18. Behind the Blood
The Oath.
After that memorable day at Nerdanel's house, I kept pondering on this matter more often than I have ever had since the aftermath of the War of Wrath. Was I still bound by it? Were my father and brothers, even disembodied and kept inside the halls of Mandos as they were? If yes, would it compel me – or anyone else – to act upon it should any of us (one Macalaurë Kanafinwë most likely, I corrected myself) be somehow thrust into the company of Ëarendil and Elwing, the final, to my knowledge, bearers of the last surviving Silmaril?
True, I have not been feeling the effects of the Oath ever since I discarded the stone that had come – for the infinitely brief minutes – into my possession. Analysing that frenzied, fiery time later with as much cold rationality as I could muster, I came to the conclusion that at the moment something must have happened that removed the cursed gem from the circles of the world, for how difficult it would have been to find the brightly shining artefact in a sea that was not so deep at the shore? No, it must have sunk through the ocean's bottom, well into the flesh and molten marrow of Arda, never to be traced or recovered by anyone – just like its twin claimed by Maitimo before he... (I stemmed this line of thought right there and then). Did all of that mean that with the jewels being, in actuality, removed from the circles of the world the subject of the pledge was indeed made null, thus voiding the sworn declaration itself? But the third Silmaril still existed, making this notion academic, and in theory, I was closer to it than I have been in millenia – yet it did not call to me. And in the days past, it would have. Oh it would.
Back when the Oath was in full effect, I have grown eerily accustomed to this sensation – while loathing it with every fibre of my being. For a time, it was all but dormant, an abstract notion since it appeared that just doing the most natural thing – working against Angband's power as best we could – was technically equal to attempting to fulfil it. But that was only until Beren and Lúthien pried one of the Silmarils from Morgoth's hands, and oh, did the Oath's mystic power come back with a vengeance! Still, we tried to resist it – for instance, when Maitimo was forging the ill-fated union bearing his name (that culminated in us being so solidly thrashed in Nírnaeth Arnoediad anyway). But it manifested, time and again, as a burning desire, akin to a perverse facsimile of love, that ended up clouding our conscious will and driving us onward to greater and greater folly – and atrocity – and that urge to recover the jewel did not really depend on my wherewithal, or lack thereof, to make it a reality. All until the absolute end – and the absolute nadir of lunacy – when me and Maitimo wound up, in the same blood-red haze pervading our souls, attempting to wrest the gems from the victorious host of the Valar (crazy much, Macalaurë?)
And then... it was all gone. While I did, indeed, "wander along the shores of the world singing laments over the loss of the Silmaril" as the chroniclers (and later Tolkien himself) would write, it was not for the same imposed desire that I had suffered during the First Age. In fact, I loathed my father's creations with a passion, but they had become, for a time after the War of Wrath, the epitome of all the loss – and the wrongdoing – suffered in that war. Yet that feeling was very different to what I was experiencing while actively bound by the Oath.
Could I have been, in truth, released from it – maybe by the fact that I have jettisoned the Silmaril I had out of my own volition, maybe by something else (I knew I should not be ascribing everything happening around this story to the will of Valar, much less of Ilúvatar himself, but I couldn't help wondering cursorily if that was the case)? Would possessing, then discarding one of the jewels count as doing the same to all three, for they were all parts of the same whole, the cohesive subject of the thrice-damned pledge? I honestly could not remember the exact effect of the phrasing, even though the words themselves were recorded, and easily found in the chronicles ("Whoso hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh, finding keepeth or afar casteth a Silmaril...") To think that all of my fate would be hinged upon the way Eru might – or might not – have interpreted the words born from my father's scorned mind and fevered imagination!.. And pray tell, why did I not ask anyone during my trial? The ruminations made me restless to the point that even my wife noticed it, then so did Elrond. The former honestly conceded to being incapable of giving me any concrete answer (instead using other methods to distract me from useless musings) while the latter advised me to seek the answer from the Ainur whenever next I would cross paths with them – but he implored me to avoid doing anything rash, like venturing to Máhanaxar, kicking down the door and demanding answers like, here and now.
Wish I had Eönwë on speed dial, I thought morosely.
But other than this subject to sour my mood, everything was going so well that I was beginning to suspect there had to be a catch somewhere. With how I re-established contact with Nerdanel, the last major issue I was seeing has been eliminated. The remaining extended family and old acquaintances were being contacted by mail and through the mutually known people – slowly but steadily. With Lindir's aid, songs were being arranged, and Tyelpë even visited New Imladris with his family, staying for a while to practice with us – as the official drummer of our little band, no less. The band that had, by then, come together, even though it was still nameless – the most obvious moniker of "Electric Elves" had already been used, I told my mates, by an early collective which included the late famous singer Ronnie James Dio (whom I happened to know once in the days of yore, and who had come perilously close to realising something about me that I wanted to conceal). That did not deter my fellows, but this issue was not the most pressing, so we decided to let it stew for the time being. After all, we were not going to be pressured by a management entity that could, if push came to shove, decide that our name was not marketable enough!
