The Lands of Weeping and of War by bunn  

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An Enquiry into the Nature of Evil

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Maglor had all his life been a prince. A prince of the First House, and even once that house was dispossessed, he had been a commander. 

 There had been only four people in all the world to give him orders. But Finwë, Fëanor and Maedhros were dead, and Nerdanel was far away in the west, and apparently had no desire to have anything to do with her last living son. Understandable, really.

But all this meant that the idea of taking orders from Celebrimbor felt strange and chafing, more so than he liked to admit, even to himself. As for taking orders or reprimands from anyone else... Well, he could endure it, since he must. Maedhros had endured Angband and lived. 

This would be nothing like that. He should merely strive to be one among many, unremarkable. 

Not one of the Noldor was unremarkable. It was not what they strove for. Fëanor’s sons least of all. 

Maglor knew that he was not the most able student that Aulë had ever taught. At least to himself, he would also admit that appearing in a set time and place to work as others directed was not his greatest strength. 

All the same, it chafed as if he were a horse in ill-fitting harness: the very idea of other eyes that were not Maedhros overseeing work that Maglor had set his power and thought upon. 

Of course, he told himself, he was not supposed to enjoy it. 

He was used to Caranthir being gone forever, perhaps into the darkness everlasting, and rarely missed him sharply now. He had mourned Curufin, Amrod and Amras. He was almost used to the aching empty space where Maedhros should have been. 

But now he found himself missing brothers, in general, as people who would understand these things without the weight of loaded obligation and guilt that lay between him and Elrond, and even between Celebrimbor and himself.  

Missing his status was inappropriate. It was something that being long dispossessed, should no longer trouble him. And yet it did trouble him. 

He must keep a tight rein on his temper. There was nobody else left to blame. Nobody to lean on.  

***********

In Elrond’s white-walled hall, Maglor was sitting in a window-seat by one of the tall windows, which were, as yet, unglazed. It was a dry day, and so the waxed canvas covers were tied back, and he could look out to the south down to the water and the quays.  He had his small harp in his hands and was plucking idly, not really playing, but reaching for notes and phrases that had not, as yet, turned into anything more. 

Near his feet, in the rushes that did duty for a carpet, a couple of hounds were playfully wrestling, mouths open, long necks twined. 

Arachon was listening to the harpsong from further down the hall while applying beeswax to his boots, though officially Maglor’s guard today was one of Elrond’s oldest Edain, Kunova. 

As a general rule, Edain women were not fighters. Kunova paid little attention to rules. She was unusually tall and broad in proportion, with an impressively broken nose and a notable war record. 

She also had an ailing back that no Elvish cure or enchantment seemed to be able to help. She was wandering around the hall, trying to find the most comfortable place to rest.

Outside on the step, two young children were playing with pebbles, while their mothers spun thread and discussed some scandal between their friends. Maglor was trying to work out exactly who had slept with who, without actually asking. The Edain were always lusty folk — Finrod had made a study of their habits, years ago, and had sent Maglor a copy — but those who lived in Mithlond now were reticent about admitting it to elves. Some shift of culture after the War, perhaps. 

Elrond came in, and seeing Maglor, came over.  “Celebrimbor is looking for you.”

Maglor nodded and went on playing. “I know.  He sent a note.” 

Elrond picked up the note from where Maglor had dropped it on the windowsill, and looked at it. 

“And yet, you are still here, and not there,” Elrond observed. “Is Celebrimbor not leader of the House of Fëanor?” 

“Of course.” 

“And you are, I take it, still a member of that House.”

Maglor shrugged. “At this point, who else would have me?”

“Are you planning to make Celebrimbor’s life difficult and complicated by ignoring his commands?” Elrond enquired, “Even more difficult and complicated than it already is? Or is there something else happening here that I am not aware of?”

“I expect he wants to talk about Telutan and Carnil, and the wounding of Gildor of Nargothrond,” Maglor said, and ran his hand across the harp, summoning a deliberately discordant jangle of notes.

“And you don’t wish to discuss it?”

Maglor picked another half-finished phrase from the harp and frowned at it without replying.  

“Do you want me to go and talk to Celebrimbor about it?” Elrond offered. 

For a brief moment, Maglor was tempted, but this was Elrond, not a brother or a cousin to be imposed on, and anyway, the situation was not really one that anyone else could address.

“No.” He put down the harp and stood up. “I’m going.”  Kunova began pulling herself onto his feet to go with him. 

