors?” Yaman suggested, having the wisdom to phrase the suggestion as a question at the last moment.

Finrod paced to the door on the right side. He peeped out. No one. He grumbled and strode to the lefthand door.

“Aah!” Two Orcs stood in the pouring rain, dressed in the ragged raiment typical of their kind, slathered with mud and gobs of black blood and bits of things even more unspeakable than that. “Orcs!”

Finrod must have shouted too loudly in his alarm, for the Orcs began shouting as well and pounding on the door. “We know you are in there, Cousin Finrod! Do not deny your kin from the fair days of Valinor! Turn not aside your own flesh and blood in their hour of need!”

Their voices were not the voices of Orcs but rather fair, and Finrod stretched to look through the peep hole again and noticed that one of them had a tendril of golden hair escaping from his cloak and the other wore a very dear sapphire necklace. And gleaming upon each of their heads were matching silver circlets, denoting them Noldorin princes.

Finrod threw open the door to receive his cousins Celegorm and Curufin into his home.

Chapter 2: Celegorm and Curufin Lounge in Nargothrond

“This is quite nice.”

Curufin looked at his brother, sprawled across one of Cousin Finrod’s couches with the lazy grace of a hunter. Like a lion, he was, stretched out in the sun, eyes half closed in contentment, tossing his blond mane of hair back from his shoulders every now and then, a spray of gold against the deep blue brocade of Finrod’s furniture.

They had had baths and Finrod had managed to find some clothes that would fit them, even though the people of Nargothrond were of the lesser, mixed-breed stock and did not have the long limbs and broad shoulders of Celegorm and Curufin. They waited in his rooms for him now, Celegorm lying in easy serenity and Curufin perching on the edge of the couch, slightly more alert, tapping his fingers and his toes in restless rhythms. They both had the marble smiles of one of their mother’s statues and shrewd eyes that pierced the darkness like the light of their father’s gemstones. Celegorm was tall and golden, all long, muscled legs like a god and Curufin was dark-haired and pointy-faced, of a sturdy build, with eyes and hands that never stopped moving.

Handmaidens kept coming in to offer them sustenance: food, water, wine, blankets to take the chill of rain from their bones. Their eyes always lingered upon Celegorm and they fired eager, twitchy smiles in his direction: “More wine, my lord? Another apple, my lord? More wood on the fire, my lord?”

Curufin was married and thus ignored, but he was used to the looks given to his older brother. And even more so, the look his brother gave back: the confident stare, the smug smile, the way he shifted his head to make his hair shimmer in the firelight. Vicious rumors had gone around Valinor that his brother had been rejected in his proposal of marriage to their half-cousin Aredhel, but Curufin knew that no such proposal had ever occurred. Celegorm regarded his choice in women as he might regard a box of chocolates, his fingers dancing indecisively over each piece, occasionally prodding one hard enough to elicit a squirt of filling that upon licking never proved entirely satisfactory. And, in Beleriand, it was worse. Here, he had many colors of chocolate, many flavors and fillings, and his fingers skipped too impatiently across them to ever make a commitment to consummation.

Cousin Finrod entered the room in a blond flurry. “Sorry to keep you waiting, cousins mine,” he said, and they knew that he had been consulting with his lords, lords who--if the brothers moved their game pieces with their characteristic precision--would soon count Celegorm and Curufin among their numbers.

“No worry, Finrod,” Celegorm said languidly.

“What happened to you?” Finrod couldn’t even wait until his backside had entirely touched the chair opposite them before asking.

“Himlad was overrun by Orcs.” Curufin spoke, not trusting Celegorm’s meandering way with tales and tendency to exaggerate his own part until a five-minute episode took an hour to recount. “We fled; they pursued. For many nights, we engaged in battles in the wild, always outnumbered, our host falling one by one to their crude weapons--”

“Curufin took a strong blow to the head,” Celegorm said, and Curufin rubbed his scalp.

“Yes, and Celegorm was ensnared in a trap and nearly ravaged.”

“Always have I suffered as the pretty one,” Celegorm pouted.

“It sounds terrible!” Finrod exclaimed.

“It was,” the brothers said in unison.

“But now,” said Curufin, “we have come to the secret safety of your halls, good Finrod, and we have no cause to fear to sleep any longer.”

“You are welcome to stay, for always I welcome kin,” said Finrod. “I assume you will eventually wish to go to your brother Maedhros in Himring?”

The brothers did not exchange a look but the air between them sizzled as though they had.

“Such a passage would prove dangerous at this time,” Curufin said carefully.

“And we know not if Maedhros even lives!” wailed Celegorm before sniffling and collecting his poise as though with great effort. Curufin gave him two quick pats on the shoulder.

“It is sad but true. Himring was the first to receive the onslaught; both Maedhros and Maglor could have perished for all we know. In futile defense of us, their younger brothers.”

