If Celebrimbor could not put Sauron out of his mind and his dreams, he could keep his distress from others. He tried and thought he mostly succeeded, but he knew Celebrían worried and at times Galadriel looked at him in that piercing way she had. Yet Celebrimbor was happy to dwell in Tol Eressea, mostly content, for Celebrían's house was as much a home to him as anywhere in the Blessed Realms.

The three Hobbits, those great heroes of the War of the Rings, lived with Elrond and Celebrían too, in a large hole that Sam said was greater than even Bag End, though Bilbo traveled often, for he had a great love of it. He was away on a trip — an adventure as he called it — with Mithrandir, but the other two Hobbits were planning to dine at Elrond's table, as they often did. That morning it was fried eggs and toast – Elrond frequently cooked Shire-like food — but neither Frodo nor Sam had come for breakfast yet. A surprise, considering their prodigious appetites, but Celebrimbor supposed they might still be abed: both had been up late last night, listening to tales and songs, and like other mortals the Hobbits slept excessively.

But then the door opened and in walked Samwise Gamgee.

"Well, good morning!" said Sam, bright-eyed if late to breakfast. "You're looking rather shiny today, Master Elrond, as shiny as Lady Celebrían and Mr. Celebrimbor."

Celebrimbor blinked. Elrond did not appear to glow any more than he normally did.

But Celebrían laughed. "He does look rather nice, don't you think, Mr. Gamgee? I made the jewels in his hair myself and insisted he wore them today."

Ah, thought Celebrimbor, Sam must be referring to Elrond's jewelry: he was rather more arrayed in gems than was his wont; his fashion sense was quite spare, even ascetic, like some Vanyarin mystic. Left to his own devices, he hardly wore so much as a bracelet or a set of earrings, which Celebrimbor secretly thought a travesty. Celebrían, though, was kin to Finrod and Thingol and looked, as Sam might say, shiny. He glanced at her and noted with some annoyance that the silver and moonstone brooch clasping her dressing robe shut was his; she had the bothersome habit of raiding his jewelry room.

"They are very bright," said Sam, in the same tone of voice he had used when speaking of crossing a narrow bridge between high towers.

Celebrían opened her mouth to reply, but the door opened again and Frodo came in. He pulled up a chair — the table was low and the rest of them sat on cushions on the floor, but well-sized for a Hobbit on a chair — and said his good mornings.

"I thought Galadriel and Finrod would still be here. Did they leave already?" asked Frodo as he filled his plate.

"Mother and Finrod left shortly after dawn," said Celebrían. "They should arrive in Alqualonde by noon. But I saw an airship touching down just before breakfast, so I daresay Gandalf and Bilbo are back."

Elrond's eyes went distant for a moment. "Yes, Gandalf has returned," he said. "And with Bilbo too, no doubt. I believe Gandalf was planning on flying from Alqualonde; they probably missed Galadriel and Finrod by just a few hours both here and there. Well, they can tell us about the city. I haven't been there either," he added to the Hobbits.

"You haven't been to Alqualonde?" Celebrimbor was surprised at that, and cast his mind over what he knew of Elrond's time in Aman, realizing he knew of only two trips Elrond had taken since he arrived, and both to Lórien. "You haven't left Eressea much at all, have you?"

"I am in no hurry. I loved travel and learning from people when I was younger, but I'm more than content to dwell here in peace and repose as I adjust to these lands."

"Besides," Celebrían laughed, "he's made himself quite busy writing annoyed letters to the Loremasters here, correcting their misunderstandings of Edainic culture and intra-Eldarin relations. And their Westron grammar."

Elrond reached across the table to squeeze her hand. "We have all the time in the world, beloved, to do whatever we wish."

But to Celebrimbor's mind he said: Bilbo is livelier than he was at fifty and will be with us for a very long time I think, but Frodo and Sam grow weary. I won't leave our guests in what will be their last years.

There was some shadow in Frodo's eyes, and Celebrimbor thought he knew what Elrond had not said aloud.

But Frodo said, "Not everyone's grammar needs correcting: Finrod speaks Westron very well."

Westron had become the common tongue in Celebrían's household, for the sake of Frodo and Sam, though by now they both could speak Sindarin fluently. But Finrod had decided to speak only mortal languages when he could, even when the Hobbits were not present; Celebrimbor despaired of hearing Sindarin from him ever again.

"You could even mistake Finrod for someone who was born and raised in Hobbiton! Aside from his shininess, of course," Sam added.

Frodo made a murmur of agreement as he piled another sausage on his plate.

"Thank you for making breakfast!" he said to Elrond. The Hobbits were very polite.

"Yes, thank you, Elrond," Celebrimbor said. He had forgotten to thank him till he heard Frodo do so, for he was not as polite as a Hobbit. "You always go to such trouble to cook such large breakfasts."

"But this is a normal breakfast, not any larger than usual," said Sam with some confusion. "Very good, and much appreciated of course, Mr. Elrond!" he added hastily.

"Oh ignore him," said Celebrían. "He'd happily subsist on nothing but rice, pickled plums, and wine."

"I'd miss sardines," said Celebrimbor, reaching for a lychee.

"They are lovely when fried over toast, even if Mr. Frodo doesn't think so," said Sam. "I tell you, I would happily have come to Tol Eressea for the food alone."

"And to think you used to hold no truck with foreign food!" Frodo said, dipping his toast into the yolk of the soft-boiled egg.

"But even the foreign food here tastes like a home. It's brighter here, alive."

"It is, I suppose," said Frodo, "I no longer feel grey."

Celebrimbor looked at him, keeping his face mildly interested and nothing more. Sam had been quite right when he called Aman brighter, but there was still a faint greyness to Frodo, a translucency to his spirit. Sam caught his eye, and Celebrimbor saw that Sam perceived it too; shaken, he looked away.

But Sam did not speak of it and instead said wistfully, "I do miss mushrooms, though. The Elves don't cook them, nor do you, Master Elrond. That's what second breakfast needs, mushrooms cooked in butter on toast."

"Mushrooms," Celebrían said, looking queasy, and queasier still when Frodo and Sam began to talk, very excitedly, about various ways to prepare them.

Celebrimbor stopped paying attention to the conversation: he had a professional interest in distillation and an amateur interest in fermentation, but no interest at all in cooking, and the Hobbits' greedy love of mushrooms was distressing; he wondered why they considered them edible. Instead he looked at Frodo, a smile on his face and his hand over Sam's.

Frodo and Celebrimbor had talked of the Ring only once, and it had been perhaps the only time Celebrimbor felt that he had done wrong, for Ringcraft had been his Art as much as it had been Sauron's, and the One had brought much torment to Frodo and the creature Gollum. Frodo had spoken of how beautiful it was and yet such a thing of horror and corruption, but he had said too that he still missed it, and though Celebrimbor had never held the One Ring, that he understood very well.

He thought that their conversation had brought Frodo some relief, to speak with someone who knew in a way perhaps no one else alive did, and at the time it had soothed Celebrimbor too. It did not now. I wronged him, he thought. Some healing had come to the Ringbearer, but he would never been entirely whole again: it had been in part Celebrimbor's Art that had wounded him so. I would do it again, I would welcome Sauron again, and with him labor and create. And again Sauron would be cast down and Frodo hurt beyond full mending.

The Hobbits were still talking about mushrooms, those disgusting things, and Celebrimbor sighed. He was done eating anyways.

"Ah, forgive me," he said, and stood up with a smile. "I'd forgotten — I left a reaction running that I really should check on. No need to worry, Elrond; don't give me that look. I haven't destroyed a building in an experiment since I was a child."

Elrond met his eyes with his own, a question in them, so to his mind Celebrimbor said, well, mostly I wish to hear no more of how delicious mushrooms are.

They're not entirely inedible. If the alternative is starving, Elrond thought back, amused, but shooed him away. "Go!"

"Try to avoid explosions, and no poison gases!" Celebrían called over her shoulder.


Celebrimbor had lied, about the experiment if not the mushrooms; no reaction was taking place in his workroom and the fume hood was empty. But there was solitude and quiet.

He looked around the room and grew disgusted with himself. Trinkets all, nothing of note, and while he had never before reproached himself for dabbling, the only current project worthy of his former ambition was the developing theory of space and time, and that equations and thought experiments on paper, the work of his pen and not his hands.

The glass beakers were kept on two shelves of a cabinet; they were of Celebrimbor's mother's make. He opened the door and took one out, turned it in his hand, looked it over for a long moment.

He threw it against the wall.

It was deeply satisfying, watching the glass shatter and hearing it break; he was disgusted with himself that he took pleasure in it. There was some raw emptiness inside and some repulsive joy at breaking things beyond repair; he wondered if it always felt like this to destroy something completely, such that it could never be again.

He picked up another flask and threw it too, and deliberately, methodically continued.

But the last beaker he set on a table and laid his hands next to it and leaned forward. Most of his fingers had rings on them, but not the first finger on the right hand. He stared, but it was not his hands he saw.


"Do you still have that ambition of yours?" Annatar asked one day. He was lit from behind by the sunlight streaming through a high window, the light colored by the stained glass and cut crystal suncatchers, and looked somewhat more translucent than usual.

Celebrimbor tilted his head.

"I trust you know by now that I am an ambitious man," he said mildly. "I have no lack of ambitions, so you'll have to be more specific."

Annatar smiled. "You told me when we first met that you meant to surpass Feanor in greatness."

Celebrimbor rolled his eyes. "I hardly told you. You looked into my heart and soul — without asking first! — and perceived it."

