Morgoth sat on his throne, watching and waiting for all the right things to fall into place. The Silmarils pulsed steadily on, the rhythm of Arda hypnotizing the million orcs, men, maiar and elves yet to play a part.
Nettles bound the outside of the Quarter's doors. Sauron was away, and let no one enter lest they found liberty only in agony.
Ešl was deep in his drugged sleep when the door to the quarters opened.
Thuringwethil stepped up the steps and the nettles falling flared and snowed around her at the slightest touch, the doors opening with a sigh. With the authority given to her, Thuringwethil let herself drift into the abyss of order.
Thuringwethil said she would look to him, and she would. It was very beautiful here. Here colors and lines found expression without intruding her thoughts. For once, she saw more than shadow. Here her eyes needed to die and she became blind for she's Morgoth's Creature. A single sound, the slight rustling of silk sheet with each inhale and exhale of air led her to follow. The walls stood white and proud, its arrases the colors of sunlight.
Beneath the rosy damask, ensconced within the alcove lay Eol, Sauron's own Silmaril, and all Annatar's wonder. Being blind, she drifted her hand over his features and knew him fair and elven- arms crossed in front of chest, his eyes were shut and his breathing even. A soft scent in the room found dreamless sleep for him.
This was no warrior, she thought, fingertips glancing off cheekbones and the subtle curves of young lips. There was no blemish of blood. She trailed her hand up one bare arm from elbow to the strong, delicate fingers. This was a child yet, his hand callused and scarred from innocent pleasures of smithery.
She had not seen a child for a very long time. Those without cities learnt to fight from birth. Those within cities, their doors were closed. Those who came knew they came to war and met her as proven warriors.
"Eol," She whispered, wondering if his hair was dark or fair, whether his speech Sindar or Eldar. She wished she could see, and Eol was such a similar sound to Ele- the word he had gasped beside Cuivennen when awareness slipped through the first elves' consciousness.
She had been watching and waiting for him, and when he had woken beside another, she had come and kissed him and had led him away from her.
But Sauron did not love Eol even as Thuringwethil could no longer love. The memory ebbs distantly in blood and oathery, a suffering and betrayal of hope. Thuringwethil lay on her side beside Eol and caressed the smooth brow, brushing back a tendril of hair that had fallen across his eyes.
"Poor child," said she. Out of blank eyes sewn forcefully together by Melkor onto the fabric of her being, she looked down at Eol and heard the whisper of Angband. Eol was inconsiderately, disconcertingly beautiful with a beauty more than the line of his nose or the curve of his eyelashes.
And she lowered her lips to his and kissed lingering because he seemed at peace, and she desired peace.
Far away Sauron knew Melkor stirred. The reinforcement arrived, and he must fight still longer.
Eol's eyes fluttered open, and the world was gray before Thuringwethil. She leaned back and spoke, a strange garble of Quenya and Sindarin, but that was all right, for she spoke to herself.
"He remembered you in his thoughts and bid me to see you are well." Only half-awoken, Eol felt cold at the words. He propped himself on his elbows. With a deep reluctance, he looked at Thuringwethil, her elven form beautiful upon the bed. "But our lord also bid the same, and said that his lieutenant must be well.
"Who are you?" He asked, shying away, though his face remained stoic. The woman's eyes widened at the sound of his voice. He waited for an answer.
"Thuringwethil, Messenger of Angband." Thuringwethil said slowly. A deep shock made her arm shook ever so slightly on the soft sheets. Eol have the light of the Silmarils in his eyes when she knew he had them not when he first glanced outside the tower. The world was grey before her for he looked at her.
"What do you want?" Eol continued to ask, he looked at the night sky outside, "How long have I slept?
"Hours, days, months, or years, what does it matter, you are in Angband," She cried aloud, a horror had seized her, "Here time do not pass, it comes, it comes and changes you for His purpose." Her fingers gripped his chin and forced him to look at her, into eyes that echoed the dark mind. Eol strained to get away but found him suddenly pinned on the bed by a terrible force. Claws dug into his shoulders. Thuringwethil unfurled her great wings and blanketed him.
Snowy pale was her skin, and her features as delicate as his own, Eol struggled futilely against her grip. Insistent, stabbing pain began at his shoulder. Lines of blood trailed down his shoulder into the nonchalant pink sheets, barely staining them.
