Disclaimer: Most characters and underlying plot belong to Tolkien.
Forlond SA 1600 - Part I
Celebrimbor speaks with the voice of the dead, of one who has so utterly betrayed his trust that he cannot continue to live with honour.
"You were right to fear Annatar - more than you know."
Gil-galad waits. He has learnt such patience from Círdan; some tales cannot be hurried.
"I was deceived, but willingly so." From a pouch hung from his neck, Celebrimbor takes two wooden boxes. "Do not put them on."
Gil-galad opens the first box. The ring is beautiful, clearly Celebrimbor's work. Is it his imagination, or does the sapphire glow more brilliantly than other stones of its kind? It reflects more light than the pre-dawn candlelight of his chambers should give. He opens the second. Immediately, he recognises the power nestled in the silk lining of the box.
"It is my gift to you," Celebrimbor says, his mouth curled in bitterness. "I knew how it must work, but it needed a power beyond my own. And though I will tell you I knew not what I did, in my heart, I was not so blind."
Gil-galad closes the box. More than the strongest wine, the ring calls to him.
"Galadriel holds the third. There are others, of no consequence to the Elves. But Annatar has made another, and it binds all of them - even the Three, which he did not touch."
"Binds them? How?"
"Those who wear the rings become enslaved to them, and ultimately enslaved to the One."
"So, that was Annatar's intention - to trap us with what we desired most."
"The rings will do what they were made to do - but he controls what might seem good to do with them."
"Why, then, have you not destroyed them?"
"Could you?"
Gil-galad looks away. In spite of all he knows to be wise, he wants this ring; it knows its owner. "No."
"There is more."
Does he pluck the name from Celebrimbor's mind or does Narya itself whisper it? His composure gives way and he is sick in the washbasin. He lifts his head and wipes his mouth unsteadily. Celebrimbor's voice, his halting confession and the hypnotic draw of Narya have distracted him from the meaning of it all. "You have betrayed me, as no one else could, to him who has destroyed my House?"
"I did not know him!"
Annatar's most intimate intrusion into his dreams takes vivid form in his mind. Having welcomed Celebrimbor into his bedchamber, he finds himself in a tryst with horror. He can hear Sauron's laughter.
Well-insulated against pain and cold by suithuil, the strong seaweed liquor of the Falathrim, he walks barefoot along the rocky shores of Mithlond. His ears fill with the pound of the surf, closing them to both the world without and the voice within. As evening beckons, skiffs and draggers glide into the bay under a leaden sky. Their pilots jump lightly to the quay and secure the boats, untroubled by the cold that turns their breath to billows of steam. (1)
He cannot speak. Círdan shows concern in his own subtle way, pressuring him to eat and move and sleep, but does not ask for explanation. Gil-galad cannot recall if he has slept, or what dreams and terrors he may have lived in his sleep. He is not even sure if two days or two dozen have passed.
Fear - true fear that leaves a metallic taste in his mouth - is strange to him. Even in the last days before the War of Wrath, when they stood cornered on Balar awaiting final extinction, he had not known fear. The hopes of his people had not been his alone to bear - even had he sufficient force to challenge Morgoth, he knew it for the losing cause it was, for no Elf should overcome a Vala.
He has so much more to protect, so many more who will count on him to defend them. He does not fear death so much as defeat.
Yet it is the long, slow defeat of his heart that renders the bitterness of suithuil sweet in comparison. Worse than a many-scarred wound, his skin is flayed clean away.
The lamplighter comes as gloom settles over the south bay. The fishing boats never range far, for this season belongs to Ossë and the catch of the day is scant. Fisherwives and daughters now venture forth in grey woollen cloaks to meet the boats. If they pass him along the way, they offer a stolid nod in recognition. The cheerless lack of colour is deceptive; the Falathrim take joy in their lot the Noldor cannot fathom.
In the eastern sky, a black shape takes form. Growing taller against the horizon as it draws nearer, it soon looms over him. His heart beats wildly and from numb fingers the flask of suithuil slips to the ground. He starts at the crash of glass against the rocks. When he looks again, strain as he might, he sees the shape no longer. Had it been delirium brought on by drink, or the long arm of a Maia who finds it all too easy to enter his dreams? His fingers twitch against the small box in a purse tied to his waist; the ring promises comfort. He mourns the broken flask.
"What can I get you, híren?" Círdan's manservant puts aside the parsnips he is preparing for dinner and looks up.
"Some tea, that is all."
He sits at the table while the manservant gets his tea.
"You will want a bath before dinner, yes?"
Gil-galad would laugh at the servant's polite yet pointed question if his head were not pounding as if it played host to a forge. By the time he has bathed and combed the tangles from his hair, Círdan awaits him at the dinner table. He worries at his food uncertainly, his stomach in a state of rebellion.
"Tonight, we will talk," Círdan says.
He tells of Annatar's true identity, of the One Ring that has been made and of Celebrimbor's betrayal. In the cocoon of Círdan's calm, he awaits his next breath.
"What will you do?"
"I do not know yet. Elrond was to question Celebrimbor further." Had he asked Elrond to do this? He must have done so, though he might recite lines from a play, for all he remembers.
"And Celebrimbor?"
He stands and goes to the door. Arms folded, he feels confined in the dining room; his thoughts need more space. "Annatar only told him what he wanted to hear. I had given him hope - he needed no more from me."
"What consumed him was a Doom he had small part in making. Do not confuse that with his heart. I do not think it was a choice he relished."
"Yet, the choice put to him as it was, his heart was more easily sacrificed." Truth looms over the brilliant sunset in the West, a heavy cloud slowly blotting day into darkness. "I cannot forgive him."
"You cannot forgive yourself," Círdan says gently.
