Lightborn by AdmirableMonster  

Lightborn

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Elrond—

Happened to come across this record while helping Círdan clear out his basement. Yes, I know I’m supposed to be taking a break. I find organization relaxing. Anyway, I’m sending it your way because I know what you’re like about any kind of Númenorean historical records, and this is an interesting one. Seems to be a first-person testimony, originally in Adunaic and translated into Westron, then later transcribed, with some notes from a Mannish historian post-Fall. Be warned: it isn’t light reading.

I’ll be returning in a week or two. Try not to let the library become impossibly disorganized in my absence.

—Erestor

Annals of the Historians of Númenor [1]

Year 32 of the Reign of Ar-Pharazôn

Testimony #479932A

Subject: Nimruzimir, junior member of the king’s natural philosophers

Interviewed and later transcribed by Sakalkhôr, junior historiographer [2]

I suppose it began while I waited in the hallway for my summons. One of the lights made a persistent buzzing noise, and I could not ignore it. The upper reaches of the palace in Armenelos are opulent and rich. Very alien. I should have expected as much—my father moved in some of the higher echelons of society, and they, too, enjoyed their creature comforts—but I had become used to the more austere lifestyle of the junior natural philosophers. In the midst of such decadence, then—statues and paintings lined the walls, and the floor was covered in a too-soft carpet which I also found irritating—why had they not fixed the newly-installed lightning lines? The light started to stutter, and I had to look away from it. I could work through a headache, but I had found that such repetitive blinking could sometimes negate the effects of my tonic. A fever now would be disastrous.

I was nervous. To pass the time, I catalogued my physical reactions: increased heart-rate, rapid breathing, an intensification of my ever-present urge to fidget. I should be going over the presentation I was to make for the King’s Men, but I had tried to corral my mind to do it, and it had refused. I am not good at public speaking. I stutter and do not know what to say. Practice would do nothing but feed the roaring gulf of terror I was only a few steps away from.

Fortunately for my nerves and for the integrity of the lightning lines, it was only a few minutes more before the door opened, and Lilóteo [3], the head of the natural philosophers, beckoned me. I went to him, and he grabbed my arm as he ushered me through the door, muttering, “Just stay on topic. I’ll be right there if you need anyone, man.”

The room I entered was different from the classrooms I was used to. As a junior philosopher, I did my share of instructing the apprentices and facilitating at the lectures of the more senior philosophers. Those classrooms were large, which could be intimidating until you realized that it meant there was no one any one expect you to make eye contact. This room did have a chalkboard, but it was small and had evidently been brought in from somewhere else, as opposed to being fixed to the wall. I was dismayed by this—I do not always fare terribly well with novelty—but I was more dismayed by the realization of how small the room was and how close I was to the group of men I was to speak to. I prefer to avoid eye contact in general. Although I have been informed that this makes me appear untrustworthy or rude, it often also keeps people from conversing with me for too long when I am attempting to focus on my work.

They were seated around a round, low table. I tried not to look at them, but could not entirely avoid it: seven blank-faced men in the red garb of the King’s Men, and one in white. I had always dismissed the rumors that the King’s Men wore red to hide the blood, but it was harder to dismiss them now. I clutched the note cards on which I had carefully written out my speech.

The final man was different. I knew immediately this must be Bên-Zigûr [4], the high priest of the Black Temple. Lilóteo had warned me that he might be in attendance. I had decided that he would not be, since I could think of no reason such a man would interest himself in a scientific lecture. He wore loose white robes, admittedly not dissimilar to the protective coats worn by the philosophers working in the laboratories. They did not even boast greater adornment. If I had expected anything from him, it would have been ostentation, for the king and his court were ostentatious enough, but Bên-Zigûr’s only piece of decoration was a thin band of gold about his throat [5].

I have hesitated significantly over describing a portion of my experiences that day. I am a man of science, and I have never had much truck with the wild gods of my mother’s people’s imaginings [6]. I was instructed, however, to provide this account truthfully, including my subjective impressions. Therefore, some context: I have been plagued for most of my life with an affliction of the brain, leading to seizures. It is largely controlled by the application of a tonic of my own devising—primarily comprising an analogue of setwall—but it is not possible to escape the effects entirely. It sometimes presents with vivid dream-like impressions. I understand that there are those who would consider this to be evidence of mystical power. To be clear, I do not share this belief, but it is possible that my unconscious mind nonetheless has the ability to glean details that I, consciously, do not. When I describe these impressions, I do not, however, intend that they should be taken as Truth or Fact in a universal sense, merely truth in the sense that these are indeed the perceptions that I experienced [7].

