Fire is a remarkable thing. As a child I could sit and watch a single flame
burn upon its wicker for hours. It amazed me, the way it licked at the wax of
the candle, how it burned all it touched. It could be calm, flickering shadows
upon the walls. It could be providing with its light and warmth and had a sense
of love and compassion. Fire was beautiful, far beautiful than many things I had
ever seen. It was beautiful and yet it was dangerous with the potential to burn,
burn all it touched and keep burning, spreading and devouring all in its way.
But though fire was a strong and intense thing there was one thing that amazed
me ever so more as a child. It could not exist without air.
Without air, there can be no fire. One can have a candle and a wicker, but
without air, there can be no flame.
Air too is a remarkable thing. It is all around us. It is one of the most
important substances upon Arda, for without air we cannot breathe. Air is
life-giving to every living thing. It cannot be seen but it can be felt, sensed.
Air too his beautiful, in many ways, many which we take for granted so much.
She was beautiful. She was beautiful in other ways, beyond her physical
attractiveness. Like air, I too took her for granted, not fully realising how
much she sustained me. Only after I lost my wife did I truly see how important
she was to me, not only she but how important family was.
She was like that air, the oxygen which sustained the fire within me,
kept it burning and alight, despite the heavy draughts of life which threatened
to blow me away. She was that and so much more.
I watch your son and I see that she was the oxygen that kept his flame alight
also. He is young and so much an image of her face, yet in his silence I see he
is somewhat of same mood as you, though I think after this he would want to be
far from you, even if you are his father.
Your wife is dead. Greatest sympathies I send to you, on behalf of all of
Gondolin, nay not only Gondolin, on behalf of all the Noldor, that you should
have to suffer such. Most saddened must you be Eöl, Dark Elf of Nan Elmoth, for
no longer do you have a wife to have and to hold. A wife you have not any longer
for you to love in your deep, dark woods, for you to have more children with. No
wife for you to show your new works, which you have been bent over in your
smithy. No wife have you to keep sundered from her kindred, to keep her sundered
from traditions and customs she has known since birth, to keep her sundered from
the sun.
I think it should be me who must tell you such grievous news.
"Idril," I saw softly to my daughter. She too is here in the room sitting close
to the bed where your wife, my sister lies, cold, pale and dead.
She turns her golden head to me and looks at me. There are tears in her eyes,
glistening in the candlelight and a few rolling down her cheek.
Gently I wipe those tears away with my hand.
"I shall be back."
My daughter struggles a smile and nods, looking back to the dead woman in the
bed, the dead woman I used to love for her life.
I look to your son. He is silent as he sits watching the dead woman, sitting and
watching without movement or word. So still he is, that if he were lying,
perhaps he could look like the dead woman he watches.
My hand rests lightly upon his shoulder but he makes no movement.
"Lomion. I go to speak to your father," I whisper.
He nods.
I kiss Idril upon the head, looking to the dead woman a last time, and walk out
of the room to tell you.
Your wife is dead.
I wonder how I am to tell you. Need I tell you though? Do you already know? Is
your love for her and her love for you so great that you know already she is
dead? Did you feel it the second her fёa departed from a hröa, just the way I
did when it happened to my wife? Did you see through her eyes as she travelled
to Mandos, did you feel her whispering her last goodbyes to you before she
passed over the seas? Is this how you know her to be dead? Or is it because it
was you who killed her that you know she is dead?
My sister is dead.
Perhaps Eöl you know what it is to feel such an intense anger for a person or a
thing. You think or look at it and you feel the very blood in your veins boil,
bubble and gurgle. There is a gnawing inside of you and there are voices inside
your mind. Memories of events which never occurred arise in your mind and you
think them to be true.
This anger you might have felt when you found your wife and son gone upon
arriving back to your house.
I open the door to the dungeon where you are and look upon you.
That feeling I feel when I see your face.
You are chained to the wall by shackles at your wrists and ankles, put there
because of your resistance against the guard who brought you here. You look up
from the floor to me. Your eyes are piercing, just as Lomion's. You look up from
the floor to me and a smile comes to your lips, small, mocking, sneering and
scornful.
Your wife is dead and you know it.
I take another step into the room and your small smile yet spreads so your eyes
glimmer maliciously in the darkness.
Your wife is dead Eöl and you smile.