“Never did I wish to be the head of my House,” Celegorm said tearfully, “but it seems that I may be.”

Finrod looked at the brothers sympathetically. Yes, they may have teased him in Valinor. Yes, Celegorm may have held him by his toes over a pond full of alligators and Curufin may have made him drink a compound that turned his lips a bright blue for several days before abruptly fading, but their eyes were brighter than usual, and Finrod realized that they glimmered with unshed tears. He remembered his own loss of his brothers Angrod and Aegnor and his heart sunk a bit in his chest. He reached out and took one each of their cold hands in his and, looking them in the eyes with sincerity overwhelming his voice, said, “You know that I will have you, cousins mine, for as long as you need or want to stay. In Nargothrond, you shall always have a home.”

The brothers smiled and the air between them sizzled.

Chapter 3: Nargothrond Reigns

Nargothrond was the most extensive of all the Elvish realms in Beleriand.

Finrod thought of it sometimes, how he--the eldest son of Finarfin, who was generally regarded as the least ambitious and courageous of Finwë’s sons--had come to procure paradise so easily. His underground hallways extended for miles, a city beneath the soil, so fair that one could walk its streets for miles without missing the blue skies and brisk winds of the world above. The city was utterly hidden and, therefore, without danger; only a few trusted folks knew where its gates lay. The Orc attacks that threatened his cousins and had taken the lives of his two youngest brothers were not of concern here.

And the city thrived. No one was in want in Nargothrond. Everyone was employed in the trade of his or her choice; no one had to humble himself to ask for a loan or a bite of his neighbor’s bread. Even love seemed to be sweeter and keener in the streets of Nargothrond, and Finrod presided over at least a wedding a month and three times as many celebrations of birth. Laments were rarely heard for dancing music was preferred, and the cobblers did brisk trade in repairing the dancing shoes of Nargothrond’s maidens.

Finrod was as careful to know every person’s name as he was to secure enough provisions to last through the month. He walked the streets with a fair crown upon his golden hair and robes of silk like cool water on his skin, fearless and with no need of a guard in his own protected city, to attend counsels on such frivolous matters as whether or not flowering vines should be chiseled around the columns in the community library and whether or not messages should henceforth be scribed on parchment with a slight peach tint that was more pleasing to the eye.

Finrod was of the three races of Elves: His paternal grandfather was once the King of the Noldor and his grandmother was of the House of the Vanyarin King; his mother was of the Telerin royalty from Alqualondë. Finrod was born with the faith and loyalty of the Vanyar, the musical gifts of the Teleri, and the diligent craftiness of the Noldor. Many of his people were of the same mixed blood, and it was not strange to see a child with the intense gray eyes of the Noldor and a head of sunny Vanyar-blond hair, singing a sea-song with a Telerin accent. Finrod treasured such sights.

His cousins Celegorm and Curufin made surprisingly welcome additions to his court. Curufin’s gifts in the forge brought much beauty and light to the halls of Nargothrond, and Celegorm’s easy charm flattered everyone, especially the maidens. The cobblers found themselves working more hours on dancing shoes after fair Celegorm’s arrival.

If it was possible to smile more in Nargothrond, the people did after his cousins’ arrival. Looking at them while holding counsels with his court--his cousins who had sworn a heretic’s Oath that they never now mentioned--he had trouble recalling the memory of blood on their hands, the blood of his mother’s people. Yet he knew it had been there. He knew this, yet bade his people to forgive them, the bright-eyed Fëanorians who inspired so much mirth among his people and who embraced him regularly and named him favorite of their cousins.

“Fair Finrod, cousin and King, my heart loves you.”

And Finrod loved and forgave them, they who had tormented him when they lived in paradise and now served him in this lesser world, because their presence helped him to bring Nargothrond closer to the perfect realm that he knew it could be. He loved them because he loved Nargothrond, and anything that was good for his realm and his people was worth his forgiveness.

With Celegorm and Curufin, he realized, his realm could be made perfect.

Perfect except for that Oath. That damned Oath. His heart had warned him then and it murmured darkly now, foreboding him of dark tidings to come.

But it was sworn to a mortal, who surely was dead by now. Still, his head could not quiet his heart.

“King Finrod!” He looked up to hear his name being called by a long string of maidens, dancing down the halls, hand-in-hand, following his cousin Celegorm. “King Finrod! King Finrod! Will you not join us in revelry?” One of them caught his hand, and he found himself being dragged into a giggling, flower-scented throng, and if his brain could not quiet his unease, he found that the tapping dance shoes of one hundred maidens worked quite well instead.

