Aule's Dilemma by Uvatha the Horseman  

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Mairon and Curumo

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The Mansions of Aulë - During the Creation of the World

After the Ainulindalë, when Aulë first descended into the earth and took physical form, he arrived on a shelf of bare rock enclosed by lifeless seas. The stars were not created yet, and the sun and moon weren't even conceived of.

Those early days involved what seemed like never-ending physical labor. Aulë had been given Maiar, earth spirits similar to himself, but less ancient and powerful.

Together they moved great quantities of dirt and rock. They raised mountain ranges, altered the shape of coastlines, and determined the course of rivers. Sometimes, for recreation, they did small, enjoyable tasks like adding gold to veins of quartz or setting off geysers.

-o-o-o-

Once they had sculpted the earth into something more finished, they set about building a settlement for themselves.

They'd arrived to find a barren wasteland, but by the time they completed their first assigned tasks, the earth was clothed in green. When they looked for a place to settle, they discovered a vale on the edge of a wilderness where no foot had ever trod. They cut a clearing, an inconsequential gap in the trackless forest, and began to build.

The first Forge consisted of an enormous stone fireplace housed in a single-room structure built from logs with the bark still on and chinked with moss. A large rock was placed in the center of the room, and they built benches on which to lay their tools.

They built the walls up only as high as they needed to be, then built the structure to hold the roof. Aulë and Mairon lifted the heavy rafters to the top of the walls and dropped them into the notches cut for them. Curumo would have liked to help, but he wasn't as tall as Mairon, and not nearly as strong.

After they raised the first rafter and seated it near the stone chimney, Mairon found a chisel and carved his initials, MA for Mairon Artano, into the end he had raised.

When it was finished, they declared the shelter a success. It provided a place to store tools out of the weather, which did a great deal to prevent rust. Before long, his Maiar took to sleeping in the Forge, particularly when the weather was bad. In time, the walls were plastered, the floor paved with slates, and eventually, a second room was added.

The Mansions of Aulë - Before the First Age

The end of the days' work approached. Soon it would be time to wash up and go inside for dinner and the evening’s recreation: music and board games and stories.

The Mansions of Aulë had grown into an imposing structure. It was hard to remember the earliest days, when the Forge was a rude log structure in a carved-out pocket of forest.

Since then, they had added upper stories, completed a new addition, and planned to build the Forge its own wing. The house was busy, noisy, and full of life, filled with his Maiar, the visiting Elvish students, and whomever else stopped by.

-o-o-o-

Aulë stood at the anvil, using a chisel on a flat bar of iron. It took three hands to hold the hammer, chisel, and tongs. Mairon acted as his third hand, using the tongs to keep the glowing bar steady.

Aulë struck the chisel. The bar rotated in the jaws of the tongs.

"Mairon, can you keep a better grip on the piece? It's twisting in the jaws."

He had both hands wrapped around the long handles of the tongs. "I'm gripping as hard as I can. The design of the jaws is flawed."

Aulë looked at them. They were like any tongs, with two long handles that pivoted around a pivot joint, but with unusually wide and flat jaws, an adaptation for flat bar and sheet metal.

Aulë saw the problem. While the jaws met flat when empty, as they were supposed to, tipped at an angle when they were apart. Only their inner edges made contact with the piece he was working on. No wonder it wasn't held firmly.

This was a good teaching moment. "How would you fix it?"

"I'd bend the upper jaw to bring it parallel with the lower one when the jaws were open."

Aulë waited to let his apprentice think about how that would work.

"It would work, but only for one specific thickness. And the thickness of a piece changes as it's worked."

Mairon brought paper and a stick of lead to the dinner table, drawing and erasing and starting over again. As he worked, the page filled with parallel jaws and long handles with complicated mechanisms between them.

"I find it interesting that you're so obsessed with a relatively simple problem. I thought you were smarter than that." said Curumo.

Mairon reached for the salt. His elbow hit Curumo's goblet, expertly sending wine in a meandering river straight into Curumo's lap. Curumo jumped up with a shriek, blotting at his clothes. "Look what he did!"

"It was an accident. Let it go," said Aulë.

"Did you see the path of the spill? It was unnatural," said Curumo.

"Then he's highly skilled," said Aulë.

-o-o-o-

Mairon worked for the next eight or ten days, drawing, constructing models, and finally forging his first full-scale example of parallel tongs. It was a complicated mechanism with eight or nine pivot points and a multitude of moving parts.

The jaws remained parallel as they opened and closed.

"Mairon, this is brilliant!" They were heavier than simple tongs, but they worked so well, Aulë preferred them for thin bar work.

On a day when Curumo was Aulë's third hand, Aulë asked him to hold Mairon's parallel jaw tongs.

"They're heavy. The handles are uncomfortable in my hand, and they're clunky-looking."

A day or two later, Curumo presented Aulë with his own design for parallel tongs, a simple mechanism with four pivot joints. It worked well. It weighed much less than Mairon's design. The handles, shaped in graceful curves in his personal style, later echoed in Elvish design, felt comfortable in his hand.