Elrond looked at Maglor, far too perceptively, then held up a hand to Kunova. “I’ll come with you.”  He waved the note.  “This says come to the workshop by the First Quay on the North-bank, but I saw him just now on the South-bank, talking to Falathrond about pearls. I expect he’s still there.”

*****

They took a small rowing-ferry across the Lhûn.  The tide was high and unusually in Mithlond, there was no wind at all, so that the shining waters were still as green glass, shading from pale shores to a deep green-blue in the middle of the river.  

Maglor looked west, over the head of the steadily-rowing Elf whose ferry this was: one of Círdan’s people, by the look of his clothes and the shells braided in his silver hair. 

There were a couple of dark watching heads, far out across the waters towards the blue hills that faded into the cloudy sky. Seals. Maglor remembered, queasily, a ship leaping sideways through black waves raised by Uinen’s savage rage, the deck slippery with water and blood and the wild airs filled with the sound of her screams. He hoped that the seals were not watching on her behalf. 

“I don’t think so,” Elrond said, answering the thought. “Or at least, not with any malign intent. That was a long time ago. Ulmo is our ally now, here in Mithlond, and Uinen is a friend. I think Círdan has even come close to forgiving them both for the loss of all those ships he built and sent out westward to ask for help.”

The ferry-elf huffed a curt laugh. “T’will be more than a few years, before we forget that, here in  the shorelands,” he told Elrond. “Círdan speaks as he must, I guess. But we built those ships, the finest work that we could do. We built them, and we filled them with stores we could ill afford to lose, and they were crewed by the pick of our own. But the Lady didn’t hold her hand for them.” He nodded to Elrond, in time with the rhythm of the oars. “No disrespect to your pa, Elrond, I’m glad he and your ma made it safe across.”

“Thank you,” Elrond said, looking disconcerted. 

“Those seals don’t care about you,” the ferry-elf told him, pausing between strokes as he spoke,  “Nor the kin-slayer here, neither. They’re watching me and my fine new wherry here, to see if I’ve forgiven their Lady yet.”

“You haven’t?” Elrond asked cautiously.

 

The ferry elf spat juicily into the water. “ No chance.  Fuck you!” he bellowed suddenly over his shoulder at the seals, at the same time, pulling in dextrously towards the landing-stage on the south side of the water. Maglor gripped the side of the boat cautiously, but the water remained glassy, and the seals did not move. 

“My daughter was a deck-hand on the third ship,” the ferry-elf explained, in a quieter voice. “Seal-maiden, that ship was called, but the name didn’t save her.”

“No,” Maglor said with sympathy, “Begging for help wasn’t enough for them, was it?  Not even for ships of the Falas. They were waiting for the Silmaril.”

“And fuck you, too, kinslayer, and all your Western jewels!” the ferry-elf exclaimed, though Maglor felt his tone was rather more jovial than that directed to the seals.  

The ferry reached the landing-stage, and its captain threw a rope over two posts at bow and stern, stepped out of the boat and went off across the quayside without a backward look. 

“Well,” Maglor said to Elrond. “That was... educational. Much calmer than last time I was in a boat, too.”

Elrond was overcome with sudden laughter.  “I thought Uinen herself would come and sink the boat in the middle of the river, when he shouted at the seals.  I was just wondering if I could swim to the other side. Perhaps not, if Uinen herself had come to turn us over.” He stepped out nimbly and turned to offer Maglor a hand up.

“If I had drowned there and then,” Maglor said, accepting the hand and pulling himself up out of the boat, “It would have made for a very poetic ending. But I imagine you would simply float out until seals or mermaids came to rescue you. Did you notice that he used Taliska to curse with? Your kinsmen the Edain clearly have the best and most vigorous terms of abuse. ”

“Our kinsmen! Taliska is an earthy language. I tend to use it that way myself, don’t you?” Elrond looked after the ferry-elf, but he had disappeared. “I hope he’s well.”

“Someone who swears at Uinen in a boat and gets away with it is clearly blessed with some kind of luck. I think he’s well enough, Elrond.” 

Celebrimbor was not where Elrond had last seen him, but a smiling young elf with a Doriath accent, almost too delighted to be speaking to Elrond to notice Maglor at all, sent them on to the Place of Galadriel on the South-bank.  

This was a set of rooms at one end of a long high-roofed wooden building, where released thralls out of Angband had been living while they decided if they would go into the West.  Most of these, Elrond said, had been Sindar, some of them refugees of Doriath who had not reached the Havens. 

Maglor raised an eyebrow. “Should I be here?”