Chapter 4: Finrod Finds Celebrimbor

Finrod swung his feet out of his bed, detangling himself from silk sheets that slipped like warm water from his skin, and sighed. Unease sat in his belly like a block of undigested cheese. His thoughts whirled faster than a thousand fluttering birds, and whenever they settled long enough to allow him to sleep, a new worry charged into their midst like an obnoxious child, sending them all aflutter once more. He sighed again and rubbed at his eyes, dislodging an eyelash that lay like a slender black tehta on his thumb before he flicked it away with some impatience and sighed again, but these usual remedies were fruitless tonight. Suppressing the urge to indulge in another sigh, he stuffed his feet in the warm flocculence of his bedroom slippers, shivering with chilly delight as he pulled a satin robe the color of the sky in early evening over his arms, and set out in search of a glass of wine.

The halls of his private apartment were quiet, and the whisper of his slippers against the lusciously deep carpet soughed gently like the sea upon the crystal sands of Aman. He could call any of his servants, he knew, and they would come willingly and serve him whatever he desired, but he could just as easily uncork an old bottle, forgo the glass and settle on the chaise on his balcony that overlooked the city square, and watch the lamplight play in the fountains. As he walked, he pondered where his tastes in wine lay this night. He could have a raspberry vintage, a deceptively sweet spirit that gave a tiny nip just as it settled in his throat, spilling saliva that flowed forth with all the catharsis of tears. His mouth began to water at the thought, and he quickened his step to round the corner into the kitchen, and tripped over something on the threshold.

He looked back, expecting a loose tile or perhaps something dropped by one of his servants or himself and, at first, saw nothing. The hallway was strung in Fëanorian lamps, basking it in perpetual but meager blue light, and he squinted again at the floor.

There was an Elf crouching there, retrieving something that it had dropped. “Who dares squat in my doorjamb!?” Finrod cried, vestigial fear making his heart pound against the inside of his chest like the fist of a prisoner demanding release from his ribcage.

The Elf stood up. “It is only I, Ccousin.” The voice had the same quality as the drone of bees on a languidly hot afternoon, and one tended to forget the word it had spoken before it was even fully formed in the air.

Finrod became aware that he was daydreaming. Perhaps he didn’t need the wine after all to lull himself back to sleep. “What?” he asked.

“It is only I, Cousin.”

He squinted at the dark shape in the doorway and recognition drifted to his brain. It was his half-first-cousin-once-removed, although he couldn’t remember which of his seven half-cousins had begotten him. He was fully-grown, it appeared, but Finrod had no memory of him becoming an adult. In fact, the more he thought on it, Finrod couldn’t remember him being born at all. The longer Finrod looked upon the other Elf, the less memorable he became. Finrod shook his head. Was he not but a small lad the last time Finrod had seen him? Did he even make the journey to Middle-earth? Finrod did not seem to recall that he had.

And what was his cousin’s name? Silver tree? No, that was his sister’s husband. Silver foot? No, that was his cousin Turgon’s daughter. Silver … hand?

“Celebrimbor! That’s it!” He stopped and scratched his head. “How did you get here?”

“I came with my father and my uncle, Cousin Finrod, more than a year ago. That first night. In the rain.”

The memory of that night was still keen in Finrod’s memory: the terror of believing that they had been discovered by Orcs, the subsequent joy of his cousins’ arrival, juxtaposed beside the frightening tales they bore. Yet he remembered Celebrimbor in none of it.

“You were with them that night?”

“Yes, cousin. You allowed us in, then we met in your study and my father told you of our plight.”

“You were there too?”

“Yes. And the other day, I presented to you a necklace I made bearing fifty diamonds, in gratitude for allowing us into your home.”

“You did?”

“You are wearing it now, Cousin.”

Finrod touched his throat and found, as Celebrimbor had said, a diamond necklace around it. “So you did. Did I thank you for it?”

“I’m pretty sure that you did, Cousin.”

Another thought breathed its way into Finrod’s tired head. “Did I ask you why you are in my private chambers in the middle of the night?”

“I’m pretty sure you didn’t, Cousin.”

“Why are you in my private chambers in the middle of the night?”

“I came to borrow some materials.”

“Materials?”

“Yes, materials. I am crafting a ring of exceptional brilliance for your sister.”

Something swatted into Finrod’s memory with the force of a bumblebee flying into the side of his head. Celebrimbor! The one with the unhealthy obsession with his married sister Galadriel! Curufin’s son!

“You’re Curufin’s son!”

“Yes, Cousin.”

“And why do you come for these materials in the middle of the night?”

“Well, I find that, during the day, I will be happily working in the forge, and another of your craftsmen--often my own father--will come upon me and usurp my place as though he sees me not at all. And I like not to walk the streets during the day, for people seem to bump into me with alarming frequency. The other day, I stooped to tie my shoe and got knocked over onto my face right as my uncle and a string of maidens came dancing by. Every time I tried to get up, another would step on me. One was alarmingly heavy and rather resembled you, Cousin--”

Finrod cleared his throat. “How terrible.”

