Land of the King

Chapter 25: The Old, The Forgotten, and The Conqueror

It was times like these which really made Beleg feel like a fool. Three hundred and fifty years he had worked in this office and he had never noticed that the desk drawer had had a false bottom. Three and a half centuries and he had never found his father's final words to him… until now.

To my beloved son,

I write this the day before I depart to war against Gawen and the Reach. Should I not return, then this will be my confession, my final testament.

Six years ago, when my youngest brother Ostoher put into place his plans to kill our father, I was made aware of his plans by spies loyal to me. Yet knowing what I did, I stood back and let it happen. And that was my greatest sin. I did nothing.

I loved my father, I truly did. Yet as the years passed, we drifted apart. After your Uncle Cirion was born, the distance between us grew even further.

I realised then that the love my father had shown to me was nothing compared to the love he showed my younger brother. Ostoher as well resented this. My father showered all his love and affection upon one son, and there was no place in his heart for the others.

I hated it all. Hated that Cirion had my father's love, the love he had so rarely shown me. Hated that my father treated Cirion better than me, entrusted his dreams and ambitions to Cirion and not me.

And so I abandoned Annúminas. I spent every single moment I could in Fornost because I could not bear to stay here, where my father raised the boy he truly wished to be his heir.

I ignored Cirion, acted as cold to him as I could to hide the pain I felt at seeing my father favour him more than me, his firstborn. And inadvertently I laid the seeds for everything that was to come.

I came to the realization that I needed to do something the day I overheard whispers in court of my father favouring Cirion more than me. Yet at the time I had still known not. Cirion and I were no Tarondor and Amroth and I knew that we would never be.

I had seen it in his eyes, the greed and the ambition, the lust for the throne that Amroth had possessed not a shred of.

And my own father had done nothing to stop it. I do not think he ever knew, but after one argument that I had had with him, he had muttered to himself that Cirion would have been the better heir.

In that moment, the last pieces of my world broke down. I knew what I had to do, what had to be done if Arnor was to be preserved.

For years I gathered a network of spies and informants that would have eventually allowed me to kill my own father. And yet for the longest time, the strength to give the order never came to me.

As fate would have it, I would never need to. Ostoher carried out his own plot, I stood by idly and let him do it and the rest is history.

What great sons my brothers and I are. A schemer, a traitor, and a murderer.

The day Cirion and Ostoher were sentenced, a part of me rejoiced and gloated at my final, absolute victory, and another cried for the broken pieces of my family.

As the years passed, and I ruled over the kingdom, I could not help but feel a sense of emptiness and melancholy. My brothers, my father, all of them were lost to me, and I realised only then that I had truly loved them, and by my own actions, I had lost them all.

Forgive me, Beleg. For if you are indeed reading this letter, then it means that I have left you alone to rule the kingdom at such a young age. And not only that, I have forever destroyed the rose-tinted image you had of me.

This is simply the last words of a father to his son, a confession of his greatest crime. All fathers want their children to think well of them, but unlike my own father, I decided that you needed to know everything about me, the bad with the good.

I am so sorry. I love you, and always have. Be a better man than me, be a better king. That is all I can ask of you.

Your father

Beleg looked out the window over the city of the west, his father's final words and confession in his hands.

He had never known. Never known that his father had done any of this and he knew now that it had been because he had wanted to spare him the agony of the truth.

Knowing his crimes did not change the love Beleg felt for his father because no matter his sins, he had still been his father, and he had raised him well, raised him to be better than him.

And yet, Beleg felt shame as well. For centuries his Uncle Cirion had toiled at the Wall, believing himself a traitor to his people to the day he died and yet of all his brothers, only he had been truly worthy to rule.

His father may have claimed that it had been to protect Arnor, yet Beleg knew that deep down, his father had been trying to protect his inheritance more than the kingdom.

A confession like this could destroy the reputation of the royal family, even centuries after the events mentioned had passed. And so, Beleg placed the letter above a candle, watched as the flames consumed the last evidence of his father's sins and let the wind carry the ashes away.

I am so very tired of ruling this kingdom.


"I have ruled long enough."

Those were the words of his father, Beleg, High King of Arnor as he abdicated his position unexpectedly at the latest meeting of the Council of the Sceptre. To Mallor it had come as a complete shock, especially knowing that his father had wanted to conquer Highgarden before abdicating.