As I was studying his attire, Bên-Zigûr looked up. I was nervous and too slow to avoid the inevitable. Our gazes locked.

I seemed, then, to be elsewhere. Most of the ‘visions’ I have experienced during my convulsive episodes are fragmentary, difficult-to-recall, and often somewhat nonsensical. This was none of these. I was standing on a covered stone walkway between two buildings, lined with pointed archways open to the air of a warm day. In the center of the walkway, there was a table with a basket of fruit on it, mainly small apples and berries. Two men were sitting on either side of it, in deep discussion; neither one looked up at me or made any sign of having noticed my presence. This is an inconsistent feature of my visions: whether or not the figures that I see will appear to notice their observer.

One man wore old clothes and a heavy leather apron. He had gathered his hair into a single braid; it was much longer than is the current fashion in Armenelos. The other man wore an elegant and intricate white robe, with what appeared to be hand-stitched embroidery picked out along the high collar and cuffs. The geometric patterns glittered with tiny white gems. As I have not worked much with crystalline materials, I could not comment on their value. This second man had curly hair a shade darker than platinum.

He was leaning forward across the table, one sleeve trailing in the basket of fruit. “I don’t see why you’re being so recalcitrant about this, Tyelpë [8],” he said. “The theory is sound.”

“It’s not the soundness of the theory I’m worried about, Annatar. It’s where this line of inquiry ends up.”

I blinked, and the vision disappeared. Disconcertingly, I had a perfectly clear memory of it: it was as if I had been momentarily transported and then returned to the room, where I nearly dropped my note cards. Lilóteo put a hand beneath my elbow, as if to support me. I let him. Pulling away would only have made things more precarious.

I was very nervous now. I had lost my place in the note cards. “Hey,” Lilóteo said under his breath, as if this was going to be helpful. I had no idea what to say, so I did not respond. A moment later, he turned to the others.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “My lord High Priest. This is Nimruzimir, one of our most enterprising junior natural philosophers. He is going to make you a presentation of the discovery you asked about.”

“Th—ank you,” I said. Ever since childhood, I have been afflicted with a stutter, which may be connected to my fevers, although it does not appear ameliorated by the application of my tonic the way my other symptoms do. I am not a competent speaker, although I am a more than competent chemister. Lilóteo protests that my competence or lack thereof is unrelated to the difficulties of my speech and that one can carry off any sort of difficulty if one has sufficient confidence; I maintain that my observations of those who have listened to me speak do not enjoy the stammering any more than they enjoy my evident inability to speak loudly enough or plainly enough. In any case, I do not know how to magically gain confidence, so it hardly matters.

“Gentlemen.” This seemed to be the correct manner of address. My palms were sweating. I began my presentation.

Almost immediately, the rustling and fidgeting began. As I have said, I am not an engaging speaker at the best of times; I view public speaking with almost as much dread as I view torment or death. This was made worse in this particular context by the fact that I was constantly having to translate my language for the audience. Typically, and I would prefer this to remain somewhat confidential, there are certain terms in natural philosophy which are Elven in origin. The history of our order is a long one and dates back to before the current—position on the use of Elvish in our society. Because we value precision, these terms are typically used and expanded upon among ourselves. Of course we do not speak a forbidden language [9], you understand, we only utilize such terms to ensure clarity for our experiments. Indeed, there are efforts under way to translate certain of these, but the language of science is not the same as the language of the quotidian.

Naturally, however, I would not have wanted to give the King’s Men or the High Priest a mistaken impression, so I was forced to translate. I had prepared my translations ahead of time, but it still made my task the more difficult, as my impulse would be to use one term when I needed to use another. It also worsened my stutter, as I was unable to deviate from my script, and I have found some success at times in substituting one term for another when I feel that I am going to stumble over the upcoming one.