“It was not so bad. I have thick skin and am accustomed to be trod upon.”

Finrod found himself trying to memorize his cousin’s features, fearing that he might encounter him again and not know him, but his hair was the color and luster of mud, his face was a memorable as a lump of unformed clay, and his eyes had all of the excitement of dishwater. Only his personality was duller than his looks: Were it a knife, it would not even cut hot butter. As Celebrimbor rambled onward about some invention on which he was working that would sense and track foes moving in the lands surrounding Nargothrond, Finrod’s eyelashes took on the weight of lead and his muscles had the strength of rags soaked in cream. Celebrimbor’s words swirled around his head, faster and faster, forming a vortex into the black depths of his mind where lay ever-elusive sleep, until--as Celebrimbor began to recite projections on the increased safety of the lands they hunted and the subsequent increases in productivity and decreases in expenditures for healing and forging of weapons of defense--Finrod looked down and saw the floor rushing up at him.

Celebrimbor’s thoughts on the increased productivity of the metalsmiths once they were unsaddled with the chore of making weapons abruptly fell away. He looked down at the floor. “Cousin?” he said.

Finrod had fallen asleep.

Chapter 5: Finrod Meets with Orodreth

The next day threatened interminability for Finrod Felagund, King of Nargothrond. After awakening on his kitchen floor with a stiff neck and bruise on his shoulder--and no memory of how he got there--Finrod remembered that it was the fifth day of the month, the day he was scheduled to hold counsel with his brother Orodreth, the Lord of Carpets, regarding the state of the carpets in the vast realm of Nargothrond.

Against all hope and indications otherwise, Finrod had always held high expectations for his brother. In Valinor, he had made it his personal quest to lower the turnover rate of Orodreth’s tutors, which was no small task, considering that his brother spent forty years thinking that clauses made good back scratchers and another fifty years convinced that chemical bonding involved the speaking of the Name by a male and a female element. During craft lessons, Orodreth once disappeared for three weeks, attempting to impress Finrod by searching for the missing wax from the lesson in the lost wax bronze casting procedure--and subsequently becoming lost himself. During music lessons, he disturbed all of the other students with his snickers every time the instructor said “ritardando.” (The latter also resulted in Finrod becoming involved in a spate of fights to quiet the jokes being made by some of their classmates about the uncanny resemblance between the musical term and his brother’s intelligence.)

When Finrod’s uncles decided to tromp over to Middle-earth, taking most of the Noldor with them, Finrod found himself guiltily hoping that Orodreth would fall prone to his typical idiocy and perhaps lose the road on his way back from the bathroom, thus being forced to remain in Valinor with their father. But Orodreth followed diligently on the march north and even survived the crossing of the Helcaraxë when Elves much wiser perished. And after each of their battles with Orcs in Beleriand, Orodreth was the first to greet Finrod upon his return home, and Finrod began to hope that removal from a life of luxury and ease had inspired his brother to abandon his imbecility and at last assert virtues more suited to one who was a rightful prince of all three races of the Eldar.

Upon arriving in Middle-earth, Finrod constructed the tower of Minas Tirith upon the fair isle Tol Sirion, and when inspiration came upon him to move his kingdom to Nargothrond, he was forced to either appoint a warden or abandon his many centuries of labor to the erosion of the elements. Many lords rode forth--lords who had loyally served his grandfather for centuries and had compassionately guided great numbers of people--to pledge their fealty in the defense of Tol Sirion. When the last--Finrod thought--had departed, leaving the weight of a difficult choice his mind, the door to his chambers opened, and Orodreth entered.

“I feel I have been misunderestimated,” Orodreth said. “Am I not also a son of Finarfin? Perhaps, were you to offer me a second chance, you would find that the priorness of my dumbnicity was only a result of lazitude, nothing more.”

“And why should I believe that such--” Finrod had to bite his tongue to keep from saying lazitude--“laziness shall not strike you again?”

“I have extended great effortness to overwhelm it,” Orodreth said. “This, you can trust.”

Trust he did, but only a few years passed before Orodreth and the sorry remnants of his guard at Tol Sirion arrived at the gates of Nargothrond amid much clamor, nearly drawing Morgoth’s attention to the secret kingdom. Wearing the most hideous party robes Finrod had ever seen and reeking of wine too cheap to please even an Orc, Orodreth sat in Finrod’s office and wept, claiming that he’d been overcome by the black sorcery of Sauron, and begged for a second chance.

Orodreth’s lordships henceforth skipped around with the same random hilarity as the eyes of a child high on cotton candy at a three-ring circus. He began as the Lord of Vineyards, but after he accidentally replanted half of the crop with poisonous berries--resulting in a most dismaying five-year shortage of wine and several instances of projectile vomiting that were most unpleasant to recollect--Finrod was forced to revoke the appointment or face the wrath of his soldiers, who’d had nothing to do for the last three centuries but drink wine and play cards in the barracks and were not happy at their unexpected return to sobriety.