What exactly we would be doing with the songs – and the newly found musical cohesion – was a million dollar question. Back on Earth, it would be relatively straightforward (at least in theory) – gather a lineup, write some songs, rehearse, book some local shows, advertise, rehearse some more, find a manager, rehearse harder, play bigger venues, get a record deal… did I mention rehearsing? But how would I even go about doing this in Aman? I knew there were theatres and outdoor performing spaces, but would I just try approaching one and asking if they were interested in hosting a show... by a band of weirdos playing Mannish instruments, with the world famous Kinslayer at the helm, to boot? Speaking of which; I was still hesitant about my actual status. The probation (with the mower's duties in the wastewater treatment facility, come to think of it) was over, but no one has summoned me to give me an update on my circumstances, and I still absolutely got knees of Jell-O when thinking of going to the Valar to inquire (though Elrond apparently thought I was crazy enough to try just that).
I had already told my wife about my idea of playing a concert, so when the issue was raised again, she just smiled mysteriously and shook her head. I immediately became sure that she had some practical ideas, but I decided to wait for some kind of explanation. Let her thoughts bear fruit – she would probably ask me if she needed something from me. So I returned to the matters I was best suited for; creating music.
Songs, songs, songs... there was a seemingly endless trove of riffs, melodic snippets, drafts for guitar solos, and – last but not least – lyrics. Some of these were the ideas that have been slowly coalescing in my mind for years (and more), some were freshly devised during my homecoming and the first months of new life. Most of the words – and I wrote in classical Quenya again – were dealing with my tribulations back on Middle-Earth, or the return to the Blessed Land, but some were concerning entirely Mannish subjects – and a few of these required some quite unorthodox techniques to convey the ideas expressed in the lyrics. The prospective audience would be in for quite a surprise, I thought... But for that to happen, there had to be ways of finding said audience, apart from my nearest and dearest. I had thought of playing a more subdued version of the concert for just the denizens of New Imladris, but then decided that I had to go all in if I had a ghost of a chance to do so. In other words, screw playing basement clubs; we had to take the Hammersmith Odeon by storm!
Again, I could not explain why this idea has taken such a deep root in my mind. No one told me explicitly to go for this method of proving myself to my brethren; I could've chosen another – like disseminating Earth's notion of technical innovation from the get go, especially since I was, by then, in league with Telperinquar who could have brought his lifelong artisanal expertise to bear, translating the ideas from another world into the form available to Aman. Yet, while that was never that far from my mind either, somehow I was sure that music came first. The thought of playing my guitar – and singing – to the willing audience of the Eldar was thrilling like few other things.
I've heard – and learned from – pretty much every school of guitar playing found on Earth. After all, unlike a mortal musician, I had all the time I would need to hone my skill to (near) perfection, and would be able to do so without fearing the eventual onset of arthritis and other age-related frailties that would have impaired my skill and voided the experience in the practical sense. My inclinations, however, were laying more in the direction pioneered by Tony Iommi rather than Yngwie Malmsteen; I could shred passably well, but I never found allure in that – I much preferred the measured, distinctive riff, then a naturally flowing melody laid on top, with all the parts always joined in a logical and natural way (that was something many bands struggled with, even after years and decades in the field). Always having the understanding – and a critical one at that – of whatever I was doing was my unspoken principle.
Besides, I had one more thing in common with Tony Iommi; that was, the injured hand that had, in both my case and his, a profound impact on the playing. In my instance, I was speaking of nothing else than the burn scar left by handling the Silmaril. Stupid me, I was chuckling ruefully time and again when the lesion was reminding me of its existence – I should have donned gloves when going on a thieving rampage! That was, of course, a joke – a morbid and entirely NOT funny, I knew – for even the mittens of finest asbestos would not have saved me from the otherworldly flame additionally fueled by my culpability. In time, my scorched flesh has healed enough for me to take up playing string instruments once more, but it always seemed to be just a few exertions away from rupturing again. It was like some magic was lingering about it, for the accursed mark seemed to defy the laws of nature – never staunching completely to my eye, as if remaining there to remind me of my transgressions. Trying not to overstress it was one of the reasons I never became a big concert player, as that would have required a constant, daily effort that might have had a dreaded effect on the scar... And I was subconsciously fearing whatever that might have brought.
