Duplicity by Prackspoor  

---

Apocalypse (III) - Reset

---

VI. Reset

You do exactly as you have been told and you try to be nice. You stick close to the hobbits, you show them the best path through the wilderness, you even catch fish for them.

Their reactions to your sudden change in behaviour could not be more different. The fat one becomes even more suspicious of you, if that is at all possible, whereas your sudden friendliness seems to take the Baggins-hobbit – no, the Master – by surprise. You notice his gaze on you when you move past him. He does not trust you, either, but the way he is watching you isn't hostile so much as pensive.

He even seeks you out to talk to you from time to time, asking you about your past, your travels, and where you have come from. You are wary of his questions at first, and you remember little about your past anyway. But soon you begin to notice that the Master (unlike the Precious) does not mean to pry in order to find things to hurt you with – he seems genuinely interested in you, which takes you by surprise.

Gradually, you open up to him. You tell him the few things you recall of yourself: that you like fishing (which he understands), that you used to like to go boating (here an uncomfortable look passes over his face, but he does not tell you why), and that you don't like daylight (which he cannot understand). You never speak of your cousin and how you have gotten hold of the Ring. However, you off-handedly mention that Sméagol is your real name, and this seems to catch his interest. From there on out, he never calls you Gollum again, even if the fat hobbit uses the name still, among even less favourable names. For the Master you are now Sméagol, always Sméagol, without exception. Your treatment seems to be important to him, for whatever reason. Nevertheless you are startled when he actually jumps to your defence you against the fat hobbit once.

“Why do you call him names all the time?” the Master asks. “Slinker, Stinker – why?”

“Because that's what he is. There is no good left in him, Mister Frodo, just deceit and lies,” the fat hobbit says. “Just look at him: it's the Ring he wants, that's all he cares about!”

The Master stops abruptly. You have never seen his face grow so dark, and you can see the fat hobbit taking a surprised step backwards.

“Do not speak of the Ring to me,” he says fiercely. “You have no idea what it did to him – what it is still doing to him!” He pauses briefly, and a look of deep, immeasurable grief passes over his face. “I want to help him, Sam.”

You watch the argument unseen from behind a thicket of thorny brambles, astonished and amazed, and you think about the incident for a long time.

That night you prowl about restlessly. You are used to having a dual nature, but you have never felt so torn: you know that the Baggins is a thief, you know that he has the Precious. But he does not mistreat you, and you are beginning to realise that – he understands you. He understands you in a way only someone who has carried the Precious could understand you. You and he both feel the burden of the Ring growing heavier with every mile you are getting closer to the Dark Land, and you wonder whether he can hear the Precious speaking to him as well.

You have never in your entire life known someone who was able to comprehend this horrible, all-consuming part of your life, and now that you have found the Master, the urge to speak to him about it is overwhelming. You have been alone in the dark for so long, alone with this suffocating weight on your mind, and you are so tired of it all. You keep thinking of the time the Master extended his hand to you, and you think that he would understand everything you could tell him – that he would not be angry at what poor Sméagol has done in his life.

One night, you can no longer resist the temptation and you crawl closer to the Master. But before you reach him, something in your head seems to – detonate. Your vision goes black and then white, and your brain is boiling inside your skull. You gargle and run off like a shot animal, blind with pain and panic.

You barely make it out of the earshot of the hobbitses, before –

“You will not speak to him about the Ring!” the Precious screams, dissolving into a gurgle of gollums.

“But maybe he understands, the Master, nice Master,” you whimper.

Stop calling him master! the Precious cuts in, but for once you don't heed it.

“Master knows about the Precious, Master knows of the pain, he'll understand,” you whine. “I am lonely, lonely, so alone, all dark around me, just the fire, the fire, oh, the fire – ” You hide your face in your hands.

You are not alone. You are never alone, Sméagol. You have me. Have I not stayed at your side under the mountains and in the dark woods and under the cruel sun? Have I not been your steadfast friend?

