A quick note to the readers of Fire: Due to the busy year I have ahead, I'm going to begin posting chapters in "blocks" of two or even three at a time. They will continue to be posted on Friday evenings, but come prepared for larger doses! My author's notes will be at the end of each block, at the bottom of the last chapter, except in the case of this initial chunk, where it will be found in Chapter 23. Sorry if this change confuses or annoys.
Chapter Twenty-four: Melkor
In the year that he came of age, Curufinwë came to Nerdanel and me with a silent, dark-haired maiden named Aranel, and asked for our permission to wed. Aranel was a kind, if shy, girl, and easy to like once she became acquainted with us. She had a particular soft spot for the twins, and always asked she could look after them when she came to visit. Ambarussa adored her, and they would follow in her footsteps like a pair of shadows as if she were Nerdanel herself.
In what was our first direct, lengthy conversation since Ambarussa's birth, Nerdanel and I sought counsel from each other, then granted our fifth son our consent for him to wed, and began planning the wedding.
Curufinwë had always been of all my children the one most like me, and who had spent the most time with me in the forge, so I was eager to repay him by helping in whatever way I could. Even Nerdanel was surprised by my sudden vigor. We wrote and sent all the invitations in record time, and were planning to hold the ceremony at the foot of the Mindon Eldaliéva within the month.
It was not until the night before the wedding, when I was exhausted from riding about making final plans and ready for a good night's sleep, that I remembered the customary gift I was supposed to make for Aranel.
Exasperated and half-asleep, I blindly made my way to the forge in the dark, and hastily stoked the fires, trying to think of what I could make in this situation. I had not even had a chance to go to the market and buy fresh bars of metal or jewels.
"How am I supposed to know what would make a maid happy?" I snarled aloud to myself, yanking my blacksmith's apron on with one hand and reaching for my hammer with the other, even while my eyes darted briefly but piercingly over the variety of metals and tools that lay at hand, assessing each in a trice.
"Aranel likes birds; swans, especially," came a voice from the door.
I reeled about in surprise, temporarily blinded from the fires. As my sight recovered, I saw it was Curufinwë, looking just as tired as I was, stifling a yawn as he walked into the forge.
"I could not sleep either," he said, "I can help."
"But--the custom--" I protested.
"You need the help, Father," Curufinwë told me sincerely but firmly as he bent his head toward me confidentially, "You may be the greatest craftsman in Arda, oh great Spirit of Fire, but even the greatest cannot do everything on their own."
It sounded like something I should have been telling him. I was about to remark on his impudence, but Curufinwë already was tying my spare apron about his waist and picking through the carefully sorted stacks of copper, silver, iron, and gold, scrutinizing each with a hard eye.
Swiftly, I turned my grimace of annoyance into a smile--for what was there that I could I say? The boy had my relentlessly stubborn resolve.
"Here," Curufinwë exclaimed at last, smiling as he held up a small piece of silver and two of my best blue gems, which I had made by combining sapphires and diamonds, "We can shape the silver into a pin in the shape of a swan and inlay it with these jewels for the eyes."
"My gemstones," I griped in protest, "Those were for--"
"I know, I know--'important work,'" Curufinwë finished the oft-said sentence easily, and shook his head somberly, "This is important, Father. They probably would have ended up in some half-finished girdle or diadem--you know it is true. Come on, do not look at me like that--we had better get started."
Curufinwë started out the work, softening and then shaping the silver into the rudimentary form of the noble white bird as I worked the bellows. I offered what advice I could, but it was difficult to criticize his brisk artistry. He made few mistakes and never complained.
He let me take over to etch the fine details--the feathers, the delicate curve of the swan's neck, and the elegant tapering of the silver beak. I pierced the head twice with a hollow point punch to make eyes, and then placed the gemstones within the minute sockets as the metal cooled and hardened.
"She will love it," Curufinwë breathed happily, holding the now-cool piece in his hand, "It looks alive, ready to take flight. And it will look lovely on her." He looked up at me, eyes aglow with gratitude. "Thank you, Father."
I smiled and ruffled his dark hair, remembering the diamond brooch I had been given at my wedding.
"It was no trouble--with your help, my Atarinkë."
The wedding was a wonderfully joyous event, and I felt a special sensation of pride and love as I gave Aranel her pin. Her eyes lit at once when she saw it, and her face flushed happily.
"Fëanáro, it is beautiful," she gasped, voice soft as ever but holding a subtle tone of grateful delight, "How did you know I loved swans?"
I gave my son a quick glance, then smiled and replied, "It was only a guess."
"Thank you so much," Aranel murmured as she fastened the pin upon her gown, running a hand over the small silver swan possessively and lovingly before looking up to her new husband with an equally loving gaze.
The merriment lasted long into the night after the ceremony, and Ambarussa especially got caught up in the feel of the celebrations. It was only after much effort on Nerdanel's part that she managed to stop them from gathering petals from all the flowers in the garden, climbing one of the trees over the garth, and raining the petals upon Curufinwë and Aranel at every chance they got, as they had seen others do earlier. Maitimo, Tyelkormo, and a reluctant Carnistir mingled intermittently with the children of Nolofinwë, especially his three sons, for they were roughly the same ages and enjoyed much of the same things. I let them do so with a light heart, for I was too happy for Curufinwë, the most beloved of my sons, to feel much spite.
The next year Aranel conceived, and gave birth to my first grandchild--a son named Tyelpinquar, who was just as dark of eye and hair as his father, and looked to be like him in mood as well. Nerdanel and I were proud of our grandson and came to visit him often, glad to have a child who was not directly ours, yet one we could cosset and fuss over to our heart's content.
