AVARITIA
The clouds unravelled their entrails across the skies, and beneath their grey pall Annatar meandered through the austere streets of Ost-in-Edhil's upper circle. The marble facades of the courtesan's district reared up about him; elegantly sculpted archways bridged buildings lacquered in pearlescent stone, and shady arbours nestled like verdant islands between their pale walls. Through them Annatar wandered contemplatively, he paused for a time under the branches of a weeping willow to admire an elaborately plumed fountain, a tribute to cold Uinen and her wilful husband.
He fiddled with the fine pack slung across his shoulders as he leaned against the willow's smooth trunk, he picked free a stray thread from his coat and strung a few idle braids through the foremost strands of his unbound hair, until with a scowl he tugged them free. For loath though he was to admit it to himself, here he was skulking in the streets like a petulant child. Yet still, he pondered balefully, idleness was perhaps better than the claustrophobia that Celebrimbor's house had impressed upon him of late.
Of late he spent the majority of his time beneath the domed roof of Ost-in-Edhil's great library, and he paid only fleeting visits to the Gwaith-i-Mírdain's halls when most ardently his presence was requested. Through the library's countless scrolls and tomes of ancient lore he trawled, he hunted, from creaking leather-bound tomes unopened for centuries he scribbled down notes upon his own fresh parchments, from crumbling manuscripts he divined what of the original text still remained legible. With the passing of time, slowly he began to assemble what knowledge he required.
For though it seemed only a chime of fancy, that flash of inspiration in Celebrimbor's workroom those long weeks before had ignited a zealous flame of passion within him. If power could be sewn within a vessel, a metal, a ring; if it could be corralled there and contained, trapped and yet still allowed fluidity, then what wonders might he be able to create? If into a ring he could pour himself, the crushed, concentrated malice of his spirit put into a thing of metal there to dwell, twice over he could augment himself, or more even, and what boundless power would then be at his fingertips?
What being in these forsaken lands would ever dare to stand against him?
So fervently he searched; for books brought out of Valinor in the prime of the Noldor's wisdom, for scrolls upon arcane techniques of metallurgy long thought mere fragments of memory. Fëanáro's own scriptures were lost; squandered with his bickering sons or swallowed up into their ruinous wars, and the secrets of the Silmarilli he bore with him to his ashen demise. Bitterly Annatar grudged him his stubbornness, those secrets could have proved useful, should he ever have had opportunity to pry them forth. But no matter, in the end, for Annatar did not seek to create some fawning reproduction of the Three. He strove to create something far more precious than simple jewels.
After days of meagre scavenging, at last his efforts were rewarded. Deep within the cobwebbed bowels of the archives he at last unearthed a small, scuffed chest, he had severed through its aged padlock with a sharp word of power, and well he was contented with its spoils. For within the chest papers were scattered haphazardly, decayed with the turning of millennia and yet still legible; essays written by the venerable household of Mahtan, literature upon antique, puissant thaumaturgy, crushed scrolls written even in the academic shorthand of the House of Aulë, and how that discovery thrilled him. Still there was much to be deduced by his own hand and mind, but aided by such ancient lore it came more easily to him, and he relished the challenge of it.
This was to be his triumph, more than any sly mechanism of war that he set tipping into motion; this was to be his masterpiece, stolen from the Eldar's lore and made corrupt in his service. A fitting diversion, he thought it, and it kept him mercifully free of Celebrimbor's clutches for a time.
For as the weeks had turned, the elf's hold upon him had tightened like a noose about his neck. Scarcely could he pry himself from Celebrimbor's side without some snide remark, without some jealous barb, and though at first it had been abstractly flattering, as the days passed without relent it grated upon his patience. Ever their conversations began to fill with caprice, with suspicions; Celebrimbor would pry into even the smallest facets of Annatar's work with a doggedness that was exasperating. Well Annatar eluded him, beguiled him, turned his suspicions back around upon himself or dashed them aside altogether, yet such constant bickering grew tiresome, and their company turned towards more the parries and feints of swordplay rather than easy camaraderie.
At least, Annatar thought as he roused himself from the tree's shade, as he continued his dawdling walk back to Celebrimbor's house, his excursions to the library removed him from the elf's stranglehold, and that lightened his heart by no small measure. It made the genial façade that we wore somehow easier to maintain no matter how much it itched at him, no matter how greatly he longed to throw it off, to assume himself again in wrath and pride and power, to take this whining, greedy elf lord and to give him a true injury to bemoan. Nay, excursions out into the city prevented such… untimely actions. His pieces were cast into motion, but the board was not yet fully assembled, and until then he would simply endure the elf's tedium.
It would all come to such succulent fruition in the end.
Turning onto the main thoroughfare, Annatar's lips pursed as a deep trumpet blared suddenly behind him, and he stepped smartly to the side as the clatter of hooves swelled in his ears. He continued walking, yet furtively he appraised the mounted company that swept up the road past him. The turquoise and white banner of the Foamriders snapped crisply above them, their horses' flanks were frothed white with sweat, yet onwards still they spurred them. Spears of whalebone were held loosely in the guards' hands, darts of fluted baleen they carried at their belts, and helms fashioned after great sea-shells they wore. Rare it was for the Teleri to take up arms, but now necessity forced their hands, for even upon the gentle road from the Falathrim's shores the darkness had broken.
Messengers were now sent accompanied by armed retinues across Eregion and the North. From the new-founded Tharbad at the Crossing of the Gwathló, the parties of Men who paddled their barges upriver to ply their wares came with grim swords in their hands, and stories of blood upon the waters. Along the grand North-South Road, down the Green Way from the north-west came ill tidings, of fell creatures and black deeds, and news of them was received coldly within Ost-in-Edhil's walls. As yet the city remained untouched, though terrors scourged the mountains about them, none yet had breached the walls save one cunning Maia, and like a maggot chews through living flesh, he had burrowed himself in deeply.