“Yes,” you say.

No, you think.

“Liar!” the Precious snarls through your own teeth.

“Am not!” you cry desperately, although you know it is no use. The Precious has invaded your every bone, your every vein, every fibre of your being. Nothing is secret from it, it sees all, it knows all.

“Yes, you are. A liar and a fool. I can see every little pathetic thought in your little pathetic head, so don't play me for a fool. You want to befriend them. You wish nothing more than to trust them, despite knowing that they are wicked thieves.” The voice of the Precious is dripping with contempt.

“They are not!” you shout, surprising no one more than yourself with your defiance. “Master is nice to us! Master treats us well!”

“Yes, of course he is,” the Precious scoffs. “Just like you are nice to them until the opportunity to strike presents itself. No, Sméagol, they are both vile and bad and wicked, just like you. They would offer you up to anyone who asked on a silver platter, if only they would gain something from it.”

“They wouldn't! Master wouldn't! Master promised not to harm us!”

“Promises, promises,” the Precious spits. “Words shouted to the wind, hollow phrases, that is all they are. Promises mean nothing.”

You bristle at those words. Of late, you have begun to doubt the truthfulness of everything the Precious tells you, but you have never had quite enough courage to stand up to the Precious, especially when it is angry. Now, though, you remember how the Master has come to your defence and how he has been nothing but genuine and good with you. And suddenly your indignation on behalf of your master is stronger than your fear of the Precious.

“Master,” you cry, “is our friend!”

At that, the Precious actually laughs out loud. It is a wild and ugly sound: shrill and utterly devoid of humour.

“Your friend?” it repeats. “Your friend? You have no friends, Sméagol. You are alone. You only have me. Who could ever want to be your friend?”

“Master!” you repeat stubbornly. “Master is good!”

“Master is a dirty little liar, just like you,” the Precious hisses and crouches low, like a cat about to pounce. “Oh, he may make you promises upon promises, but the moment you have outlived your usefulness and turn your back on him, he will be at your throat with his shining elven dagger – and what good will his promises be then, Sméagol?” It pauses, and it is breathing heavily. “Only fools trust in promises of friendship,” it continues. “They will use you as long as they see fit, and then they will throw you aside.”

“They would not!” you cry.

“Oh, they would. Master would,” the Precious says. “Because he knows what you are. A liar. A thief.”

“No!” you whimper and raise your hands in front of your face. The pressure in your head is mounting again.

“A traitor. A slinker.”

“Go away,” you say, “go away and leave us alone.”

“A murderer,” the Precious hisses, and suddenly Déagol's pale face floats before your eyes, waxen and still and lifeless.

“Go away!” you shout again, trying in vain to dispel the spectre of your cousin. “Go away! I hate you, I hate you!”

“You hate me?” the Precious growls. “Where would you be without me? I taught you how to hunt and kill, it was I who looked after us. We survived because of me. You need me.”

You breathe hard, the air hissing in and out between your teeth. You shake all over and there is a wrenching in your guts, preceding the outrageous thought you are about to voice aloud.

“Not anymore.”

Silence.

It occurs to you that you are just now, for the first time ever, witnessing the Precious being taken aback by something you said.

“What did you say?” it asks.

“I said, 'We don't need you anymore',” you repeat slowly. You feel strangely light-headed, almost giddy. You have felt like this only once before in your life, and that was when an elf had caught you against a tree trunk and threatened to skewer you with his sword if you moved so much as a muscle. The realisation catches you by surprise, but facing death seems to make you bolder instead of timid. “Master looks after us now. We don't need you. Leave now, and never come back.”

“How dare you – ” the Precious starts and you feel that awful push on your brain again.

This time, you push back.

“Leave now, and never come back!” you repeat.

