Chapter 3

When Sauron returned to consciousness, the first thing he did was mentally curse himself. How could he have been so dreadfully stupid as to show such weakness before one of the Valar? Even before Morgoth's prying, piercing mind he had always been successful at keeping a tight lock on his thoughts and emotions. Was it not bad enough that he was already a helpless prisoner that he must sink lower and reveal his shattered reality to one that he least wished to see it.

And it had to be Aulë of all people, Aulë the Plain, Aulë the Unlordly, Aulë the One Who Pitied. It made him nauseous just to think about it. He had been through harder times and worse pain and yet he had managed to weather them with pride and dignity all the same. But to lose all control, to rant who knew what, and then to top it all by fainting: that was simply unforgiveable.

Once he had given himself a mental tongue-lashing that would have put the most virtuosic rhetorician among the Noldor to shame, he slowly began to grow aware of his surroundings. His eyes were still closed, but he could tell he was lying down and by the softness of the substance underneath him, he determined he was in a bed. There was a smell, herbal and fresh in a way that reminded him of unsullied mountain snow, but what caught his attention were the voices. They were not in the same room as he was, perhaps in the next, and he had been too busy deriding himself to properly attend to them. But now he turned the full attention of his keen hearing upon them and listened.

"I tell you, he is not well enough for such a strain now." The voice was female, quiet and almost musical, like a harp that has just had all its strings plucked in a long, sweet trill of sound. It had a sleepy quality to it as well, as if its owner never said anything too swiftly or too loudly or with too much vigor. "The journey has been hard on him. He has not taken in enough food nor drink nor sleep. There is no wisdom in forcing him to go further than he has already gone this day."

"Nor is he fit in mind," came another voice, this one a male tenor that reminded Sauron of things he had forgotten, like the echo of a harmony that one knows he has heard but cannot recall where or when, or like a flashing glimpse of a dream that is now fading. "The darkness I sense in his dreams is not due wholly to what lies behind him. He fears the future, and we cannot blame him for that. But most of all, I see great turmoil in his thoughts of the present. He has been thrown into a world where he has no place, and it will take time for him to find his footing again. He is not ready for yet another upheaval in the foundations of his world."

"I do not disagree with you, Brother, but it is my duty to consider the ramifications upon all of Valinor, all of Arda, and not just a single Maia." This voice was deep, deeper even than Aulë's, and although it was not cold, it did not have the gentle warmth of the Smith's voice. It was heavy and each word it spoke seemed to form a layer in the air that descended upon Sauron like a rain of ash that grown thick enough could choke and crush all it chose. "While I do not distrust Aulë's words or the evidence of my own eyes or your skills, I must reiterate the peril that his unrestrained presence creates here. He has many enemies here who would do him harm in a heartbeat, and if this wreckage speaks true, then he is not above wreaking havoc here himself. He was strong in power before he left, and through Melkor's sorcery, he has grown in it beyond what his order was ever meant to have. I do not trust him, and I will not rest easy until we see this through."

"It is not fair to him," said a fourth voice, and this one was unmistakably Aulë's, nurturing and pleading. "We have all heard Eönwë's report. He expressed his desire for reconciliation. He came of his own free will, when he could have fled. He accepted the gift and the message that we sent him. His actions thus far have been admirable for one in his position, and how can we ask blind trust of one to whom we are not willing to give it?"

"Blind trust proved no one beneficial with Melkor," said the deep, heavy voice.

"It is not blind trust I ask for," Aulë persisted. "I ask for him to be judged according to his merits, in how his actions thus far prove themselves. I believe that he has truly come to us in the hope of restoration, whatever that arrogant mask he wears compels him to tell us, and I would not deny it to him."

There was a heavy sigh. "You take after Manwë too much, my dear Smith."

There was a pause, then Aulë spoke again in a quieter, more urgent voice. "I fear that if we make our demands of him now, before he has time to recover and adjust, he will once again revert to the cornered wolf I saw this afternoon. His mind is fragile. If we give him time, he may see the wisdom and mercy in our judgment with more clarity and be less likely to behave in such a way that will only condemn him further. I would not see him destroy his own chances of redemption while he is afraid and blind to what we want for him."

"And what would we do with him in the meantime?" demanded the heavy voice, this time with the slightest hint of irritation. "If we are to use your own metaphor, he is no mewling kitten, but a ravenous, cornered wolf ready to bite. I have said it before: he cannot be left to roam Valinor freely. Do you think tossing him in a cell will heighten his gratitude towards us? He must be dealt with, immediately. We are all ready and waiting." There was a pause. "And I fear that until we pass his sentence, he cannot be forced to see any more wisdom or mercy in our judgment than he will let himself see at the moment. Do not let him deceive you again, Aulë."