And as he sauntered up the road back to Celebrimbor's house, Annatar wondered at what fell news the Foamriders brought from their lord, and under the grey churn of the skies, he smirked.
The weeks passed in gloomy monotony, yet ever about the city a strange pressure seemed to throb in the air, and the troubles of the lands stoked inexorably to their distant crux. The clouds loured from the dirty skies, their grey, swollen bellies seemed almost to scrape the topmost turrets of the Council's roof, and within the meeting chamber Celebrimbor sat grimly upon his grand chair. The crystals picked into its high back no longer shone out their radiance, they sat dully within the wood atop the crossed hammers and silver stars, and from where he leaned against the chair's back Annatar stifled a rill of pleasure at their pallor.
Framed within the mithril-wrought star set into the floor before them, the chief of Celebrimbor's gardeners stood gravely awaiting her lord's attention. The bloodied corpse of a hawk she held sorrowfully in her gloved hands, and worriedly she glanced at it before averting her gaze. The creature's feathers were matted with gore, its belly split and oozing viscera even as its glassy eyes stared sightlessly up to the stained glass windows.
Even the sunlight seemed polluted of late, Celebrimbor thought dourly. It threw only a faint haze of colour across the marble.
"My lord," the gardener prompted softly, she bowed her head reverently before him. From his drear silence Celebrimbor was at last drawn, and Annatar looked impassively down from his languid poise beside him.
"Tell me how it happened," Celebrimbor sighed, passing a weary hand over his haggard face. Too often now were evil tidings brought before him, they swirled and moiled like a brooding pall about his heart, and with each new occurrence they seemed to crush inwards upon it like some dismaying vice.
Yet even through the bleak wander of his thoughts, he was so acutely, so instinctively conscious of the lazy tilt of Annatar's hips beside him, of the curve of his thigh within his fitted breeches not inches from his fingers. And how greatly he wished to reach out to him, touch him, hold him; even in the most inappropriate of situations the Maia's presence scored a deep furrow of hot, thwarted arousal through his innards.
It was stupid, he knew, it was sick; this insidious, infectious attraction ever left him vulnerable, left him distracted, and inwardly he cursed himself for it. He was better than this, his people deserved better than this, yet he was helpless to resist the hooks that seemed to tear through his heart, that leashed him to the Maia no matter how much he might thrash against them. But Annatar did not want him, he reminded himself savagely, and perhaps that made it all the worse, all the more gutting.
It took a conscious effort of will for him to wrench his thoughts away from the maddening part of Annatar's thighs as the Maia shifted once more at his side.
Annoyance flared in his stomach as the nis before him still hesitated, and perhaps more forcefully than he truly intended to, he snapped, "Speak, Telemmairë."
"The hawk was attacked, my lord," Telemmairë said softly, and her fingers curled tenderly about the mutilated little body in her hands. "I saw it upon the eastern horizon, from Lórien I thought it must have come. It soared towards the Hawkmaster's tower, yet as it crossed the boundary of the city walls suddenly it was besieged. A flock of ravens – "
"A murder," Annatar purred into Celebrimbor's ear, and a gluttonous note of delight rolled through his voice. It send a shiver up Celebrimbor's spine which was only partially to do with the Maia's hot breath upon his cheek. "A murder of ravens, my lord."
" – like a black swarm they arose from the rooftops, they mobbed the poor creature, they tore it apart even as it struggled to break free of their tumult. At last it fell, broken and bleeding amid the far bushes of the garden, but it could not be saved. The message was lost, my lord, taken I fear by those foul carrion birds… "
"Thank you, Telemmairë," Celebrimbor sighed, and curtly he dismissed her with the standing order to shoot down any vile raven that came within bowshot. Solemnly she nodded, she withdrew a small length of cloth from her pocket and respectfully veiled the hawk that she carried, and quickly departed from the hall.
Behind her Celebrimbor placed his head slowly in his hands, despondently he sighed, and through his slitted fingers he stared bleakly out upon the cold, empty marble. All too often now such reports came to him, these crimes committed by an invisible hand were becoming more common by the day, and they weighed heavily upon his conscience.
And from where he leaned against the high chair, above the elf lord slumped below him, the orchestrator of such petty mischief smirked.
By the shadows of night Annatar would whisper his malice into the earth. Even as his master had done so when Arda was but fledgling in youth, he poured forth the blackness of his will and to him the tortured soil hearkened. For within his incantations, through splattered blood and cimmerian thaumaturgy, he sought out the wells of power that his master had pocked throughout the lands. These reserves, little splinters of hatred and envy long entombed in the soil, in the rocks, in the thick muds and choked effluvia of the marshes he found, and with them he blended the malevolence of his own will. He inflated them, he coaxed them forth, he bent them to his will and he bade them devour.
With the turning of the months he saw his furtive labours bear their fruitions. An unknown blight crippled the Noldor's fields of wheat and grain; furred, tuberous growths sprouted like some hideous cancer upon bud and stem alike, and slowly the flaxen meadows grew sickly and stunted. Fruit rotted upon the branch as their orchards withered, even the birds would not peck at their stinking remains that dashed in a messy slop to the ground, and any mortal or Quendi who dared partake of the spoiled goods were stricken grievously ill. Frantic messages began to flash across the North-west of the lands; Gil-galad sent riders galloping to Mithlond, to Tharbad, even to Oropher in the Greenwood and the Hadhodrim of Erebor with requests for aid, but those few who returned came with empty, despairing hands.