You have expected retribution for your cheek, and the onslaught comes immediately. But this time, you are prepared. The Precious throws both of you back, and you are rolling in the dirt, the Precious is in your hands and they are scrabbling at your own throat. You are kicking up clouds of dust near the riverbed, stones crunch under your spine, but you do not even feel it. You both wrestle for control, and one time you have to bite your own hand in order to keep the Precious from clawing your eyes out. But this is your body, your mind, your hand, and you will – not – let – it –

You buck like a wild horse, physically and mentally. The Precious has its clutches sunken into your flesh and mind and it holds on with brutal strength. You are almost afraid, but you know you must not go there, because fear is where the Precious is strong. Instead, you think of the Master and how he held out his hand to you. You think of his sad eyes when he knelt down to take the elven rope off your neck, and you remember his promise to take you with them, so both off you might be free of the Ring at last.

And then you –

– throw the Precious off.

It takes you a few moments to realise what has happened, but then you notice that the stranglehold on your body is gone, together with the vice-like pressure on your head. You can still feel the Precious, but it is far gone, trembling with exhaustion and anger, collapsed and curled up at the back of your mind.

You struggle to all fours again. Your head is bleeding, but you hardly take any notice at all.

You and the Precious both know what you are going to say next. You do it nonetheless.

“Leave now,” you shout, your voice suddenly loud and brave and strong, “and never come back!”

This time, there is no answer.

You listen into the night, but there is only the burbling of the river, the hoot of a night-owl somewhere in the trees above, and the hammering of your heart in your chest. In your head, there is only silence.

You are alone.

You are free.

 

*

After a whole night spent hunting with all the craze and joy of a young fox on his first prowl, you return to the hobbits and triumphantly drop the two young coneys you caught into Master's lap.

“Look what Sméagol finds!” you say proudly.

Master looks up and gives you a smile. “Thank you, Sméagol,” he says, and you beam back, waiting for him to tear into the soft flesh. The fat hobbit, though, has to spoil all the fun of course. Instead of eating them fresh and raw and bleeding, he throws the coneys into his nasty pot and boils them in a stew.

One whiff of the stew is enough to make you retch, and you and he both spend a good while bickering over the proper way to eat coney. In the end, you can't get it into his fat head that one should not destroy good meat by putting it in a pot with nasty vegetables. Instead you retreat to look for another careless small animal you can hunt down and devour raw, how it is meant to be done.

You spend the rest of the morning hunting for squirrels in the trees, and it takes you a good while until you finally manage to get your hands on one and tear its head off. You munch on it while you slowly make your way back to the spot where the hobbits had their fireplace, only to find it abandoned.

Their belongings are gone, but as you approach the fireplace you stick your finger in the ashes and notice that they are still warm. Wherever the hobbits have wandered off to, they cannot have gone far. You find it curious that they would leave all of a sudden, especially since they could tell no two trees apart in these lands. Maybe it had been Master's idea. Maybe Master had been worried and had gone looking for Sméagol and told the fat one to come along.

You stare at the abandoned camp site and decide that this must be it. Well, you are going to catch up with them sooner or later. It does not occur to you that anything could be awry.

*

It does not take you long to find the trail of the hobbits, but to your surprise they are mixed with those of other two-legged creatures. They are taller and heavier, judging by their footprints and you cannot for the life of you fathom what the Master would want to do with the Big Folk.

You catch up with them to find out that you were right about the footprints belonging to a group of Big Folk, and that the Master is with them. You dare not come nearer for fear that they might see you, so you resign yourself to trailing them for the rest of the day, carefully keeping your distance. The fat hobbit looks in your direction once, but if he has seen you slinking after them, he does not show it.

For Big Folk the group is uncannily good at sneaking and covering their trails. You lose them more than once. You know of the invisible bond between you and the Master, for the Ring is always calling you, even now, and if you wanted, you could fall back on it to guide you to the hobbits.

When you crawl through a thicket of thorns that stings and slashes at your face, your bare back, and your palms, you consider it in all seriousness.

In the end, you decide against it.

You are quite pleased with yourself when you manage to find them at last – without the help of the Precious. Just watch me, just watch, you think, we don't need you, no, we don't. We can survive just fine without you.