"Curumo, this is amazing! How did you do it?"

"I studied the prototype you've been using and saw that, at its heart, it was a four-joint parallelogram. No other part of the mechanism was important."

Mairon, who was working on the shop floor nearby, glared daggers at Curumo.

Curumo smirked. "You're great at roughing out a prototype, but I'm the one who builds the finished product, the one people will actually use. What can I say? I'm just better than you."

Mairon shoved him. Curumo shoved back. Then Curumo was on the flagstones with Mairon kneeling on top of him, pummeling him. This happened so often, Aulë didn't try to break it up, he just picked up a quench barrel and emptied it over them.

Aulë sighed. Mairon and Curumo were equally skilled, although in different ways. One was a starter, and one was a finisher. If only they'd work together, they'd be unstoppable.

-o-o-o-

A bell rang from inside the Mansions, summoning them to the midday meal. Aulë entered the newly completed wing and breathed in the smell of wood shavings and drying plaster. The new wing featured a dining hall large enough to seat the entire household at a single long table. He was looking forward it.

Lamp light reflected from the bare plaster walls, revealing the marks from plaster knives, recently used on barely dry plaster. The walls are plain now, but someday murals will cover them.

Some of the younger apprentices had made sketches featuring scenes from the Ainulindalë, depicting the creation of the world and the final battle. The House of Aulë prided itself on its artistry and craftsmanship.

Aulë took his place. Yavanna sat at his left hand. The rest of his servants occupied most of the remaining places. A few were still empty because some of his servants were still working in the kitchens.

Mairon and Curumo carried heavy platters in from the kitchen. As the highest-ranking and physically strongest, the task naturally fell to them. They served each Maia, then both of them tried to take the empty place at Aulë's right hand.

By custom, their Chief Maia occupied the place at a Vala's right hand. The place at table held great prestige, as the Chief Maia was a Vala's master's second-in-command, understudy, and confidante. Both Mairon and Curumo were qualified for the role, and both of them wanted it badly.

"Hold on, lads." Aulë gave them a stern look.

The two of them stood there, glaring at each other in a high-stakes game of musical chairs, holding plates on which their dinners were growing cold. Aulë hadn't yet picked his Chief Maia. His jaw tightened. They were forcing him to decide now.

Mairon had a gift for invention. He routinely came up with original designs and mechanisms. He'd do enough to find out if it worked, forcing things together if the pieces didn't fit, and then move on to the next project.

Curumo had a different gift. He could take the work of others and make it easier to construct, lighter, and more beautiful than the originals. His graceful designs influenced the style later seen in Elvish craftsmanship. But as far as Aulë knew, Curumo had never invented anything original.

Mairon and Curumo were equal in skill, intelligence, and seniority. Either would have been a good choice. What tipped the balance was that Aulë liked Mairon better. Aulë raised his hand for silence. "I've made my decision. Mairon will be my Chief Maia. Curumo will be next in rank after him."

Mairon set his plate down at Aulë's right hand as if it were his due. Curumo shot him a look that could maim, then took the empty place at Mairon's right. Aulë let out his breath. At least they hadn't come to blows.

The Maiar at his end of the table fell silent. From the far end of the table where the youngsters sat, Aulë caught a snatch of conversation.

"Ossë told me that the water in the depths is sapphire blue, and sometimes you can hear the songs of whales." Rhosfindel gestured in great excitement.

Aulë sighed. At least someone was unaffected t by the drama.

-o-o-o-

Late one evening, raucous, off-key singing outside shattered the quiet of the household. A door slammed, followed by stage whispers as what sounded like people trying to take off their boots to tiptoe upstairs without waking the household. No such luck. That iron had already cooled.

Something fell and clattered when it hit the tiles, followed by ineffectively suppressed laughter. Aulë wrapped himself in a cloak and stormed downstairs to deal with it.

Rhosfindel was trying to pick up a tall candlestick and replace its pillar candle, without success. Mairon and Curumo were pointing and laughing at him while holding onto each other for balance.

"You're drunk." Aulë glared at them.

"Obviously," Mairon put a hand on the wall for balance.

"Mairon, you're the responsible one. I'd have thought you were the least likely to get into trouble."

"We were out with Ossë. He brought something special for us to try. I don't know what it was."

Rhosfindel rubbed his throat. "It burned something fierce, but it was amazing." This set them all to laughing again.

Aulë tried to look stern. "I don't want you spending any more time with Ossë. He's a bad influence."
"You talk as if he's a delinquent." Mairon enunciated his words with exaggerated care.

"He's past being a delinquent. I saw him talking to Melkor, which makes him half a criminal already. In the future, I want you to stay away from Ossë. He was always wild, but if Melkor started influencing him, he's dangerous as well. I don't want him corrupting you."

Aulë didn't think they were listening. The three of them were laughing and shoving each other.

"We'll talk in the morning."