Fingon the Valiant, High-King of the Noldor in Exile, Finrod Felagund, Orodreth,
Aegnor and Angrod, sons of Arafinwё, Maedhros, Maglor, Celegorm, Caranthir,
Curufin and Amrod and Amras, sons of Fёanor. Can you imagine all these Noldor
princes and kings of their own realms Eöl? Can you imagine what would become of
you were they all here to see you? They all loved your wife dearly. I doubt you
would smile.
Yet perhaps I alone could relieve you of that smile.
Without a word my fist meets by chance with the side of your face with
inexplicable force.
The smile does vanish from your face and quickly. You glare up at me.
"Compliments from the sons of Finwё," I say to you.
I find myself pacing up and down in front of you, for it is all I can do in my
silent fury.
"My King, I beg you, no matter what should happen to me ere the sun rises
this morn, do not slay Eöl who is my husband and the father of my child.
Remember that he too is your brother now by marriage and to kill him would be to
do kinslay again. For the sake of your sister, till the unmaking of Arda, keep
him in your dungeons as prisoner and law breaker or if you will, release him
back to his smithy in Nan Elmoth, but I beg this only of you, to slay him not
and let not his hands come upon my son."
Do not kill you Eöl, Dark Elf? How can I not? After this second and most
wounding pain you have borne me, how can I find the will within myself to keep
you alive? Surely were I to keep you alive, I would be begging for another
wound. Yea I would be, but I have promised to her, your wife, the dead woman in
the bed. I have promised her that you shall not be slain and I have promised to
hold to that promise as one may hold to an oath. I have promised and I am not
one to break promises made, yet how can I do as she asks of me?
"How is my wife?"
I turn and look at you. Your voice is mocking to my ears and I see by the
glimmer in your eyes what your intent is.
You strike your mark perfectly.
Before I can control myself or think of my actions I have already drawn my sword
upon you and I hold it to your neck.
"You do not deserve to name her your wife," I growl to you.
"Nay, she did not deserve to be named my wife."
The edge of my blade is sharp and it cuts a narrow stream at the side of your
neck. Red liquid seeps over and dribbles down the blade and your neck.
She did not deserve to be named my wife. Is that so Eöl? Then why is it
you suffered to take her to your home?
"Speak carefully, lord of carrion, ere my hand by chance slips and my sword
beheads you," I whisper through gritted teeth.
Why your wife and my daughter begged mercy from me, on your behalf, before I do
not know. But they are not here to beg mercy for you know Dark Elf. I am not one
who is quick to anger, yet when I am, I am more fell than many would think me to
be. I am tolerant, but for you no longer do I hold any tolerance, nor any mercy.
Though I hold you at my swords edge, still you look to me and the blade
mockingly, challengingly. You know I have promised not to harm you. You know and
you stare at me challengingly, egging me to break the promise I made to her upon
her deathbed.
Do you want me to kill you Dark Elf? Do you want me to forsake my promise and
give into my instincts? Do you want me to strip you of what little you have,
take your son as my own and teach him all our ways, have him grow to be a true
Noldor and disown any heritage taken from you?
I look into your eyes, dark, malicious and challenging.
And yes, how I would gladly disown this promise I have made, which I knew I
would rue as soon as I had let those words spill from my lips. How sweet revenge
would be, to see he who has stolen from me one of the only women whom I love,
dead before me, begging himself for my mercy. My mighty sword would gleam red in
the torchlight with your blood and the death of my beloved would be avenged.
Fingon would do it. The sons of Fёanor would gladly slaughter you to avenge the
death of their High Princess. Oh, how Caranthir the Dark and Curufin the Crafty,
most malicious of Fёanor's sons, would revel at the chance to slaughter you, did
they know what you have done. Many of the Noldor would see it just to have your
head dislodged from your body. So why should I not kill you? None know of my
promise and the one whom I made it to is now dead. Turgon the Wise I am called
among the Noldor and to me now, wise it seems to have your death come about.
Yea, very wise.
You grit your teeth as in my musing I slide the blade of my sword along the
crevice I have cut in your neck. The sting of the silver blade which was wrought
in the Blessed Realm is irritating for you, I see, not so much painful, but
annoying and gnawing, like a fly in the night. My sword is light and I feel in
small vibration the blade cut every fibre as I slide it along the crevice,
deepening it, slicing your skin and letting the blood trickle down my sword,
like sap from a bleeding tree.
"Tell me Dark Elf, why I should preserve your life," I say softly.