The men guide the hobbits into a tunnel hewn into the stone of a mountain side. You are not entirely sure what to make of this. The hobbits are blindfolded and the men lead them inside with a firm grip on their shoulders, but they do not struggle and they do not appear to be in obvious distress. The tunnel is heavily guarded. The group of hunters and hobbits is admitted, and immediately two watchmen resume their position at the entry. You abandon any thought you might have entertained about following the hobbits through this entrance, and instead turn around to find another way, maybe up the flanks of the mountain.

You wander around the foot of the steep slopes. Every crack and cranny is well-visible in the golden-and-red light of the setting sun; every shadow is deep-black, every contour well-defined. Birds are chirping in the trees above. A twig snaps in the underbrush and you hurriedly turn around, but it is just a little hare, come out of his burrow to wander the dusky forest in order to find clovers and herbs it can eat.

You start climbing the rocky side of the mountain. You crawl along little ledges and clamber up rocky outcrops, while the pale face of the moon rises over the black mountains in the east. You only spare them – mountains and moon – a brief glance and then turn away, shuddering. They both seem too close for comfort tonight. It is nearing midnight when you decide that these men have chosen their hideout well, because if there is another entrance, you haven't been able to find it. You are starting to get impatient and worried. What is taking the hobbits so long? Is the Master a guest or a prisoner of those men? And if he has indeed been caught and killed by them, what of the Prec—no.

You will not think of it.

For now, you cannot do anything but wait. You should climb down and watch the entrance you have found this afternoon, but now another urge is driving you on: hunger. It has been hours since you have had the bony little squirrel, and your stomach is cramping with the need for a bit of soft, raw meat. You lift your head and sniff the air. If you're not mistaken then—yes. Earlier on, you've caught a whiff of water and wet stone, and the slight brackish smell of the edges of a still pool.

Where there's water, there is fish. Where there's still water, there is fish that is easy to catch. Long years spent under the Misty Mountains have taught you this, if little else. You decide to leave the hobbits to their own devices for now, and find yourself something to fill your stomach with.

A bit of climbing brings you over a ridge and then there is a steep drop into a circular hollow with a still black pond in the middle. It is fed by a torrent coming out from a crack in the stones on the opposite wall, dropping into the pool and flowing off through a little gap in the stones to calmer waters. You can smell the fish from here, and you greedily lean forward, your eyes searching for a way down. The walls are slick and there are few hand- and footholds. For anyone but you, the wall would have been impossible to surmount, be it on the way down or on the way up. It takes you only a few leaps and a bit of skidding and you are at the bottom of the hollow, slinking around the little pond. You see the pale shapes of fish darting away from your reflection just under the surface. You lick your teeth hungrily, and then you dive.

*

You are lost in your devouring of the fish, tearing and ripping at the soft meat, when you can hear steps not far from you.

“Sméagol.”

You look up at the name and – behold! – there is your Master, approaching you with an unsure step and a carefully extended hand, as if he was trying to sneak up on a wild animal. Your first instinct is to jump up and leap around your Master like a little dog, but then you look him over and see that he is alive and well. He doesn't look like he's had any trouble, so there is no reason why he should have run off and make you wait for him for so long. Your eyes narrow a bit.

“Sméagol,” the hobbit repeats, “Master has come to look for you. Master is here. Come, Sméagol!”

You give him a brief glance, unimpressed. “No,” you say flatly, “Master isn't nice. Leaves poor Sméagol and goes with his new friends. Master can wait. Sméagol hasn't finished.” You turn away once more and take another bite of your fish.

“There is no time,” the hobbit says. “Bring the fish with you, just come.”

You do not like his sharp, urging tone. “No. Will finish fish first,” you reply.

“Sméagol, you swore by the Precious,” the hobbit says, and you take in a sharp breath, the air hissing between your teeth. “You swore to lead me and to obey me, so come now.”