As the weeks rolled on, truly such frustrations began to bite, and the threat of a famine glowered upon the horizon. Celebrimbor desperately drew up plans with the Council as to allocation and rationing of what crops and livestock yet remained hale, yet even those efforts were not easy. Annatar gave what facetious advice he thought necessary, but ever he remained aloof and oddly impassive to such proceedings, and at the change in him some openly wondered. Gilthariel scarcely deigned to look him in the eye if ever they conversed, her scarred face she turned from him, and Iskandar visibly squirmed with abhorrence if they were left in close proximity for any length of time. But for the love of their lord they endured Annatar's company, and for the sake of his enterprise Annatar endured theirs, though the air ever grew brittle between them.
Celebrimbor meanwhile was not left entirely blind to the subtle change in his Maia. Too easily did Annatar seem to smile of late, a supercilious grin would roll over his lips at the report of another distant massacre, his eyes seemed to glitter with a fey, conniving light as a stout party of Gonnhirrim told of the sludge that now clotted the Sirannon; its turgid waters now frothed with a foul-smelling scum like pus seeping from a wound.
Even unto the distant shores of Harlindon, or the wilds of Rhovanion, with increasing frequency animals were birthed stillborn, or some terrible corruption pregnancy whelped only frail monsters. Beasts tottered on mangled limbs to collapse small hours later, their breathing laboured through fluid-filled lungs. Not three days before in a vale only five leagues north of Ost-in-Edhil amid the rolling hills of Cardolan, an Edain farmer had pulled free of his slain heifer its deformed babe, its fur matted and clumped in a reeking wash of blood and spoiled embryonic fluid, its face atrophied and its limbs scarcely a tangle of gristle about a misshapen thorax.
Something fickle seemed to glint beneath Annatar's gentle radiance; it sharpened him, it spilled through him like the slightest drop of blood swirled through smoothest cream. Yet in Celebrimbor's eyes it did not diminish him, it lent him a daring edge and it burrowed those hooks of desire just a little bit deeper into his heart. For still to him Annatar was charming, affable and suave in what fleeting moments of attention Celebrimbor could snatch from him. That frustrated scramble for affection blinded him to what he did not wish to see, and half wilfully he let it, though every one of Annatar's subtle rebukes sent a hot clutch of jealousy gnawing through him.
"Where do you go, Annatar?" Celebrimbor murmured one rare day when they both laboured within his workroom. He lifted his head from his papers and stared at the Maia with piercing intent. "Of late you flee from my side, you hide yourself from me… Where do you go?"
"I have told you before, my lord," Annatar replied disinterestedly, he scarcely glanced up from where he was hunched over his own writings, over the tangle of unbalanced chemical equations and physical theorems that spread before him. "I pursue this project: of the imbuing of power into an object. My studies take me abroad of this house."
"That's not good enough." The elf's voice dropped to a soft, perilous growl; a mean light crept into his dark eyes. "Where do you go, Annatar?"
The threat in the elf's voice made Annatar want to throttle him. It disguised only a pitiful whine for attention, no better than some squalling child who pouted and screamed when their mother for an instant turned aside from them. Resentment ignited in Annatar then, truly his patience was wearing thin with such petty behaviour, and tartly he replied, "Have I committed an offense, my lord? I did not realise that I required your permission to part from your side."
The venom in the Maia's tone needled into Celebrimbor's heart, and it brought up only spite in its wake. Slowly the elf arose from his writing desk, he stalked over to the bench where Annatar sat, and the insolent roll of the Maia's golden eyes as he approached set anger writhing in the base of his stomach.
"What you do in these lands is business of mine," Celebrimbor snarled. He leaned imposingly over Annatar's shoulder, he pressed his bulk down atop the Maia's slighter frame, and the tangible force of Annatar's displeasure sent a perverse impulse of delight sparking through him. It was so darkly elating to see Annatar scowl, a sordid rush of victory flooded through him as the Maia recoiled, and down into his face Celebrimbor growled, "You will answer my question."
"Fine," Annatar hissed, he flicked the honeyed sweep of his hair over his shoulder and the light that suddenly blazed in his eyes sent Celebrimbor's heart lurching.
"Here," he snapped, he stabbed the quill down atop a sheaf of parchment that he thrust towards Celebrimbor. "They are schematics, my lord, incantations, theories," he said coldly. "They are matters of alchemy that I would not expect you to understand. Yet the principle of them is this: some measure of power I can imbue within a metal, this much now is certain. You seek for an end to the troubles of your realm, and perhaps now I can gift one unto you."
Celebrimbor's brow furrowed as he glowered down at the papers. Circular illustrations and ciphered little annotations in a script that he did not recognise clustered about meticulously detailed designs of nine rings, and looking upon them then his mood softened. The first tremors of realisation, of guilt chimed within him then, he began to glimpse at just how much Annatar was offering him, and regret for his brashness sank in.
"These things…" he began softly, apologetically he winced over to where Annatar still sat stiffly. "With such creations you would propose… what? A… a safeguard of some kind? But against what, Annatar? How might we guard against a sickness that we cannot fathom?"
"With the right endowment of power, my lord," Annatar began archly, but swiftly his tone took on a silky cadence, and Celebrimbor's eyes widened as those entrancing words washed through him. "With the right applications of our noble puissance, we would appoint wardens of our lands. Bastions of health and benevolence amid the sickening earth we would raise up, and we would bestow upon them the means to hold back the shapeless evil that encroaches through the soil. Indeed, it is throughout all Middle-earth that we should distribute our gifts, lest these foul cancers spread their plague in earnest to other lands. It would be unwise indeed to abandon the world to rot, even as we build ourselves higher. It befits us not to dwell upon a crumbling pinnacle, but to rest upon the shoulders of a stalwart scaffold of allies."
Wonder glazed Celebrimbor's eyes; well he glimpsed what Annatar was proposing, and his mind raced to the deeper implications of such actions even as the Maia gave them lilting voice. "Such things that we should make will be a marvel of our age, and well it would serve us, it would serve you, my lord, to share such wealth. A venerable lord even as the great kings of old you would seem should you extend your hand in friendship across all of Middle-earth, and bring those thought forsaken into your esteem. It would seem but pettiness to trammel such generosity within the fair folk of the North alone, and none should ever accuse one such as yourself of base jealousy, now should they, my lord?"