Next came the Lordship of Fountains, for Finrod figured that having Orodreth out of sight amid the sewers and the plumbing might be safer, given his brother’s sudden unpopularity among men who regularly wielded weapons of war. However, he should have known--he realized in retrospect--that sewage was no less dangerous for his brother, and the only thing worse than spending five years in complete sobriety was spending five years in complete sobriety while inundated with the constant reek of stopped-up toilets. His brother’s taste in practical jokes also worsened significantly during these years, and once, while in the throws of a blazing temper the likes of which Finrod had never known, with his pants around his ankles after having his toilet paper stolen by his brother for the third time in a week, Finrod finally revoked this appointment too.

Henceforth followed appointments as the Lord of Calendars, the Lord of Cutlery, and the Lord of Parchment-not-yet-written-upon, leading to his current appointment (after dismally failing at each of the former in ways more profound than Finrod would have thought possible, given their mundanity) as the Lord of Carpets. There were not many carpets in Nargothrond, and their upkeep was a matter of simple cleaning and removal of snags that might trip and possibly injure a citizen, but Finrod had made more inquiries in the last months to a citizen, regarding a bandaged wrist or ankle, and heard answered, “I tripped, my Lord, upon a loose string on a carpet.”

Orodreth was late to the meeting, but this was not atypical, and Finrod used the opportunity to grab a quick nap in his desk chair. The kitchen floor had not been kind to his bones last night.

Orodreth arrived a half-hour later, sat in the chair in front of Finrod’s desk, and assumed his usual sprawl. Finrod asked rote questions and received answers more full of syllables than meaning, coming to the conclusion after only a few minutes of conversation that his brother had not looked at a single carpet in the last month, even to glance down and see what was beneath his feet.

Finrod sighed. “That is all then, Orodreth,” he said.

“Very well, brother.” Orodreth stood. “Also, please accept my apologiances for being late. I ensure you that I had good reason.”

“Oh?” Finrod was tired but compelled to ask, imagining his brother’s revelries being explained in a string of complicated and mostly made-up words. “What was that?”

"I tripped, brother. Upon a loose string on a carpet.”

Chapter 6: Celegorm and Curufin Take a Walk

The streets of Nargothrond glistened like silver ribbons beneath the bluish glow of Fëanorian lamps, and Celegorm and Curufin, sons of Fëanor and Lords of Nargothrond, stepped from their apartments and met in the middle of the street to commence their evening walk.

In the high stone ceiling overhead, Finrod had implanted thousands of tiny, glowing gems that sparkled, placed in the same familiar patterns as the stars Varda had strewn across the firmament in the world’s beginning. Cleverly placed lights and mirrors dispelled the darkness and gave the illusion of expansiveness beyond the cave walls. The air sang with the music of fountains, and a small band of children skipped down the road, playing light airs on their flutes, giggling as they spun and flowed around Celegorm and Curufin like river waters around a delta.

The brothers walked in silence, with tight smiles on their lips, as though they shared a secret. The air between them sizzled. The people had grown accustomed to their evening walks and waited on the steps of their apartments to greet them. Celegorm and Curufin’s faces fractured into smiles and they sang greetings into the musical evening with all of the intoxicating sweetness of drops of wine. They had only four hands between them, but they seemed to sprout more--as many hands as a hydra had heads--to grasp those of the people that met them, to touch the shoulder of a shy maiden or pinch an impish child’s cheek, while their words rolled into the air with all of the elegance and majesty of a red carpet being unfurled beneath feet of a King.

Celegorm usually spoke first, for his voice was strong and thick like the heady wines served with dinner, those that tempt the tongue into drinking more than the head can handle. He was an outdoorsman and a hunter, and he forsook the heavy robes worn by his brother and cousins for a light tunic and trousers that left his arms bare and did not hide the ropy strength of his body. He touched maidens only with his right hand--flaunting the lack of a wedding or betrothal ring--doling out feather-soft kisses to the backs of their fingers, and after he passed, more than one waited until her father wasn’t looking to stare at the way his backside twinkled in his trousers as he walked away.

Curufin followed his brother, and his lesser stature and softer manners were like the bitter teas taken after dinner to soothe the spiraling inebriety of the wines partaken. Where his brother’s grasp was always firm, Curufin’s fingers flitted with the gentleness of butterflies, but his eyes burned into the peoples’ as they spoke. Where they drank of Celegorm’s easy charm, it was to his brother that they confessed their troubles, and he stood and listened in stoic silence, motionless, with his eyes ever burning. Broken jewelry was passed into his nimble fingers with the knowledge that, come the next morning, it would be repaired and lying on the table in their entrance hall, encased in a velvet box embossed with the Star of Fëanor. To him, they reported broken cobblestones and leaky pipes, and when they awakened in the morning, the problems would have been fixed, as though the mere speaking of them to Curufin was a incantation inviting their miraculous repair.