Besides, of course, I would have never dared to bring the spotlight on myself in the ways the big rock stars do. Revealing my true nature – any more than I already had to the certain Ronald T. – was definitely not in the cards, and that would have been nigh inevitable if I had started an honest band and tried my luck in the field that spawned the likes of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and, yes, Black Sabbath. (Thinking of the latter gave me one more idea to explore – that is, playing concerts showcasing one of Earth's bands at a time... an interesting proposition, but really the one for another time, I corrected myself, even as I postulated that I absolutely had to start with Sabbath once I got to that). I knew I could have made it big, being who I was – not only a guitarist but also a singer of quite some capability (false modesty aside...), thus filling two essential positions and being – theoretically – in a pretty much invincible position if the usual standards of rock music were to be applied.
But rather than that, I had to work behind the scenes more or less, falling instead into the roles of a session player, a contractual writer, a sound engineer. While it helped me with keeping my true identity hidden – and my hide more or less safe – it really left me unfulfilled in a sense... And I really wanted to rectify that, it appeared, albeit in a peculiar way. But my wife's proposition has really touched that string deep inside me, it turned out, and it wouldn't stop resonating within.
No matter how much I was telling myself not to jump the gun, before long I started thinking of that, as yet, hypothetical concert and even assess the technical capabilities. I only had a very modest amplification capability on hand (and getting more was, of course, out of question) – nothing like a wall of Marshalls that you see at the usual metal gigs, but more akin to what the street musicians of latter day Earth were using. Battery powered amps for the guitar and bass, a few wireless microphones, a mixer rack and just two big monitors – big only compared to a computer speaker, of course, not to a piece of proper live-venue gear. That, however, was a mixed blessing/curse: I would not start out by making my kinfolk go deaf from volume, and something was telling me that just showcasing the instruments and the unheard-of type of music would be enough to surprise and confound – though hopefully not alienate – them.
I even began compiling a setlist mentally, though it quickly went rather far out of hand as there were dozens of tunes I would have liked to play, both my own and the select Mannish cuts that I felt could be of interest to the audience. In the end, I decided to condense much of the Edain's heritage to a medley of riffs and motives to reduce the running time – as my earlier idea of doing the proper homage concerts later was gaining more and more purchase in my mind – and leave just a couple of songs to be played in their entirety as there was an idea in my mind that I wanted to explore. One song that I absolutely wanted to do live, a deep cut from Black Sabbath as luck would have it, was to be translated from English into Quenya – a simple enough undertaking since the lyrics for that one were quite literal and the poetic metre mostly uncomplicated. Another, however, would be performed in its original language... to test that theory of my ability to convey the meaning of a musical work across the language barrier, of course. If that failed with a large audience, I could shrug it off as a one-off experiment and explore some different kind of notion.
But in a sense, I wanted it to be true.
Days have been passing amid the frenetic rotation of roles and duties. Do my work, talk, study, rehearse, spend time out with my wife. Rearrange, repeat. Weeks melted into months, until one day my darling broke the news I've been anticipating – and dreading, there's no getting away from it.
"Sixteen days from now, you will be performing at the grand theatre in Tirion".
Note: the chapter name is from a song by Katatonia (from the City Burials album, 2020)
Author's remarks:
Alright… so I decided not to wait for the 23rd this time. Better spur myself on to write some more rather than languish then post a chapter long done and get off the hook easily until the next month. I'm often feeling like Achilles from Zeno's paradoxes: the closer I get to the finale, the slower the progression as the chapters balloon and new content appears where it was never intended to hold me back from getting to that elusive ending. :D
Now on to the new reviews.
Mark the Scientist, thank you for the kind words, I will try not to disappoint. As to whatever could happen next, I think it's all come pretty far along towards the big concert Mags and his band will be performing, and that's what the next (and final) chapters will be dedicated to. Yes, it does not fit in one chapter (most of it is already written, as well as the finale, but of course I have to keep it under wraps for the time being). Just one more chapter and it's all gonna roll towards the conclusion.
As you can see, I'm studiously hanging all the requisite guns upon the walls, to be fired later. :-)
Ken Ford, thank you. Regarding these words, well, I find that I'm subconsciously imbuing most of my characters in all the stories with some of my own traits, to some degree (even if that said character is *ahem* a demonic cosplay harlot). When shaping my version of Nerdanel, I guessed she would have that strong critical (and even self-deprecating) streak running in her, especially since she's a breakout character – a renowned female artisan that has earned her place in the very much male-dominated world Tolkien had envisioned. Of course the fandom has softened that quite a bit – but the notion is still there. Also I would not attempt a bona fide 1st Age (or Y.T., or 2nd Age for that matter...) work, but a light-hearted – mostly – crossover like this or the "Rail to Mordor", that's my playing field all right. :-)
I was also called out (so to say) for not using the authentic enough language, but I honestly suck at Quenya or Sindarin, so unlike many writers in the scene, I would not dare invent my own terms and names. Not without some external help that, so far, isn't there.