I was speaking of the generation of a substance that I had been studying in some detail for the past year or two, which I have termed ‘calanóna’ in the language of science; roughly translated this means ‘born of light,’ a rather fanciful name, I admit—it is in reference to my original use of sunlight to provide energy for the chemical reaction between ‘urma minsúlaxa,’ which I described to my audience as one part coal to one part sour fire air*—quite the mouthful, so you can see why this is not really the most efficient mode of expression—and ‘firan,’ which again I was forced to translate as elemental marine acid air [10].

I was halfway through the presentation and my back was turned to the audience as I attempted to use the chalkboard to explain the underlying theory that we were developing among the natural philosophers to describe the reactions that we were able to engender** when someone said from the crowd, “What is the point of all this?”

I stuttered to a halt and turned around. My neck was beginning to heat up. One of the King’s Men had spoken—I could not tell which one. Nerves crawled through my stomach and up my spine.

“You are not a proponent of pure scientific inquiry, Bâr-Zagurbêl?” asked Bên-Zigûr, rising. I tried not to look into his yellow eyes.

“Not particularly,” said the King’s Man, whose name was apparently Zagurbêl. “I leave that stuff up to the philosophers. I don’t understand half of what this fellow is saying.”

Bên-Zigûr hummed. He had a musical voice. “Perhaps I can help him focus.”

I think I stopped breathing. I had heard too many stories of the Black Temple for comfort [11]. What did help him focus mean?

“I don’t think he needs help,” Lilóteo put in; I was shocked at his bravery.

“This material that you have synthesized,” Bên-Zigûr said, walking at a steady pace from his seat towards me, giving no sign that he had heard Lilóteo at all, “What are its properties? If you can, consider your audience to be new students, who may not have the necessary background to understand the more subtle and complex aspects.”

I gulped. It seemed wrong to treat the King’s Men as if they were as stupid as the novice philosophers, but I was not about to ignore an instruction from the High Priest. “Ah,” I said. “Well, it can be used in the production of a number of other materials, including dyes. It is difficult to detect but has an odor similar to cut grass. It is heavier than air. It must be handled with care, since it can incapacitate or even kill an organism via action upon the tissue of the lungs.” I had not performed those experiments. I have no stomach for killing, not even of the rats and pigeons that infest Armenelos. I looked up at Bên-Zigûr. “Is that—”

I was once again elsewhere.

“What do you mean, where it ends up?”

I seemed to have missed nothing of the conversation. The man named Annatar was still leaning forward across the table. The day was still warm. If anything, I seemed to be there even more completely. I could smell that somewhat nonspecific warm summer scent, and I could hear the drone of bees. One of them zipped in through the open archway and landed on the table. Neither of the men paid it the slightest attention.

“Say we start doing these experiments and, as you say, discover a way to align the pathways of our minds with the patterns woven into the material. Could that not, for example, be used the other way? To impose those patterns onto someone else—to change the shape of their mind and bend their will?” [12]

“What of it, Tyelpë?” Annatar sat back, crossing his arms. He then tapped his foot and tossed his hair.

“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Annatar, but I care a great deal about free will. That’s not something I want to be responsible for.”

“And you wouldn’t be!” Annatar stood up, pacing back and forth. “Really, darling, that’s paradoxical. You can’t claim on the one hand that people have free will and then turn around and say you’re responsible if they use your discoveries in a manner you didn’t intend.”

“No, there’s a subtlety there,” Tyelpë returned. He moved little and had an easy, confident stance that reminded me of Lilóteo. “People do have free will, and those people may make their own decisions about what knowledge to gain and what knowledge to use, but if I hand them a weapon, I’m still responsible for forging it, even if I’m not responsible for their actions.”

“I never thought I’d see Fëanor’s grandson standing in the way of progress.”

Tyelpë had black eyebrows that now drew down, and a wide mouth with full lips that now thinned. “Now you’re trying to make me angry.”

“Is that what this is about? You know you don’t have to avoid everything your family has ever done.”

“I’m not a fool, Annatar, I do recall the conversations we’ve had on the subject. But there’s a difference between not doing something because it reminds me of people I want to distance myself from in general, and not doing something that specifically reminds me of the mistakes they’ve made.”

“You’re scared. That’s understandable.” Annatar seated himself on the arm of Tyelpë’s chair. “You’ve always been afraid of losing yourself to your family’s madness.”