"Do you know what it means, Eol?" She asked in that strange lilting tone similar to Annatar's, "You will delay it all if you remained." She leaned closer, "His redemption could be within you, but I dare not to disobey.
She had scarcely laid the missive in Melkor's hands before he asked to see to Eol. Their forces must be not divided, he had told her, and the sooner evil reach its allotted time and fill in this world, the sooner it shall be purged of it.
"Isn't this," Melkor had said, fathomless eyes insistent, "What you want? For the world to be remade and for all the lovely things to rule the earth?
Thuringwethil had not known that Eol was not merely a curiosity, a desire to be trifled, taken and played. O, the wonder of him assaulted her when Eol opened his eyes. Sauron would be hold in thrall- his loyalty divided, for he too now, understood his power to change by cultivation instead of distortion.
"Whose redemption?" Eol asked, then fearfully, understanding falling around him like ashes, "What is his name?" She had wings, he had seen her before, vanishing into the clouds when he first looked outside.
"His name is Sauron, Gorthaur," Thuringwethil told him, her breath cool and burning against his face, "The one who you give the name Annatar." She laid her head on his chest and heard Eol's scream- anguish- for he had betrayed a thousand faces, a hundred loved ones, their names carefully laid down in ink and in songs in the halls of Menegroth.
Eol glanced and stared at himself in the mirror of his mind and could not bear the thought of his own face.
She carried him away to Melkor. She could not disobey even when she did not understand. This was the nature of faith, and Thuringwethil trusted a resonance of the Music that played faintly and sorrowfully within her.
In the Music of the Arda, tragedy brought beauty. As Thuringwethil carried an unconscious Eol down the corridor towards her lord, she thought him far too beautiful for the dim halls.
--
The Silmarils lights could not be owned because they contained the light of the two Trees. However, the Silmarils were encased upon Morgoth's crown and their lights seamlessly bound to his thoughts. Melkor after all, was of the Ainur who took part in the creation of the world.
Thuringwethil laid Eol down in front of Melkor's dark throne and was dismissed. The war in the front continued, and Sauron would need her. The claws on her wings was colored by Eol's blood, but she left, unable to see his face but hearing Melkor's voice clearly in her head.
Golden pillars rose into the grand arches of the black roof, balrogs stood guard at the entrance in subtle shapes bound by flesh and clothes. Melkor was holding court. Among them, men were seeing darkness's splendor for the first time- for these in attendance were children when they first came with their fathers who could not see in the darkness. Grown, they're held in thrall with the benevolence of fair Lord Melkor. Under the brilliance of Silmarils which seemed more like fire, the jewel-encrusted walls caught their eyes, and their thoughts were caught in his proposal. Melkor was generous with his offers. Armies to defeat your foes, riches from the earth for your kin, he said, all I require is that you honor my name in your houses when you return ennobled to your lands.
This shall be our farewell feast.
A circle gathered around the supine elven form in front of their hosts' chair as the cold Thuringwethil's brought in her wake left them. They knew of elves, they heard their screams of agony growing up, but they were never allowed to see one whole of limb, especially one in a swoon. Wine stopped flowing from the flagons as all paused to look. People stirred from their soft couches and came closer. Entwined flesh broke apart.
Melkor smiled at the looks of curiosity in their faces, such marks of intelligence and philosophy. He liked the Nightfearers. Being mortal, they found meaning in efficiency, and as crude as their means may be, there's a wildness in their souls and cruelty in their ends he found useful.
"Stand." Melkor said to the elf beneath his feet.
Eol groaned. His shoulders pained him, and the polished floors were cold. A large and burning hand hoisted him up by catching both of his wrists. Something behind him scalded, he twisted to get away, only to find his ankles locked on the ground. He glanced down. Claws were holding him.
"Eol," Melkor said, his voice sweet to the ears, full of gravity and assurance, "Look at me.
Bated breaths surrounded him, but the people did not dare to press closer. Eol looked up and met Melkor's eyes.
Melkor's eyes were ugly, but the Silmarils were beautiful and their lights engulfed the dark emptiness. Time slowed as Eol's gaze wondered upwards, from the glimmering ground up the glimmering person, full incandescent against the high, black throne.
"Ah." The sound came involuntarily, but Melkor had not known the extent of Sauron's truancy until then.
The face of Feanor, paler and more delicate than he remembered surrounded the twilight eyes of the elf in front of him. For a moment, he wondered if the Valar saw fit to have released the Spirit of Fire into the world again. O, but there was bitterness and fear, and the hint of darkness just enough.
