7. The Horrors of Home
The Pelori were almost unique among the mountains I have seen during my (over)long stay in Middle-Earth, and their peculiarity betrayed their artificial genesis. Of the ranges found on the world I've left behind, only the Andes could be comparable, also being a tall chain stretching for thousands of kilometres along a coast, but even they are nowhere nearly as uniform in their height, nor standing as close to the water. The rocky guardians of Aman, on the other hand, practically rise out of the ocean, steeply gaining elevation until they become something that might dwarf the Cordilleras.
Such was my line of thought as we were approaching the shadow of the Pelori, as my agitation – and fear, if I were to speak bluntly – were building the closer to the shore we were getting. At the same time, a delirious, unbidden sense of happiness was bubbling just underneath, because one way or another, I was coming home after a long, long sojourn.
The thing was, I never really had a home away from Valinor, except maybe for a time in the Eastern Beleriand. During the First Age, we first settled in Hithlum before vacating it in favour of moving sunward to the lands we made our base of operations for a few hundred years. After that, of course, my remaining brothers and I were always on the run, our possessions reduced to whatever we managed to carry, and since the War of Wrath my situation became downright pathetic. Surely, there were the times when I was settling somewhere – from Fornost to Los Angeles and from Far Harad to Siberia – for a few years at a time, but then, something always drove me out and onto the eternal road of song. Sometimes it was a real and present danger, or the human scrutiny; at other times, the change of the world. Most often, however, I was running again from myself, sometimes for decades on end. Still, deep in my soul – denied more often than not when considered consciously – was the thought of my own Jerusalem, the garden of Eden I once threw away out of my own volition.
As it was, however, that blessed home was within my grasp – but the road there might have been poised to lead me through trials of both divine law and my own people's condemnation.
The exact moment of my returning to Aman was the one that later defied description. As the yacht gently touched the wooden pier, I ambled stiffly outside on unbending legs, finding my hands trembling as I picked up a mooring rope. Most of my concentration went into avoiding the very possible embarrassment of falling into the water, stumbling against the gunwale, tripping my feet in the hawser... And yet, I have not failed to notice the little signs of strangeness around, and I was wondering whether Lord Eönwë - or even the Valar themselves - really used some kind of magic to dispel the attention that would have certainly been drawn by the arrival of an exotic boat like ours, both passengers being of rather unusual kind, to boot. However, the small harbour was entirely too quiet.
Magic... I had almost forgotten what it was like (that is, if my life, lasting far too long for a biological being – millenia of the human reckoning – was not, in itself, a manifestation of supernatural things), having languished in the world almost entirely devoid of the wonders of old for thousands of years. The taste of it during my transit was an appetizer to the main course of returning to a place where it was a fact, not a legend. While remaining on Earth, at times I was wondering whether all that I had remembered from the days of yore – the radiance of the Trees, the unnatural powers exhibited by our adversaries in the Wars of the Jewels, and indeed the otherworldly might and glow of the Silmarils – was false. I was at times close to doubting and outright denying my own provenance, believing the memories of it to be a figment of imagination addled by... trauma, substance abuse, health issues gone horribly wrong, whatever – if not for my inhumanly long life span and, of course, the scar on my hand which once grabbed the cursed gem. Here, however, I could feel the nigh-forgotten touch of ancient force softly enveloping my whole being, as if preparing to inundate and subsume me again – with care, not with the desire to control and subjugate -–but it appeared to me that it was halting on the very threshold of my skin, as if waiting for...
The judgement that would pronounce me the wayward son to be taken back into the fold, or the apostate to be denied that delight, of course. While I was of this place, body and soul, I had fallen way too far from its grace to be re-accepted simply by birthright.
It appeared that Eönwë was aware of my internal turmoil, as he took my hand – gently but at the same time with firmness that allowed no space for argument – and led me away from the yacht, across the streets of the small port town, which were still oddly deserted. Only after making probably a hundred steps I became able to think coherently enough to voice the first sentiment of disapproval, or indeed any kind of independent will.
"My ship..." I began tentatively.
"... is under the seal of the Valar. No one will lay a hand on it, or on any of your possessions inside", the herald assured me.
That carried some kind of promise for me, since the implication was that I might retain my life and freedom to possess the vessel and all of my belongings (as opposed to the yacht being confiscated right on the spot). Yet I resolved not to lull myself into any kind of hope which might prove false in the end.
There was a carriage waiting for me, the horse standing still in a rather unnatural apathy, and the driver similarly impassive, his face lowered and invisible under the spacious cloak hood to the point of his – or her? – gender being not readily apparent. Entirely apparent to me, however, was the quiet power radiating from that figure, and that made it abundantly evident that I was looking at another Maia.
"Are you going to take me straight to the..." I began, looking at my warden, who nodded reticently. On one hand, that did not bode well for me, as there was a solid chance of my stay in Valinor being poised to end up very short indeed. And yet... after some soul searching I decided that I'd rather have it this way. Let my fate be pronounced as soon as possible, so that I can avoid either getting my expectations too high, or becoming restless and sick with undue suspense should the trial be postponed. Come whatever may, I would face either outcome with dignity. I flexed my shoulders and walked towards the carriage, stepping even ahead of Eönwë, and resolutely climbed inside. If he was surprised, he did not let it show in any way as he followed me, closed the doors, and off we went.
