chapter 4.
there was no room for you and i.
summary:
the world they made was not for us, or them. or you. but you made your own place, your own nest, your own home. you had your purpose and you lived it at the cost of all else. at the cost of me.
but i was next to you, and all was well. until i was not. until you were not.
Second Age 335
warnings: mention of animal sacrifice in the beginning verse. lite body horror in first part.
see notes at end for terminology
The peafowl is an immortal delicacy.
Its meat shall not spoil, and to consume its flesh
preserves one's own state.
Take a live male peafowl remove its head.
Let it bleed into a dish, and remove its feathers.
Flay it, and divide the succulent among the seeking.
Partake of it raw and red, at its freshest.
Dress in the feathers of the fowl and drench the altar
with the blood unspoiling, and speak the words:
Lord, Melkor, Maker and Saviour,
we seek the gift withheld from us,
we seek the gift given to what we have consumed.
For your forgiveness we offer the blood of the slain,
untainting, unfouling. May it provide us life
until your search ends, until you have reclaimed
what was once stolen.
We will hear your Words and do your Will.
May Night follow Day, and Day follow Night,
until Two becomes One and One becomes None.
We await your Glory.
- Celebrations of the Mehradin 3, festival of the eye
The skin of his back splits.
In days of yore it was open all the time, an empty crevasse with a crystal-magma core where his spine should have been. A body that moved by will, and not the constraints of flesh and bone. It glowed, bright and hot.
He had no organs, then. At least, none of the conventional ones that could be found these days. The crystal core would have been something like an heart, or brain, necessary for the body to function. Stone skin, gem-like joints, seeing-stones where eyes would have been.
Rock and earth he was made of, once. Less, now.
Now he is flesh and bone, molded like clay. Stretched, pulled, long and gangly. The shoulder-length hair he had worn as an Easterling now reaches the hips of his new form, leaving an itch under his scalp.
It could be longer. It used to be, he thinks, so long ago. But the list of his inhuman traits is long enough already. A neck too malleable, fingers too long and tapered, nails too sharp, and his eyes…
Well. Those are neither here nor there.
Just as Melkor did not take on the eyes of an Elf, neither does Mairon take on the eyes of a Man, though Mannish they may seem at first glance.
He is Númenórean in appearance, or just so. Just enough to get a foot in the door, so to speak. Though he is on the small side for a Númenórean, he would still clear Dimna by a head. Dimna would probably like that.
He himself prefers the form of dust and stone, as he wore before Melkor showed him the bodies of Men and Elves. He was molten rock for flesh and shards of glass for hardened silicone for bone. His blood was liquid carbon, when he wanted it to be.
It was only after countless studies and dissections that he took a similar form, made of skin and sinew and all things that decayed softly. Like Melkor.
Melkor, who always held strength and terrible beauty above all else. In all their various forms, never were they anything but.
Mairon looks in the mirror and wonders if the form that looks back at him could be called beautiful or strong, or terrible indeed.
He wonders if they call this vanity.
Pharazôn taps an impatient rhythm upon the table.
He knows his request for a meeting with the priests is rather sudden, but they’re taking far too long to make themselves… presentable. The soldiers might have leave to dress down, but the priests shouldn’t have any reason to be out of their vestments at midday. If that’s even why they’re taking so long.
Pharazôn wishes he didn’t have to wear his formal clothes all day, but it is better than having to wear the royal court garb. Nightmare to put on and take off, those are. And hard to breathe in.
“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Amandil mutters. He hasn’t stopped pacing since they were directed to wait in the congregation tent. “The Arts… Sauron knows the Arts, Pharazôn. Who’s to say the Arts will even work on that gate? What if it’s— what if it’s guarded? What if it rebounds?”
“Leave the worrying for after we find out more, Amandil. I just want to hear what these priests think about Lord Halazar’s idea of tearing down the gate. If it isn’t doable, then we won’t do it. Simple as that.”