Just enough so that Eol saw himself in Morgoth. Eol recoiled from the mirrors of the terrible eyes, and met searing heat behind him. Vaguely, he thought his skin must be blackened, or else raw from the scorching. Before him, ugliness of every soul, including his own, dwelled smug within Melkor.
Every muscle corded and knotted, cramped from the mind's imprisonment. He was a wide-eyed statue before the dais as his inside pinched and twisted in the snare.
The privilege of standing in the presence of Morgoth; there were those of the Quendi who would kill for it. The ever-bright Silmarils dwindled into tiny points of light in Eol's fading vision. Far-sighted from the ever hopeful gaze toward the west from above the clouds, Eol's saw the world melted into patches of color as his agony compounded.
Then there was no pain. In one moment of clarity, the air swam and thickened.
"What do you say to me?
"Thank you milord." They answered with voices trained to mortal perfection, modulated to convince and cajole. The circle around him broke apart. "What is your question?
Eol's vision settled, and saw the Second Children of Iluvatar for the first time. The man within arm's distance away from him was pale-skinned and black-eyed, the inherent rough handsomeness in the features chiseled to cruelty by the generous mouth wet with wine. And Eol could not speak because his throat was so raw, his lips wrinkled in thirst. He felt sapped and dry. But the world was set in lurid colors. The line of rubies around his questioner's brow was like small bright fruits, ripe and full, throwing an orange light against the dark hair.
The man came closer, and the gleam in his eyes trailed to Eol's face where focused and worshipped. Hark, these men had never seen an elf in such perfect agony, such perfect, isolated pride. The sweep of muscle across the throat and shoulders, the angles of the face and the set of lips and wild, bright eyes was a tragedy waiting to unfold. His mortality was yet strong enough in him that he wished to weep. He pushed one step closer and laid his hand on the warm flesh separated by a layer of cloth.
The shirt was thin. It tore easily beneath strong hands. Stripped bare, Ešl felt his nakedness keenly and despaired.
If he had not known lust before, he knew it now. He rather he did not, that the wide open eyes and the parted lips showing a sliver of tongue behind the teeth were inspired out of something other than the sight of his uncovered skin. But it would not be true. Not true that they did not wish to touch him, not true that the did not wish to alter him, not true that each and everyone wanted him for his own.
Morgoth had touched the hearts of these men. They desired the natural and unnatural for themselves. The tension in the room was not in waiting, but in warring.
Touches wondered up and down his legs, up his torso to his face, then down again. Innocent, light touches with no hint of threat in them. Yet the faces beyond the one in front of him said something else entirely.
"Ulda!" Someone shouted.
The touches seized. Ulda looked at Eol, guilty and guiltless. He stepped aside. People made space for him as he went to his couch, sat down, and reached for an offered goblet.
"Pity," One of them said, "Such pretty legs." He knelt down in front of Eol, and licked the path Ulda's fingers had just taken.
Revulsion took Eol and bile rose to his mouth. The man's face was flushed and the touches became more insistent. Eol looked at the man so near him and then glared at fair Morgoth- gray-eyed and dark-haired even as an elf.
"Let me go." He said. There was no reply.
"Now, we can't have you escape can we?" The man said again. He had knelt down, and his hands were on Eol's knees with a slight pressure. Out of the corner of his eye, Eol saw Ulda approach again before being ushered away, rather forcefully, Eol thought, to another goblet and conversation. The revelry had broken out again, though the circle around him had not diminished.
"Later, later." Melkor's voice carried well. Eol's wrists and ankles burned, and there were men pawing him without mercy. He must have finally gained enough strength to cry out because suddenly it all stopped, and there was an echo around the room. Only an echo.
"All elves come here to be buried alive," Melkor said. He was losing interest and thought the circle around the elf rather unseemly. Eol proved too much of a distraction. He must speak to Thuringwethil about it later on. "You are overdue.
Eol narrowed his eyes before a blow to stomach winded him. The burning locks around his limbs loosened even as he doubled up in pain and felt ropes bound his ankles tightly together. There was a rush of hot wind around him. The men fell away screaming though unharmed.