Indeed, the brothers’ walk had become a popular part of the evening, and at times, they found themselves encased so tightly in a throng of people that their passage to the lower streets of the city was delayed. Celegorm called the names of the people as he saw them--never misspeaking a syllable--squeezing hands and inquiring after the health of their children and of family members traveling abroad, while Curufin dispensed advice about everything from the choice metals to use in the construction of a new hunting knife to the calming of a colicky infant. Through it all, Celegorm’s smile flashed, Curufin’s eyes burned, and the air between them boiled.

It was late by the time they climbed the streets to return home. The city lights had dimmed, and most of the citizens had retired to bed, but Celegorm and Curufin showed no weariness. Their chins were lifted and their backs were as straight and unbowed as the ancient trunks of trees. They walked in silence but smiled into the darkness. When they at last reached their apartments, they paused only to grasp hands and collide in a quick embrace. With his lips against the delicate perfection of his brother’s ear, Curufin spoke so softly that it was less a whisper and more a shared thought: “We have done it.”

Chapter 7: Celebrimbor Speaks at Council

Finrod’s councils were always noisy affairs, for the governance of a realm as extensive as Nargothrond was a complicated endeavor, but when shared among friends and kinsmen--as it was--then there was pleasure to be found as well, and more often than not, dire deliberations were superceded by the council’s thoughts on the realm’s best wines and music.

Finrod had carved from ancient oak a round table where all seats were equal, conveying no stature or preference, where all could speak and hear one another. He sat at the front of the room with his hands folded upon the tabletop, listening to the debates and gentle banters of his council, and his gilded crown was surpassed only by the bright gold of his hair. Nauglimir lay as easily as sleep at his throat, but the sapphires within it look lusterless and flat when compared to the light in his eyes, and when he rarely chanced to laugh, it rang around the halls like a peal of bells.

To his right, Orodreth slumped, after a night of fervent drinking, quietly nursing a headache by burying his nose in a flute of white wine. Further down the table, almost opposite Finrod, Celegorm and Curufin perched in tandem--as they always did--and their honeyed words sparkled with laughter.

To his father’s right sat Celebrimbor. His face was nearly lost behind a towering stack of books and parchments, and when he stood to speak, it created an interesting illusion, as though he was nothing more than a stack of books capped with a nondescript head.

“I wish to address the council,” he said in a voice that had all the glamour of dried, dead twigs, “regarding some research of mine that has recently come to fruition. It is my belief that the kingdom can never be too secure, and although we employ a guard who constantly roves the kingdom and although we take comfort in the secrecy of our realm--buffeted by the waters of the Narog, as we are--it would take only a single error or slip in judgment to lay us bare and open us to attack.”

The room had grown quiet. He looked down and saw his father’s bright eyes looking up at him. His Uncle Celegorm had his chin in his hand and was watching Finrod’s head healer--a silvery Telerin maiden with sad eyes--with vague interest. Finrod was staring into space--as were most of the other lords--and Orodreth was noisily pouring himself more white wine. Celebrimbor cleared his throat and went on.

“Over my last year here, the scouting reports have shown a mean average of fifty-four-point-two Orcs crossing the lands within ten leagues of the city. Of particular interest, however, is to note how these figures appear on a distribution.” Celebrimbor took from one of the ledgers before him a sheaf of papers, each with a meticulous set of graphs drawn upon it, and handed them to his father to begin passing around the room. “As you will note, the numbers have been slowly but steadily increasing, from a minimum of only thirty-nine during my first month here to a maximum sixty-two last month, implying that Morgoth is showing increased interest in these lands. Furthermore, the increase of Orc activity is taxing our scouts, and injuries have more than doubled in the last year, putting our scouts at risk, not only for injury or death, but--worst of all for the kingdom--capture.

“I have interviewed twenty-five Elves who survived and escaped Morgoth’s capture. Granted, it is a small sample, but most of their tales corroborate one another, and the numbers they provided show remarkable concordance, allowing me to make the following projections. First, Morgoth interrogates ninety-seven percent of his captives, asking primarily for the whereabouts of other Elven settlements. About eighty percent of captives are captured by Orcs, and a safe presumption holds that even a strong, armed Elf will likely be taken if he faces eighteen or more Orcs. Of those captured by Morgoth, seventy-two percent give him information that is in some way detrimental to our people. The others”--he swallowed hard and cleared his throat again--“are tortured to death.