Tyelpë sighed. “That’s true,” he said softly. “But that’s not all this is.”

I blinked. Bên-Zigûr was watching me with pursed lips and a slight frown. “I’m sorry,” I said helplessly.

“Is that what?” he prompted me, and I struggled to cohere my scattered wits. No time had passed for the others, only for me. I have often wished for a cessation of the fevers and the convulsions, but I suppose it is true that one ought to be careful what one wishes for—this new presentation of the visions was far more dangerous. There was no indication to anyone else that something was happening, except a slight loss of attention on my part. I could not afford to have the King’s Men and the High Priest believe I was not interested or that I was not paying attention to my situation. Cold sweat ran down the back of my neck.

“Is that h-h-helpful?” I tried to remember what I had just said. It seemed less real suddenly than the soft summer sun of the strange place I had seen.

“Quite.” Bên-Zigûr raised an eyebrow at me. “To be perfectly clear, the substance will incapacitate humans?”

“Oh, y-y-yes,” I said. “One must take precautions in the laboratory when working with it. I myself because quite ill at one point befo—before the effects were well-documented.”

“Well, my lords?” said Bên-Zigûr. “Is the presentation of interest now?”

I had the creeping, crawling, miserable feeling that I had missed some important unspoken again. This is a not uncommon experience for me, but like everything that day, it felt more important than it had before.

“I understand why you wanted him summoned now,” agreed one of the other King’s Men, whose name I did not know. “Boy—”

“His name is Nimruzimir,” Lilóteo cut in harshly.

“Nimruzimir, then. Can this substance be manufactured in bulk?”

This was an interesting question. “I would guess so,” I said, after a moment’s thought. “As long as proper precautions were taken. Some r-research would be required, however. It has n-not been a line of inquiry that I have devoted much thought to up until now.”

“But you could do it?”

“I expect s-so. I can usually w-work these things out.” It would be an interesting challenge, actually, and if it was something that was likely to become an industrial process, I would also be able to devise safety measures before they became necessary. Often, such measures were not taken into account until after one accident or another, which I felt was an ineffective way to perform such operations.

“Well, Lilóteo, your youngster is promising,” said Bâr-Zagurbêl.

Lilóteo grunted. I did not know what the sound meant, but it seemed to satisfy the rest of the King’s Men, who began to talk amongst themselves. I looked back at my poor abandoned chalkboard, covered in the exact reactants and products, their ratios, the conditions under which they could be conducted. I had started to explain our best understanding of the underlying theory that allowed this kind of transmutation—not magical, of course, but it felt magical, to me. And yet no one but me seemed to care.

Someone put a hand on my shoulder. I reacted by turning—a mistake, as I once again caught the direct gaze of the High Priest.

“Then what?” Annatar asked. His voice was clipped, and, I realized, vaguely familiar. Foreboding tightened in my chest.

I wondered if I could free myself from this place, and I turned, looking for a way out, as Tyelpë answered, “It’s that—knowledge is a double-edged sword. Progress is a double-edged sword. Like any blade they may certainly be used to defend, but they may also be used to attack. Is it better to forge the blade to protect yourself, or is it better to try to ensure that no one holds it?”

There was no way out, I realized, with a chill. There was only grey mist to either side of the walkway, or the arches that stepped out into thin air. I was not sufficiently desperate to try throwing myself off. I turned back with a sigh.

“You can’t halt progress. The world moves forward whether or not you go with it.” Annatar’s voice had quieted a little, and—to my surprise—he reached out and took Tyelpë’s hand and squeezed it. I am not exactly practiced in social graces, but even I could tell it was both affectionate and deeply intimate [13]. “If you don’t step forward to steer, someone else will.”

“No,” Tyelpë said. He squeezed the hand back. I began to realize that this discussion was being carried out by two people who were much closer than I had initially realized. “Forward is an illusion. Just because we stepped into the river of time and can only see it moving one way, we think everything is always going one direction. The world moves. It doesn’t move forward. It doesn’t have a direction by itself. If no one reaches for a particular idea, that idea may float away forever. And some of them—well, yes, we always do come back to the Silmarils, I suppose. What if he [14] had never made them?”

“Then you wouldn’t be here, having this fascinating discussion with me.”