“That’s what everyone said about dragging the Lord of Mordor out of Mordor, and yet here you are, Pharazôn.” Amandil throws his arms out wide. “At Mordor’s gate. Trying to drag him out.”
“I like a good challenge.”
“Climbing a mountain is a challenge. Sailing to new lands is a challenge. Establishing new trade routes with neutral parties is a challenge! This? This is not a challenge!”
“Amandil, old friend, if we manage this, we’ll have done all three.”
Amandil shakes his head. “You push your luck.”
“I pushed my luck when I married Zimraphel, and so far that’s turned out quite well.”
Except for the part where they weren’t able to conceive, which did throw a nail in his plans for an heir.
Amandil doesn’t respond. Luckily the pageboy ducks in to let them to know that the priests will be arriving shortly. Pharazôn seats himself at the table and Amandil sits down at his right with a discontent grumble.
“Good afternoon, Elder Abîran,” Pharazôn says in greeting as the first of the priests start filing into the tent.
“Your Majesty.” The elder priest bows after entering. The others do the same, and they all take their places at the table. “You wished to speak with us?”
“Lord Halazar suggested we could use the Arts against Mordor,” Pharazôn says, cutting straight to the point. It’s a time-sensitive matter. “Can we?”
“To fight, sire?” Elder Abîran frowns. “No, we cannot fight in that manner. Bolstering the men is already the limits of our abilities.”
“I don’t mean if we can. I want to know if it’s possible at all.”
“That…” The Elder goes quiet. One of his apprentices shoots him an anxious look that Pharazôn does not miss. “…In theory, sire. If the old tales are to be believed. We.. we cannot harm them directly, but there must be ways to do it. What exactly did you have in mind?”
Pharazôn raps his knuckles against the table. “..The Black Gates are closed to us. We need them opened.”
“Sire, do you.. do you mean to destroy the gates? There is indeed a Song of Destruction but the power of it is… and the requirements, sire. It’s unbelievably immense. My priests and I will not be able to carry it out by ourselves.”
That’s not quite what he wants to hear. Amandil gives him a look that almost says I told you so.
“..Is there anything the soldiers can do?” Pharazôn asks. He’s not quite grasping at straws yet, but if there’s a will, he will find a way.
Of course, it would help if he knew a little be more about how the Arts actually worked.
The Elder confers with his priests in a low murmur. Their looks of doubt turn into those of hesitation, then curiosity.
“It’s true that having more priests will have a better effect,” the Elder says afterward. “But every member of the temple is initiated in the Arts, even if only in a supportive manner. There may be records of the uninitiated participating in a Song, but.. they are in Númenor, sire.”
“So all we can do is try?”
“Indeed. All we can do is try.”
“Then we will try. Whatever you need to carry out this trial, tell me, and you will have it,” Pharazôn says. Amandil makes an aborted sound like a hiss, only to quiet down after Pharazôn shoots him a glance. “I want those gates torn down.”
Elder Abîran bows, and his retinue does the same.
“As you command, Ar-Pharazôn.”
In their prayer tent, the Elder sits down heavily and with a sigh. Priest Nimilnitîr runs both hands through his hair, on the verge of tearing at it in frustration now that the King is no longer around.
“Well,” Abîran says. “That went about as well as it could.”
“I can’t believe the King would ask such a thing of us!” Nimilnitîr cries. He paces inside the tent and the others give him a wide berth to avoid being run over. “Does he not understand the consequences of this? We can’t possibly..!”
“I don’t see why we can’t,” says Elenníssë, another priest. “It is within our powers, is it not? We have the ability to do it.”
“But should we? Imagine what would happen if we- oh, we cannot!” Nimilnitîr makes a sign over his head and mutters a prayer. “Manwë forgive us for considering it.”
“What is there to forgive? We are not using our abilities recklessly, and we are not intending to do harm to anyone. I see no risk in this.”
“I fear,” said Abîran, “that if we do this, the King shall ask us for other things as well. That we will go from providing morale to destroying buildings, breaking barriers, and from there to attacking the enemies themselves.”