My eyes are not looking to yours, but they are settled at the crevice I ever so
slowly slice deeper with each time I run the blade back and forth, severing one
fibre at a time, letting you feel the full sting and annoyance. It would only
take a little more strength for me to sever your whole neck within few seconds.
The blood slowly trickles down my blade, only a little which has managed to seep
past the sharp, keen edge. How your blood glistens already in the torchlight,
redder than the rubies of Eldamar or the jewelled fruit off a tree, wet and
warm. Perhaps I could have you die with a poison as well, have you suffer the
same slow, unbearing death she suffered.
You never saw how your wife died, did you Dark Elf. She was in pain, you know?
Her pain was excruciating and yet she still thought of you, thought to save your
life, despite that you were her slayer. In her suffering she told me not to harm
you and yet here I am musing over how I should kill you.
But now you set this challenge before, Dark Elf, asking me if I would break this
promise that you know I have made.
You knew how she loved you, did you not? If not you would not be looking at me
this way. You would have me kill you and rue that I broke my promise, live in
guilt and bitterness. You flaunt in my face the title as her husband and dare me
to kill you. Kill you with my sword, my bare hands. Kill you myself and kill her
promise, kill that memory of her within me, kill how she looked at me, placing
her trust in my arms, surrendering her life, only because she had faith in me.
Kill her last words.
And should I? Should I betray her and her promise?
I look up to your eyes, for you have not answered my question.
You are staring, but not at me. Your gaze reaches past my shoulder deep into the
shadows behind me.
I turn my head and find Lomion standing there, watching every movement I make.
Did you ever love her Dark Elf? At least in the slightest bit, did you ever
truly love her? She was beautiful wasn't she? That was no doubt the reason
why you held her captive in the first place, for her beauty. Did you think it to
be fun to hold a High Princess for your own, to have her shun sunlight and her
kin, to enjoy the sweet taste of her lips night after night? Did you think that
she was no more than a woman and would never even dream of deserting you?
She was far more than what you would have thought of her at a first glance, I am
sure you would have learned that well enough in your years together. She was
perhaps more treacherous than even you are, but there was something more that
she had that made her stronger, which you did not have.
She had love.
She had love for me, for her people. You stole her and in time she loved you.
She loved you in your darkness, she loved you and your dark ways.
And now here in my midst stands the spawn of all ill things that had befallen
after that day I set the bird free from the rainforest. Here stands the
offspring of your seed, your lust, your darkness, your evil.
Here he stands here and he is beautiful, far beautiful to possibly be from you,
to be of your blood and your bone. He is not your son or the son of the
Moriquendi. He is rather her son, of the royal line of Finwё, from the house of
the Noldor in exile.
I look back to you.
And is he a reason why I should allow you to live? You are, after all his
father.
'…slay him not and let not his hands come upon my son."
At least the last part of my promise I shall hold to her.
He needs you not, Dark Elf. Lomion needs nothing from you anymore. He has all
his family here now in Gondolin. Here he will find all that he needs, all that
he wants and no more will he need you as a father.
He is not a Sinda. He is a Noldo, my sister-son. I will name him the heir to my
kingdom and I will treat him as my own son. He will grow to be a great, wise
Lord of the Noldor, the same whom you despise so much and who despise you.
Yea, at least in part shall I hold my promise, for I shall take care of the dead
woman's child, your child. But you Dark Elf, you shall not live to see the next
setting of the sun.
Ever so slowly, I let the blade of my sword free from the crevice of your skin
and put it back in my scabbard, with your blood still upon it.
I look directly into your eyes and for the first time since she died, I smile. I
smile to you, to myself, to the blood that drips down your neck. I smile at my
foresight of what shall be.
"Come," I say, my eyes looking dead into yours, with such precision that I am
sure our black centres are aligned, "My son." And with that I turn around and
look to Maeglin, my smile dropping to a look of sombreness as I take him back
outside your cell.
"Come, my son."
This time it is I who hits my mark and as Maeglin walks before me out of the
cell and the door closes behind I cannot help but let the edges of lips turn
upwards with content. Your screams I hear in my ears and my heart beats to the
rhythm of it, revelling in your anger that I have called your son mine and your
knowledge that you will die, not the death of a warrior, but that of a murderer
and that you will be forgotten, to me, to Gondolin, to your own son.
It is not for the love of my sister and for the safety of her son and my
kingdom, that I kill you Dark Elf. It is for the sweetness of revenge.