"As I said, you told me you wished to surpass Feanor. I 'looked in your heart,' as you say, and saw that you wished it very much indeed. Do you still?"

Celebrimbor sat back and gave the question some consideration. "You know," he said thoughtfully, "I haven't even thought of that in, oh, the last century or so. I suppose I—"

Annatar had a small smile on his face; Celebrimbor looked at him and thought that whatever had come before their labors in Eregion did not matter. It had been the start of a world when the founding stones of Ost-in-Edhil were laid and the rising of a sun when Annatar arrived.

He set aside the lap desk he had been working on and walked over to the couch that Annatar sat straight-backed on, and leaned against the wall next to it.

"No. It is no longer an ambition of mine. I don't care if I surpass him, or if others think me and not him the greatest of the Noldor, not now, not anymore. My ambition now is to make that which is around me greater, to give my works to the world with open hands, not to close my fist and hides my works away."

There was some deep fondness in Annatar's eyes. Celebrimbor was perhaps fooling himself to think it might be adoration.

"I did not know Feanor," said Annatar, "but I did see some of his works. I have seen your works too, ours, and you are bright and brilliant and open-handed. I have heard that the Silmarils were beautiful, though they were stained in blood, but your works are not just beautiful but have great power; they were made not just for beauty but to make the world itself more beautiful. You are my partner, my heart's friend, and I have seen your vision. Of course you are greater than him; how could you not be? If you were not, I would not be sitting here with you, I would not tell you this, I would not wish to make you—"

He broke off and stared at Celebrimbor, unblinking and utterly still. His eyes were a flat gold, and unreadable, and he became suddenly and fully present, and all of his attention lay on Celebrimbor, the singular focus of that unfathomable mind.

"I might keep you with me forever, Celebrimbor," Annatar said, and his eyes were so bright that it almost hurt to look at them. "You may well be the dearest thing I have."

Annoyed, Celebrimbor drew himself up straighter. "I'm not a thing to be kept."

Annatar ignored him, but of a sudden his presence diminished and it seemed to Celebrimbor that Annatar became... not worried, exactly, not quite apprehensive. If he were another person Celebrimbor would think it nervousness, but in the two and a half great years they had known each other Celebrimbor had never seen him nervous.

Annatar sighed and sank into the couch and smiled, rueful. "I do like you, you know."

"I know," said Celebrimbor softly, "and against my better judgment I am fond of you."

When Annatar reached out a hand to him, he took it and let Annatar tug him down to sit next to him. Celebrimbor shifted to get comfortable and threw a leg over one of Annatar's, pressing against him as Annatar pulled him in close.

He caught Annatar's hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it.

"In truth," Celebrimbor told him, "you are the best thing that has ever happened to me."

Annatar did not answer but made a little noise and pulled him closer still. Celebrimbor smiled to himself and rested his head on Annatar's shoulder.

For a long moment both were still, but Annatar broke the silence.

"Celebrimbor," he said haltingly, "you do know that you are… you do know how precious you are; you must know."

Celebrimbor sat up so he could look in full at his friend, sitting athwart him so that he was facing at Annatar, not looking in the same direction as him. Annatar looked back; he was almost…

"You are nervous," Celebrimbor said with some satisfaction, though inwardly he wondered at it. He took Annatar's hand and squeezed it, briefly brushed his mind in reassurance. Somewhat to his surprise, there was no answering flash of mild annoyance, but instead Annatar spoke.

"What we have done together," he said, and he switched to Quenya, and the pronoun he used was the first person dual inclusive: I and thou and no other. "What we have done, what we will do together…"

He looked away for a moment before saying, "There is a mountain to the south and east where the fires of Ambar burn hot. In its heart lies a lake of molten rock. Mighty power can be summoned there, might to overwhelm anything that stands against it."

You speak of power again, thought Celebrimbor, for Annatar had spoken much of power recently, but put it out of mind when Annatar shifted to face him in full and took his right hand in his.

"Tyelperinquar," he said, and cast his gaze down, and ran his thumb up and down the first finger, the one on which the Eldar wore their wedding rings, that signifier of a bond. "Come with me, before the fires of the Earth."

There was some pressure in Celebrimbor's chest that he had no name for. His heart grew taut, as metal pulled through a draw plate was taut, tension building within him.

Annatar continued, still staring at their hands. "We have made Rings of Power, you and I. We can do so again at the forge of Sammath Naur, me and thee and no other, us as the prism with which to draw Arda's power into metal. We could craft a master Ring there, but more than just that one, rings powerful only for what they signify…"

He faltered. Celebrimbor reached out with his left hand, the one Annatar was not holding, and held it to Annatar's face and brushed his thumb over his lips, let his eyes linger on them before letting them drift up to Annatar's own, still cast downwards.

"Beloved," Celebrimbor dared say.

Annatar's breath caught and he looked up.

"Tyelperinquar," he said, "precious one. Let us bind ourselves together, me and thee, body to body and soul to soul. I want thee at my side for all time, mine, mine own."

Celebrimbor looked back wide-eyed, caught in the fire of Annatar's gaze. He had thought, he had known that Annatar was his, that Annatar wanted him, that this day would come, but for it to happen…

"Annatar," Celebrimbor said when he could speak, and now he knew what else he could say. "Beloved." He had to stop to smile helplessly at Annatar, and brilliant joy echoed between them as their minds lay against each other: yes, yes, one or both of them thought.

"Beloved," Celebrimbor said again, and almost said 'yes, yes, of course, surely you know the answer.' He ran his gaze along Annatar's body, lingering on his throat, his shoulders, the strong muscles of his arms. He almost touched him. He could now, as he wanted, he could, and his heart raced. He almost kissed him.

But he did not, for there was one thing he needed to ask first, "Before I say yes, I need to know. You spoke of a master Ring, with its power drawn from the flames at the heart of the earth. That word, 'master,' I do not lie to say that it concerns me to hear you use it. I said earlier that I wish to give our works to the world with open hands, not close our hands and hide those works away. But there would be something even worse: to reach out with your hand and grasp the world and control it. Tell me what it is you seek."

Annatar frowned a little and stared at him. "How are the two any different? What better gift is there than improvement? We are close to controlling time, for benefit of the Eldar – though of course others well see benefits in that as well if we can slow senescence. But there is much more to be done, for Men. There are lands the Eldar know little about, and less about the people who live in them. Backward places, disordered and untaught. Some are ruled by that dark force that Galadriel and Gil-Galad have felt in the East. I came here for the good of all of this Middle-earth, to control its improvement and for that end to rule it. For the benefit of all, not for my own sake. Who else has my vision, our vision? Of course I will impose it."

"What you propose," Celebrimbor said hoarsely, and had to stop to quell near hysterical laughter: you proposed. He forgot to say yes. "Annatar, you want to rule the world?"

Annatar smiled, something almost fragile about it, and very gently touched Celebrimbor's cheek, leaned in close. "With you. Who better?"

Celebrimbor was silent, marshaling his thoughts. Over the past few decades Annatar had spoken more and more of the need for them to guide Arda and remake it in their own image. Before Celebrimbor had put it out of mind, unconcerned, but now he could not. He felt a sense of precarious balance, as though he were standing on a wire, or the edge of a knife. He wished he knew what to say but he was not his father and had no skill in such things. Nor did he…

"I have neither interest nor skill in rulership."

Annatar laughed at that. "You have more skill than you think," he said. "You know how to build cities and irrigation systems: that is much of it, and I can handle the politics — I should considering how terrible you are at it. But you know beauty. That is much of what we want to give this Middle-earth, is it not? Beauty, preservation, order. Beloved, you have given me so much already. Give me everything, and I shall do the same, give you the world, to see and rule and perfect."

Beloved, Celebrimbor thought, and thought too of his love for Annatar and his love for the world and his heart cried out at the slow realization that he might not be able to have both.

He said slowly, "So I am clear. You say you wish to rule. Tell me this then: how would you make yourself a ruler, and what will you do when your would-be subjects do not wish to be rule by you?"

"Why, we would make them understand why they should be ruled by them. Many peoples will understand what we can give them and bow. As for those who refuse to bend, some coercion might be necessary, but with care we shouldn't need to use violence. We have not yet given away the Nine and the Seven, nor should we, not till we have a means to control those who wear them. It should not be terribly difficult to devise a method to overthrow the will of those who wear the Nine, at the least. And then gift them to recalcitrant princes and make them surrender."

Celebrimbor's breath was unsteady.

"Annatar, such a thing would be a horror," he said. "You propose not betterment but slavery."

"What?" said Annatar.

"It is… a great evil was done to the thralls of Angband; I saw it in my friend Gwindor, who escaped and was less harmed than most. But worse still was the evil done to those whose actions were controlled by Morgoth and his servants, or to the houseless spirits that Gorthaur enslaved, for they could not even make their own choices; their very will was overthrown. You just proposed to overthrow the will of those 'recalcitrant princes.'"

"But that is not what we would do, Tyelperinquar. Slavery is… it makes the conditions of the enslaved worse but we'll make the conditions of any who serve us better. What cost is it to overthrow, as you say, the will of that prince if it makes the lives of everyone in his land better — and yes, his too!"

"That's… Annatar, it's wrong."

"So explain."

Celebrimbor blinked. "It's… Annatar, every person is an end in themselves. We're not objects. No one should be treated as a tool. Every person is a person. Ilúvatar gave us all free will and it's wrong to remove it. It's wrong to break another person's will. Don't you understand that? I don't know how to be clearer."