“Master swore to be Sméagol's friend,” you retort. “Swore to stay. Didn't stay.”

“I came back to you, Sméagol,” the Baggins insists. “And now we must go.”

You toss the fishbones aside and slowly crawl up to your Master, sniffing at him. He smells of strange food and strange people – you do not like it one bit. You take a few steps back and point up the walls. “Good, then we goes, nice Master. Nice hobbit, come back to poor Sméagol. Master commands, good Sméagol comes. Then let's go now, go quickly.”

“Yes, we'll go soon,” the hobbit replies. “But not at once. I will do as I promised, and I promise you again. But not now. You are not safe yet. I will save you, but you must trust me.”

“Why not go at once?” you ask doubtfully. “Why? Where is the fat hobbit? Where is he?”

“Elsewhere. I will not leave without him, but first I must save you,” the hobbit says, taking slow steps back in the direction he has come from. You see a tunnel behind a bush that you have missed up until now, and your eyes narrow. The Baggins sees your distrust, and crouches a bit lower. “Come now, Sméagol. Nothing is going to happen to you. Trust me. Trust Master.”

And as he holds out his hand to you and your eyes meet, you remember the time when he had knelt before you and taken the burning elf-rope off your neck. You see no treachery in his eyes, only earnest worry and unease – unease for your well-being, maybe? He told you you weren't safe, and although you cannot spot any danger you might be in, he is clearly worried about something. Probably about you.

You take a hesitant step forward.

“Trust master,” Master repeats, “nothing's going to happen to you. Trust me. I am going to save you.”

You slink a bit closer and reach out to take his hand.

And then you catch the scent, only the faintest trail of it in the still air down here. Man. Leather. Weapons. Steel. You freeze in mid-motion, your fingers only inches from his hand, and then you whip around, the icy cold of panic flooding through your veins, your eyes huge and wide.

But before you can even turn around, two strong arms wrap themselves around your middle and a man five times your weight is bearing down on you. You thrash and scream and claw at him like a weasel, but your strength is no match for his. He wrestles you down and twists your arms onto your back and you howl with the brutality of it.

“Master!” you wail. “Masteeeeer!” Your eyes search for the Master, and although your vision is blurry with tears of pain and fear, your gaze finds him at last. He is standing only three steps away from you, watching the scene unfold with agitation – but not with surprise.

Something inside you shatters at this realisation, and you cease your struggle instantly, going as limp and boneless as an eel. Another pair of vice-like hands grasp you, and somebody pulls a hood down over your face. You are picked up and tossed over a pauldroned shoulder like a sack of grain. The impact on the metal drives the breath from your lungs, and the sob that is stuck in your throat is dislodged and you vomit it out into the stuffy air under the stinking hood.

You can hear the pitter-patter of the Master's feet walking next to the man who's carrying you. You can hear his voice, one moment pleading with you not to be angry with him, for it had to be done, and the next turning to your captors and begging them not to handle you so roughly. You barely hear it. You cannot breathe and everything inside your chest aches, but it has so little to do with the hood over your mouth and the pauldron boring into your shoulders: it is a ache that sits deeper, blooming like rot in your lungs and heart, and turning your insides to ash.

They carry you into the tunnel – you can hear it from the way your steps echo – down a twisting passage that is so narrow that they bump your head into the walls twice, then they toss you into a corner. Your hands are bound behind your back, your feet are tied at the ankles, and only after that the hood is ripped from your head, and you see a room full of strange people staring at you. Their faces show every emotion from embarrassed distaste to open contempt. The hobbits are standing among them, accomplices in this vile scheme. Both are looking at you, but their faces are closed to you. The Master's eyes meet yours briefly, then he looks away. In his face there is sadness and shame.

You turn away from them all. Maybe they will go and leave you alone if you do not look at them for long enough. You shift until you are facing the wall and then you curl up into a pitiful ball and start to weep.

Betrayed, captured, alone.

