The Elvish Emissary
The door struck the wall. Tindomul looked up, startled. Tar-Ciryatan blocked the entrance, red-faced and waving his arms.
"An emissary from Gil-galad's court just arrived. He says he's come to renew our ancient friendship. Who invited him here? It wasn't me. The Elves are always writing to me, and I never answer. But why now? The timing couldn't be worse." His shoulders sagged. "Well, he's here and it can't be helped. Put on your best court clothes and meet me in the audience chamber in five minutes. No wait! Can you turn something invisible? I need you to hide the new ship. Go to the shipyard and make it disappear, I don't want the emissary to see it."
Down at the harbor, Tindomul stood at the edge of the quay, thinking. The issue was one of scale. He could make a pebble or a small coin disappear, but not an object as large as a ship.
A boat was an in animate object. As long as it was tied up at the wharf, it stayed one place. If he could put sort of a veil around this to make it blend in the background, he could create the appearance of an empty slip.
Tindomul spoke the words of a concealment spell. Water lapped against the stone wall of the quay, and ropes were still tied around the mooring posts, but they didn't seem to go anywhere.
The harbor master wandered over and stood beside him. "Where's the new ship?" He sounded alarmed.
Tindomul said, "It's right here, but I've masked it with a spell. We have visitors, and I'd rather not have it on display at the moment."
Just then, a huge cargo vessel pulled up. Spotting an empty space large enough to squeeze into, it dropped sail and drifted toward the illusion of an empty slip. Tindomul tried to speak the counter charm but came up blank. He didn't know any counter charms to break spells, he had to wait for spells to wear off.
The harbor master waved his arms and called to the warship to back off, but momentum carried it forward. Sailors on board stood along the rails ready to fend off with wooden poles. There was a sickening crunch.
"Ossë's butt crack, what was that?" A sailor leaned over the rail, studying the bits of new wood that littered the still water between the cargo ship and the still-invisible ship.
Tindomul trudged back up to the Palace. However unpleasant the audience with the Elvish emissary turned out to be, it had the function of delaying his conversation with Father about what he'd just done to the new boat.
###
The Great Hall rang with the noise of people in a festive mood, appropriate to a feast.
Tindomul looked around the room. It was easy to tell, just by their clothing, who was a Númenorian nationalist and who still sided with the Elves. Most people present wore the easy-to-move-in clothing native to Númenor. Only a few kept to the stiff formal robes in imitation of the Elves.
A servant came around with the pitcher and filled their wine goblets. Father leaned back in his throne-like chair in the center of High Table, looking relaxed.
Tindomul missed the formal audience in the throne room where Father received the emissary. He'd been at the shipyard, hiding the new ship. But no matter, everything that happened during the formal audience, the exchange of carefully thought-out greetings and diplomatic gifts, was just for show. This dinner was the part of the visit where the real work of diplomacy got done.
As relaxed as the feast might seem, a high-stakes game was being played here. The emissary was trying to find out what the Númenorians were up to, and Father was trying to hide it from him. Although if he'd had less to drink, he'd have done a better job of it.
"It's been a long day. You must have found it Undying, I mean unending," said Father. And later, "We must seem decadent compared to what you're used to. I hope you didn't find us too immortal, I mean immoral."
The Elvish emissary put down his goblet, then leaned close to Father and lowered his voice. "I want to tell you something, not in an official capacity, but as a friend. They're called the Undying Lands because the Immortals live there, but the land itself is nothing special. The grass is just grass, and the cows are just cows. Sailing into the West won't make you immortal."
Father turned away as if he didn't care to discuss the subject further.
At the end of the evening, the emissary pushed back his chair and got up to leave. His silver robes fell to the floor and swept around his feet, while clinging to his body.
Father watched him leave. "The emissary must think he's attractive. Do you know why? Because whenever he walks away, people say, 'What an ass.'"
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The next day, the emissary returned home. Tindomul walked him to the ship that would bear him back to his masters at Gil-galad's court. Tindomul wondered what the emissary would report. A groundswell of public opinion about breaking the Ban? The emissary's manner had been pleasant, but that "friendly" warning was ominous. He might even guess they'd already built a ship to travel to Valinor.
Their route took them through the shipyard. Tindomul tried to hide his anxiety. He was never sure how long it would take for one of his spells to wear off. Tindomul's eyes stole toward the seemingly empty slip. With effort, he could see through the spell and detect the outlines of the ship, glassy and transparent like a mirage. The invisibility spell was still holding, although fragments of new wood floated in the water, making a boat-shaped outline.
"What are you looking at?" asked the Emissary.
"I wondered why we have an empty slip," said Tindomul. He looked the Elvish emissary right in the eye. "This part of the quay is usually packed solid."
"You do know I can see through a masking spell?" said the emissary.
"Really? Is that part of Elvish magic? Oh look, there's a line of pelicans over the bay." Tindomul's face burned. A botched attempt to make the new ship invisible was the best way to draw attention to it, short of having a troop of dancing girls on the deck.
###
Tindomul returned to the Palace after seeing the emissary back to his ship. "We're doomed," he told his father.
Tar-Ciryatan looked unfazed. "The Elves might well report to the Valar, who will be watch their shores for our arrival. But by then, we will have already come and gone. Elves don't do anything quickly, neither do the Valar." He looked at his two sons. "We can do this, but we have to act quickly."
Early the next morning, Tindomul went down to the shipyards. Father was already there with the master shipwright.
In any large project, there are things which are absolutely needed, and things which can wait. The ship needed a watertight hall, a rudder, and sails, but it didn't need a figurehead or decorative paintwork.
"What's the least we can do and still be seaworthy? asked Father.
"The ship has to be rigged, but the rigging can be simplified. We need cleats to hold the rigging, but again, we can get by with just a few," said the shipwright.
Father waited until the workmen had stepped away, then told Tindomul, "Plan to sail in two days."