"Is it? Why shouldn't people be made to follow the will of one greater? Free will is not all there is to a person; is their material condition not important too? And the betterment of a city, a nation, and all the people in it, takes precedence over a single being. Your people care for forests and love trees, but you fell them too. What we must do is not different from that, not in essence."

"But it is!" Celebrimbor cried. "A tree isn't a person, and the few that are, the Ents and Huorns, we would never kill or force to do our bidding. And don't think I didn't notice how you didn't discount the possibility of using violence, and surely you see that that is utterly unacceptable and wrong."

"Why are you so lacking in vision now? Tyelperinquar my brightest, why has your ambition failed now; is control over Arda not what we are striving for?"

"What? You know perfectly well what my vision is; I thought you shared it. Preservation, healing, making old things new and broken things whole. The power we seek, the power we bind and use, it is for those ends. Annatar, I told you when we first met that I would find a way to reverse entropy. How did you get 'rule the world' from that?"

"But what else is that power for?" Annatar said, frustrated.

"How are you…" Celebrimbor was at a loss for words. "Where did you learn to think like that? Is that what you were doing as you wandered the world and when you decided to come here, seeking power?"

"In part, yes, but not in full. Ask whatever questions you want about my past," Annatar said dismissively.

"I don't care about whatever great deeds you accomplished in the past but what you propose to do in the future! Aulendil, is that what you learned from your master when he made the Dwarves? How to destroy that which you love? How to make slaves?"

Annatar hissed at that, a fire in his eyes that would have frightened many. "I am here because I am not Aule, because I will not abandon that which I love; the hammer I raise will to be refine, not destroy. There may be necessary sacrifices, yes, but is it destruction to cast away dross? Those who stand in the way of my plans, they are that dross."

Celebrimbor was more surprised than he should have been to hear that. He had always known Annatar had a streak of amorality and had always known Annatar had no pity. He should have expected a disregard for the sacrosanctity of individual wills. He had not expected it. It was no less abhorrent.

"That is abhorrent," he said. "No thinking creature is dross - how can you even think such a thing! The lowliest mortal in the lowliest village is still an end to themselves no less than you or I are, with just as much worth as you or me, with just as much innate dignity. That our circumstances and selves are greater does not mean that we, you and I, are more worthy in the eyes of Eru."

Annatar laughed out loud. "Worth? I have the vision to rule Arda and I have chosen you as my companion. Of course you and I are more worthy."

He smiled. "But I am glad you have such care for the lowliest of mortals, just as you have such an eye for beauty. Think, Tyelperinquar, of what that lowliest mortal of yours experiences. Privation, misery, a life short and brutal. Think of how we could make his life better. We can if he is under our control."

"Improving the lives of others does not mean subjugating them!"

Annatar stood up from the couch abruptly and took a step forward; there was confusion and frustration in his presence, but beneath that Celebrimbor felt the faintest strand of fear in him. He whirled around.

"Shall we talk about 'subjugation'?" Annatar sneered. "What do you think the Edain were to your kingly kin? Vassals, subjugated to the greater wisdom and power of the Eldar. Felagund, whom I know you loved, he was wise indeed to make the Beorians another wall between Nargothrond and Angband, placing them in a land where they would need to be destroyed before Morgoth's armies could advance in search of his hidden city."

Celebrimbor made an inarticulate noise, unsure how to respond to what Annatar had just said. "That's not what Finrod did."

"That it was not his intent — or so you say; I don't know why else he'd settle them in Ladros — does not mean that it was not his actions. The Edain died in the Bragollach, a sacrifice for Nargothrond's safety. But me, if I become a king over some kingdom it will be for the good of the inhabitants there, improvement; it won't be to sacrifice them. How isn't bringing sanitation, or writing, or better agricultural practices a good?"

"Bring them as a gift, Annatar," Celebrimbor said slowly. "Not something to be forced upon the world, but something given from our hands for others to transform as they may."

"Why are you not understanding? And certainly I don't suggest that others can't transform things too and think of better ways to do things. But they need to be taught first, need to be guided. And who better to teach than us? Who better to rule than a god and his consort?"

"I don't… First off, I don't want to rule anyone and I won't. Nor be the consort of—"

Celebrimbor took a long look up at Annatar, standing in front of him. A strand of bright hair had fallen on his face; he thought of what it would be like to bury his hands in that hair, pull him down so they lay body to body, to kiss him. He could do so now. He could call upon Eru, welcome Annatar into his body and soul. But that was not the only thing Annatar had proposed.

"Oh Annatar, come here," he said and took his friend's hands; Annatar sunk to sit on the ground in front of him.

"I want you, my friend, the one I love" Celebrimbor said and brought Annatar's hands to his lips to kiss the knuckles. "I don't want an emperor or someone who sets himself up as a god to be worshipped. I don't want a conqueror or a warlord. Beloved, it's you I want, but I won't be an emperor's consort or co-ruler."

"Tyelpe," Annatar said almost desperately, "I and you, we both love this world, we both want to make it blessed, and there is no better or faster way to do so than to, yes, rule it. People are dying as we speak, warring as we speak. We can stop that. Is it not best that we do so, even if it involve force? Regrettable, but more regrettable still to allow those sicknesses and wars to continue."

"Will you not be dissuaded," said Celebrimbor, half to himself.

"What is there to be dissuaded of? Tyelperinquar, this is what we are striving for. You would shy away from greatness now?" There was confusion in Annatar's voice and disbelief in his eyes. "You would shy away from us. I thought you wanted…"

Celebrimbor took Annatar's face in his hands, tried to will him to understand. He said, "Power over others isn't what I want. It isn't right. Annatar, I don't know how else to explain it. You would break things. Yes, I know that you believe it necessary; I know your ends are good. But you cannot do so by forcing others to bow to your will.

"If all you asked of me were myself, I would say yes, I would belong to you in full, I would be yours in all ways. But you also ask me to, to… to join you in conquering the world. I will not be a king, even if it is you whom I love that hand me a crown, for that crown would have been wrested from unwilling hands."

Celebrimbor paused. Some part of him thought he should be weeping but instead he felt very cold.

"I cannot countenance such a thing," he said. "I will not be an accomplice. Any would-be slaver is no friend of mine. No, beloved. I will not I marry you if your vision is to rule. I will not make items of power with you, not while you hold such aims. But if you… No, not while you hold such aims."

Annatar made as if to speak, but closed his mouth and they stared at each other in silence. He stood up and walked to the door, but turned back to look at Celebrimbor for a long moment. "Think on it," he said and then he left.

Celebrimbor did think on it and three days later when they spoke again had reasoned arguments, but over the following weeks the two of them came to no accord and Annatar quit Ost-in-Edhil. Before he left he came to Celebrimbor.

"Celebrimbor," said Annatar, and there was something unyielding in his voice, "I will be back; I will not abandon you; I shall have you and the world both. Wait for me, and I shall show you all that lies ahead for us."


'All that lies ahead,' Celebrimbor thought. Nothing but pain and ruin, beloved, and at your own hands.

"Why can't I forget you?" he said to the empty air, and the last of the beakers he did not throw against a wall but held over the floor and let go, and when it shattered the destruction brought not satisfaction but tears.

"Why did you not die?" he asked the empty room, raggedly. "Why are you back?"

There were no more glass vessels to throw, so he laid his forearms on the worktable and rested his head against them as he tried and failed to keep from sobbing.

"Why did you return?" he said to the table when his throat cleared enough that he could speak.

"Return? Why wouldn't I return? I had a hobbit to bring back!" said a voice.

Celebrimbor froze. He wiped the tears away, as surreptitiously as he could manage, and turned up to face the voice.

"Mithrandir," he said cautiously. "Welcome back."

The wizard was standing in the doorway, looking at him from under bushy eyebrows. He had kept to the form that Elrond said he had worn in Middle-earth, an old mortal man with a long white beard.

"I did die," he added, "and I was sent back. But I do not know why you would like to forget me."

Celebrimbor looked at him, worried and suspicious, and wished he had locked the door.

"I'm afraid you must have misheard," he said, and forced a smile to his face. "Now, if you'll excuse me I am quite busy; if you want we can talk later." Or never.

"Busy talking to a table?"

"Busy cleaning," he answered, and tried to will the wizard to leave. Mithrandir did not leave; Celebrimbor thought sourly that every Maia he had ever met did nothing but the opposite of what he wished.

"It looks more like you were making a mess!" said Mithrandir, looking at the glass shards that littered the floor.

"Looking for a broom, rather."

"I thought you were weeping instead," the wizard said kindly, "over someone who returned when you wish they had not."

"Someone who returned to my mind." It was not even untrue, and he hoped but doubted Mithrandir would stop there.

"Who was it?"

He thought, do you mind? Please leave. This is my sorrow, to hold in my own heart.

But he said, "Did Celebrían ask you to speak with me?"

Mithrandir raised one of those bushy eyebrows. "Should she have? Why do you think she would?"

Celebrimbor had given something away and grimaced, not entirely sure how to respond. He wondered what exactly Mithrandir knew.

Mithrandir looked around and pulled up a stool to sit on. Celebrimbor sighed a bit, considered fleeing the room but did not bother: the wizard would only find him again if he wished.

"I sought you out myself," said Mithrandir. "I spent many great years, as your people reckon them, working against the dark in ways great and small and I heard many tales and much lore of the Master of the Rings, some false and some true."

"And now you want my tale," said Celebrimbor, now quite suspicious. "Come back later, or not at all; I have nothing to say."