“It’s an interesting theory.” The smooth, low voice of Annatar seemed to blend into the smooth, low voice of Bên-Zigûr. I wish I knew more of the theory of sound, so that I could more easily compare the two. But then, Annatar was nothing more than a strange impression of my subconscious mind, so there would be no way to measure such a thing and no particular surprise even if they could be compared, and they were the same.

I blinked. My vision swam. My head was aching. Bên-Zigûr was looking over the chalkboard. “Yes, the patterns and explanations you’ve outlined here are clever. We should speak more of them one day.”

I stammered something that I hoped was noncommittal. No one has ever frightened me as much as the High Priest, no matter how helpful he was during my interview. And yet, I found that something in me wanted to please him. It was not only that he was interested: it was that he so clearly understood the subject at a deep level, unlike the others, who only wanted a substance they could use.

At that moment, as I dithered by the chalkboard,“This ought to make those savages from Dunland sit up and take notice,” I heard Bâr-Zagurbêl say. At some point, the King’s Men around the table had risen and were moving towards the door. Evidently, my interview was over.

One of my hands began to shake. I could not draw their attention to myself, but I tried to catch at Lilóteo’s sleeve. “D-D-Dunland?” I said.

Once again, it was Bên-Zigûr who answered. He had sharp hearing. I should have expected the response, but I was overset.

“The colonies near Lond Daer have recently been subjected to some unfortunate raids, I’m sure you’ve heard,” he said smoothly. “The lords, in their infinite wisdom, seek a way to suppress such things [15] .”

“But, this is—” I said, then almost lost the next word, my stutter blocking any speech for a moment that seemed far too long. I changed what I had been going to say, “—calanóna might kill people.” I had not meant to use the scientific term. I was too busy thinking that the King’s Men must not know—how would they know?—that my mother was a native of the Dunlending tribe near Lond Daer. I had not seen her since I was a child. She left to return to her people after an argument with my father, a merchant, and he brought me back to Andúnië, where I was raised.

Bên-Zigûr smiled, and suddenly, I recalled that he was the High Priest of the Black Temple. Fear seized me and held me tight. But all he said was, “I suppose it might. And if it does not, those men will kill other men instead. In any case, I would not concern yourself about it. You are a philosopher, are you not? Just keep seeking out your knowledge. The business of nations is not one you should concern yourself with [16].”

This time, it was as if the entire world peeled away. I did not seem to be elsewhere—I did not seem to be anywhere. It was as if I stood in a black void and across from me was Bên-Zigûr and yet he was not Bên-Zigûr. In the exact space that Bên-Zigûr had occupied—down to the motion of a single strand of dark red hair outside of its flat braid—there was a statue made of many kinds of metal. I am not an expert in metalwork, but it was clear to see from their colors and shines that they were all quite different materials, perhaps alloys. They had been clumsily welded together and sheered off flat above the chest, leaving a rough and unpleasant-seeming surface. Beneath that, the chest had been riven open; in place of a heart I saw what appeared to be a wheel of fire. The hair was made of twisted, copper-colored wire. The eyes were hollow, like the eyes of a mask, but I could see the glimmer of flames deep inside [17].

“Do not worry your heart over this, little man,” the statue said. A smile cracked its countenance from ear to ear. “It will not matter in the end.”

“Ye-Ye-Ye-Yes,” I stammered somehow. Something happened to my vision again. I seemed to see the void in splinters between splinters of the world I expected to see. A hand beneath my elbow steered me towards the door that I could only see part of.

I blinked fiercely and tried to breathe. In a few minutes, I found myself leaning against a wall with Lilóteo saying my name.

“Yes, yes, what?” I said. I was distracted by the rapid beating of my heart.

“Are you all right, man?”

“Yes,” I told him. I was not sure if it was true. I could feel the beginnings of a headache stirring, a particular hollow sensation that suggested I was in need of my tonic. I did not want things to get worse.

“You don’t look all right. That must have been terrifying. Let me take you for a coffee? Maybe a meal?”

I did not know Lilóteo well on a personal level. He moved in echelons I had not yet reached, and I had already been a little surprised that he had waited while I gave the presentation, rather than pointing me at the door and departing. It must have been uncomfortable, and I did not think myself important enough to warrant such care. But I had little money [18], and the prospect of a free meal when I was almost wobbling on my feet was tempting.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you look about done in, and I asked you to do that?” His voice was loud, indicating anger. I did not know why he should be angry about such a question.