It was still obvious that even if my lot was to be decided as soon as possible, there would still be ample time for me to ramp up the already mentioned suspense, for the road from the sea to Máhanaxar was long for the mundane transport like ours. Still it appeared that we moved much faster than it would have been possible if the horse and the carriage had been entirely without magic – usually the trip would have taken a good two or three days, I remember vaguely, as we had to traverse the entirety of the Calaciriya, then past the foothills of the Pelóri and well into the vast plains of Aman. My memory failed me when I tried to recount the precise distance, as the geography of the Undying Lands has been, for literal ages, far from pertinent to me – I had other things to care about – but I was somehow dead sure we were not travelling with natural speed. And yet, when I peeked outside for the first time, I saw nothing out of ordinary: the steep slopes of the Mountains, the river running in parallel to the road – we were moving in the direction opposite to its flow – the trees and bushes clinging to the folds of the harsh terrain. I could swear I've seen similar landscapes a thousand times when wandering through the elevated regions of Middle-Earth –in Ered Wethrin, then the Misty Mountains, then what became the Alps and the Hindukush... I wondered what, if anything, those on the outside would see of our strange coach, and pondered futilely what kind of powerful magic could have shielded us and facilitated this journey.
Yes, magic – the power of the Valar – was unmistakably about, and it was perplexing to be speaking of it so matter-of-factly again after having long since resigned to never experiencing any of the old wonder again. I had witnessed the rapid – yet almost imperceptible to those not enmeshed in it – draining of the ancient, ethereal enchantment once permeating the lands. The process portended no good at all for the Elves and other creatures of the primeval world, and woe had been those who could not flee it in the swan-headed ships like the rest of my kind did! I was among one of the few that remained until this withering had run its course, my penance chaining me to the Earth but also keeping me from sliding away into oblivion, and became really the only one to stick around so far past the end of it. Here, I would come full circle, to whichever end. But since the journey to the Ring of Doom was not instantaneous, I still had the time to ponder on my future – maybe that was the intention all along, I thought, for surely the Valar could have transported me from the docks and smack into the middle of Máhanaxar if they so wished? Did they intend instead to give me enough time to, ah, reflect on my sins and prepare mentally for the trial? Instead, however, my mind kept drifting off to irrelevant tangents again.
The aura of Aman was perceptible almost to the point of feeling it palpably like one of the subtler physical senses – akin to an unobtrusive hint of perfume in the air, a touch of feathers, or perhaps to the change of barometric pressure caused by altitude. It was making me wonder how this all was apparently possible – for this place to have been, way back in the past, the inalienable part of the world I made my home for ages, then torn from it without ripping the planet asunder? For the Sun to have been a celestial body, a G2 class yellow star, and the legendary chariot of Arien at the same time? For the universe to be billions of years old – and somehow credibly being created by Eru (in whom I believed and, at once, did not) within the living memory of some of the creatures I was about to meet so soon? This indescribable duality and the new facets of creation laid so bare before me would have given Schrödinger an ulcer, I thought, but then corrected myself as I had met the wise old scientist once, and respected him greatly, so calling his name in vain was not a good thing to do. Trying to comprehend it, however, quickly overloaded my brain, already filled to the brim with impressions and emotions, and I slipped unawares into something halfway between a shallow sleep and a religious trance. Time and space, science and magic entwined intimately within my subconscious – but I was not, as a scientist would have, trying to disentangle this mesh (though doing so might have allowed me, should I have succeeded, to find the Great Unification Theory on a scale unimaginable to the finest scholarly minds of the Old Earth!) Instead, I was enjoying it, labyrinthine and intricate beyond measure though it was, like I would a pattern of fine embroidery, the lacework of the beloved woman's hair, the weave of a grand melody...
The melody.
It was being born before my internal eyes as my mind was at once soaring far above and remaining still within the confines of my body crumpled on a padded bench in the nondescript carriage. I knew of many composers who were trying to put the universal rhythms and interlinkages into music, from classical to heavy metal. Few succeeded credibly, yet their attempts were, more often than not, at the very least pleasant to listen to – if the authors managed to grasp even a modicum of that cosmic sensation, that is. I had an advantage over them, however – though not something I would ever consciously flaunt! – by the virtue of being one of the Eldar; among the finest (art-wise) of the Ñoldor, and ultimately, a son of Fëanor, arguably the greatest creative mind ever to appear among all the Children of Eru. Pardon my self-importance, but genetics does play a role even among the Elves.
And no sooner than the last chord had died – carved into my brain like an acid etching, for I was not the one to ever forget music of my own creation if it was any good, probably short of suffering something like lobotomy or an overdose of scopolamine – a strong hand descended on my shoulder, shaking me awake. I would have veritably strangled Eönwë if he had had the temerity to rouse me from the blessed creative trance even a second before I was done memorizing that stupendous melody.
"Macalaurë, we have arrived".
Note: the chapter name is from a song by Kartikeya (from Samudra album, 2017)