Mithrandir's eyes were as piercing as Galadriel's. "We both know that's not true; I suspect you have words no other does." There was a Ring on his finger, one Celebrimbor knew well indeed, one he had died for, and the wizard touched it. "And I think you need to speak those words."

Celebrimbor's eyes felt watery again. "I don't want to," he said quietly.

Mithrandir drew his bushy eyebrows together till they half-hid his eyes, but his gaze was still keen and sharp.

"What are you afraid of, Celebrimbor? What are you sorry for?"

Celebrimbor stiffened: he loathed when people asked him that, and his temper was roused. "Why does everyone ask me if I'm sorry? Why should I be? What do I have to be sorry for? I wish events had gone differently, of course, but I do not bear responsibility for what Sauron did, and frankly it's insulting that others would ask me to make penance: it was Sauron who committed his crimes, not I! Whatever he did, it is on him. I was not the one who perverted our Art. I… I may regret, perhaps, what I taught to Sauron and what we learned together. Or perhaps not! I am certainly not sorry!"

"Are you not?" the wizard said.

Celebrimbor laughed, almost hysterical, and nearly took a reaction vessel from the cabinet to throw against the wall too, for all that they were made with the strength to contain explosions and throwing one against stone would not crack it.

But he calmed just slightly, and twitched his lips in apology, and said, "Being at peace with my choices, knowing I would choose the same again… it does not mean wishing that the world had been instead a world where those choices hadn't needed to be made, a world where others chose paths different. And… had we not made our Art together, he and I, Frodo Baggins and the creature Gollum would not have been so hurt.

"But even now, I wish… He tortured me to death, which was rather unpleasant and also quite terrible on his part. But he was a friend too. More than a friend."

Celebrimbor took a deep breath against the choking in his throat and did not go on. Me and thee and no other, Sauron had said to him, so many times.

"I thought he might have been your friend," Mithrandir said musingly, "if for no other reason than that Galadriel and Celeborn were so very close-lipped about what exactly happened in Eregion. But tell me, how was he more than a friend, the Deceiver, whom you knew as Annatar?"

Celebrimbor stared at him. Mithrandir was not the person to admit this to, and something inside him winced at what he was about to say to him, something wailed at him to stop, but he did say it; he could not not say it; he had to hear it made real again.

"He was my friend, Morgoth's lieutenant, and more. I loved him; I was in love with him." At the least he managed to make his voice dull and not teary. "That's a thing to know about yourself, that you can be friends with Sauron, that you are a person who Sauron wanted to be friends with! But I know too that Sauron was capable of being a friend in return."

He swallowed, and remembered the touch of Sauron's hand on his own and the rings they had not made.

"Capable of loving in return," he added softly.

Mithrandir did not answer but watched him closely. Celebrimbor sighed; he was not sure he had the strength of heart to remain standing. Sitting on the ground behind the table, where Mithrandir could not see him, was tempting but he instead walked over to where he had thrown the flasks and with his foot brushed away some of the shattered glass on the floor. He sank down to sit and leaned his back against the wall, a small catharsis coming over him.

"Love… But I still fear him, for all that the terror no longer suffuses my bones. And I should hate him too: his evil second only to Morgoth's. Shouldn't I hate him?"

The wizard still did not say anything, which Celebrimbor thought strange; Mithrandir, he had been told, was given to keeping secrets but rarely held his voice back. Celebrimbor too usually held his secrets close, and now that he had calmed somewhat felt deeply embarrassed and uncomfortably exposed. He cringed at himself.

"I don't know why I told you that. I do apologize for telling you, if nothing else, and for losing my temper. Please forget it, and forgive my outburst. Here I am, saying such things that I hold secret in my heart, things that would make others recoil, and we hardly know each other—"

"But I do know you, Ringmaker," said Mithrandir. "Narya was my companion and aid for many years. No evil ever touched it, not in its bearing and not in its making. Through it I saw the heart of its creator and saw that he desired to make things of understanding and healing, for his creation to be a blessing to the world. And it was a blessing."

Celebrimbor went stricken at that, staring at Mithrandir, eyes wide and body still, save for his trembling hands.

"I came to talk to you for a reason. But I see now that I was more right than I knew. Celebrimbor, I am not judging you."

Celebrimbor's mouth opened a touch and he looked away; some distant part of him was proud that he had not started to cry again.

"I think you need to go on." The wizard's voice was kindlier than he had expected.

He stared at his hands, clenched in his lap. He could not look at Mithrandir. But he could do this, if he were able to keep his words light.

"Well, he was very attractive. And an excellent mathematician."

No, Celebrimbor thought. If he were to speak of what Sauron was to him, what was compelling about him, he could not be flippant. So he went on, and more sincerely.

"What I said before, how I loved — and worse, liked! — him, it was Sauron I spoke of. Annatar was Sauron; they were the same person and I knew him. Well, not the" — he waved his hand — "but the love of systems and order, the playfulness and mean sense of humor, the need to be admired and yet how terrified he was to be caught, his inventiveness, ambition, how he was so very clever. It was not till later that I learned how very foolish he was too."

"A wise fool," said Mithrandir.

"Clever and stupid both," Celebrimbor agreed. "Yet he… he saw me for me, not as the pale shadow of a dead man, and he understood me. I didn't have to think on how to explain things, for his mind made similar leaps. We shared a sense of humor — and that is disconcerting in retrospect! — and it was easy and challenging both to be in his company; he was sharp, in an enjoyable way. Never nice, but I liked that too, and I didn't mind that there was no kindness or pity in him. Perhaps I should have.

"He did create things just for the joy of creation, not just for power, things of beauty. Working with him, the heights we achieved… That is his fault too, that our work was interrupted. He made the One and never made anything again; I made the Three and he killed me. But had he not decided to be Sauron in truth, what greater things we could have done! And he- he- even when—"

Celebrimbor could not finish, and remembered how when he was first set in chains and forced to his knees Sauron had tilted his chin up so their eyes met.

"I am so very glad to see you once more. Oh Celebrimbor, how I missed you!"

Sauron sank to his own knees and brushed his thumb over Celebrimbor's lips, something sincere and fragile in his eyes.

"Shh, I know: you rejected me, betrayed me. It did hurt. But it's all right now, all will be well. You are still mine and I forgive you."

Celebrimbor closed his eyes: how afraid he had been, and underneath that how furious. He had no forgiveness for Sauron; the evils which the Lord of the Black Lands had done were too great to ever be forgiven. Yet he remembered too how comforting it had been when Sauron would hold him or stroke his hair, even at the end, even as he shook and moaned from pain and even now, sitting in his own room in his second life, he wished for Sauron's arms around him. The desolation he had felt when the Ring had been unmade returned to him.

Utterly miserable, he began to weep again, wracking sobs, and he pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and burying his face against them to hide.

When it passed, when he felt like he had regained some control over his voice, he forced himself to lift his eyes to Mithrandir's kindly ones and said, "I knew his vision, of a renewed Arda. We did share it. What I didn't know was what he was willing to do to achieve it, and how he would grow to hate those who stood in his way. What he did to the world he once loved!"

There were tears running down his cheeks, but Mithrandir he looked at wild-eyed. "There was good in him once. I know it!"

"I know," said Mithrandir gently. "Not even Sauron was evil in the beginning, not even Morgoth."

"Perhaps Ungoliant," said Celebrimbor.

"Perhaps not even her." He looked at Celebrimbor, and there was something in his eyes; Celebrimbor could not tell what it was.

"Maybe," Celebrimbor said dully, and tipped his head back, stared at the ceiling. "But they all chose to do evil deeds and that choice led to their own destructions, their own unmakings.

"I told him what he had done to himself and what would come to pass. I told him that he could still escape that fate if he gave up the Ring, that it bound him to inevitable defeat. But I spoke more out of grief and fury than persuasion. He was my friend and I made very little attempt to save him but sought only to hinder his plans; that he was my friend mattered not. He called me 'traitor' just before he killed me, though he was one too. He was right, for I did betray our friendship. I was not wrong to."

It had not been the first time Celebrimbor had been disloyal. He had betrayed the bond between him and his father and lord, thrown away honor and forsaken filial duty, for the path Curufin chose had been evil. He had betrayed the bonds of friendship, that which bound him to the one who had been closest to his heart, for Sauron's path had been evil too.

"There are things that come before love," he said.

"Evil must be fought against. But that doesn't mean a hand can't be held out, even if the other hand is holding a sword."

Celebrimbor closed his eyes. "It doesn't matter, unless it is possible to travel against the flow of time — though I... No, it is late, done."

"But is it too late?" asked Mithrandir.

Celebrimbor stiffened, a coldness in his bones, earlier suspicion now certainty. "So you know."

"What do I know, that Sauron lives?"

"Lives might be too strong a term."

"Is that so? So he is caught in his malice and lust for a thing that can never be recovered," said Mithrandir, "as wicked spirits when become powerless fix only on their desire."

"More than anything," said Celebrimbor, thinking of how he had felt some pale shadow of what Sauron felt at the Ring's dissolution, "it was loss that consumed him."

Mithrandir's eyes sharpened. "Is that what you perceived?"

"Not perceived, felt. I told you, we were close in mind once. I felt what he was feeling, and what he felt was how that thing most precious was gone, stolen, lost forever, and there was something in him that was weeping ceaselessly."

"That is not entirely what I suspected," Mithrandir mused.

"Oh, there was plenty of malice there too, if you wonder." Celebrimbor ran his hand through the shards of glass. "He was like these beakers, broken and jumbled and no doubt sharp, incapable of holding anything. But there was still something there — he knew how to talk, for one thing, and in Sindarin: would you, if you came to a similar state? I have heard that you died."