“Well, th-thank you,” I said.

“And, uh, if you need…advice,” he said. “Walk with me.”

I obeyed automatically, glad for the excuse to remove myself from the vicinity. We went down a back staircase that I had not known about, soon emerging from the rich luxury of the palace onto a crowded cobblestone street. I did not normally find it comforting to be surrounded on all sides by people, but in this case I could think of no change of scenery I would not have appreciated.

Lilóteo took my elbow again. He was either attempting to steer me or possibly seeking a kind of reassurance. He leaned in and spoke rapidly into my ear as we walked. “Listen, I don’t know what else they’re going to want or expect from you, Nimruzimir. I don’t know what you—feel comfortable with—and there’s not much I can do, but if there is something—I’ll try, okay?”

He was offering me something, but I think even he was not certain what. He could not protect me from the King’s Men. Nor could he protect me from the consequences of my own actions.

“People—will d—ie, if I do this,” I said. “W-Won’t they?”

“Yeah, probably.” His mouth pulled to the side. “But it’s true you can’t know what your discoveries will engender in the world. And honestly, at this point, it probably doesn’t matter what you do. The King’s Men want to do something about Dunland.”

I trembled. I looked at the ground. “My mother is Dunlendish,” I said, very quietly.

“I thought one of your parents might be. There’s a look—something about the eyes.” He groaned. “Gods, what a mess.”

Armenelos has dark skies and stunning sunsets, from the chemicals that the factories release into the air. I looked up at the sky as Lilóteo pulled me along the street, still telling me that he would do what he could. It will not be much, I expect [19].

I had one more vision that I must report, as Lilóteo and I sat down for a meal together. I had missed a few minutes this time, it seemed. Tyelpë had risen and was standing at the window, with Annatar beside him.

“You talk like a child woken from a foresight nightmare they don’t understand,” Annatar was saying. Then he laughed. It seemed to arrive a little later than it ought to have.

Tyelpë leaned on his arms and then looked sideways at the other man. “I have no foresight, Annatar, you know that,” he said. “I suppose all I can say is that it does not seem to me reasonable to ignore that each one of us lives in the world, that there is no such thing as an observer whose acquired knowledge touches nothing, and that we all must decide what mark we are willing to leave upon history.”

That was the last I saw of them. I suppose I must make my choice as well.

*The material which we refer to as súlea among ourselves and which is a component in the substance urma minsúlaxa has been called both ‘vital air’ and ‘fire air’ among those not of our order. I chose one rather at random due to nerves (Interviewer’s commentary: We don’t normally put footnotes on these documents, but the subject was insistent and would not accept a parenthetical in the main text.)

**There are several different theories surrounding the reaction of different substances. We understand that certain substances are ‘elemental’, that is to say they cannot be split apart in any manner to produce component parts having differing properties. It is somewhat difficult to demonstrate that a substance is elemental, but for firan, for example, it has been well-established, as is also the case for urma, súlea or vital air, and hessa.

Note from Erestor: The transcriber seems to be trying not to speculate too heavily on the context they’re giving, but when I was reading this, I did have to wonder if there might be a connection between the narrator’s conundrum and the final outcome for the Dunlendings. I’m no alchemist myself, but I can’t imagine it would be easy to devise a counter-measure to a weapon no one has ever used before. Maybe our fearful philosopher found some courage along the way? I’ll let you form your own opinion, though, and we can argue about it once I’ve returned.

Chapter End Notes

With thanks to my amazing betas, Dr. Zara Ashkenazi-Khan, and anna (allthesinglerobots), who helped me straighten out the complex layers of this archival fic.

Further thanks to kimikochi and my spouse, both of whom who also helped refine a few points I wasn’t certain of, and to Shihali for the Quenya translation of “born of light” and the linguistics surrounding it.

A big thank you also to the organizers of Mereth Aderthad and to pandemonium_213 for the inspiration and for also reading through my fic and giving me suggestions and encouraging comments.

The names “Nimruzimir” and “Lilóteo” are from realelvish.net while “Ezellaimë” is from chestnut_pod’s amazing name list.