“Celebrimbor asked you to come,” Elrond pointed out. “So it’s not really your choice, is it?”

“Was it Gil-galad who told you to make sure I respected Celebrimbor’s authority or was it Elros?” Maglor enquired. At least it was easy enough to make a joke of it, with Elrond. If things had been different, they might have been uncomplicatedly friends. Not... Whatever they were now.

“I am quite capable of remembering to assume the worst of you without coaxing,” Elrond said with dignity. Then he gave a quick smile. “But this time... it was Gil-galad.”

“Good. He has done much by letting me live: I'm glad he has some caution left.”

“Yes... But as to the freed thralls who were staying here, most have now gone across the Sea, or moved south along the coast with Celeborn, or inland with Oropher or Amdir. The building is mostly empty. Galadriel still stays here from time to time, if she happens to be visiting Mithlond.  But I don’t think she’s here today.”

They went in through a tall wooden door, into a room where the walls and floor were all made of a dark wood, and hung with bright weavings showing scenes that Maglor recognised: the great fountain outside Finwë’s house in Tirion, a distant view of the city of Valimar framed against the silver light of Telperion, a tree with leaves outlined in gold upon the starlit shores of Ilmarin. Gifts from her father, before he had had to leave and sail home to Valinor without his rebel daughter, perhaps: it seemed unlikely that Galadriel had had much leisure for weaving recently. 

Celebrimbor was clearly comfortable in Galadriel’s house.  He was sitting by the fireplace with a cup in one hand and a pen in the other, making amendments to some plans. For the leader of a great house of the Noldor in time of peace, his clothes were plain, though he was wearing arm-rings of ancient Dwarven silver marked with the Fëanorian star.  Maglor recognised the style, familiar from fallen Belegost. A gift, probably. 

 

He looked up when they entered. “Oh, there you are, Maglor. Elrond, you didn’t need to bring him personally! He would have turned up eventually.” He hesitated, and frowned “Or, well, probably he would.”

“I was coming!” Maglor protested. 

Celebrimbor gave him an uncomfortably sceptical look. “If you want to be trusted, then you could try behaving like someone who is trustworthy,” he said bluntly. 

Maglor took a breath to defend himself, then let it go. “That’s fair,” he admitted. “I can think of many reasons why you should not trust me at all, and very few reasons why you should.” 

Elrond sat down opposite Celebrimbor, near the window.  “You told me you’d try.”

“And I am,” Maglor told him, wished passionately that he had hurried to talk to Celebrimbor before Elrond had come to shepherd him here. 

Elronds expression was wearily unconvinced. 

“You asked me to come and help,” Maglor elaborated, after a moment’s awkward pause. “You made it clear I owed you that, Elrond, and I agreed. But now I am unsure how far I can, or indeed, if I should. My hands are not clean.”

“You’re thinking of Telutan, and Carnil, and their argument the other day,” Elrond said. Maglor nodded. Elrond had known both Carnil and Telutan almost all his life. 

“I heard something about that,” Celebrimbor said. “Nobody told me the details and since nobody appeared to be injured or complaining, I thought it best not to ask.  Was there blood spilled?” 

“Someone was injured,” Maglor admitted.  “Gildor Inglorion, of Nargothrond. He tried to stop them. Carnil hit him.”

“How seriously?”

“With a knife,” Elrond said.  “He’s not badly hurt: Elros bandaged him and set words on the wound.”

“But blood was shed.” Celebrimbor frowned. 

“Yes. I don’t think either of them meant to hurt a bystander,” Maglor said. “They were only trying to murder one another. But when that happens...”

“All kinds of people get hurt, yes,” Celebrimbor agreed steadily, and both of them were thinking of the horror of the Havens, where the people of the Sons of Fëanor had met those who had followed Fëanor’s grandson, and with the remnants of their allies from the Nirnaeth Arnoediad: mighty elves of Gondolin, old friends, some of them from distant days across the sea.

Telutan and Carnil had had to choose their allegiance then.  They had chosen Maedhros and Maglor, and the people of the Havens had suffered. 

“Telutan says that he is sworn to you and won't have me as lord, and Carnil took deadly offence.” Maglor explained. 

Celebrimbor groaned. “ I suppose it's too much to hope you ordered them both to heel, and I no longer need to concern myself? No?”

“In Gil-galad’s lands, in time of peace, shortly after he has decided not to have me killed?  Really, Tyelpë?”  