"I passed beyond the bounds of Ea…" Mithrandir's eyes went far away for a moment, but they sharpened again. "My self remained whole; it was not torn asunder. Had it been, perhaps not, or not in a language of Men or Elves at the least."

"Sauron always liked languages," Celebrimbor said, and was surprised to hear his voice sound wistful. "Perhaps there is something left, left of him, who he was. He was… I came across him and he existed, barely knowing what or who he was. In pain and loss and anger. Nothing more. I shouldn't want to weep for him."

"Should you not? I pity all who fall to such depths."

Celebrimbor felt tears come to his eyes again. "But pity the world too, for what Sauron did to it. How he hurt it! How marred it is! So much is… no, not broken exactly, but so many cracks in it."

"Cracks?" said the wizard. "But how else would the light get in?"

"Spiders come in through cracks too."

"Spiders and light both. And at times grace, when you least expect it. When Mandos spoke his Doom upon the Noldor he said that all deeds that begin well will turn ill, but he was less than half right: things can turn well that begin ill, and there is always room for hope. It wriggles in through those cracks too."

Celebrimbor looked at him. There was a small smile on Mithrandir's face and his eyes were kind, and he realized how gentle the wizard was being with him.

He remembered his early days in Nargothrond. As a child, and then as a youth, Morgoth had been some distant threat, barely thought of, but then had come the Bragollach and Celebrimbor had thought that all was hopeless. Finrod had taken him aside, and spoken of estel and the beauty of the world, and his uncle had been as kind as Mithrandir was now.

He wondered what Finrod would say to him, if he were here now.

"From what I've heard, you returned to this Arda through grace," said Celebrimbor. "You perhaps understand, so tell me: how is he here, Sauron; how did he slip through whatever cracks there are in the walls that separate Aman from the round world? Is he someone who also returned through grace, however undeserved, or is he another spider?"

"You tell me!" said Mithrandir. "Probably a spider, though from what you say, not one with enough power or self to be of much threat now. I don't know if it's been decided which he'll be. I can tell you this: grace is not just for the deserving."

"Well he was quite fond of animals and spent some time as a werewolf; a spider is hardly beyond him. But… Mithrandir, what should I do?"

"What do you want to do?"

"I should want him to be imprisoned in Mandos or cast into the Void for his crimes."

Mithrandir made some irritated noise. "Celebrimbor, a time will come for should, but it was not what I asked you."

Celebrimbor did not know what he wanted and said nothing, and neither did the wizard. The silence grew oppressive.

But then he admitted, "There is a part of me that does want him back. He is still so very dear to me, Sauron the Abhorred. I am quite certain I am the only person in all Ea who still… cares for him. Not that he deserves it. But I do. He was and remains the most important person in my life."

It was a release to say it, like a prison door opening, or a chain snapping, a release nothing like death.

He admitted one more thing.

"I wouldn't undo anything. Sauron was the very worst thing that happened to me, and the very best too."

"Hmm," Mithrandir said. His eyes were keen and thoughtful. "But what you were to him? You say he loved you, and I am not saying that you are wrong. But he was named Deceiver, and justly so."

Celebrimbor ran his hands over his face, through his hair, and tipped his head back against the wall. He turned his eyes to Mithrandir, with a wry tilt to his mouth.

"He asked me to marry him," he said, and took some amusement in the wizard's clear and quickly hidden surprise. "Mind, his other, simultaneous proposal was that we conquer and rule the world together. Yes, Mithrandir, he did love me once. He just wasn't particularly good at it."

"Hmm," the wizard said again. "Celebrimbor, have you ever told anyone what you just told me?"

Celebrimbor had not. Even Celebrían did not know about Sauron's proposals and she was one of the very few who knew that there had been more than friendship between him and Sauron; she was the one he had told the most, when they met again in Valinor and helped each other pass through grief and torment to a better place.

"Well Sauron himself knows. Knew."

"So no one else till now. How long has it been since you were fully truthful?"

It had been quite some time. For all that he did speak with Celebrían, for all his and Galadriel's mutual understanding, there was only one person that he had shared the secrets of his heart with, the same person who had exposed his actual heart, beating, uncovered by bone and muscle.

"Not since Sauron left Ost-in-Edhil," he told Mithrandir. "Or not since he was torturing me to death, I suppose; we were honest at times, at times open. Literally, in my case."

Celebrimbor thought back and tried to recall what it had felt like. He could remember the sight of the knife cutting through flesh and an echo of the terror, the horror at being taken apart and the helpless panic that he could not stop it; he remembered how the body's destruction consumed him till he knew nothing but misery and a disbelieving how could you echoed in his mind till words and thoughts were cut out too and there was nothing left but the intolerability of existence. But he did not remember what it felt like, in his viscera, in his bones. He did not remember pain. Mandos had taken that from him.

"All things being equal, I would prefer not to be vivisected again. A curious custom of the Elves, that we prefer our bones within our bodies," he said to Mithrandir with a wry smile. Sauron would have laughed, but Mithrandir merely studied him.

Celebrimbor sighed. Sauron would have laughed, and then reflected a muscle to access the deeper structures beneath, and said that it was Celebrimbor's choice, that all he had to do was give up the Three and take Sauron's hand. And if he weren't screaming or begging or weeping, Celebrimbor might have laughed back, and sneered at Sauron, told him how boring he had become, how repetitious his dull arguments. For his friend had become dull; it was not just Celebrimbor who had been reduced. The small amusement he felt faded and a certain contemptuous sadness replaced it.

"But it was himself he cut up as well. How boring that would be, to do nothing but make others miserable, the repetition of it. There's nothing interesting in breaking things, no creativity. No wonder he took his amusement in meanness, what else was there for him to enjoy? And when you do nothing good, you lose everything but what is bad, and that's what he made himself. Someone who is mean and petty, lesser, degraded. Mighty still, but unimaginative, when once he was so bright and talented. Pathetic! He made himself stupid: why else would he have failed to leave a guard at the Sammath Naur? That fool, the surprise he must have felt! And… a pathetic desperate desire to survive, that too. Fear that he could not. And…

"And he must have been so scared at the end, so very scared," Celebrimbor said, and took a slow breath to ward away the sobs that threatened to tear at his throat. He was not successful. When he could talk again, he said, "And now hurt. His own doing, but there is a gaping hole where the Ring once was, and the loss and the longing that consumed him when I saw him, it was an aching pain. He hurt himself so much."

Celebrimbor wished the wizard did not look at him so, piercing. He was reminded much more of Galadriel than Sauron, for all that his aunt was no Maia.

"He was not the only one hurt."

"Yes, Mithrandir, I am well aware. As if I just didn't eat breakfast with the younger Mr. Baggins. As if I have not read the histories, seen my city in ruins, mourned a beloved uncle."

"You're forgetting someone."

"I can hardly name all the dead of Númenor! Or those of Gondor and Arnor killed by his armies, or the slaves in his empire who lived and died in bondage! Or the Orcs, or—"

"Celebrimbor. You were hurt too."

"If it helps I don't actually remember the pain of being tortured. Mandos took the body's visceral remembrance from me," said Celebrimbor, and his stomach sank at what Mithrandir might say next. Sauron had hurt him, but what exactly had passed was a private hurt, one between the two of them only, Celebrimbor and Sauron and no other.

But Mithrandir only dug in his pockets. "Do you mind?" He held a pipe in his hand.

Celebrimbor did mind, a little, but waved a hand in acquiescence. He had survived when his colleague Analye had decided to crack trithioacetone, though for a while he wished he had not, and had worked with mercaptans himself; pipeweed smoke was the finest perfume in comparison.

Mithrandir sat and smoked his pipe in silence, apparently lost in thought.

Celebrimbor stared at nothing and tried not to think, tried to push from his mind how Mithrandir now knew what he thought and felt about Sauron. He had told the wizard of his own free will. He had exposed his heart and it was like being flayed, save that now it was he who wielded the knife. But there was some catharsis to it, like a wound being lanced, and when Mithrandir spoke again Celebrimbor knew he would answer.

"So you came across Sauron in Aman. Tell me about that," Mithrandir said after some time.

Celebrimbor blinked; his eyes had gone unfocused but he brought them back to Mithrandir. "He did have the gall to come here. It's annoying, really: I had been perfectly happy till he intruded again. Well, he was always good at being annoying. I found him in Avathar. We spoke of spiders earlier, but he did not feel like those spiders that live in that land. I did not sense any will to consume. He was instead a pillar of flame, if flame is foul and corrosive. I do not think he knew himself, but I left very quickly and was not in a state to make observations."

"You said earlier that he spoke. Did you return to where he was?"

"I was curious," Celebrimbor said, somewhat defensively.

"Save us from the curiosity of the crafty," Mithrandir muttered, but waved his pipe for Celebrimbor to continue.

Celebrimbor did, after a slight glare at the wizard. "Yes, well, I returned to observe him again. He was different that time, more… solid. His form was physical, at least in part, not just a visual manifestation of his spirit."

He almost asked what Mithrandir would have seen, for Celebrimbor was mostly certain that the pillar of flame was not something physical but rather a spiritual anomaly that Celebrimbor had perceived as visual, his body converting the senses of his soul to sight. But Mithrandir was not Sauron and would not be distracted by such a question, so he went on, saying, "I find it interesting that he could make himself a body, from what you said earlier about powerless wicked spirits."