There was another pause, but this one seemed darker and tinged with a deeper sadness that Sauron could almost taste. It was clear the heavy voice had touched a tender spot with the smith. Finally, the Vala of the Earth spoke again, resignedly. "Do as seems best to you, Námo."

Before Sauron could come to grips with the fact that the Doomsman of the Valar was in the adjacent room, the male tenor spoke again. "He is awake and listening to us."

Sauron suddenly felt four pairs of powerful eyes gazing at him, and he realized the four Valar were standing in the entry, but the door to his room was open so that they could still observe him. Realizing that keeping up a pretense of sleep was useless, he opened his eyes and looked back at them.

The Valar were all watching him keenly with differing expressions. Aulë looked dejected and as compassionate as ever; Námo, with his stern face and eyes so black that it was impossible to tell where his pupils ended, looked grave and as lacking in pity as Aulë was abundant in it; and the two remaining visitors, Irmo with his distant, grey eyes and silver-blonde hair and Estë with her almost ridiculously youthful face and form, like a teenage child of Men, both wore expressions Sauron found impossible to read.

Námo's lips tightened and his eyes narrowed, but it was Estë who first moved, gliding slowly forward on bare feet and bringing with her into the bedroom the fresh smell that Sauron had noticed upon waking. There was that uncanny flame of power in her eyes, perhaps not as strong as in Aulë, or Námo, or even Melkor, but it was unnerving all the same to have it bent on him, especially radiating from a girl who physically looked like someone he could rip in half if he had a mind to, but Sauron the Deceiver knew better than anyone that appearances were treacherous.

The smell aroused memories in him, flashes of pictures and thoughts: light, faces, a strange crawling feeling over his flesh like water trickling over his skin, but he could not place any of it. It seemed to enter into his mind rather than his nostrils, and where it touched his psyche, it illuminated thoughts and memories that he had thought buried or burned long ago.

Now that he was faced with it, it surprised him to find that he could barely remember what most of the Valar had looked or sounded like before he left, and looking upon them now, they seemed like strange and fuzzy memories from a long-ago dream. It was all dream-like, he realized suddenly, his life before Melkor and Angband. No, he could still remember many details with clarity, things that had happened, even individual jewels he had made, but it seemed strangely unreal, and over other things it was as if a veil had been cast. His memories of the Valar, except for Aulë and Melkor, were shrouded in shadow, just as other aspects were, like his old name, like the Halls from which he, and they all, had first come, like what exactly he had Sung in the Music. He had never really considered this before, this strange lapse of memory, but now that it confronted him, he felt disturbed – defiled, almost – by this web of forgetfulness and shadow in his mind. He had always considered his mind sharper than most and it bothered him to have it revealed as otherwise. He shuddered and withdrew from the Valië.

Estë, however, did not seem concerned with his reaction. He now saw she was holding a bowl in her hands, not one of the clay pieces of crockery that had survived his fury, but a wooden bowl overlaid with what Sauron instantly recognized as pure gold. From it rose a spiral of white steam and he felt its heat on his face as Estë brought it towards him. In a moment of panic, he thought she was going to make him drink it. For some reason, the smell – and with it, his realization of his own forgetfulness – repulsed him; he could not bear the thought of that liquid, and its smell and memories, inside of him, becoming part of him…

But the Valië of healing did nothing more than dip in her fingers and before he could withdraw further, brushed them over his forehead. The liquid was warm against his skin for a moment until it dried, and despite himself, he felt his facial muscles relax, as if they had been commanded to do so. Estë's large, pale grey-green eyes gazed innocently into his. "How does that feel?" she asked, her harp-voice sweet and sleepy.

"Nice," his tongue answered before his mind reacted. It had been so long since he truly relaxed. She had dipped in her fingers again and was stretching them towards his face before he compelled himself to pull away. "What is it?" he asked suspiciously, but his tongue felt heavy. He cursed this sluggishness and tried to pull himself out of it. Now, of all times, was not the time to drop his guard.

"It is a simple mixture of water and an herb that brings healing, rest, and light to dark minds," she replied. "The Eldar call it athelas."

At the mention of the elves, and the recent memories that followed the word, he scowled and pushed her hand away. "I don't like the smell – it makes me feel sick," he growled.

A confused, or perhaps simply sad, expression (he could not tell) crossed her girlish face. "It will do you good. There has been much strain on you, and it will allow you to find rest if you let it."

"I don't like it," he snarled, breaking away from the last foggy tendrils of tempting sleepiness that the Valië and her concoction cast over him. He withdrew as far as the bed would allow him from the spirals of pungent steam. "Leave me alone."

"I think he has had all he can take for now, Estë." The other Valar had moved into the room while Estë had attempted to administer her athelas brew. It was Irmo who had stepped forward and placed a pale hand on his wife's shoulder. She looked up into his eyes, something passed between them mentally, then she nodded slowly and stood, leaving Sauron crouched in the corner, watching her suspiciously like a wolf eyeing a hunter with a bow.

