Three Black Islands by Idrils Scribe  

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3. Three Black Islands

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But above this gate, and behind it even to the mountains, he piled the thunderous towers of Thangorodrim; and these were made of the ash and slag of his subterranean furnaces, and the vast refuse of his tunnellings. They were black and desolate and exceedingly lofty; and smoke issued from their tops, dark and foul upon the northern sky.

The Lost Road, Ch 9, Of Beleriand And Its Realms

 

The sun rises and lowers itself once more, staining the landscape red and bleaching it to bone-white.

On the second day the three peaks emerge from the distant horizon. First they lurk on the very edge of Telperinquar’s sight, shimmering like a mirage in the icy polar air. Soon they grow solid, black as gaping holes in the white desolation as if they absorb the strange light of the midnight sun.

Thangorodrim. 

Small as ants, their shrunken company crawls across the windswept vastness of the ice towards those dreadful pinnacles, where Húrin was bound and Maitimo hung in torment.

These mountainous corpses are the skeletal remains of the great fortress and prison that was Angband. The peaks are mighty still, even after the apocalypse that was the War of Wrath. Flows of vitrified slag run down the slopes. This close Telperinquar can see the faint glitter where the Curse of the Valar blistered the very stone into glass.

The sight brings such horror that each step is an ordeal. Forcing one foot in front of the other becomes a triumph of will over the body’s base flight instinct. Each breath feels harsh, as if his very lungs resist the entry of such foul air. The weight of the sledge against his harness grows unbearable.

Telperinquar halts, a moment’s relief from that terrible march, and leans his elbows on his knees to catch his breath and master himself. Snow and slag crunch beneath his soles. With the tip of his boot he shifts the windblown layer of powder snow. The ground beneath is black as the Void, smooth as a sheet of water. The cliffs and crevasses of old were levelled when the alien fires that raged here melted the very bedrock into volcanic glass.

The danger lurking in this place is all the more dreadful for the lack of any warning that Elvish senses might perceive. Nothing stirs here. No sight, smell or sound betrays the Curse’s perils. Only the wind pipes forlornly across the silent vastness.

Telperinquar is strangely relieved that the dogs died when they did - to force any beast into this approach would have been an act of torture. The radiation is a faint prickle all over his body as Elvish healing knits his tissues back together under the ceaseless bombardment of charged particles. Mortal skin would peel off like a ragged garment. Annatar’s shape has grown faintly luminous in the polar twilight, a halo of deflected radiation edging his fána in an eerie glow.

Only now does Telperinquar grasp the wisdom in the high king’s ban upon this place. Nothing from here should be carried back to poison Mortal lands.

At the feet of the mutilated giant that is the central peak loom the tumbled remains of the Great Gate of Angband. Telperinquar shudders as they approach. This pockmarked ground is where Nolofinwë was crushed under Morgoth’s heel.

When at last they stand before what was once the gate, Telperinquar ‘s heart sinks. The battering rams of the besieging Valar have crushed and broken the gargantuan door panels and their grotesquely sculpted jambs and lintel. After the sack, it seems the departing Host collapsed the gateway into a shapeless mound of rubble.

That devastation alone would have sufficed to close the way, but the snows have heaped here undisturbed for an age of the world, and the ruined gate now lies entombed in a sarcophagus of ice.

Telperinquar  inspects the ice with a prospector’s eye, calculating height and depth and density, and swears when despair sinks in its fangs.

Ever since the dogs he felt tainted, infected by the ruthlessness this expedition requires. Now all of it proves in vain. He bites back a particularly foul curse.

They did bring ice-axes and a measure of black powder, but the gate is buried so deeply that the two of them might languish here long indeed. They will slowly hack away at this vast mound of blue ice and rock until their victuals run out or the long dark of polar winter overtakes them.

A team of Khazad-dûm’s finest miners could manage the task, if Dwarves could somehow survive merely breathing this air.

“Dwarves are hardy. They resist the Curse far longer than Mortals,”  Annatar says, plucking the image from Telperinquar’s mind with that eerie Maïarin power. “Still, not long enough to get much digging done at these radiation levels.”

How would He know such a thing? The thought inserts itself almost against Telperinquar’s will.

“Aulë was My teacher once, and it was Aulë who molded the very earth into Dwarven flesh. I know its limitations well.” Annatar smiles His golden smile, and adds in a tone like a whispered confidence, “You and I, we are made of better stuff.”

Wonder overtakes Telperinquar’s dismay. Does that smile mean that Annatar sees hope still?

Indeed Annatar seems wholly unaffected by Telperinquar’s despair. Still smiling, He turns to face the tumbled gate encased in its icy mausoleum. He stands still for an instant, watching it with a strange expression on His face, a golden statue descended into the white expanse of the wastelands.

Then He raises his arms, flames kindling in His open hands, and begins His Song.

Annatar’s voice is a firestorm that rages fell and furious, red-hot with barely contained Power.

Within that voice lie the burning winds that rush down from volcanoes, scorching all things in their way. Annatar calls upon the magma at Arda’s fiery heart as He Sings into existence a column of roaring fire.

Telperinquar tries to listen, but  soon he must turn away and cover his ears. That voice is too much for a mere Elf.

With a hiss like a million hot rods being quenched the ice sublimates, releasing a cloud of boiling steam that cuts off Telperinquar’s breath and scalds his exposed face. With some final reserve of reason, he snaps out of his stunned wonder and backs away. At a safe distance he crouches and cools his reddened cheeks with handfuls of snow.

Annatar stands unmoved amidst the raging fires. He Sings of uncovering, piercing, opening. He calls up the thundering chaos at the heart of each star, hot enough to inflame the very atoms of which Eä is made. Telperinquar must cover his face lest the radiance sear his eyes.

When he dares risk another look, Annatar and the gate are wholly hidden in swirling vapours of boiling steam. At the edges the steam freezes in the icy air, raining to the ground as a million crystal ice-needles that reflect the sun like scattered gems.

At last silence descends. The vapours recede, and amidst the thinning swirls Annatar is left standing on a tapestry of icy diamonds, bright and fair as a golden flame.

Behind him the remains of the gate still glow red with heat, but in the polar wind they cool swiftly with strange, tinkling sounds. Between them gapes a square of complete and perfect darkness.

Annatar turns to face Telperinquar, His face full of wild, vicious triumph. The very Powers have closed this door against them, but His is the mastery.

The way lies open.

Telperinquar dares not look up to meet Annatar’s gaze, so struck is he with sheer awe. It is easy to forget that Annatar is not His Elvish body but a spirit older than Eä, merely clothed in its physical matter. This brief unveiling of His true power has carried them from despair to triumph in mere moments. 

“Come, friend. Let us enter.” Annatar’s voice has gentled once more.

Telperinquar raises his eyes to meet Annatar’s. Annatar’s pupils are dark as the night between the stars, and just as ancient. Telperinquar alone among all the Eldar has been chosen to touch such greatness. He must not squander this chance.

That proud purpose overtakes even his terror as he follows Annatar into the gaping blackness of the gate.