"It is," the wizard mused. "Sauron was once one of the most powerful of the Maiar, but he bound up his might into the Ring and it was unmade. For him to be able to take physical form…"

"It wasn't entirely physical," Celebrimbor said, "certainly not as the physical form he wore when I knew him. When I touched him" — Mithrandir raised both his eyebrows at that — "it felt like I was touching his spirit as well. Or, not that, but… It might be easier to explain mathematically, especially since, thinking of it now, some of the metamathematics behind the forming of the One would have impacted what parts of him were unmade and which were not when the Ring was destroyed…"

"Go on anyways," Mithrandir said, "I know what you mean."

"Well, he was having trouble maintaining a shape. He was a dripping heap of flesh, vaguely elf-shaped. But he noticed me, after a time, and spoke. He said he knew me, said he knew he killed me, called me a thief and a traitor. He spoke of the loss of the Ring, and I felt that loss; I felt it together with him. He said that I had been taken from him too. Which is one way of phrasing it, I suppose. And then I left. I came here and now you see me. That is it."

"'It' is quite a lot!"

"Oh? There was one thing surprised me. The way he thought of me with loss. I would have thought that he would have long since purged that from himself."

"Did he now? Curious," said Mithrandir, half to himself. "I knew who I was when I returned to Arda, but many of my memories were faint and hidden. I did not remember my name until a friend called me by it."

"Truly?" Celebrimbor asked, and he heard a catch in his voice.

"It is always a comfort to hear an old friend's voice," said Mithrandir mildly.

Celebrimbor did not know what to think of that and twisted the rings on his right hand with his thumb. It was a line of conversation he did not wish to pursue further.

He said, "Well, he is here. I suppose the Valar know, since you know. What is to be done about him, or to him?"

There was something hidden in Mithrandir's eyes. He said, "What should be done?"

"Justice should be done," Celebrimbor said, and sighed. "But he is in no state for it, I think, unless it is just to punish a person for crimes they do not know they committed. Which is its own justice, I suppose, and he is caught in a… in an unending tangle of loss and petty meanness and hurt. Eternal, perhaps."

That made him want to cry again, so he went on. "And justice aside, it may well be safer for the world to cast him into the Void."

"Perhaps," said Mithrandir, "but you are not the Lord of the Winds, nor are you the Queen of the Stars, nor any of the Mighty Ones who sit in judgment. Any sentence passed upon him is not yours to make."

"I suppose," Celebrimbor said, though he was not sure it was the Valar's place to judge either, for it was not them but the people of Middle-earth who had been wronged by Sauron. "But what about you, Mithrandir, why have you done nothing?"

"But I have done something," said the wizard. "I have now learned that Sauron is alive and in Aman, and I did not know that before."

"You did not know," said Celebrimbor blankly.

"I do now! I suspected, and you confirmed my suspicion."

"You…" Celebrimbor shook his head and laughed, rueful and less bothered that he would have thought. "I did. Very well, Mithrandir, now we both know that the Abhorred One, the Enemy of the peoples of Arda, second in evil only to Morgoth himself, is alive and incognizant and within the bounds of the Blessed Realms, though I would not call Avathar a place particularly blessed. You are the wisest of the Ainur, or so I have heard: what wisdom would you give me?"

Mithrandir said, "You can do something or you can do nothing, which is itself doing something."

"That is your wisdom? I told you, if unintentionally, so I've already done something. And you'll do something too, no doubt."

"Whatever I do is not for you to decide. No, you can continue as you are, caught up in your own misery. You can tell those in authority, the Valar or your people's kings or someone else, and go from there. You can return to where he is, help him if such a thing is possible, and see what may come of that."

Celebrimbor did not know if he had feared or hoped that Mithrandir would tell him that. He flexed his hands briefly as a distraction. It was no help; it only made him remember the touch of Sauron's hands on his. To his shame, he wanted to feel that touch again, entwine their fingers together. He missed him.

"I don't know if I can help him. And even if I could, he's Sauron, Morgoth's Lieutenant; I opposed him before and was right to have tried to hinder him."

"Is your objection to who he is or what you fear him capable of doing? Aman is in no danger from him, not as he is now, though if you do return to Avathar you yourself may be."

"Oh, that doesn't matter," Celebrimbor said, waving a hand dismissively; fear might freeze him at times but he had never let it keep him from doing what he had decided to do. "I've never bothered to concern myself with self-preservation around Sauron."

Mithrandir huffed. "Well there's rarely any use gainsaying the foolhardy. But as I said, you have more than one path you can take, and I do not know if one is best. But you do need to walk forward. You might wish this hadn't come to pass, but the small, diminished spirit of that which was Sauron has returned, and it was you that came across him."

"I suppose my fate being entangled with Sauron's is better than it being entangled in an Oath," Celebrimbor said.

"Your 'fate being entangled with Sauron's'? You think your own future is bound up with his? Well fair enough! What are you going to do about it?"

"I said earlier that it is too late." Celebrimbor spoke quietly, and admitted to himself that his voice was sad.

"It is never too late to offer mercy. A drowning man may toss aside driftwood that is thrown to him out of pride and a refusal to accept help; he might even throw it back at them who would aid him, out of spite. He might slip between the waters before he can grasp it. But to be the one who wants to help, even if that help is refused or hopeless? That is not a bad thing to be."

Celebrimbor knew that; he agreed with Mithrandir, and yet there was some part of him that needed to be convinced.

"If you were that drowning man, why would someone throw you a lifeline?"

Under Mithrandir's bristling brows was some glimmer in his eyes. "Perhaps because others take pity on you. Perhaps because you are very loved."

Celebrimbor looked away, unwilling to meet Mithrandir's eyes.

But the wizard continued, "And whatever else Sauron was, he was very loved. That is no small thing."

"He does not deserve aid," said Celebrimbor quietly.

"Certainly not! I still think his state is pitiable."

Sauron's state was pitiable, thought Celebrimbor, and thought a bit more. Perhaps he could consider being selfish; Mithrandir deemed what was left of Sauron to be no great threat, and Mithrandir was wise.

"Well then, Mithrandir," he said, "do you think he can be helped?"

"That I think is up to him."

"No. Well, yes, that too, but not the will to recover but the ability? No, not ability so much, as—"

Celebrimbor ran his hand through the broken glass around him till he found a large shard to hold up. "Theoretically," he said, "you could sort through all these shards and find some that you could glue back together to make a new vessel. Not a very good one, but one capable of holding liquid without it dripping through, at least if you were careful with the glue. I'm not going to repair these flasks; I'm going to sweep the glass up and throw it away — and yes, I'm aware of the metaphor — but it's possible. Is it possible for one of your kind who has been so broken?"

"To tell you the truth, I don't know," Mithrandir said. He puffed on his pipe. "For some it may be. Morgoth fell even further than Sauron his servant, much further, and he seeped his essence into Beleriand and was cast down even as that land was; destruction to it was destruction to him. But had he not been sent outside the bounds of Ea he would have reappeared in time. His power, of course, was immeasurably greater. But lesser Ainur… Sauron was once the chief of Aule's people and then the chief of Morgoth's. He was not the most mighty of the Maiar but he was not far from it."

"Beleriand was Morgoth's own Ring," Celebrimbor mused, "but its destruction was not total and he contaminated the whole of Middle-earth with his evil; one of the difficulties in working with gold, counteracting that. Wouldn't Beleriand's fall thus have done less harm to Morgoth than the Ring's destruction did to Sauron?"

"I suspect you know more than I do of the Ring," said Mithrandir.

Celebrimbor was certain he did know more of the One Ring than anyone else but Sauron himself, or perhaps Frodo Baggins and the creature Gollum knew more. But he certainly understood it better than Mithrandir. Celebrimbor had seen it, he knew the theory, and Sauron had told him how it was made. And he knew Sauron in a way no other did.

"He poured into it so much of what he was, all of his power, his malice and his cruelty," said Celebrimbor.

"Well those are no bad things to be destroyed!"

"It's who he was, who he is. Someone mean and cruel. I thought its destruction was his destruction. I was wrong, at least in part. Perhaps it was more his power that was destroyed, that and his… the scaffold of his being, if you will, but not all the constituent parts. Because clearly something of Sauron survives. You said, oh Holy One, that after you died and returned to life it was the voice of a friend who reminded you of who you were…"

"It was," said Mithrandir. "I knew my self and I knew what I had been sent back to do, but I did not remember who I had been till a friend called me Gandalf."

Celebrimbor looked at him: there was a fond smile on the wizard's face.

"You told me earlier that you were more than a friend to Sauron," Mithrandir continued. "Do you want me to tell you that your voice will help him remember who he is? I don't know if it will. There was a colleague of mine, Saruman was his name, who fell beyond reach and refused the hand I held out. He is nothing but the thought of smoke now. But in power he was lesser than Sauron."

In his mind Celebrimbor considered the forces and manifolds that were the One Ring. Some of the equations were at the very edge of his understanding, perhaps beyond. He had misinterpreted them, for he had thought that Sauron's unmaking and the unmaking of the Ring were the same, and yet clearly something of Sauron remained. Inwardly he frowned, disappointed with himself for not exploring that possibility. He would need to recalculate.

"I can't speak to your Saruman, though I am sorry for him, but Sauron at least was able to take physical form. Solid form, at that: he told me once that the other states of matter were easier for his kind, and that it was hardest still to fashion a fana indistinguishable from a body like my kind has. Granted, he was a liar, but less a liar than one might think. Do you think he may be able to reconstitute with help?"

Mithrandir blew a smoke ring and said, "He may not have enough self left."