Sauron's gaze flickered to the other two Valar and finally came to rest on Námo. For a moment, he wondered if he should have let Estë continue her healing, for while she had been busy with him, the other Valar had seemed content to let her go about her work. Now that he had rejected her efforts, however, a chill had returned to the air, an icy atmosphere of justice that centered around the Doomsman of the Valar.

Námo's black eyes bored into him. They were hard, unwavering, but not cruel. Sauron knew cruelty when he saw it. He'd seen the mirth of it in Melkor's eyes when he condemned the red-haired Elf Prince of the Enemies, when he had tortured the proud grey-haired Man and cursed his family, when he had looked upon the beautiful, dancing Princess and told her his designs for her. He'd seen it in the eyes of Valaraukar and dragons and orcs. He had seen it in the hungering eyes of Draugluin. He had seen it in the sword blade that he had held up before his own face before he struck down the mortal traitor that he himself had seduced into treachery. Cruelty brought pleasure, but he saw neither joy nor pleasure in the Doomsman's eyes at the prospect of condemnation. It was not pity in Námo's eyes, but something just as foul to Sauron: righteousness.

I am doomed, Sauron thought. He remembered the words of Aulë that he had overheard: I ask for him to be judged according to his merits, in how his actions thus far prove themselves. Well, if he knew anything, it was that his actions had condemned him a thousand times over. He did not know what Aulë had hoped to gain for him with such a plea; if he were to be judged by his actions, nothing good would come to him.

Perhaps I was always doomed. The thought flickered through his mind, and for some reason, it was not wholly despairing. There was some strange comfort in believing that he was living out his destiny, that there was no other path to turn onto now, that he had reached an End set in stone. That all he could do now was to go down holding his head high. He had fought long and hard and the scars of his battles covered his spirit; it was almost restful to think that the fighting was over. At least in the Void, he would have his certainties back and none of his memories, forgotten or remembered, would matter. Strength seeped back into his limbs and standing, he met Námo's heavy gaze.

"What is the time?" Sauron asked, his voice once more silky and smooth.

He saw Aulë frown at the unexpected question, but Námo's countenance shifted no more than it would have had it been granite. "It is evening," the Doomsman replied.

Sauron held his gaze, even though it hurt. "I believe I have a trial scheduled for that time," he said.

Aulë stepped forward, his face etched with pain and that signature sympathy. "The trial can wait," he said. "There are more important things to be seen to now. You are not well, Nauron. We can help you prepare for what is to come better if your mind and body are strong. We want to help you, not hurt you further. Please, come with myself and Irmo and Estë and we can promise you a night of deep sleep and deeper rest, which is what we all know you need. Surely, Námo cannot object if we postpone other duties until the morning."

If Sauron had not already been determined in the course of action he was about to take, he would have been now. Aulë's words stirred his deep-set pride and he held himself a little straighter and taller. He turned his gaze to Aulë now, meeting the pleading, metallic eyes with the cold reserve he had learned from the iron will of Melkor. He would not forgive himself for his lapse before Aulë earlier, even if Aulë did, and he felt the familiar hard chill of indifference incase the fiery emotions that he could not risk freeing again. It was easier to face a hateful world with his emotions deadened.

"I believe I have a trial scheduled," he repeated, the icy words slipping between stony lips, the last hints of his fiery rage and his stormy fear locked hard in his heart, invisible once again to the world the way he preferred

He did not look at the Valar again. Instead, he walked straight past them, through the entry room where the last hints of his fury had been swept into small, neat, unnoticeable piles in the corner. He paused at the door, his fingers on the knob. "Do what you feel is best," he said, "but I shall be waiting for you, at the Ring of Doom."

There was a moment of surprised silence amongst the four Valar after the door closed behind the Maia. Then Námo's lips played upward in a hint of a grim smile. "Just as meek as he ever was, is he not?"

Aulë's shoulders slumped, but he couldn't help giving a small shake of his head. "I tell you, he was always brave," he said in a voice tinged with admiration.

"And bold," Irmo added with a small frown.

"As was Melkor," said Estë. She gazed down at the still steaming bowl of unused athelas broth in her hands. "Without compassion and restraint for balance, bravery and boldness are powerful weapons."

Námo squared his heavy shoulders. "And yet he is right," the Doomsman said. "The time has come. We have a trial to attend."

A/N: Thanks so much for all the wonderful responses to this story, everyone! When I started this, I thought I might have one reader, maybe two or three if I was lucky, but I never imagined that so many people would be interested in Sauron's tale. It has really delighted me to see all the reviews, favorites, and follows of everyone who is coming along with me on this journey, a journey that means a lot to me.

I'd like to especially thank my anonymous reviewers so far: someonewholikest, Anonymous, Guest, and Almedias.

Cheers!