“Based on demographic information, even a trained scout or warrior is just as likely as a simple craftsman--or even a child or maiden--to give information under certain kinds of duress. Interestingly, I noted that the compliance rates of captives seems to be increasing in the last century, implying that Morgoth has honed his techniques and now wastes less time on methods that will bring him no reward. We can no longer assume that we will remain safe and hidden forever. If the numbers of Orcs crossing our land continue to rise at the rates seen in the last year, in another decade we will have close to three hundred Orcs coming within ten leagues of the kingdom during any single month. Given that we only have fifty scouts watching the land, the chances that one of these scouts might be caught at unawares and taken captive becomes a serious risk to our security.

“For the last year, I have been working to find a method whereby we may keep surveillance of our lands without jeopardizing the lives and safety of our scouts and--for the reasons I have just given you--the entire kingdom. I have devised a system using crystals much like the palantiri but smaller, that when placed at key points across the land, will give us the ability to monitor the activity of enemies passing into the realm. Furthermore, I have devised a material by which the doors to our realm may be hidden from all but eyes that need to see it. To all others, the gates to the kingdom will look like nothing more suspicious than a wall of rock. In addition to these improvements, I have designed a series of alarms that will alert us to the approach of enemies within a league of the gates, enemies who might have evaded notice through our other system. This will give our army adequate time to prepare. No longer need we rely on the skills of a few scouts willing to risk their lives for the kingdom. With these advances, all citizens may remain safe until times of dire need, and families need not be sundered for the sake of our kingdom’s defense.”

“I thank you for your attention.” Celebrimbor sat down, disappearing again behind the stacks of books.

Celegorm picked at his nails and Finrod fidgeted with Nauglimir around his neck.

“Have you tried the new blueberry ale at the inn?” one of the lords asked another, at last.

“I was thinking of having our Lord Curufin make my wife a platinum circlet for our anniversary,” said another.

Orodreth let out a loud snore and upset the bottle of wine. One of the lords leaped across the table with a napkin to keep it from spilling onto the floor.

Celebrimbor sighed, and no one noticed.

Chapter 8: Beren Comes to Nargothrond

Atop Amon Ethir, all was dull and quiet and still as though the realm had been placed inside an opaque jar stuffed with cotton and the whole thing then locked inside an empty white room with very thick stone walls. The clear night sky was interrupted by neither comet nor cloud, the wind slumbered and left the leaves unprovoked, and the stars were scattered in their usual arrangements and so even these provided no diversion. Atop the hill, two guards reclined upon chairs cleverly disguised as rocks by the crafty Curufin on order of fair Celegorm, for Celegorm liked to profess as often and loudly as he could an overweening affection and pride for those on the front lines of defense in Nargothrond. The guards had spent their venomed darts on a rough sketch of Sauron tacked to a tree and now devoted themselves to a game of Telerin Fish with a well-worn deck of cards that smelled faintly of hand lotion and cooking oil.

"Go fish," mumbled one of the guards called Taltdirith--a strapping Noldorin fellow born in Nevrast who wore a look of perpetual digestive upset--when naught came up in his opponent's net. The other guard, Gulthirith, who had previously made a meager living performing cheap sleight-of-hand tricks that would fool not even the children of Nargothrond and, by this qualification, had promoted himself to Lord Orodreth as a wizard (Orodreth still remaining mystified as to how his ear had produced that silver piece but, whatever the cause, always wishing without luck for a return of the affliction whenever he called upon the vintner), groaned and drew a card from the pond. By his petulant look, Taltdirith assumed his comrade's luck unfavorable. Piled in the middle between them, and so far ignored, was a stack of data sheets delivered earlier that day by a featureless Elf whose name neither could remember--helped along in that plight by a bottle of wine, of course--and whose voice had borne a slight resemblance to the sound that dust makes when it slides down a dusty hill, so far as either could remember, of course.

Gulthirith said, "What do you say I show you an amazing card trick instead?" and Taltdirith replied, "Not likely," though whether he spoke of the unlikelihood of desiring such entertainment or of the trick's propensity for being amazing was never made clear.

The night progressed as such for many hours--without wind, without moon, without any cause for excitement at all--until Gulthirith snapped up from drowsing over a mug of wine to garble amid a snore, "Did you hear that?"

"I heard nothing," said Taltdirith, who was trying to count the stars and kept losing his place at number fifty.

And so onward and onward the dull night went.

Morning drew near, as oft it does. "I know I heard something," said Gulthirith. "I know it."

"All you hear is the rattle of the rocks in your head," Taltdirith retorted, having been roused from a most pleasant dream. But both guards strained their ears to listen and, indeed, there was a tiny sound much like the noise a single blade of grass makes when being bent to the ground and then springing upright again.

"What was that?" hissed Taltdirith, and then the sound came again, and again, and again, like blades of grass were being bent to the ground and spring upright again in a rhythmic procession beneath something that moved in precise, orderly distances across the earth. "What could that be?" asked Gulthirith in a low voice, and Taltdirith shrugged. Both were wide awake now, and each was already formulating a heroic tale with himself the intrepid star to tell come their return to the barracks. Five years atop Amon Ethir and neither had seen this sort of excitement.