The words dripped like honey from Annatar's tongue, so desperately Celebrimbor wanted to lick their sweetness from his lips.
"What… what then do you suggest," he breathed; and a slow whirl of excitement crushed through him was Annatar's radiant eyes came to a coy rest upon him.
"Nine rings," the Maia pronounced. "Nine rings of power we might gift to the race of Men, to the mightiest of their kindred throughout all of the lands lit by Arien's grace. With these rings they might make safe the lands for our benefit, they might strengthen their bonds of alliance with Ost-in-Edhil in trade and in other matters, and together united in knowledge and resources we might push back this troublesome blight."
"To whom do we gift them, then?"
"Many noble men there are in the North, but far to the South and to the East they dwell also, and I have walked among them in friendship upon my travels. Upon some I am resolute, and upon others less so, but within the week I shall give you my firm counsel as to whom I consider worthy of your generosity."
"See that you do." Celebrimbor's voice was soft, intimate; hard he swallowed back the whimper of yearning that longed to sound from his throat as Annatar turned, as he stood and absently moved aside.
"They will be such beautiful things, Tyelpë," he purred at last, and about him such a wondrous aura glimmered that Celebrimbor ached to see it. "Your name will forever be counted among the greatest of the Noldor in renown for their skill and their forgery. With these rings, my lord, we seal our futures."
Despite the looming crisis that day by day scratched a little deeper into the storemasters' supplies, the arrival of the lords of the Edain warranted as grand a feast as Ost-in-Edhil dared to throw. Banners of myriad shapes and sigils fluttered down from the ceiling, and the tables below were laid lavishly throughout the bounds of the great hall. Wines, meads, and ciders were served in plentiful flagons, and between them jostled platters of salted meats both carven and neatly shredded. Honey-glazed boars crowned the tabletops and set their sturdy legs groaning under their weight, and amid them sprung myriad breads, cakes, vegetables and stews, and the hall was alight with the warm clatter of dishes and the chatter of parties both familiar and foreign.
By land or by sea; by swaying palanquin or hairy camel-back, or sprightly clippers skimming across the waves and traded for lush barges in the port of Lond Daer for the idle paddle up the Gwathló, the lords of Middle-earth had answered Celebrimbor's invitation. Amid the full splendour of their courtly retinues they reposed about the benches, and though they talked mostly among their own parties, as the hours rolled by they began to seek out the others of their number, with translators and emissaries sent scurrying to and fro to relay their lords' pleasantries. Yet for the genuine amicability of their conversation, ever their words hinted at darker tidings.
Those who had braved the long North-South Road through the Enedwaith told in their sibilant tongues of foul things upon the road, of slaughter in the high fells, of the bloodied carcasses of men and horses left plundered and crawling with flies by the wayside. To this news the Northmen and Quendi of Celebrimbor's court alike listened, and their mood grew stern. But amid the general throng and excited buzz of the hall their hearts were quickly uplifted: all had arrived hale and whole, and all had come in friendship for the unveiling of what mighty gifts were promised to them.
The moon was riding high amid the tumult of the clouds when at last a call was made for quiet. From a gilded chair at the centre of the high table Celebrimbor stood, bedecked in dark, lordly velvets with a great emerald bound across his brow he seemed the very pinnacle of stately grandeur, and at his brief gesture the hall fell silent. He gave a short and undoubtedly moving speech of welcome, of courage and unity in uncertain times, and seated upon his right hand side Annatar stifled a yawn. His fingers twitched about the stem of his goblet, the elf's prattling and unsubtle self-aggrandisement stirred up nothing but ire within him, and swiftly he distracted himself with eyeing Corannon nearby lest more unsavoury musings grip him in earnest. Garbed in the ceremonial cloth of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, Corannon stood at waiting attention, with nine gleaming rings held reverently before him upon a black velvet cushion.
If only they knew how much work had truly gone into them, Annatar thought as he glanced over the nine trinkets. It was not a matter of power; mostly he had left Celebrimbor to pour the strength of his own fëa into them, and Annatar sealed them with only a dusting knot of power, a corrupt little seed that would sprout, would corrode, and would with due time destroy. Nay, the effort was more in the repression of the increasingly acute desire to snap the elf lord's neck, if only for a reprieve from the incessant questions and barbed insinuations that flowed from him.
A wave of dignified applause broke through the hall as Celebrimbor finished his speech, and with a thin smile plastered over his lips Annatar clapped icily along with them. Celebrimbor stepped forward then, and Corannon moved to bear the rings at his side, and one by one the herald announced the Edain lords who stepped forward to receive their gifts.
To Khamûl, Chieftain of the Wainriders, Caliph of Asmiro, Ju'qûr, and Redsu in the East, Master of the Sea of Rhûn, was gifted a golden band inset with a glittering beryl, and the lord closed his khol-limned, olive eyes in reverence as Celebrimbor slipped the ring upon his finger. To Alcarin, Lord of Fornost and the Arthedain was given a slender ring with a pale hematite crystal upon its seam, and he kissed Celebrimbor fondly upon the cheek as the elf lord raised him up. Long had their lands and cities been allied, and longer still might that allegiance prevail, the man pronounced, and he stepped genially aside as Rhaeon Wyrmrider, fey warrior-king of the Haradwaith ascended the dais. The Wyrmrider's skin was dark as poured pitch, his face was ever veiled so that none might glimpse his mood, but the curving scars that decorated his arms well denoted his rank. The warring clans that dwelt miles inland of the distant port of Umbar had long since tamed the feral sand-wyrms that delved amid the shifting deserts. With meats and sorceries they tamed them, driving them to war and as beasts of labour amid the dunes, and mightiest of their kind, rider of the Ur-nakur, the Earthshaker, was Rhaeon of the clan Tirzul. The chestnut pictograms branded into his arms rippled like the wyrms of legend as he accepted a noble ring upon his burnished finger, a sterling band inlaid with a triangular citrine gem.
