The Truth of the World by AdmirableMonster  

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The Truth of the World

I expected to be afraid.  At first, when I heard the request that the High King passed onto me from his herald, I refused, immediately.  No.  You cannot ask that of me.  It was only later, after an ugly night, full of nightmares of roaring flames, that I brought myself to agree.  It is important, after all, to listen to the words of history’s villains as well as its heroes.  And I knew I was safe in Gil-Galad’s court, such as it was.  Somehow, beyond all expectation, I had survived.

When I raised the flap and ducked inside the small, close, hastily-erected prisoner’s tent, the first thing I smelled was salt, sharp and biting.  The second was smoke from a poorly-constructed lantern, which shed little more light than a candle.  There was a figure huddled in the corner, cross-legged on a pile of skins.  When I entered, he looked up, his eyes burning brighter than the lantern, and I was not afraid.

I knew very well that despite any precautions that might have been taken, he could kill me where I stood, this close.  He was gagged—I was told he could gesture with facility enough for my purposes, and the form of conversation made no difference to me—but I was certain the gag would not matter, my deafness would not matter, nothing would matter if he decided to kill me.  And yet I was not afraid.  I was lost, I was angry, I was grieving, but I was not afraid.

I had no time to think what the sudden onslaught of not-fear feelings might mean before I found myself across the room, at his side.  I would have grabbed his shoulder, yanked him up to look at me, but I needed my hands for speech.  “Your Noldolantë?” I said.  “I let it burn.”

He stared at me, then smiled, thin and sly.  “You prefer Daeron’s work?”

I had no retort to this.  My throat swelled with pain.  My hands shook.  Eventually, I came up with, “I have no patience for the stories of murderers.”

“And yet I am told you are here for mine.”

“I am here because of a request from the High King’s herald, not of my own volition.  If I did not owe Lord Gil-Galad a life debt, I would write your name and those of your kin out of history, and I would do it happily.”  

To my surprise, this produced more of a reaction.  His eyes darted to my hands, then my face, then to the tent flap, and the smile vanished.  “What has Elrond asked of you?”

A chill seemed to settle over my bones at the tremor in his hands when he shaped the name, at the shade of something soft, quickly hidden, in his eyes.

“His tale is true, then.  You fostered them—Elwing’s sons.”

He scoffed and did not meet my eyes.  “I kept them for hostages, to trade for my father’s inheritance.”

I leaned forward and snapped my fingers beneath his nose.  “I am a loremaster of some repute, and Lord Gil-galad has requested that I write him a history in particular of the events after the massacre at Sirion.  I believe he wishes to smooth over any…difficulties for Elwing’s sons, particularly Elrond.  As I said, I owe him a life debt, but I owe other debts as well.  Cooperate with me, kinslayer, and I will not villify your ‘hostages’ in vengeance for those lost at Sirion.”

I would not let myself think of the weight of Dírhaval’s body in my arms.

The kinslayer nodded, and his face went smooth and expressionless.  “What do you want to know?” he asked, gestures fluid and airy.  

I took out my notebook and settled myself on a low stool beside him, considering what to ask.  I needed to know what he would tell me of Elwing’s heirs, but I would not ask about Sirion.  Not now.  It would only hand the power back to him, and I was tired of being powerless, in the face of the kinslayers, in the face of fate, in the face of the forces of Morgoth.

Instead, I got him to tell me of the final, desperate bid for the Silmarils.  He talked to me of the ending of the world, the fall of the dragon Ancalagon and the waters rising.  Of two brothers turning to one another and plotting one final roll of the dice.  His older brother’s hesitation (“less evil shall we do in the breaking”), and his own desperate determination to avoid the encroaching Everlasting Darkness to which they had already doomed themselves. 

The air in the tent was close, and with two of us together, the temperature rose rapidly.  I began to sweat, and so did he.  Based on the smell, I did not think he had bathed in some time. 

He looked away when he described the way the gems burned them, though his hands kept moving.  If he had continued to look away from me, I would have snapped my fingers at him again, but he looked back politely once he had finished explaining the experience.

“All your family knows is how to burn,” I said.  I suppose I did not keep the contempt from my face.

I did not expect him to start laughing.  The experience shook me, and I rose and walked about the tent as his shoulders shook and he doubled over.  I waited, as patient as only a loremaster knows how to be, as he slowly composed himself.

“You must understand,” he said, finally, hands still shaking slightly.  “It wasn’t just my father, which I suppose is the joke you were making.  We had nearly reached the part where my eldest brother killed himself.”

“Killed himself,” I echoed.

“He flung himself into a fiery chasm, you see,” said the kin-slayer, his eyes staring through me.  “I could not stop him.”

“Good,” I said, watching something ugly go across his face, quickly hidden.  “Would that you had all done that before you had come to Sirion.”

Tension caught in the air between us; a shiver in the air, a shiver in my ears, told me that he might have started to hum.  Then his eyes went blank, smooth, wiped of all expression again.  “That’s fair,” he said.  “Though I doubt Morgoth would have left Sirion unscathed in the end.”

“What-ifs do not erase real sins,” I snapped back.  Then I closed my notebook.  This was enough.  This was all I could stand, in any case.  “Thank you for your cooperation,” I told him.

He gave me a small, secret smile, then waved a hand languidly.  It was a performance.  I could no longer see what lay beneath the mask.  His eyes tracked me as I gathered my things up.

“Deaf,” he said with his hands.  “A Deaf Elf.  I have not met many.”

I shrugged.  It was unusual.

“Could you hear my song?” he asked me.  “At Sirion, I mean.  You were there, yes?”

I went still.  I did not shudder.  “Obviously,” I returned.

“Were you at Mereth Aderthad?” he pressed, and I halted.  The notebook fell from my fingers.  I had been a child at the Mereth Aderthad.  Salgant had still been with me.  I had thought little of it over the intervening years; indeed, since the Fall of Gondolin, I had avoided thinking of Salgant as much as possible.  Even Elvish memory would not stand against deliberate avoidane—at least so I had thought, so I had hoped.

I remembered a line of lanterns floating towards the sky.  I remembered a voice, the physical manifestation of a song.  Such a manifestation I had only felt one other time.  My hands began to shake, and I could not hide it.

“Lendalwed Órontelós, was it not?” the kinslayer continued, relentless, a fire burning in his eyes as he used a name I had discarded in the ruins of Gondolin.  

“Go fuck yourself,” I told him.  

He laughed.  “Write your histories,” he told me.  “I am not afraid of calumny.  Surely you can raise up Elrond without me.”

“I do not think I will,” I told him, and this time shock wrote itself across his face.  “You, I think, can end your days in endless sorrow for the lives you took, after begging your eldest brother to at least stop before the final villainy, the final cowardice of an unprovoked attack on the guardians of the Silmarils.”

I saw that my shaft had struck home.  He understood that he had gone too far, and his hands stilled.  He bowed his head.  “You will not slander the twins?” he asked.

“No.  I owe a debt to Gil-galad.”

He nodded.  “At least make it a good story,” he said.

“I will tell what truth you deserve,” I replied, and I left him there.  I did not think of his voice, singing softly a sweet lullaby penned by the Elf who had helped Maeglin betray Gondolin.

Chapter End Notes

I have my own thoughts on the question of Maedhros's and Maglor's roles during the final conversation, as well as my own answers as to the source of said conversation, which is so very, surprisingly in-depth.

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