Then the sound escalated, as though a blade of grass was not only bent but broken, and both guards let out an involuntary squeak of alarm.

"I am friend!" came a voice from the darkness. Both guards clutched each other in terror. "Friend, not foe! I beg you to let me pass!"

The noise of bending--sometimes breaking--grass blades resumed. And atop Amon Ethir, the two guards clutched each other in the dark, uncertain what to do and so doing nothing.

Chapter 9: Beren Is Impressed

Beren son of Barahir who would one day be called Erchamion and Camlost and a whole host of other things stood in the meadow leading to the Narog beside the big hill with his mouth hanging open in awe and his two existing hands hanging empty at his sides. A gnat buzzed inside his mouth, ricocheted off of his teeth, and was expelled again, slightly dizzied but otherwise unharmed. Many were the legends that his father had told of Nargothrond, a realm presided over by the gracious King Finrod, said to be as fair as the sunrise and as wise as a really tall stack of books. Barahir had spoken of the mysterious Elves of Nargothrond, who could enspell and slay a man with a look alone from fire-bright eyes and provocatively wiggling fingers. Beren the Still-two-handed, son of Barahir, could not say that he had not been prepared for the sorcery he'd encountered in Nargothrond, yet nothing in the life of a mortal and decidedly un-magical Man could prepare him for the overwhelming mystique of Finrod's realm.

At times, he heard the guards whispering around him, but he'd yet to catch so much as a glimpse of them. Sometimes he heard snarling that he might have mistaken for snoring in a lesser place. He thrust his father's ring toward the sky before realizing that even the Elves of Nargothrond--marvelous though they be--were probably not so marvelous that they kept watch from the stars, so he waved it around at the trees and the big hill instead. Still, there was no sight of them. "They must be well-hidden indeed!" he exclaimed to himself. "Hiding themselves with camouflage and magic that a humble dullard such as I surely would not understand!"

Suddenly, a shriek erupted from the night around him that sounded eerily like the sound a squirrel makes when it is unexpectedly trod upon by a broad-footed and clumsy Man. Yet there was no arboreal-inclined vermin beneath his foot. Beren jumped and let out a squawk of alarm and waved the ring even harder. The sound seemed to have come from the big hill, but Beren could not be sure as it careened amid the trees and grass and open sky with the same blundering force as a honeybee caught in an empty mead jar. "Curse my subpar, mortal senses!" Beren thought to himself and the alarming noise rollicked and echoed and eventually faded.

Knowing not what else to do, Beren cried out, "I am friend!" hoping that plain, dull honesty would be enough to appease the mysterious and deceptive Eldar of Nargothrond.

Still, none showed themselves, though Beren knew that they must number in the scores and surely surround him on all sides. "They are cloaked in night and shadow itself!" thought Beren with amaze. "I wonder what strange gifts it takes to master such arts! Well, surely, this is not pertinent for one such as I, for never shall I learn them." He paused and tried to see through the night--picking apart the shadows much like an anxious child will worry the fraying threads of a cloth--but the surely hundreds of Elves that surrounded him eluded detection.

Thrusting the ring before him, Beren crept onward.

And from the big hill to the side of him, a stone tumbled down the whole length, top to ground. Beren froze, and the pebble bumped his toe. He would not be fooled. When he knelt to touch it, he would be ambushed, etherized, and bound, and he would be taken as a prisoner before King Finrod. He might lose the ring in his swoon and his only proof of friendship! He clutched the ring harder and ignored the pebble.

"I am friend!" he said again. "Bearing a ring given my father by your King!"

Though whispers continued in the dark, none moved against him. "They excel not only in stealth and deception," thought Beren with awe, "but also in fortitude! Watching a possible enemy creep against me, I would have hoisted myself from hiding by now!"

Beren was indeed impressed by the Elves of Nargothrond.

He crept onward, and the only sound that he could detect with his inferior mortal ears was the whisper of grass bending and breaking beneath his feet. Yet he knew the Elves of Nargothrond surrounded him. He could feel their eyes upon him as he crouched small beneath the big sky. He could feel their ears hearing even the soft susurration of his blood in his veins. He could feel their noses wrinkling at the stench of his too-long-unwashed flesh and oily hair and--

"Halt!"

From where did that come? In a panic, he crouched smaller, and his blood raced faster, and he sweated and stunk even more, and through it all, he waved the ring over his head and called over and over, "I am friend! Friend! Friend!"

From the gray light of morning, a broad-shouldered Elf called Gaerthirith--come to relieve Taltdirith and Gulthirith from duty--strode forth. Beren heard a scampering noise from the hill. Many hands seized him. It seemed like only three pairs but Beren--still very impressed--knew that it must be much, much more.

And that was how Beren came to enter Nargothrond.