To Halador, noble lord of Lond Daer whose lineage traced back even to Haleth the Hunter in the Elder Days, was presented a slim ring of aquamarine, and the lord bowed low before Celebrimbor in acceptance of such a precious gift, and was well satisfied with this gesture of their long friendship. With all of the expected pomp and ceremony then came forth Tar-Súrion crowned with a band of wrought Noldorin gold, ninth King of Númenor in the days of its growing splendour, and as a ring of verdant malachite was placed upon his finger he laughed joyously to receive it. Warmly he embraced Celebrimbor then, a smattering of words passed between them in the High Elven tongue, and he patted Corannon companionably upon the shoulder as he descended the dais and was ensconced back into his noble retinue. Naeryan stepped forward then, High Priest of Khand's Witchocracy clad in robes of smoky grey and a headdress dripping with lion's teeth. His bare feet glided across the marble as one sacrosanct. In a gracious, mellifluous tongue he thanked Celebrimbor for the trinket, a spun band of gold inlaid with a polished stone of lapis was set upon his bone-white finger, and a prayer to his bloodthirsty god beyond the Ephel Dúath in the Shadowed Lands he offered then in hushed, reverent tones.
The aura that gleamed about Annatar seemed to thicken, seemed to grow ever more brilliant as the priest's words washed over him, and deeply he inhaled to squash down the sudden flourish of power that the priest's words invoked in him. Long it was since he had received such direct homage, though ever the Witchocracy burned effigies and made sacrifice in his black name, and the thrill of such concentrated pleasure now writhed and moiled under his skin.
Iormund Serpentsbane replaced the priest upon the dias, the swarthy commander of Andrast, a mariner of Númenorian descent who had vanquished the sea-serpent Crillac upon his perilous voyage east from Rómenna. To him the men of the Ered Nimrais flocked, and graciously he received a stalwart ring of amethyst. The deep purple gem glittered magnificently upon his finger as he raised it up into the gentle moonlight, and warmly he spoke to Celebrimbor and all of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain of the quality of its make. Forward then came the Boneweaver, the dread lord of the Sea of Núrnen, in shimmering robes of an uncertain pearlescent hue that lay corseted to his abdomen with great curls of some strange creature's ribcage. Small mismatched vertebrae clacked in macabre pendulums from his dreadlocks, femurs and clavicles were strung together upon a cord of knotted cartilage at his waist, and upon gaunt fingers already gilt with carven knucklebones Celebrimbor placed a small ring of onyx.
Yet it was odd, Celebrimbor thought, where the other lords made gracious genuflection to him, the Boneweaver with his eerie iridescent eyes seemed to stare through him, past him. He seemed only to espy Annatar, the Maia serenely seated at the high table still and observing the proceedings. It was strange, Celebrimbor puzzled, it must simply have been a trick of the light or a spiteful phantom of his imagination, yet as the Boneweaver turned, he was certain that he saw him wink at Annatar. And the mischievous little smile that hinted at the edges of his Maia's lips sent dual shards of jealousy and suspicion stabbing through his innards.
Last of the foreign guests came forth the Lord of Angmar, the Sorcerer-King of Carn Dûm, Warden of the Forodwaith and Rhudaur even to the peaks of Mount Gundabad in the Ered Mithrim, and to him was given a thick golden band inset with a milky opal. The proud lord bowed low before Celebrimbor as the ring was placed upon his forefinger, and it shone like a curdled drop of cream crowning his metal-shingled gauntlets.
To merriments the feast commenced, and throughout the night many of the visiting lords announced themselves once more to the high table, eager to bask in Celebrimbor's favour. From such sycophantic abasements Annatar turned aside, but more than once he was drawn irrevocably into their attentions, and he imparted what oily words he thought befitting to each. To some it was a simple veneer of cordiality, but to some whom in other guises were more intimately acquainted, the conversations in Celebrimbor's presence grew veiled. Furtively Annatar would slip from the table, taking one lord or other aside, and his lengthening absences preyed upon Celebrimbor's heart as the feast continued.
The night's revelries had long since drawn to a close when Annatar slipped back inside the doors of Celebrimbor's house. Towards his own rooms he walked, with lungs full of night air and the salty aftertaste of black puissance upon his tongue, he stalked through the warm annuli of the lanterns dotted about the corridors.
"Annatar," a voice called suddenly from down a joining hallway, and turning in surprise the Maia found himself accosted by Celebrimbor's weary steward. "My lord commands your company this night," Aethir said slowly, tiredly, he walked forward to greet the Maia properly. "I had been sent to look for you…"
"And so you have found me," Annatar replied, his voice kept carefully neutral even as irksome apprehension swirled through him. Demands of such a nature bore ill tidings by the shadows of night, and quite frankly he had been looking forward to the peaceful embrace of his bed, not batting off whatever clumsy threats or advances the elf lord sought to thrust upon him. Ruefully he sighed, yet to Aethir then he said, "Thank you. I shall go to him presently."
The steward nodded in agreement, he opened his mouth as if to say something more, but with a pained twist of his lips thought the better of it. Fleetly then Aethir bade Annatar good night, and left the Maia to his unwanted trek to Celebrimbor's chambers.
The thick, sweet aroma of wine greeted Annatar as he edged the door open to Celebrimbor's bedchamber, and disgust curled within him as he stepped through the doorway. The grand bed lay untouched against the far wall even for so late an hour, and before a round table set into the corner of the room the elf sat. Before him lay several half-emptied flagons of wine, a goblet he held shakily in his hands, and his drunkenness was so repellently clear as clumsily he turned about.