“For us mortals to entertain a battle of the Arts against Sauron himself would be suicide!”
“You don’t know that,” Elenníssë snaps at Nimilnitîr. “Those are but tales to frighten children out of wandering the woods alone. To stop them from playing in old abandoned ruins, lest they come upon and are challenged by a ruthless, child-eating sorcerer. In all the years since Eregion, have we ever heard tell of his Arts?”
“That doesn’t mean anything! You would assume he is not capable of such destruction simply because he has not since the banishment of his master? Perhaps there are no tales of them because no one has lived to tell it!”
“You would rather be a coward!”
“Enough, both of you.” Abîran pinches the bridge of his nose. The younger acolytes have shrunk to the side to avoid being dragged into the conflict. “We’ve been given an order by the king.”
“We must abide by the Valar, Elder,” Nimilnitîr pleads. “And by common sense.”
“Priest, you are implying the king lacks common sense, do you realize that?”
“Yes!”
One of the acolytes lets out a shrill gasp and utters an oath to Ossë, making a sign over her forehead at the same time. Abîran almost wishes he hadn’t thought this was going to be a good experience for them all.
“We obey the king’s order,” he says, simply. “For now it is simply a trial. One of the acolytes will demonstrate the Song of Destruction with and without support from the soldiers… we will see what the king has to say from there.”
Abîran considers the lot.
“Acolyte Cuiliel. You are familiar with the Song of Destruction, are you not?”
“…” The young woman bows her head. “I have a passing knowledge of it, Elder.”
“More than any acolyte has need of, I gather. But it is in your favour today. You will be the one leading the demonstration.”
“Elder!” Elenníssë comes forward. “Surely one of the priests would be the better choice, to show our ability..!”
“We need only allow the king to know that it is possible,” Abîran says. “And that the support of the soldiers will, in fact, bolster the power of the Arts. We need not make a blatant display of force.”
“Elder, we’ve been stuck bolstering the army’s morale for the entire journey here. We need to show the king that we can do far more than that!”
“And risk letting Sauron know what we are planning to do?” A hush falls over the group, and he is glad to be reminding them all of it. Arrogance has killed lesser Men. “I fear enough that this mere demonstration may alert him to our presence…”
“If we run the risk of drawing Sauron’s attention, that is even more of a reason not to do this, Elder!”
“I agree…” He finds his head lowering, feeling heavier than he has in years. “..But it is an order from the king.”
Perhaps it is the possibility of all of these lives weighing down upon his shoulders. Every single one in the encampment, and Ar-Pharazôn himself.
“We are the king’s men, after all,” Nimilnitîr says in a mutter, almost reluctant.
“Speak it with pride, Nimil.” Elenníssë stands at her full height, aided by a trickle of Elven blood that she has only recently been able to accept. “We are the King’s Men! And we will show Sauron our strength.”
Valiant she is. A good trait to have, in dark and trying times.
Abîran hopes it will not be the end of her, of them all.
Master.
Mairon lifts his head out of the water, brushing out tangles with his fingers. The light press against the borders of his mind has been persisting for some time now, seeking a response.
He considers ignoring it.
Instead he sends out a touch of his own, gentle and luring, intent for more good than harm. He feels a tremor and the approach of fear incarnate, but not a fear known to himself.
The call is distant. It takes several minutes for the wraith to find him in the temple’s washroom, sunk deep into the heat of the bathwater in a stone-carved tub.
“Alkharîya,” he says when the Nazgûl enters the room. The door closes with a soft click, out of sight. “Why do you seek me?”
“Stirrings,” Alkhâr utters, his voice a low rasp as he parts the sheer curtains separating the bath itself from the rest of the room. “Stirrings of a Song.”
“There are many Songs that stir now, Alkhâr.”