"Look at me." Melkor had descended from his throne. He stood a little taller than Eol, and very near. Melkor looked down at Eol and felt his horror and fascination grow. Sauron, what have you done! Eol was of Feanor. Nay, he was suppose to be a counterpart until Sauron thought differently. Melkor trembled slightly at that, chance also had wrought it. Then Eol lashed out. His fist met air, pain shot through his hand. He cradled it with his other and realized it that it had no feeling left in it. "Goodbye, Eol. I advice," Unruffled, Melkor lowered his voice, caressing a side of Eol's face as his mouth whispered by the elf's ear, "That you say goodbye to yourself, again. You're too dangerous like this." Eol shuddered as the hand drifted down his shoulder and arms.
"Then I would remain unchanged." He felt his hair stroked, and the planes of his abdomen mapped by a weightless hand.
"So they all say," Melkor laughed before bringing up Eol's numb hand and kissing it with warm lips, "At first." Once upon a time, he had said the same to Feanor in his forge in Valinor. He laughed to think he now said it to the shadow of him, for that must be all Eol remains being.
The Silmarils were very bright on a black crown. Hauled bodily out of the room afterwards, Eol could not remember what Melkor looked like as the flaming raiments of the balrogs surrounded and blinded him in a whirl of yellow and red capes.
--
An intricate collection of mazes carved the bowel of Angband into streets. Inside the rocky chambers alongside the roads lived creatures gathered and bred in darkness, fearsome and fearless, their origins existing in the darkest tales beside an elvish fire.
Through the heaviness that covered him, Eol heard the trickle of water and remembered a story he heard in the Halls of Thingol.
Once upon a time before we have a king, there lived a child who loved waterfalls. He played along Aros who has many. The veils of water shimmered under the starlight but he was unhappy. Somewhere in the depth of his heart, he believed there was a perfect waterfall that existed for him. He painted such a vision for himself that he became disappointed with every new one he found. Despite stern warnings from his parents and elders, he went and searched for them beyond his people's borders. Then one day he met an old creature of the wood who promised to show him the most beautiful waterfall in Middle-Earth that sang the sweetest melody of waters. The child went with him and did not come back home by nightfall. His families searched. The chief sent out scouts. The child never came back.
He remembered the child in the story did not have a name. Eol's own name was a response to the stars. "Ele" they cried aloud, and thus, Eol. Like the-child-who-loved-waterfalls, it may me nothing in a story..or perhaps..everything, depending on the endÉhere, in the last dream the earth swallowed, he wished he had the gift of foresight. There was nothing worse in an unassuring reality.
Drifting in and out of broken thoughts, he sucked in a cold breath as he hit the hard floor and the shock of pain spread from the center of his back. Eol's eyes were wide open. For a moment, he thought he had merely fallen asleep upon the tower and had woken up to the night sky. The figment melted as a strong odor assaulted him. Though the glittering specks sparkled at him, above him were rock. Gray, rough, slates taunted him as he lay dirty and naked on the floor like some cast-off thing.
"Poor little one," A paw touched the top of his head as he struggled, "I am Devildo.
Devildo.
Ešl curled his tongue around the name and spat it at the creature, sending the syllables scattering across the room, slamming into the walls. Heads turned. Devildo's hairy face remained fixed upon his, the drops of saliva gleaming at the end of several hairs.
"You are famous here.
"Go away," Eol managed to croak, and would've sat up if those whiskers, as thin. as shiny, and as hard as steel wires, had not brushed his cheeks as Devildo's head lowered until the menace in its eyes were revealed. Then, to Eol's surprise, the cat grinned. Rather unpleasantly.
"The rumors are not far off then, though those fools perhaps hated more than it matters, and less respectful than they should for you to be here.
Making neither head nor tail of this, Eol concentrated on ignoring the fell vapors of its breath. He gasped in relief as the large head moved away. Devildo padded around him, chuckling and smiling all the while as he surveyed Eol from crown to toe.
"Very nice indeed," Devildo said, "Though I daresay a little worse for wear. Can't you get up?" He asked, looking down at Eol's legs. "I suppose not, with your ankles bound like this, though siting should be perfectly fine. I really hope they haven't broken your back. It would be a terrible waste, and we had such high hopes for you. Now then, up you go." The last was followed by a sharp nip at his waist. Eol grimaced and sat up and was actually glad he could. Devildo's words had sent a nervous tingling running up and down his spine. His first was to look at his hands. They were of a horrible, stifled pink, but it came from the ropes. It was far less than the raw and bleeding burns he had expected. He looked around. A wake of disgust surged through him. He lurched forward and heaved. Eol felt something wet and warm on his face. He touched it, and brought his hand in front of his eyes. His vision still swam, he could smell it before he saw it, blood from new scratches.