For all his life, Mallor had been in the shadow of his father. The youngest king in Arnor's history had cast a long shadow over his son and heir as he had gone about restoring and strengthening Arnor. Every deed, every accomplishment, every victory raising the expectations for him the son, to either match or surpass.

Yet for all that he had tried, Mallor had never been able to match the deeds of his father. He was competent enough in everything that he did, yet when he compared himself to his father and the rest of the kings before him, he fell short.

A lesser son of greater sires

That was what the courtiers and lords called him. They thought that he was lesser than his father.

Once Mallor could have accepted being lesser to his father, yet when his own son had begun showing that he too possessed the same spark of greatness, Mallor had realised that no matter what he did, he would never be remembered as anything more than a footnote in the annals of history.

A mediocre king, overshadowed by his father before him and surpassed so easily by his son after. Who would remember him?

It hardly helped that he was but half a century younger than his father. Mallor did not look old, yet he felt old and weary already. In the long lives of the Dúnedain, they will remember not seven decades of rule by a lesser king.

The throne was his right, yet Mallor himself was not the right person to take the throne.

He looked around the room, to all the ministers and counsellors planning the coronation, to his aged and weary father looking so very pleased to be free of the burden of kingship, and lastly to his son, so young and so full of life and energy.

Be I king for a day or king for seventy years, remembered I will never be.

There was no point in holding back his son from becoming the greatness Mallor knew that he was born to achieve. He had accepted his fate long ago.

His father would forever be remembered as the longest reigning king in Arnor's history. Remembered as the king who had restored the nation after a terrible civil war and lead it to greater heights.

His son would be remembered as well, for deeds that Mallor could hardly imagine. Greatness awaited him and his future was bright.

But for himself, only obscurity awaited. He would be forgotten.

"Forgive me for interrupting your plans esteemed councillors, but I must inform you that the man you shall crown will not be myself, but my son."

The silence was deafening. His father and son stared at him in shock, but Mallor could only smile.

"I have known for a very long time that my son would make a finer king than I. It is only right for both the kingdom and him, to pass him the Sceptre early."

The Lord Steward, Valandil spoke next, "Are you sure Your Majesty? This decision cannot be changed."

"I am sure. Good day my lords," he said as he departed from his seat and left the room.

As he walked through the halls that the Founder Elendil had built, Mallor felt a sense of freedom. For the first time in his life, he was free from the expectations, free from the responsibilities. He could surrender them all knowing that they would fall upon one easily capable of fulfilling them.

And yet despite the exhilarating feeling of freedom, there was sadness as well. As he looked around, he realised that his feet had guided him to his father's office.

Mallor opened the door and entered. A rush of memories came to him then. How many times had he stood in this office, speaking with his father? How many times had he looked upon it with a sense of expectation, knowing that one day it would be his? And yet with a few words he had given it away.

As he stood admiring the office, he heard footsteps behind him and turned to see his son.

"Father, you cannot truly be abdicating, can you? You have been waiting your whole life for a chance to prove your worth to the kingdom!"

Mallor smirked bitterly, "I have come to realise of late that that was always an impossible goal."

He gestured to the office around them, "This is yours now, Celepharn, along with all the responsibilities and expectations I could never fulfil. You will always be more capable than me, it would be detrimental to hinder the kingdom by standing in your way."

"I will happily enjoy my lack of responsibility while you squander the rest of your days buried in paper work and tedious council meetings," he said as he walked out the door.

Forgotten though he may be, Mallor was content to never be the king and only the father of Celepharn. It was better this way, and in time his son would understand.


He did not understand. He could not. Who would surrender the Sceptre so easily? What kind of person could do that?

Celepharn had long dreamed of the things he would do as king, of how he would emulate his grandfather and lead Arnor to greater heights.

To his shame now however, he realised that he too had never thought that his father would do great things as King. Perhaps that was why he had stepped aside, having realised that himself.

Celepharn looked around the office that now belonged to him. He sat in his grandfather's, no, his chair and looked upon the papers and documents on the desk.

This was all his now, the royal seal, the Sceptre, the Crown, the office, everything was his.

It was a great gift his father had granted him, for now seventy years earlier than he thought he would, Celepharn now found himself in the position to enact his plans.

As he looked at the map of Westeros that his grandfather had hung across from the desk, Celepharn found the city of Oldtown, nestled in the Whispering Sound, and smirked.

Soon.