“The West-Song stirs most of all.” The curtains fall shut with a shush, dimming the light in the bathing room once more. Alkhâr looks at the candles in their wall holdings, seeming to debate the advantages of their existence. “…It is one I am familiar with. I hear it better than I hear others.”
Mairon closes his eyes and lowers himself until his ears are submerged. The water connects to nothing but the stone tub, and tub to floor, floor to wall to floor to ground.
And from there, he hears what he thinks it is that Alkhâr hears. One song amongst a hundred, a murmur amidst a rumble.
Surely nothing important.
Metal brushes over the back of his hand braced upon the edge of the tub. He lifts himself back out.
“They have been at the gates for several days now.” Alkhâr has knelt down next to him, heedless of the damp floor and water spilling over onto the hem of his shroud, of the blood left on the ground from the last of his master’s changing. “Khadîn hears their restlessness.”
“She is good at dealing with restlessness.”
Alkhâr bristles. “..They are demanding your surrender.”
Mairon hums, reaching for a small bottle on the shelf nearby. “She is good at dealing with that as well.”
In his own quarters, he has a collection of scented oils and perfumes, gifted by various dignitaries and merahni over the many, many years. He has used most of them at least one or two times, as a courtesy.
Unfortunately, since the scent of burnt slag is considered by most to be revolting at worst and panic-inducing at best, not to mention not being reliably mixed by anyone to begin with, Mairon uses wood-scented oils the most. The temple is well-equipped with them as well, including the one he is using right now. Though it was not put here by his own personal request.
Perhaps they simply noticed the scent that lingered behind whenever he visited.
“..Is it wise, master?” Alkhâr lowers his head, almost as though conspiring. There’s no one else in the room, and certainly no one beyond the curtains close enough to eavesdrop. “To keep them waiting so long?”
The host was 2 days away… 5 days ago. The return trip from Mordor proper to the Black Spire will take another full day’s travel without obstructions. At worst, the Númenóreans host will have been waiting a week.
Such a small amount of time to fuss over.
“Perhaps,” Mairon says. “It is neither wise nor clever.”
“Then why are we still here instead of in the Spire?”
Mairon leans over the side of the tub, on arm draped over the other, reaching into the gloom of the Nazgûl’s hood. He catches the wisp of beard and soul between his fingers.
“Because, alkharîya,” he says, pulling the wraith in closer by the front of his cloak. “I do not particularly enjoy the presence of Númenóreans so close to Mordor, and I intend to make that clear to the their King.”
Beneath the hood would seem to others to be empty space between his shoulders. A pitch of void-black, invisible and intangible to those without the Gift.
..But to Mairon there is an aging face that shifts between withered and young, hair of white and silver like a old cloud wrung dry of rain. So different from when they first met, when the man had been sprightly and vigorous with vitality and love for his cousin. Memories not so easily forgotten by either of them.
“..That does not sound like a wise decision.” Alkhâr repeats, gripping the edge of the tub.
“I have already acknowledged that it is not.” Mairon lets go, bringing his arm back into the water. “But it is what we are doing. There is nothing to worry about.”
“What if they become more impatient? Will a simple gate truly keep them out of Mordor?”
“Does the Valacirca keep darkness at bay?”
Alkhâr is silent. Beneath his hood is a pair of aged eyes, hollow and sunk. Of all the Nazgûl, he is the most seemingly listless, a stark contrast from his living persona. The others are…. dulled, compared to how they were before.
But Alkhâr… Not his first, but perhaps his greatest wraith.
Alkhâr is somber. So very much like how Mairon used to be, if not for the fact that he has even less room for non-obedience than Mairon ever did.
“..It does not,” he admits. He must.
Of course it did not. If it did, Morgoth would have been long banished and defeated, and the name Sauron would never be known or uttered, for he would have perished with his faster years ago.
“They believe that it does,” Mairon says. “They believe that it will.”
He lays back and sinks full into the water to listen again. It is a quiet chanting, scriptures recited in murmurs and a child’s hymn. One beat. Two beats. One repetition. Two.
Three. Four.