"Satisfied? No nasty slashes, gashes?" Devildo's voice was low and gruff with a note of mockery in the sudden leaps of pitch it would take. It was not a pleasant voice, "Good." Said it, hovering over the pool of vomit by the elf's side, "Get all that food out of your system.
Eol frowned, bile burning his mouth and sweat stinging his eyes. He felt weak. Vertigo took him. He wanted to lie down again, but the squalor repulsed him. A low hiss brought his attention back to Devildo. At a better vantage, Eol saw the complete hideous form. Devildo was a cat, a large, black cat of the kind that ran wild in the forest of Brethil before migrating to the slopes of Ered Wethrin. But the expression on the face, from the red gaping mouth to the yellow luminous eyes made it seem that it was merely something cat-shaped. The cat-shaped thing looked at him in a very un-cat-like manner, the small dark pearls on its diadem suddenly visible in the fluttering light inside the cave. Eol noticed its fur was well groomed and shone like dark velvet.
"If I break the ropes around your ankles, you would be able to stand, or run away. Really, what were they thinking.." Devildo stood beside Eol's ankles, head cocked to one side, a black claw poised above the bindings, Ô'But I am less stupid than they, and would loath to offend
A large female cat walked past, the breasts swollen with milk. Her litter followed her, small black bottlebrush tails held high. Eol turned his head and stared, entranced. At the end was one stripped ginger and white. It was smaller than the others, and mewled piteously as its mother laid down at the end of the room and its brothers and sisters pushed it away.
Eol's ankles suddenly stung. They were untied. The ropes fell across the floor. Devildo retracted his claw.
"Now don't run. I am not answerable for anything that would happen to you outside." Eol stood, slightly unsteadily and took a step backwards. All along the walls were caves, pieces of fabric hanging out of them. Shadows filled their entrances. Along the edges some ways off the ground, stood more Cats, their coats of mail studded with spikes.
Coarse hair brushed against the back of his thighs as Devildo circled him, its triangular head chest high.
"Welcome, Eol, to the Court of the Cat." And it purred. Eol was silent. He stared at the ginger and white kitten whose cries had grown louder.
"Why am I here?
"Wouldn't we all like to know? But you are here, because I am curious. A better question would be, where would you be going?" Devildo paused, and followed Eol's gaze, "Keep him then, you should have need of it where you will be going." He gestured to another. A strange wind passed Eol and an enormously long and thin shape picked up the kitten by the scruff of its neck and laid it down by Eol's feet. A moment later, there was a saucer of milk. The kitten lapped at it hungrily.
"I daresay they won't be pleased, but the orcs in the mines have dealt so much with elvish wiles and elvish artifice that they would not know what to do." Devildo glanced down at the small fur ball and wondered that something so useless would suddenly carry so much in the glance of a moment. When the kitten was finished it looked up at him with half-open eyes and cried. Eol bent down and picked it up in his arms. The kitten struggled for a moment before falling asleep. Devildo peered into Eol's arms and licked the kitten's head.
"In Angband," Devildo whispered, like all pranksters, unable to suppress the desire to tell, "We have served Sauron longer." Without glancing back, hewalked to the couch at the end of the room and leapt gracefully onto it. There was a shuffle of metal and claws. Along the walls, the cats reformed their files. The balrog entered, strangely like the light of a small candle in the airy cavern.
Devildo yawned.
"Take him to the mines, and let him see neither day or night!
--
"He's mine.
"He is.
"Give him back.
"He is back.
"You don't care for him.
"I don't," Melkor replied, earnestness in his voice, "I care for you.
"So you keep him to keep me in good faith?
"Never that, Sauron, you gave me your word," Melkor smiled, "But he belong to the mines. All good smiths do, you made sure of that. He also belongs to Mandos, or whatever ill spirit that comes to take him, you wove your magic well.
Sauron blanched beneath the film of dirt and gore. He looked down at his hands, and stared.
"The name you give him. Annatar." Melkor continued, and laughed, "I hope he thanked you.
Sauron continued to stare at his hand. His armor's travel and bloodstained. The Hunter, the Beast, Thu who gathered the ghouls, the misbegotten, and the strayed and fallen. But he served Melkor, and Melkor's hands were scarred evilly, as was his. So why was he ashamed?