“Celebrimbor,” Celebrimbor reminded him firmly, and then he sighed. “I suppose that would be too simple. People are so much more complicated and frustrating than things.”

Elrond smiled sympathetically. “It perhaps isn’t ideal to hit them with hammers till they are the right shape. Or even to have Maglor do it.”  

“I suppose so,” Celebrimbor agreed. He gave Elrond a wry smile. “I really thought this might be the one advantage of having an uncle with such a dubious reputation.”

“We are accustomed to solving problems with death,” Maglor said bleakly. “We learned that together, Carnil, Telutan, Maedhros and I.”

Celebrimbor put his pen down, and buried his head in his hands. “And yet, I assume that you have offered Gil-galad, and Elrond even more so, assurances that you will let Elwing and Eärendil be, wherever they are: in the West, or in the skies.”

“Of course. And yet... To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well.  So Mandos doomed us. Should Mithlond be built upon that?” He turned the scarred hand palm upward, and ran his fingers across the scars, remembering how it had burned, and how he had known then that all they had done had turned to the service of the Enemy. 

“Times have changed,” Elrond suggested, with a glance at Maglor’s hand. 

“Gildor Inglorion might reasonably feel otherwise,” Maglor told him. “You agreed just now, Elrond, that I should not have held Telutan and Carnil with the power in my voice. Yet if I had, then Gildor  would not have been hurt. Hard to see which path to take, carrying all this darkness with me.”

“And yet,” Celebrimbor said, “If I don’t expect casual butchery from you — and let me be clear, I do not expect it — can I not expect the same from Telutan, and Carnil?”

“You can expect it, but you’re likely to be disappointed. I and Telutan, and all the rest... we are more soaked in blood than most orcs, if I am honest.”

“Do you think,” Elrond asked with deceptive innocence, “That orcs are able to be honest?”

It was a question that Maglor had asked himself recently, and found he was unable to answer. 

Celebrimbor slapped the table with one hand.  “The orcs I fought at Tumhalad — they weren’t so utterly different from us.  Two legs, two hands. Two eyes, most of the time! I’ll grant you that they got... odder... later. Still, if we could see what they see through those eyes, perhaps we’d understand them better.  Perhaps we’d understand ourselves better, too.”

“Their minds burn with fear and hate, even from a distance,” Maglor said distantly. 

“Your mind isn’t short of fear, just now,” Elrond observed.

“Stop looking at it, then!” Maglor snapped at him, savagely, and immediately regretted it. 

“I don’t think you have the right to ask that of me,” Elrond said, after a moment’s silence. His voice was very level and controlled. Maglor could hear the hurt in it, and cursed himself silently. 

He took a chair, turned it to face Elrond and sat facing him, forcing himself to speak gently. “I don’t. Elrond. You cannot trust me, and you should not. I know I am... fortunate to be alive. If someone had done to us what we did to you and Elros, to your mother, none of us would have stopped until we had hunted them down.”

“Perhaps you wouldn’t,” Elrond said, “Though I don’t think you can say that, because it didn’t happen to you. How would you know? But I and Elros have been more than your helpless victims for many years now. I say you don’t have to be an orc unless you choose to be one. I say your hands are not stained forever. I have that right.”

“I grant you the right,” Maglor said, deliberately quiet. “You know that. But it’s a marred world. You know that, too.”

“You told Telutan he had a choice,” Elrond pointed out. “If Telutan has one, then so do you.”

Maglor thought about it for a long, painful moment “I did. But Telutan and all the rest followed our orders at the Havens of Sirion.  It’s not following orders that makes an orc an orc.”

“You didn’t order Carnil and Telutan to try to kill one another,” Celebrimbor pointed out, from somewhere behind Maglor’s shoulder.  “But the pair of them choosing murder isn’t either of them choosing to become an orc.  Not beyond the moment, anyway.  And even in that moment, well.  I’ve seen Carnil in action. I find it hard to believe that Telutan was confident of killing her, or that she could kill him. By the name of Laurelin, Maglor, they have been companions in arms for so many years!” 

“He could have killed her,” Maglor said. He ran his hand down through his curling hair, and tugged at it. “She certainly wanted to kill him.  But Telutan has a power of his own. He led his own company in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Caranthir trained him personally.”

“In that case, he chose not to kill her,” Celebrimbor said. “And you chose not to hold them to your word or execute them, which is certainly what an orcish commander would have done, isn’t it?”

“Orcs are made with the essence of the Enemy...” Maglor began. 