Alkhâr’s gauntlet comes down into the water to cup the side of his jaw, a flutter of concern in its wake. Mairon lets out a stream of bubbles, thin and fluid, rising up like bouyant pearls. He remains there listening to the chorus from the West, until the sensation of collapsing lungs bids him to the surface once more before he starts breathing water (not entirely unwelcome).
The wraith’s rattling hiss is audible even over Mairon’s own slaking breath.
A thousand years ago he would be cursing. A thousand years ago, he would be beside himself with worry. A thousand years ago he would have gone into the water to pull Mairon out.
A thousand years ago, Alkhâr would not have been so easily reassured by a single touch, a single thought.
“Let them believe it,” Mairon murmurs, watery. “Let them believe it as you did. That walls of any making will save them or stop them. And they will realize, eventually, as you did, that it does not.”
He grasps the wraith’s forearm with a strength that is no longer belied by his appearance. With a hissed grunt, Alkhâr pulls them both to their feet, water sloshing over the edge of the tub and sleeting down from Mairon’s body.
They reach for the towel at the same time, but Alkhâr is closer.
“I did not call you here to wait upon me, alkharîya,” Mairon says, though he remains still for the wraith to throw the towel over his shoulders. The grip on his shoulders is sturdy, keeping him from slipping while he is guided out of the tub.
That Alkhâr does not release him after he is out does not alarm him at all.
“I know,” the wraith says. “Unfortunately, master, you have not given me much else to do either. Perhaps you should have taken Dimna with you instead.”
In hindsight, Dimna would have made the trip more memorable and enjoyable, up until he realized he could not pick any fights or run off to challenge the local authorities. It would have been a more stressful trip, in the end. Khamûl was not exactly what one would call friendly, not least of all towards Mairon, and the others…
The others had their reasons for wearing their rings. And those reasons were not Mairon.
(In further hindsight, Alkhâr’s reason was also not Mairon, which really only shows his taste in picking his servants.)
(But after all, Mairon’s reason was not Melkor. At least, not in the beginning. If it ever was.)
“I enjoy your company, Alkhâr. For what of it that you give.”
“You and I both know that Dimna makes for a better travelling companion than I do, master.” Alkhâr takes a step back, finally, leaving the towel where it is. Mairon takes it and dries himself off properly. “I recall the two of you did travel together, for a time.”
He slips into a robe two sizes too small, and the longest and largest pair of breeches the acolytes were able to find. Both fit tighter than he’d prefer, but there is a congregation to attend before he leaves that will take too much time to find anything else. The trip to the tailor will have to wait.
If needed, a cloak can hide anything unseemly.
“So we did… Perhaps I will bring him the next time I need to make an excursion, then, if accompanying me is so distasteful to you.”
“..That’s not what I said,” the wraith says, stiffly. “Nor what I meant.”
Mairon smiles, a touch on Alkhâr’s arm to prove a point. “I would not mind if you did mean it.”
The Ring does not command loyalty or create worship. It creates the opportunity for worship, wields a power that may bring loyalty. The Ring, itself, cannot make happen what never existed.
The Ring is what Melkor was. And if even Melkor had trouble winning Mairon’s loyalty, then this Ring would be even less effective.
Being able to force the Lesser Ringbearers into action, perhaps, did not help. But it did make his work much easier.
“We are leaving this evening, yes? After prayers.”
“That is what you decided,” Alkhâr confirms with slight reluctance. “If you do not take too long with the Sacred Fire.”
“We will see. The Fire is my main concern, for the time being. Firiya will be handling the ones in the East and South, but you will be delivering my messages to the Fire of Mordor, Alkhâr.”
“Might I ask why?”
“Because you are mine,” Mairon says. He rakes his hair to one side and wrings the water out, letting it drip onto the stone floor. It will help get the blood out, at least. “Because you are my Ringwraith. Because you are my greatest wraith.”
Alkhâr doesn’t tower over him anymore. There is but a head between them, at most, which means Ar-Pharazôn will be perhaps another head more.