Yet that was the only grandchild we had so far--Makalaurë and Márlindë had remained childless throughout their marriage. Makalaurë came to Nerdanel and me often after Tyelpinquar's birth, to speak in sad tones of how jealous he was of his little brother's child. Makalaurë and his wife had been trying to conceive a child of their own, but had had no such success.
"It is our fault," he said over and over, "There is something wrong. The Valar punish us, but I do not know what our insult to them could be."
"Makalaurë, do not say such things. Surely you shall have a child of your own in time," I consoled.
"That is what Márlindë keeps saying. But--I do not know what to think."
"For the time being, comfort yourselves in that you have each other," Nerdanel said soothingly, stroking Makalaurë's dark hair as she had when he was young, "Fëanáro is right--you will have a child when the time comes."
Eventually, Makalaurë's visits lessened, and Nerdanel and I assumed he had decided to take our advice, but I for one still pitied and worried for my second son. Even though I did not yet fully approve of Makalaurë's being a bard, I still loved him as a son, and felt that I shared his grief.
The years passed, and my two hundredth birthday came and went before I truly knew it had, and by the time I acknowledged my age, many more years had passed.
It was in the unusually bitter wintertime of some year not long after that I first met Melkor.
Maitimo came to me in my forge with the news. "Father," he said, quietly, for I was hard at work on some new goblets for Nerdanel, "There is a man in the dooryard who wishes to see you."
"What is his name?" I asked, putting the finishing touches on my third goblet and turning to my son. Maitimo shrugged, confused.
"He would not tell me."
For the first time in a long while, I felt a stir of suspicion in my heart. "Very well," I sighed, taking a last deep breath of the harsh, musky scent of smoke and removing my apron. I sorely wished I had the time to make myself look a bit more presentable, but there was no time to change out of my work clothes. Swabbing what soot I could off my face with a cloth, I followed Maitimo out of the smithy and to the dooryard, where he gestured briefly to the visitor who stood there, then entered the house.
The man was taller than even my father, and slender, girt in a plain tunic of so dark a blue that it was only a hand's reach from black. He had an aura of subdued power about him, which made me almost take him for a Vala in corporeal form. But then I noticed how, where a Vala's power would have been free of all trammels, all but glowing about his form, his might seemed restrained, confined, and I knew he could not be one of the Powers, though he certainly had the height and fairness.
His face was strong-jawed and proudly handsome, though pale as starlight, framed in sharp contrast by hair that was darker than clotted steel. But it was his eyes that caught and held me as easily as a hunter ensnares a sparrow.
His eyes were a flat, unmistakable black, without any radiance of vigor or emotion in their profound depths, though I read an ambition to prevail over his circumstances elsewhere, in the grim tightness of his mouth and the furrowing of his white brow. But once I met his gaze, I could not turn away, captivated as a moth by flame. I kept foolishly wondering how his eyes were so black and lightless, and why I could not move my sight where I would, why his steady gaze seemed to swallow me into a black maw from where I would not return. At last, in a fierce battle against myself more than the other man, I pulled my eyes free, and felt my ever-quick temper rise in retaliation.
"Who are you," I demanded, "And how dare you intrude without invitation upon my home?"
The man gave me a sallow smile, which held no warmth or gentleness in it at all. Something in me warmed to it, urging me to trust him fully, to obey whatever he said. No! I screamed at myself, grinding my teeth in frustration, I will not trust him yet!
"Why so angry, milord Curufinwë?" He asked, voice resonant as a chime. I balked at his improperly casual use of the name as if he had struck me, but he seemed not to notice and went on. "I mean no harm to you or your kin, and are not the lands of Aman free to all who would wander upon them?"
"You have not answered my question. Who are you?"
"Patience!" The man exclaimed, both scolding me and maintaining an aura of flattery at once, "A noble prince of your status surely knows the virtue, Curufinwë." It angered me even more that he now addressed me even more familiarly, if that were possible. "But I shall answer," he continued resignedly, "if it is your command. I am Melkor, freed as of late by my kin and captors, the Valar."
I startled at the name. I had heard of Melkor, but the Melkor I had heard of would have no reason to flaunt his name, if the tales were true.
"Mind your tongue, and do not speak so brashly of the Valar," I snapped.
"Curufinwë," Melkor sighed, plainly disappointed, and again a small part of me tugged at my heart to please his will, to chase his disappointment away and fulfill his wishes, whatever they might be. "I am dismayed. I thought one so brave and wise as yourself, one who has also suffered under the rule of my kindred, would understand my plight, and furthermore pity me as a victim of the Valar's cruelty. Have you not said such words as I have, and worse, of the Valar?"
"I did not voice such thoughts," I shot back angrily, then realized what I had just admitted. Furious at Melkor's persuasive effect on my words, I said in a firm, angry voice, "I want you to leave now."
Melkor smiled again, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise as a cold sensation settled over me.
"Now? Leave now?" He asked, as innocently wounded as an abandoned child, "But I have only just learned of our similar views on the Valar." It looked like he had known of our supposedly similar views all along. Liar, I hissed silently. "I assure you that you need not fear speaking your true thoughts to me, Curufinwë, for I understand."
"You wish to hear my true thoughts?" I asked him bitterly, "Then hear them now--I dislike you, Melkor, and think the Valar were right, for once, to chain you to their thrones. Go now."
"As you wish, Curufinwë," Melkor replied, smiling as though I had just welcomed him into my house, "I shall go." There was a strange, unfinished tone to his voice as he said that, as though he was going indeed, but intended to return.
With the smooth, easy grace of a cat, he walked to the gate and mounted the ash-grey stallion that waited there. Casting one last expressionless, dark-eyed glance to me, he spurred his horse to a swift canter, and made his way down the road. I did not take my eyes from him until he was well out of sight. I did not trust to turn away while he was in my sight.
But, as time would tell, that was not the last I heard of Melkor.