Celebrimbor interrupted. “But are they?  Do we know that for sure?  I don’t think we do. We have avoided coming to understand the nature of the Enemy, but that has meant we do not really know, even now, what he does and how he does it. Or why.  I’ve been talking with Galadriel about this recently. She thinks there’s more to be learned, and I agree.”

“The Valar said that looking too closely at his work risks contamination. Study the works of the Enemy and you become like him,” Maglor said, doubtfully.  “Aulë said that. I was there. I’m surprised he didn’t say it to you,Tyelpë.” 

“I don’t doubt he said it,” Celebrimbor replied. “I didn’t study with Aulë long: when Grandfather was sent into exile I had to leave.  Neither did Galadriel, for that matter: both of us are too young. But I’m surprised to hear from you, of all people, that the word of a Vala is the last one that can be said.”

“I think when the Ainur speak, there’s risk of miscommunication,” Elrond put in. “I have heard Ulmo speak, but that is not at all the same thing as understanding what he said, let alone why he said it.” 

“The Valar don’t look at the Enemy,” Celebrimbor said. “You just said it yourself, Maglor: they don’t study him, or understand him. They let him run loose in Valinor, and they didn’t even come to Middle-earth to fight him.  They aren’t all-knowing.”

“And it may be that Eru has set in you a fire greater than the Valar know, is that your thinking Tye... I mean, Celebrimbor? You... and Galadriel, perhaps?”

“Why not?” Celebrimbor said, and the pride in the way he lifted his head was all Fëanor, to the point that Maglor had to look away again.  “I don’t believe that Middle-earth is marred and can’t be saved.  Galadriel and I are looking into this matter of orcs — and all the wider implications of it too: where the differences lie, precisely, between each of our arts and the deceits of the Enemy. Galadriel thinks there may be a musical angle to it, in fact, though I would say it’s broader: I think both purpose and vibration...”

“It involves a lot of theory that I don’t understand,” Elrond interrupted. “But they both seem very excited about it. I’m hoping that once they write it up I’ll be able to make more sense of it.”  He hesitated, and looked at Maglor. “I might need to ask you about some of the terminology.”

Celebrimbor shrugged “I’m afraid we’re a long way from a working theory yet. If we could find orcs that would only speak to us rather than running or fighting to the death like wild rats, it would help.”

“I draw the line at catching orcs, even for you, Celebrimbor,” Elrond said, more cheerfully. “There can’t be many of them left: wouldn’t it be kinder to let them run off and hide in their holes?”

“It’s only a problem of argument and enquiry, rather than practical experiment, at present,” Celebrimbor said. “Even Galadriel agrees with that.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” Maglor said. 

Celebrimbor smiled, a wide, rather uncertain smile. “We need your skills. Do you know how few people there are left in Middle-earth who studied with Aulë ? I see no reason why you should not take your share of the work, if you feel well enough.  If you would prefer it, then I or Galadriel will review it for signs of this contamination you fear.”

Maglor winced. “Part of me hates the very idea of that with a bitter passion,” he admitted. “And the other part, which is at war with the first, says that is the very least you should do, and you are being dangerously incautious. I am caught between two voices, and cannot choose.”

“Then I’ll choose for you,” Celebrimbor said.  “I have a party leaving in three days, to make the final amends to the aqueduct.  Go with them. Take Carnil, or Telutan, or both of them if you think they’ll both survive it, but go and do the work.  I will review it. Unless Elrond...”

“No,” Maglor said quickly. 

“Celebrimbor,” Elrond said, “I am determined, now there is peace at last, to learn all the lore I can of Valinor and Middle-earth, and perhaps even master some of it. But I am far from able to review work in stone and water of the greatest singer of the Noldor, who spent years studying with Aulë.  Have pity on a poor student, I beg you!”

“You have the power,” Celebrimbor assured him. “The theory will come to you naturally, I think: you clearly have the instinct for it. ”

Elrond turned to Maglor. “Perhaps you could explain it to me?  Show me what needs to be done, and how, so I can learn more about how you approach it?”

That put an obligation on it, and meant that Maglor could not simply lose track of time and fail to appear. He was fairly sure that Celebrimbor was too straightforward to have thought of that. 

Elrond was cunning enough to have worked it out though, and there was something about his eye that suggested he had done exactly that.  

Had he learned that from Maedhros, and if so, was it a sign that he had been touched by darkness? It was the kind of thing that Maedhros would have done. 

No. Elrond was perfectly well. 

Celebrimbor had said: behave like someone who is trustworthy.  He could do that. 

“Of course,” Maglor said.