Maybe he should have made his form just a little bit taller.
“…And because I trust you, alkharîya.”
The wraith uses a new towel to wrap Mairon’s hair, to keep it off of his clothes and to help it dry faster. The gauntlet-clad hand brushes against Mairon’s jaw along the way, sharp and chilly.
He trails down Mairon’s arm and takes his hand, brings it up between them. Thumbs over the Ring on Mairon’s finger with a sensation akin to bones grinding together.
“I do not think this could be called trust,” Alkhâr says, quiet. “..Master.”
It isn’t trust.
What it is is a gentle backdrop of noise to weather through the days with.
It is Dimna’s complaints at how peaceful the year has been, how little conflicts they’ve had, or haven’t had.
It is Firiya constantly trying to find out where his idol is, wanting to be assigned to tasks with him but never asking outright, only mulling over it endlessly in his head.
It is Khamûl, reminiscing on one thing or another, of all the battles he had fought (regarded, jealously, by Dimna), of the lands he had conquered and ridden over, remembering the extents to which his tribe could reach by the end of his reign.
It is Shêmut studying his liquids and chemicals and herbs, making medicines and poisons that may never see the light of day.
It is the constant reminder that there are lives not his own, concurrent to his own. Where Melkor did not consider them, being what he was; and where Mairon never concerned himself with them, fleeting as they were.
Now they are what he has at his disposal. Now, they are things he must consider, to do what he needs to do.
Now they are, and he is.
But.. it is not trust.
“..No, I suppose not.”
And it is not, to Mairon, what the Silmarils ever were to Melkor.
He removes his hand from Alkhâr’s grasp. And then removes the Ring after, settling it into the wraith’s hand with a tiny clink, folding stiff and hollow fingers securely around it.
“–What are you doing?” Alkhâr demands when Mairon moves away, leaving the Ring in his hold. “Master– Mairon–!”
“Hold onto that until we return to the Black Spire, if you would, alkharîya.”
“But I–“
It’s been a while since he wasn’t able to hear Alkhâr’s thoughts. Or any thoughts, really, without great effort. If he wanted to he could still press upon the wraith’s mind, and likely he might be granted access if only because he has always done so before.
But the Ring allows unfettered access, where now Alkhâr would have the ability to refuse him.
And, perhaps, Mairon would like to know if he would. Refuse him.
He does not try.
“Just for a little while,” he says instead. “I do not think you would be able to go very far with it on your own, in any case.”
As if to prove a point, Mairon gathers up the last of his belongings and makes his way out of the room. Alkhâr does not follow him immediately.
And when he does, he is in more of a rush to catch up than Mairon expected him to be.
“The Ring,” Alkhâr rasps, urgent, in the rusty tongues of Black Speech. “It whispers. It whispers in your voice.“
“Yes,” Mairon says. Less rusty and more rustic. “It does. Because it is mine.“
Alkhâr hisses, displeased, and takes him by the arm. He pulls them both back into the eaves of an alcove they’d just passed by.
“What sorcery did you commit?” he asks, holding up his closed fist as if unable to open it to show the Ring hidden within. As if he wouldn’t dare to. “What have you wrought? It should not speak so!“
Alkhâr lives up to his namesake, a witch through and through. He knows the Arts, though he uses them less and less lately. It is for good reason that Mairon considers him his greatest Ringwraith, his greatest servant. Only Khadîn has more than a passing knowledge in the Arts; the others can repeat what he instructs them to, channeling his own powers through themselves, but are otherwise…. lacking.
It does not diminish their usefulness, of course. But it does mean he has less people to talk to about such things, when need arises.
Even Celebrimbor never questioned the making of the Ring and how it worked the way it did. Then again, that was probably more due to lack of opportunity to ask and a desire to outright reject anything about Annatar, than a lack of curiosity or concern.
It was unfortunate, truly, that Celebrimbor would change his mind in the end. After all the trouble they went through to make the rings.