"No." He turns away from the window. "A storm is coming."
"Aye, that too," Círdan says. He laces his fingers together thoughtfully. "It is too early yet for a gale, I reckon."
"Is this known to you?"
"Who can say what is known and what is guesswork?"
"Must everything be a riddle?"
"I speak with as much certainty as I might," Círdan says slowly, "but though our fate be woven already, the fate of Men is not."
'And those that endure in Middle-earth and come not to Mandos shall grow weary of the world as if with a great burden, and shall wane, and become as shadows of regret before the younger race that cometh after.' (2)
"Indeed, such is the fate of the Noldor. Yet for the younger race, much shall be decided by the Elves. Much rests upon you." (3)
"That is a great comfort," Gil-galad says dryly.
Círdan will have none of it. "You stood against him, when he came to Forlond. Do not underestimate yourself, Ereinion. The Valar have faith in you - that much is known to me."
"Still, I am neatly caught in his net." He reaches into the sleeve of his robes and withdraws one of the two jewel boxes. "I wish for you to keep this safe. It would be unwise for me to hold two of them, and lose both should Sauron reach Forlond."
Círdan takes the ring and raises his eyebrows questioningly.
"I fear it would tempt me too much," he admits.
"And the other?"
"Less so. It was not made for one such as me - it is meant to restore an earlier age of bliss." (4)
Círdan puts the ring out of sight. "I once wished dearly to follow Olwë into the Blessed Realm."
"And now?"
"What loss and pain we know in Ennor make its delights that much sweeter. The joy a mariner knows when the Sun at last rises after a storm at sea - I shall never weary of it. You must find a way to see the sunrise, Ereinion. It is not enough to endure."
Celebrimbor. In his heart, Gil-galad longs to forget, as if this betrayal - and all the small hurts come before it - never were. In love's absence, what is left to him but to endure?
(1) suithuil (S)
lit. 'draught (of) seaweed'
(2) And those that endure in Middle-earth...
(The Silmarillion, 'Of the Flight of the Noldor' p 96 pub Ballantine/Del Rey)
(3) "Indeed, such is the fate of the Noldor."
All of the Elves were subject to fading as a physical phenomenon. In Valinor, such fading of the body was no faster than that of the spirit, which would exist until the end of Arda. In Middle-earth, the body faded as the spirit lost its passion for life. (Morgoth's Ring, 'Myths Transformed' p 427 pub Houghton Mifflin) Neither of these were a result of the Doom - they were intended by Eru from the start. The speed at which the fading occurred was another matter. And outside Valinor they tasted bitter grief, and some wasted and waned with sorrow, until they faded from the earth. Such was the measure of their mortality foretold in the Doom of Mandos spoken in Eruman. (Ibid, 'The Later Quenta Silmarillion II' p 266) This 'bitter grief' belonged to the Noldor - we know that eventually the Avari and presumably the Sindar did fade (The Peoples of Middle-earth, 'The Appendix on Languages' p 79 pub Houghton Mifflin), and some of the Sindar must have suffered from regret and sorrow. For the Noldor, I believe, the difference lay in guilt - unlike the Sindar, they had a fall from grace.
Furthermore, we have some hard evidence that the Sindar did not grow weary as quickly as did the Noldor. Círdan's age is uncertain, but he must have been born before Thingol disappeared, since he was the leader of those who sought longest for Elwë. (Ibid, 'Last Writings' p 386) In 'The Annals of Aman', the date for this is 1130 in Valinorean years. Galadriel, in comparison, was a mere child, born in 1362. (Morgoth's Ring, pp 83 & 106) In Years of the Sun, this is a difference of 2,000 years. At the time of this story, Galadriel was about 3,500 years old and already felt weary of Middle-earth. Círdan was at least 5,500, and by the Third Age, nearly 8,000 years old. However, he never made use of Narya and surrendered it with no apparent ill effects when Gandalf arrived.
We also have an example from Mirkwood - at very least, Thranduil was nearly 6,000 years old at the War of the Ring, but was apparently quite content in Middle-earth without the Rings needed in the Noldorin strongholds. In the end, the Elves of Lórien were tainted by the long use of Nenya and deserted the land after Galadriel left. In Thranduil's realm, however, the Silvan Elves remained untroubled after the war. (LOTR, 'Appendix B' p 1069 pub Houghton Mifflin)
(4) "It was not made for one such as me"
The distribution of the Three is as convoluted as everything else. I've stuck with the version given in LOTR, in which the rings were held originally by Gil-galad, Galadriel and Círdan. ('Appendix B' pp 1059-1060 pub Houghton Mifflin) In 'The History of Galadriel and Celeborn', however, we have two variations on the story. In the first, Tolkien states that Gil-galad gave Narya to Círdan when he received it from Celebrimbor, and nothing is said of Vilya. In the second, we are told that Gil-galad gave Vilya to Elrond at the time of the first White Council but kept Narya until he set out to meet Elendil at Amon Sûl. (Unfinished Tales, pp 249, 251 & 267 pub Ballantine/Del Rey) Gil-galad might have kept Narya - or got rid of it as soon as he could, for the same reason: it was made for him. All three affected the perception of time's passage, but each ring seems to have had some unique properties. Nenya appears to have come closest to emulating Valinor on earth, changing the climate and vegetation of Lórien. Imladris was cold and grey on the day the Fellowship set out, so Vilya could not have been used to alter the environment; rather, it was used to heal both kelvar and olvar. Of Narya's purpose, we have the most detailed description: '...It will support you in the weariness that you have taken upon yourself. For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill.' (LOTR, 'Appendix B' p 1060) Such a ring would be appropriate for a king whose people were fleeing to Valinor in the face of a growing shadow.