A crooked leer scored over Celebrimbor's face as he sighted the Maia, his Maia, but though his cheeks were flushed a deep pink with the wine, though his eyes sparkled, there was no merriment in him, and cold grew his stare as Annatar shut the door behind him.
"You…" the elf lord slurred, the legs of the chair scraped across the floor as Celebrimbor wrenched it about to face him. "You have lied to me, Annatar."
Annatar stamped down the contempt that threatened to bolt from him at such an audacious claim, he grappled it back down to a simmering glow of resentment in the pit of his stomach as he stepped a few paces into the room. Icily he smiled, and thinly he replied, "Lied to you, my lord? Of what nonsense do you speak? What manner of deceits do you mean to thrust upon me now?"
"You spin your words cunningly, Maia," Celebrimbor sneered; he took a large gulp of wine that stained his lips a ghastly purple. "But it does not veil your guilt. You have been espied in your secrecies, in what you would keep hidden from me."
"And what do you presume that I hide from you, my lord?"
"Gilthariel has spied you slipping into the shadows of dusk," Celebrimbor said, and a dark swathe of indignant, justified anger unfurled within him as Annatar looked haughtily down upon him. "She has seen you flit among the gardens like some malicious sprite, and outwards into my city, always furtive, secret in your movements."
"I am a guest in your house, my lord," Annatar replied coldly, and though he did not move something about him seemed to sharpen, the radiant, evanescent aura that enshrouded him for a moment became brittle, and something treacherous hinted beneath it. "I have committed no crime," the Maia continued. "I have not violated the laws of your realm. Might I not wander the grounds and the city at my leisure? Or would you rob me of that right in your pretentious accusations?"
A ruddy flush mottled down Celebrimbor's neck, and hatefully he snapped, "I pretend at nothing! Gilthariel has seen the ravens flock to you; she spoke to me of how they glut themselves at your will. They bring you scraps of meat in tribute, they caw and make obeisance before you…"
The Maia's scoff brought Celebrimbor up short; the sneer that curled over his handsome lips sent outrage and the first awful tremors of desire clenching through Celebrimbor's guts. For so imperious, so cold and lucent Annatar seemed, his chin lifted proudly and his golden eyes glittering as he stalked forward.
"These are but flimsy allegations, my lord," he began silkily, behind his words he pushed just the slightest spell of compulsion, of coercion. "I walk among the gardens by dusk because it pleases me to do so. The red spill of the sunset into the haze of the West is glorious to behold, and the sweet scent of pine upon the air brings me joy in these troubled times. There are birds in the gardens indeed; the ravens roost there even as they have claimed the city as their home. Yet they flock to any who might walk among them, they squabble and caw for attention, and I have little for them save a passing glance. I cannot begin to fathom what you mean of obeisance, my lord. I am no slave of Manwë's, I do not command the great birds of these lands. I do not command anyone…"
Nausea squirmed in Celebrimbor's stomach; Annatar's words were so true, he realised, so innocent and so subtly injured, and guilt spilled through him that ever he should have suspected evil of one he so adored. Yet the lingering shreds of mistrust still swirled within his mind, and shakily he took another mouthful of wine, its numbing sweetness seeming to soothe his fragile nerves. And even as he looked up once more, Annatar was there, aching in his beauty; so tender, so pure and sacred and good.
"Do you not trust me as you once did, my lord? Let not the lies of some viperous maid curdle the air between us, for I would not wish it so."
"Lady Gilthariel is wiser than you give her credit for," Celebrimbor sighed, but even to himself his words sounded faint. "I do not dismiss her council lightly…"
Displeasure marred Annatar's smooth features, and snidely he remarked, "The Lady Gilthariel may soon discover that wisdom does not equate to prudence."
"Prudence…" A dim flush of emotion stirred Celebrimbor to bitter mirth, and he took another gulp of wine. "She is my guest here, as are you," he muttered. "She need not walk with fear within these halls. She is… she is a reminder of what my inactions have wrought…"
Annatar's eyes narrowed; the wine hummed inside of Celebrimbor's skull, and in a sudden, baleful torrent he spat the words from him. "She was disfigured because of me. Because of my father. Because I did not stop him, I did not have the courage… I stood aside when he spoke out all those years before, he and my uncle usurped the throne of Nargothrond and I just let it happen, I turned my face away, and - … How many other things have happened upon my unwitting account?"
"Do you know what he did to her, Annatar?" Celebrimbor's fingers clenched hard around the stem of his goblet, his knuckles whitened and a spasm of abhorrence twisted across his face. "Doriath burned, and Menegroth was fed to the flames of my uncles' war. My father came upon her in the halls of her kin, and consumed by his madness he saw only another enemy, another obstacle standing in the way of his prize… He took her, he butchered her brother before her eyes, and even as the flames licked up the crumbling walls he smashed the blade from her hands, he seized her, he pressed her into the fire. And he laughed as she screamed, he crooned the foulest of things into her ear as her flesh melted, as she was mutilated, and he left her gasping and broken upon the floor. He turned aside with her brother's blood upon his sword and he left her there to burn…"
Celebrimbor's head bowed into the silence that hovered through the room, and Annatar looked impassively down upon him. It was a heinous deed, the Maia thought absently, yet the elf lord's whining did little to move him. Indeed, his patience with such loathsome self-pity was scraping perilously thin.
"I cannot turn aside, Annatar," Celebrimbor said suddenly, fiercely; yet the look in his eyes as he glanced up to the Maia betrayed only his despair. "I cannot look away anymore. And yet now the omens of another war gather before my gates…"
He refreshed his goblet of wine from a heavy flagon, and from it took a long, mournful draught.
"My mother," he said softly, "perhaps she was right, all of those millennia ago. When first my grandfather spoke out against the Valar's rule, when he rebelled and my uncles first drew their swords amid the streets of Tirion. She looked upon my father, and where I saw only righteous, admirable pride, perhaps she saw him for what he truly was. She saw him as a monster…"
"And yet still she abandoned you to him."