Elves are, in the end, far more useful. Stubborn and willful, yes. But efficient.
“If you remove your ring, it will stop,” Mairon says, soft and soothing. He feels the Lesser Ring burning though the wraith’s glove and the sleeve of his robes. “The whispers, the waiting. That feeling of stagnation and eternity stretching before you, the shadow of life that shadows your steps. And yourself, alkharîya. All of it will stop.“
He touches the hand gripping his arm and Alkhâr lets go as though he’s been scalded. The wraith takes several steps back before stopping short. If Mairon had to make a guess, he would say this regained freedom must seem shocking. That no longer having his master in his mind must be freeing, and to have his inner thoughts be his own again, a relief.
Perhaps. The Race of Men are of Closed Minds by nature, after all. Unused to the sensation, but weak to it also. Not like the Elves.
“We made those, he and I. The rings that you wear.” Mairon takes his hand back, fingers curled. Poised, one could say, to strike. “I would gather that they contain what he felt for me, and I for him, at the time of their making.“
A lie. But they cannot hear his thoughts now, and they will not hear that thought again. A thought, or a hope.
“What did you do?” Alkhâr demands. His grip on the Ring is tightening; Mairon feels it, somewhere deep inside himself, in the part of him that is no longer there. “What did you do?“
“He that wears the Ring might master it,” Mairon says in a way of response. “He who masters it will master all Lesser Rings.“
He can feel Alkhâr’s mind go from wary to curious, tempted. Power makes the Race of Men delirious, he has found, and the concept of owning such power makes them do silly things. Like pledging their lives away. Taking up false banners. Following dead kings.
Loving the loveless. Grieving the deathless.
Mairon wonders what this great servant of his will do.
“..He who masters the Ring will master its Maker.“
The confession is met with a raw sort of silence, the kind that comes after heavy rain as one waits to see if the sun will show itself or if more rain will come, and Alkhâr does not move. Mairon’s heart beats once, torpid and heavy. Twice. Three times.
Four.
An anxiety he’d never known of rises in him, and the desire to claw himself out of the wraith’s hands becomes nigh unbearable. As if in response, Alkhâr closes the distance between them in an instant, pressing the Ring back into Mairon’s hands.
“This is not trust,” Alkhâr repeats, and if he sounds overly harsh and ragged, weary and thin, Mairon pays him no heed. The rush of his thoughts, also, is a torrent that goes unchecked and ignored.
“No,” Mairon says again, the same as before, and returns the Ring to its rightful place. “It is not.“
It warms itself upon his finger, telling him of all the worries the other wraiths have had in that short period of time.
Silence is always unsettling to those who have not had it in so long.
“Pity you did not try to wear it,” he says, chipper and mournful, slipping out of the alcove the way a serpent slips out of one’s grasp. “I would have liked to see that happen.”
Yet spoken in a tone so dangerously light that no one should be offended when Alkhâr removes himself a pace and a half away.
“Come now, we have prayer to attend to, and a long trip ahead of us.”
Checkmate, says Khadîn, from her mind to his. Once again.
“Once again,” he repeats. Alkhâr trails along behind him again, the way he always has. Whether because he is bidden to or of his own volition is of no matter to his master. “With any luck, this one will not throw away the ring that I give him, once I have him cornered.”
A ring? Whose? she titters above the clamor of the other wraiths. Not Dimna, I hope.
“A different sort of ring,” Mairon assures her.
He looks back over his shoulder. Alkhâr doesn’t seem to have joined in the worries and protests. Perhaps he knows better now.
“…One that I have been crafting for many, many years.”
notes
* indicates original creation
- Abiran: adunaic*, offering
- Nimilnitir: adunaic, beauty-kindler
- Elennisse: quenyan, star-lady
- Cuiliel: quenyan, daughter of life
- Alkhariya: old adunaic*. forgot to note this earlier; alkhar (witch) + -iya (possessive). Mairon uses it as an endearment.