"My purpose is not wanton." Sauron looked up, and for the first time, fear and hate gained the same space in him, "And so nothing passes unless I give leave for what pleases and what is acceptable to me.
The Silmarils were bright in Sauron's thoughts that night. Eol's absence stirred something invading and vengeful in him. The dulled wisdom of his being caught a glimpse of the extent Melkor's lies and now forced the nightmare of his choice to turn in his mind. As Melkor spoke, Sauron saw that had traded his life for a mere breath it. Despite all the deep litany of sacrifice and courage. At the end it was not freedom. It would be the void whether they won or lost at the end for Melkor carried part of the Void with him. The darkness lived, and he had been too enamored of his own phantoms to see it surrounding him and he drank and ate it not knowing that he ate and drank and ate only of it; he was the vilest worshipper of what he despised. Sauron looked down again at his blackened hand and realized that he would no longer be able to wander in fair memory when he carried the knowledge with him. Lost amidst the labyrinth of his own desires the art of his being had came to a stop.
"Do you believe me?" Asked Melkor, "Did you believe me?
"I did," Answered Sauron, "And I do." Ah, for choice is no choice at all, and I shall be consumed by either one or the other. "For all things are but for a moment before it fades." Yet he had never been one for despair. I can have but what I can have.
"Save me," Melkor cried, "I am eternal. I am time. See how the Valar and the elves move against me in haste. Haste exists because I am here. I give purpose to their time. I am the reason why higher beauty, higher art, higher fate exist. Go against a beast and you are but fain to oblige your body. Go against creature of the dark at the cost of a limb or a life you but fulfill a duty. Go against Melkor you have woven your doom, transcending all things of flesh and heart until you could no longer meet Iluvatar's eyes, he who would look upon all things would not be able to look at me and all that would come to my end.
Sauron held his peace seething as it was, because what he wanted he had wanted since Ea. He had perpetrated all Melkor wishes. If Melkor's end was true, Sauron still saw little purpose, little accomplishment in the thousand of years he had followed this apparently grand and great way. But Melkor's eyes were on him, the glance fabulous and impenetrable in the fever of the words. Sauron's own eyes were cold pitiless. Despair was near him.
"You betrayed me Sauron," Melkor's voice gentled, though the feverish gaze did not abate, "To desire to keep something beyond my grasp. We have not all the strengths of the Valar of Valinor, we cannot afford to divide ourselves, to say, this is mine, and mine only. Your kindness, your gift to Eol, was cruelty to all. You, of all on this land, should know what once was can never be again. It's the dead past. It's in the constancy of change in this world we see the future, and thus, hope.
Those were his own words to himself. Sauron burned and shivered with shame and anger. He raised his hand slowly and took his gauntlet off until the Silmaril blackened hand, bloodless and clean, blocked the sight of Melkor from his view.
"Perhaps I am not worthy," Sauron said, lowering his hand slowly, "Of your vestment upon me. But we cannot talk of dishonor here." He paused. "Nor of greed.
Then Melkor stepped down from his seat, walked, and stood very close to him. Why must you whisper, Sauron thought, as the first breath whispered passed upon his skin. "I touched him, and he was beautiful," Melkor said. The images spilled upon him like acid, curdling Sauron heart, "I kissed him, and tasted what you sought. I took him, and caught the glimpse of the fire of the Quendi him, and even of the passions in you.
The soft words were like small keys. They unlocked the puzzle that bound him. Sauron saw the machinations of Melkor uncovered, shining and smooth like a new statue. The matter was not Eol, but himself. The apprentice of Aule, the fire-sprite in him saw their work shattering and wept. The regent of Melkor on Middle-earth kneeled before his lord. As his knee touched the cold ground, the flashing anger that had mounted dissipated as a quick breath. Powerless, he would still garner what he had left.
"But in me you shall have forgiveness, Sauron, my lieutenant," Said Melkor, all cold eyes and winsome smile, "For you are made perfect in my eyes by the grace my being.
Yet in Sauron, though he may be washed in the graces of Melkor, lurked something so inexplicably complex that even Melkor's whispered words, so alike one's own thoughts, could not solve. Iluvatar did not look from without. He looked from within to see without so no one could be entirely blind, or entirely devoid of choice.
Trailing Sauron's form through the barren grounds of Angband, Melkor upon his high seat felt his weakness and nursed his rage.
--