"What?" The cruelty in the Maia's tone skewered right through him, it left him breathless in his shock.
"She did not love you enough to make you see the truth." Something merciless cracked through Annatar's very being. His words cut down to the bone. "She left you blind. She scratched out your eyes and left you to stumble on in your father's shadow. She left you to be tainted, for him to pollute you. It's almost funny, really. Her cruelty is admirable."
"No!" Celebrimbor gasped, a wave of drunken outrage sloshed through him as he gaped up at Annatar in offense. "No, no it wasn't like that…"
"She forged for you your exile simply because she did not care to stop you." Malice glittered in Annatar's eyes as he stalked forward, tall and proud he stood over Celebrimbor who seemed for a moment to quail before him. "Perhaps you were too much like him," the Maia sneered. "Too wild, too savage, too entranced by the glow of your own flame, so easily consumed by the rush of your own glory. Perhaps you proved to her a disappointment, in the end. Either way, it was a cowardly deed."
"You…" Celebrimbor spluttered, his vision near whitened with rage as he stared up at Annatar. "You dare…"
"To tell you the truth?" the Maia snapped, all high cheekbones and twisted lips. "Yes, I do. You shroud yourself in petty self-delusions of grandeur, of your own righteousness, but in truth your kin betrayed you, and even now you betray yourself. From the very beginning, you were destined to fall. Your legacy placed the noose about your neck, and you do precious little to dissuade the tightening of the knot."
"No!" Celebrimbor growled, he looked upon Annatar with abhorrence in his eyes, but it was the curl of lust that swam beneath it that undid him. "You're wrong," he said bitterly, pleadingly. "I am not just a product of my bloodline. I am not my father."
Wine slicked his trembling lips in a ruddy hue, it drowned out what lordly inhibitions fettered him and it inflamed only that which he would suppress. And as Annatar turned aside with a scoff, as the Maia yet again denied him, a carnal surge of lust ripped up from Celebrimbor's stomach, it smashed past every wavering bond of decorum that he had set to guard it; it fizzed in his veins with its power and its fury. So as Annatar stepped aside, sharply Celebrimbor reached out to him, his hand clamped down hard about the Maia's wrist and yanked him back.
"You're wrong, Annatar," he growled, his fingers bit with crushing force into the Maia's arm as he tried to squirm away. And oh what sordid part of him screeched out its victory as he jerked Annatar towards him, as he pulled him down, as he forced him into his lap. Annatar's legs twisted between his thighs, and something lurched in kind in Celebrimbor's stomach, such hot, hurting desire crashed through him. It collided with a last tremble of horror as he felt Annatar flinch as his right hand gripped his waist, and for a moment it shook him.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, he whispered it into the crook of Annatar's neck, he panted it into the Maia's skin even as his grip tightened, waist and wrist alike. "I'm sorry… I…" The wriggle of Annatar's hips atop him sent a hot crush of arousal bolting through him, it set his mind reeling, brimming over with the thrill, the danger, the ecstasy of it, and through the muddle of his thoughts he wasn't even sure what he was begging for anymore but still he mewled, "Please, Annatar, please, please forgive me…"
His fingers delved beneath Annatar's shirt, they slid over the curved muscle of his hip, and even as the Maia jerked away from him, he slid his hand yet more firmly across his pelvis, his stomach. "Please, Annatar," he whispered, he pulled the Maia yet closer, he crooned the words like some sick fawning litany up his neck, his lips trailing reverent little kisses up the warm skin of the Maia's throat. "Please, please, absolve me, Annatar, please, love me, and for your mercy I would see you crowned…"
"And I would see you bleed for it."
Desire slammed through Celebrimbor's heart; he scarcely registered what words had flown from the Maia's lips as a feral snarl of carnality ripped out of his throat, his fingers trailed across the scars upon Annatar's back and with that final swell of emotion it was as if the world had come undone. Desperately he slid his hand up, his right hand cupped the base of Annatar's skull and with the force of all that yearning and crumpled, awful pride for years now rejected he pulled the Maia forwards, he smashed his lips upon Annatar's own.
Clumsily, greedily he kissed him, he forced apart the Maia's lips and a groan of lust he sent spinning down Annatar's throat. And in that moment such base ardours moved him; the protesting wriggle of Annatar's hips atop him only set him aflame, the dizzying swirl of Annatar's tongue only sent him spiralling higher, bolder, stronger. It suffused him with not the desire to revere but to covet, to possess, to consume, to destroy; to take Annatar and piece by pleading piece just break him apart, so that he could never betray him again, so that nobody else could ever have him, touch him, look at him; he could be perfect and pure and precious forever, he would blink up at Celebrimbor with parted legs and wet lips and he would be his, and his alone.
His hand dropped to Annatar's waist, his fingers groped over his arse, they left furrows across his breeches with the force of his intent, but with a wrench that took him utterly surprise Annatar ripped himself from his grip.
Quickly the Maia stood, loathing burned in his eyes, but with feyness to match Celebrimbor followed him; he grasped Annatar roughly about the hips once more and forced him backwards. An obscene waltz across the room he led until at last the Maia's back was pressed up against the wall, Celebrimbor's right hand came up beneath his chin and he had nowhere left to hide.
Savagely then he kissed him, possessively, hungrily, and where Annatar found the restraint within himself to endure the elf's boldness, to not spit out a curse and to send his entrails slopping to the floor, he did not know. Puissance sparked within his veins, disgust churned in his blood, and with one controlled flash of power he wrested his mouth free, with every ounce of conviction in him he shoved Celebrimbor back a few paces.
Haughtily he shook his ruffled hair from his shoulders as the elf lord stared at him. He licked the smear of wine from his lips and he spat it to the floor.