Celebrimbor thought that he himself did had enough self, if Sauron did not, but he did not know if he wished to share it with Sauron. It would be difficult, very difficult, to be around his murderer. Yet difficult projects had always tantalized him and he missed challenges, though this one would be of the self and not the mind. Attempting to help Sauron reconstruct himself might be intellectually stimulating. At the least it would not be boring.

"Or he may turn away aid," continued Mithrandir. "And even if he does recover, at least in part, do you know who he will be? He was scarce less evil than his old master. Even if his shallow repentance after Morgoth fell was genuine, he long ago undid it. If you go to him and if he does come to a place where he knows who he is and who you are, he may be as the Lord of the Rings was when he was cast down, not as Annatar when you knew him. You said earlier that choices make a person who they are, and Sauron made himself foul and mean."

Celebrimbor was not sure that was important.

He said, "So? Pity and mercy or not, whatever or whoever he becomes or remains, he will still need to answer for what he has done. It is likely that the Valar will cast Sauron into the Void or imprison him in Mandos for all the Ages of Arda. I wouldn't testify against him at any trial — there are innumerable others who can and my own testimony would be of little import to a public court — but I wouldn't protest any sentence and I certainly would not plead for clemency. I should just…" I should just like to say goodbye to him and for him to know who it is that says goodbye.

He closed his eyes. "Mithrandir, Holy One, if you bound yourself to an evil inanimate object which was then destroyed, what would be the best way to reconstitute you?"

The Maia did not answer his question but said, "Before the beginning we chose this world."

Celebrimbor stared at him, stricken, and thought, He chose this world, he once loved this world. That is not nothing, and I remember it if he does not.

He owed Sauron nothing and Sauron deserved less than nothing. Whatever he suffered was what he had brought upon himself, and a kinder fate than that of the souls he had twisted into enslaved half-life; he had rightly been named Cruel, Necromancer, Deceiver, Abhorred.

Celebrimbor made a decision, for the sake of an old friend.

"Well then," he said. "I suppose I should be off."

He sat up straight and dusted off his hands. Some of the shattered grains of glass dug into his skin, speckles of blood drawn forth.

"I am decided. I shall return to Avathar in hopes that I can give aid to the abhorred. I knew him well and once he knew me well, knew me better than anyone. I saw the One Ring and I know how it was made and what it was made of. Turning yourself into a piece of jewelry! Perhaps what he needs most is someone treating him like a person. Stars know he never did himself. I can show him my memories of him, and the knowledge I have of him, and perhaps that will give him strength and being enough to reform. And merely talking to him will help too, I think. It's worth a try."

"So be it," said the wizard. "You are sure?"

"Oh yes. It will be an adventure, if you will," said Celebrimbor cheerfully. His decision was made and of a sudden he was excited. He was, perhaps, even giddy. "Are you apprehensive now, Holy One?"

Mithrandir raised his eyebrows. "Should I be?"

"You're the one who said Sauron isn't any great danger. But you also spent many long years in Middle-earth working against him and seeing his evils; you must have some doubts, or worries."

"Of course I do! Not just for whatever small mischief a weakened Sauron might do, but for you. Yet you have multiple paths, and this one I think might bring you some healing, perhaps release from what troubles you. I will not oppose it."

Celebrimbor stood up in lieu of answering, and said, "I suppose I should start considering what to bring. We have gems that purify water of both physical and spiritual foulness, but there are no fruits or grains in Avathar; food is in short supply, unless I fancy eating insects or fungi, and I don't. Oh, don't look at me like that, Mithrandir; I'm hardly one of your Hobbits, to complain about the lack of six meals a day."

"Then before you go, I have something of yours to give back," said Mithrandir, and held out Narya. "I bore Narya for many years. To be a Ringbearer was to bear a burden, but the Ring of Fire itself was not. It gave warmth and comfort and resolve, and it stirred courage in the spirits of those who needed aid. The world grew chill, and Narya and I, we rekindled hearts."

"It's not mine," Celebrimbor said automatically. "I didn't make the Three as things to be owned, and besides, it was Vilya that I thought would stay in Eregion, Narya to Lindon. To be shared by all, somewhat in the manner of how the Silmaril brought grace to Sirion. No, it's not mine to take back."

"Then take it as a gift, as something that you may make use of. You made it restore what had been good and was lost."

He took the offered Ring and sighed.

"Give it back later if you will," said Mithrandir. "But take it now."

Celebrimbor slid Narya on his finger. The world sharpened and became gentler both.

He remembered its forging, how he had called upon the lifeblood of rock and flesh and the slow-moving currents of liquid fire at the heart of the earth, churning with heat and bringing forth newness. It was a spark to the weary soul, a light in a dim place, a forge to remake that which had been broken, an ember to warm the heart and mind and swift-spinning globe. His soul he had not poured into it, but used as a prism and amplifier: Narya was not part of him, but it was from him, and something in it was glad to feel his touch once more.

"Thank you!" he told Mithrandir.

"Good luck!" the wizard replied.


Celebrimbor packed quickly: his decision was made and he would not turn away, but neither did he wish to linger and ponder exactly what he was doing. A few days later, after he had said his farewells, Celebrían found him stowing luggage in an airship.

"Barely a dozen years here, and you leave already?"

Celebrimbor glanced at her, and thought once again of telling her whom he went in search of. Mithrandir knew. But telling Celebrían would make things real in a way he was not entirely ready for. He held his silence.

Celebrían came closer, studying him, and reached out to pluck on the chain that held Narya concealed beneath his shirt. She let the ring fall against his chest.

"What a lovely piece of jewelry you have!"

"It is rather pretty, is it not," Celebrimbor answered, keeping his voice casual.

"Rather familiar too, no? And yet you refused Vilya when Elrond offered, and you know full well that Mithrandir still uses Narya in his work. You would not have asked for it, and yet it is not on Mithrandir's finger that I see such a lovely gem. So what would make you take it, I wonder?"

Celebrimbor shrugged and didn't answer.

"Be that way!" Celebrían laughed. "Keep your own counsel! But Tyelpe... well, I won't say 'be careful', because being careful rarely leads anywhere interesting. So instead, dearest cousin" — she leaned forward to kiss his cheek, took his hands and smiled — "be well. May the stars bring light to your path."

He squeezed her hands, grateful. "The stars will shine when we…"

Celebrimbor paused, suddenly unsure, suddenly wishing to speak. "Celebrían," he said, "I…"

She squeezed back. "Celebrimbor, what are you leaving for?"

He swallowed, feeling terrified and exposed. It was possible, though he thought it unlikely, that he would not come back, that he would die in Avathar or suffer some worse fate. When he had stayed in Ost-in-Edhil, he had been intending for Sauron to capture him and discussed it with Galadriel and Celeborn and Durin. But he had ensured that Celebrían had not known, and told both her and his mother that he would attempt to retreat once the city was overrun. Celebrimbor did not regret lying to either, but it had caused both of them pain. But many long years had passed and Celebrían was much older than she had been then, and she had herself suffered greatly. He did not wish to hurt her in such a way again, so he said:

"I think there is a possibility that I can find Sauron. I have reason to believe he was not destroyed entirely along with the Ring, and I want to…"

He broke off. Celebrimbor was still not sure exactly what it was that he wanted and did not know what to say. He admitted, "I want to help him, if I may."

Celebrían sucked in a breath, and when she spoke her voice was forcibly light; he winced.

"Ah. I considered the possibility that it was Sauron you were setting out in… in search of. I wanted to think that it was some strangeness of Avathar which drew you, but in my heart was the fear that you were after something better left… undisturbed and unfound. Well, I wasn't entirely sure it was Sauron the — justly! — Abhorred you were looking for; you are perfectly capable of coming up with other ill-advised plans, possibly some scheme of yours to alter the past."

He frowned. "Actually, I've given some thought to that. My theory of the manifolds of time and space: there are a great many solutions in the equations and I think there are indications that it is possible to reverse time's flow—"

Celebrían was staring at him, so he stopped talking. She had an artist's eye and skilled hands, but no patience for esoteric lore and tended to ignore him when he spoke of higher mathematics.

"Never mind. I've written some papers on it, if you're interested, and so have others. It is Sauron I search for, yes. Please don't tell your mother, or mine."

"Oh no!" She said, and laughed; her moods were always quick to shift. "You can tell them yourself! I won't be the person they can blunt their fury on, though I will certainly try to listen in when Mother learns of this and next sees you! But Celebrimbor… well, seeing your corpse borne aloft as a battle standard was distressing."

"Yes," said Celebrimbor with a small frown. "That was quite insulting."

"I would not describe it thus! It was heart-wrenching, seeing you dead and knowing how you had suffered. You would have thought so too, had you been alive. And able to see, I suppose, since your eyes had been gouged out, and you know full well who did that. I must say, I am rather pleased to have been spared that particular injury."

"Were they?" Celebrimbor was fairly certain his vision had been working when he was killed. "I suspect that was postmortem; I won't count it towards my score in our competition. And I'm also glad that you kept your eyes, of course. But I promise, you won't have to see my corpse for the second time."

In that at least he was quite certain: if he died, his body would be eaten by the land of Avathar itself, if not a spider or other insect, and he could only hope that in such a situation his soul would escape to Námo's dread prison.

She tilted her head, the bells in her bright silver hair chiming. "Hmm. I'd hold you to that, but I suspect it isn't entirely in your control. I told you earlier not to worry about being careful, but. Be careful, will you?"

"Yes," Celebrimbor said, "I promise; I'll be as careful as I can manage."