Something unhinged danced in the elf's eyes, some sheen of madness showed itself bold, and an ugly sneer contorted his face as he breathed, "You would refuse me, still?"
"You are not yourself."
"I am more myself now than you could fathom in the depths of your dreams," Celebrimbor growled, a brute, animal note clotted in his voice. "For all too clearly now I see you, Maia. I see all that you withhold from me. All that you deny me."
"Allegiance I swore to you," Annatar retorted, his eyes narrowed disdainfully. "But never subservience. I do not owe you anything."
"Who granted you passage into this city," the elf lord snarled. "Who has elevated you among our rank, supported you, trusted you, even when those about you hounded you with lies? Everything you are, Annatar, you owe it to me. And I only ask for a measure of gratitude in return."
"I do not sell my gratitude like some dockside harlot," Annatar spat, and a livid vein split down the elf's forehead to hear it.
Fury thrummed in Celebrimbor's stride as he stepped forward, as he grabbed the insolent Maia before him and forced him back, as he snarled down into his face, "I am your patron. I am your lord. Every breath that you take within these walls is at my pleasure. Every beat of your fickle little heart passes because I allow it. Do I not then deserve you?"
The arrogance in the elf's tone was galling; it was all that Annatar could do not to laugh in his face. Yet as the elf's hands tightened menacingly about his shoulders Annatar grimaced; it hardly seemed worth the effort of restraining the black puissance that longed to rally to his defence, and in a voice that could have withered leaves upon the branch he said, "Perhaps then you do. But I cannot give you what you hope to obtain."
"Can you not?" The elf's finger trailed across Annatar's lips, domineeringly he parted them, and a ruined smile of lust and warped, tender affection twisted over his face as he felt the hot slick of the Maia's saliva upon his skin. "You hide behind your pretty smiles, your gilded eyes, your coy flirtations. No more."
Into Annatar's waist Celebrimbor ground his hips, his left hand slipped to Annatar's pelvis, it skated over his hipbones and roughly Celebrimbor began to palm him, and from him then Annatar recoiled in earnest.
"You're disgusting."
Something lewd, something dark and vulgar and pounding in its need punched up from Celebrimbor's stomach, he pressed the larger bulk of his body against Annatar once more, and voluptuously, messily he kissed him, he poured the words down the Maia's throat. "No more than you, little whore."
A crackling pulse of puissance sent Celebrimbor staggering backwards, it haloed Annatar in a wreath of seething, phosphorescent sparkles of light. Yet as the breath trickled back into Celebrimbor's lungs, the furore of his madness inflated him once more, thwarted desire ignited within him and an unearthly smile clove over his face as he glared over at Annatar.
"All that I have done," he hissed, one arm he held instinctively clasped to his stomach like a shield, and he half expected it to come away dripping in crimson. He would have scratched it clean if it had. "All that I have done, I have done it for you. Is it not enough?"
"Look at yourself," Annatar sneered, there was nothing left in his eyes but contempt. "You're a disgrace. It speaks to naught that your mother abandoned you, that your father was disappointed, that Fëanáro himself would exorcise you like a blemish upon his legacy. You are weak, Tyelperinquar, you are hollow, you are nothing but a snivelling shadow pretending at their greatness, and –"
Annatar's stinging vitriol was hauled to an abrupt close as Celebrimbor lunged forwards, as he clouted the Maia across the face. A choke of surprise cracked out of Annatar's throat, and how hatefully then the Maia looked to him. He flicked his hair back from one already reddening cheek, but amid his revulsion how triumphantly he smiled. Balefully Celebrimbor glared back at him, his palm stinging from the open-handed blow and indignation singing in his blood, and his fingers shook as the silence curdled between them.
"So," the Maia said tartly, the quiet shattered and quailed. Through a bloodied lip he grimaced, his golden eyes burned, and if Celebrimbor had somehow hoped for his submission then sorely he was left dismayed. For such venom seemed to fill Annatar then, such anger, such boiling outrage that it seemed almost to shriek from him, and even through the clamour of his own mood Celebrimbor became coldly, excruciatingly aware that he had crossed a line.
"So," Annatar sneered, and such was the imperiousness in his bearing, such was the raw, churning power that irradiated him that Celebrimbor near collapsed before him in contrition. "The taint runs in the blood after all."
"I am not my father," the elf whispered hoarsely, he looked so helplessly, so piteously to Annatar for forgiveness even as his palm stung, as it prickled red with the impact. It left him stained in his guilt. "Please, please, Annatar, I am not them, I - "
"Nay," the Maia said softly, callously. "You are not even fit to tarnish their memory."
And with that Annatar stepped away, he turned aside, and at that last rebuke, that final spurn something awful ripped up from Celebrimbor's stomach. It clawed through him with its puissance, some fell vestige of Fëanáro's ancient wrath perhaps did for a moment seize him, dark and pounding and violent it consumed him until it sent him reeling, it crowned him in its madness and it spurred him to act.
For this impudent Maia would kneel before him, willing or no Annatar would come to heel, he would me made obedient, his submission would be stripped from him, torn from him until those pretty eyes wept, until bruised lips begged for his mercy, until Annatar licked apologies from his fingers like some shivering little dog, and maybe then Celebrimbor might spare him from the whip.
Sharply then he lunged, fury and mania crowned, but what chilling blades of shock stabbed through him then, for even as he broke towards Annatar's retreating form, the Maia moved. Quicker than thought, quicker than Celebrimbor's eyes could follow Annatar twisted, with an unholy snarl upon his face he whirled, and puissance black as the fathomless night burned in the Maia's fingertips as his hand came to a crushing, brutal close upon Celebrimbor's throat.
Ahh sorry to end on such a cliffhanger, but this did have to end somewhere! As usual, I sincerely hope you enjoyed this (rather lengthy) update! Until next time, theeventualwinner