Celebrían bit her lip and looked away before turning back, a sheen in her eyes. "Celebrimbor," she said, "I know there's never any hope in dissuading you from a decision once you've made it, but I wish you'd reconsider."

"I'm sorry," he said thickly. "I do know how terrible he is."

"No," she said. "No, cousin, you don't. Your quarrel with Sauron is personal. He killed you and he killed Finrod, and that you know well, but the ills he did as the Dark Lord of Mordor are abstract to you. You think of him as a person you knew, not as the Enemy of all free peoples, Elf and Man and Dwarf alike. You didn't live through his wars. You speak of the evils he did to the lands we loved well, but those are words: you didn't see those evils. You didn't see the hurt he did to other people, each death as final and as whole as any other, each the ending of a separate world. The hurt that will be done, the hurt you will do, if — and I grant that it is an if! — you come back dragging Sauron behind you like some half-drowned rabid rat, or… whatever it is that you have planned, if you have a plan at all, and frankly I doubt you do."

Celebrimbor opened his mouth but shut it before he could speak. He suspected she might be right; it was one of the reasons he had avoided thinking about the possible ramifications if he were successful in restoring Sauron to himself. It still did not matter; he had already made his decision.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "You're right. It is personal, for… for the sake of an old friend."

She looked at him for a long while before sighing, and pulled him into a tight hug before stepping back.

"Mandos have mercy, Tyelpe, but sometimes you're intolerable," said Celebrían. "Stars bless you all the same."

She stuffed more lembas in the stowage, helped him finish examining the craft, and waved farewell as it rose aloft into the winds.


The Ashtandiri had a camp near a long flat beach, for ease of resupply; there was the danger of changing the natural ecosystem if plants from elsewhere were introduced so they did not grow fruit or grain. He landed the airship there now, on the strip of grey sand, and taxied it to a small grove, far enough away from the shore. The spells of preservation laid upon the metal were strong indeed and no properly forged steel would ever corrode, but wood was less willing to accept such enchantments and Avathar not a kind place. Others would use it, so it was not likely to stay even a few years in this land, but all the same he covered the airship carefully with oilcloth.

Some had seen him fly up and came to meet him, Anathau among them.

"Chalharikker, so you return!" she said, and kissed his cheek, but her eyes searched his.

He greeted all those around him, and helped unstow the various gifts and tools he had brought for them, and did not mention that on the flight he had nearly failed to recover from a stall caused by his own inattention. But Rodhiniel looked at him, suspicious.

"Celebrimbor," she said slowly, once she had pulled him aside. "What exactly are you up to and why did you say that you plan on venturing into the interior of Avathar alone?"

He eyed her, considering, then shrugged. "Curiosity, mostly. And I wouldn't want anyone else to be at risk."

"Is that what brought you back? I don't believe that," she said. "You fled so quickly. What exactly did you find in the forests here that shook you so?"

"A malice, a sickness that I have determined to work on. Alone."

He took her hands in his. "Rodhiniel my friend, please do not ask more. Just know that I have a task before me that I am set upon. I'll return and you can question me at leisure then."

"You'd better not get yourself eaten by a spider then," she said tartly, but her voice softened. "Tyelpe, will you tell me more? If I can help, I will."

Would you?, he thought, but said, "Trust me, if you can; I know what I mean to do."

"Well, that scares me even more!" She shook her hands free. "So be it; try not to take foolish risks. Do you need anything from the camp? I have preserving agents in vials; take those at least — if you mean to travel alone through Avathar you can at least bring something useful back."

He left at dawn the next day and stiffened but let Rodhiniel hug him tight as she whispered in his ear: be well, stay safe, come back; but Anathau kissed his forehead and said a prayer to Este. Celebrimbor felt the mild ache in his body from the long flight melt away and lightness settle in him, something hopeful too. Narya's song flashed in response, the pathways of power within it taking in Anathau's blessing. Interesting that, and possibly worth further study: Celebrimbor didn't think it was responding to Este's being itself but to the intention and power behind Anathau's invocation. Or perhaps it was responding to Este, for Mithrandir had spent many years in her lands. He might offer it to Rodhiniel or Anathau if he returned and Mithrandir was willing, for he thought Narya and the songs of the Ashtandiri would work in synergy, in multiplicative power.

But it was not their work that he set out to accomplish now — or perhaps it was, for Este's Song was to make well again, to make whole, or at least more whole than had been.

It was the walk of four full turns and half again of Arda on its axis to reach the clearing where he had come across Sauron, yet there was naught in the grove but a faint trace of hot metal and foul choking smoke. But Celebrimbor could sense the slightest of trails leading further into the forest, yet strong enough that he could follow. He had no great gifts of the mind, but Sauron he had known very well indeed.

He walked more days along the trail of fractals and aching, rageful loss, and met not a single animal, nor heard one, and the only thing that moved were the tree branches. Celebrimbor was glad he bore Narya: Avathar was damp and cold, and the fetid humid air had seeped into his bones when last he was here. But the Ring of Fire was warmth to the body as the soul, and it served him well in this land, keeping chills and foulness at bay.

Beyond everything else it was, Avatar was strange. Ungoliant's being had sunk deep into it, making it a place of consumption without creation, yet being here now… he did not think the Spider had been of Ea, for beyond the twisting and the undeath and the past state of arrest that the land was crawling out of was something alien, and it seemed neither good nor evil, but strange beyond comprehension to him, made as he was of Arda's particles unseeable to the unaided eye, made of a soul bound to Ea.

He slept several times, and carefully, allowing himself to dream only and not slip into deeper sleep, for he was unwilling to close his eyes. The dreams turned into nightmares often, memories of watching his city fall, memories of how Sauron had hurt him, and he would awake with clammy skin and a fast racing heart. There were also nightmares that were not memories at all, of being caught helpless, unable to flee, unable to shift shape, entombed in water, and he would wake up with someone else's bitter, thwarted rage.

But the last time he slept, propped up against a rock, a dream came to him, of how the only thing he loved was taken, gone, lost and nothing would be right ever again, and he woke up with tears in his eyes.

Celebrimbor sank back against the oily black stone — it was dry to the touch but even through his clothes it felt damp — and blinked away the tears. He looked at the sun, set near forty-five degrees above the horizon in the west. It did not warm him and he could look straight at it with no pain to his eyes: the air in this place distorted light in strange ways. But it was lovely, like a dark yellow topaz, scintillating like a jewel, a mirror, and not like an object that glowed with heat, and the smoky brown sky was lovely too.

He sat there for long hours and watched the sun sink and the sky darken, and reached out with his mind. That which was his goal lay ahead of him, and it was close. A calmness came upon him, and underneath it a certain excitement. But there too was a black terror, set deep in the bones of his soul, faint and present.

He sighed, and watched the sky. The grey-green clouds cleared and the firmament whirled overhead. For once in Avathar the stars were seeable. Ai, Elbereth Gilthoniel, le eglerion! He had told Celebrían, bitterly, that stars were nothing but old light: how wrong he had been! The sight of them brought peace to his heart; there was hope and beauty in even a marred world.

Tomorrow, Celebrimbor thought, he would come across Sauron.

His hands were shaking.


Celebrimbor rested his forehead against the great door. Those others who had taken shelter in the hall had gone out ahead, a last stand, and he could no longer hear the sounds of battle.

I cannot do this, he thought wretchedly.

He took a deep breath and threw open the doors and walked forward, and nigh twenty paces from him stood the Lord of the Rings, ablaze with might and beauty.

"Hello again, Celebrimbor," said Sauron.


Author's Notes:

Tyelperinquar - one possible version of Celebrimbor's name in Quenya. It's used in the text when Celebrimbor and Annatar are speaking in Quenya.

Tyelpe is a non-canonical nickname for Celebrimbor based on Tyelperinquar (and in this fic, he's called Tyelpe at times even when having a conversation in Sindarin. If Tyelperinquar shows up, the characters are speaking Quenya).

Mithrandir - 'Grey-Wanderer', Gandalf's Sindarin name.

Gorthaur - one of Sauron's many names, the name used for him during the First Age when he shows up as the Lord of Werewolves.

Fana - lit 'veil.' The body an Ainu wears; they are incorporeal and thus don't have a body or a natural form but can take one on to interact with the world.

Ai, Elbereth Gilthoniel, le eglerion - Star-queen star-kindler, I praise you.

Elves do indeed loathe mushrooms and consider them inedible, per Of Dwarves and Men.

Elves wear their wedding rings on the index finger of their right hand, per LaCE.

Quenya has four words for 'we': 1st person dual inclusive (me and only you), 1st person dual exclusive (me and one other person but not you), 1st person plural inclusive (me and y'all), and 1st person plural exclusive (me and others but not you). Sindarin does not make those distinctions; like English, there's only a single word for 'we' (referred to simply as the 1st person plural).

Celebrimbor refers to a colleague cracking trithioacetone, a reaction which produces thioacetone, famously one of the worst smelling chemicals. He also mentions mercaptans, or thiols, which are a type of sulfur compound, many of which have strong and unpleasant odors.

Much of Gandalf says about Sauron's state comes from the Myths Transformed essays in Morgoth's Ring, in which Sauron is said to have fallen beyond the point of recoverability. The italics on 'said' are in the original text and I'm using that as (very thin) justification for the possibility that Sauron could recover. H

ere I'm going with the interpretation that the fading of the Three in Middle-earth was tied into the fading of magic and the fading of the Elves. In Aman, where magic and Elves exist perfectly fine, the Three still have their power.