The dark feelings roll over you like a black tide, and the wave tears down the walls of resolve around your heart – that you would be a good Sméagol, that you would never be alone again. Swept away is your belief that you had found friends in those hobbits, shattered is your trust in them, and the tender sapling of fondness you held for them is drowned in those waves of inky black tar.

You do not know how long you have been crying, and you do not know when the others have left, obviously thinking you no great danger now that you are captured and bound.

And in the silence, something stirs.

The next sob dies in your throat.

No, you think.

Dread snakes up through your innards and lays itself in taut coils around your gut.

In this moment, you realise how stupid you have been to mistake a momentary retreat for a defeat. You feel like you should have seen this coming, but this does nothing to allay your fear. In a way, you have always known that the Shadow has never truly left and that it would come back if you allowed yourself just a moment of weakness. You know all this, and yet you do not find it in yourself to resist. Your walls have fallen, your resistance is broken. And so out of the very back of your mind, where the darkness is the darkest, and your thoughts are the vilest, it returns: slowly, triumphantly, like a conqueror setting foot into a fallen city.

Now, Sméagol, the Precious says. Didn't I tell you they were not to be trusted? Didn't I warn you that it would come to this?

“Go away,” you whisper.

Do you really want me to? the Precious asks. For if I leave, who will you have left? ‘Master’ has betrayed you, as I said he would. He's left you and thrown you to the dogs.

“He hasn't,” you whimper, not believing your own words even as they leave your mouth. “Master will come back, Master just wanted to save Sméagol. Master is my friend.”

He broke his promise to you – as I told you he would. You have no friends – as I told you you had not.

“That is not true,” you say, “not true! Master trusts us to lead him! We trust him to protect us!”

You cannot trust anyone, Sméagol, especially not those who put on a pretty face and blather of love and friendship, the Precious says. Trust the murderers, Sméagol, trust the monsters. They, at least, do not try to conceal what they really are. You can count on a monster to be honest with you. So let me impart this truth to you, you miserable, you cringing, you pitiful worm: the world is full of wolves. Their hunger for prey might unite them for the moment, but come need and hardship, they will turn onto each other, bonds forsaken, friendships shattered.  If you give away anything of yourself, you will have it used against you. Words mean nothing. Promises are null and void. Trust invites treason. Love is a lie. This is a lesson you should take to heart - it is the only truth in this rotten world.

 

*

 

Another time, another city, long buried under the mists of millennia. Again a tower, but it was bright and beautiful, shimmering softly like mother-of-pearl under the star-strewn sky of a warm summer night, and rising up over a city laid out in three rings below it. There was a balcony near the tower top, and two men were standing on it, facing each other.

The first one was a tall elf, of strong build and features, and handsome in a dark way. He was holding a silver goblet of wine loosely in his hands, but his casual posture was not entirely sufficient to hide the remnants of regal bearing that must have been instilled in him from early childhood on.

His companion appeared to be another elf at first glance – but only at first glance: he was just as tall, but leaner, fairer – and whereas the elf was hiding in his posture the heritage of a line of kings, the second man seemed to have locked inside him the fire of a star, just barely contained by his physical form.

The pair appeared to be the epitome of dichotomy: it started with the the differences in their appearances and it was expressed silently in the way they were leaning on the banister on opposite sides of the balcony, never taking their eyes of each other – not unlike opponents in a game or a fight. And yet, if you cared to look closer, any rivalry they might have had was between very old friends. There was an easy familiarity between them, a sure-footed trust that spoke of long years spent working and thinking side by side.

The atmosphere should have been easy, and yet it was anything but. The very air seemed to vibrate with unspoken thoughts that had yet to be given voice, expectant and trembling what ideas their echo might call forth.

“You are restless,” the fair one observed.

The elf smiled briefly. “Am I doing so poorly at hiding it?”

“Why, Tyelperinquar, I would wager if thoughts had sound, I would be deafened.”

The elf looked down at his goblet, regarding the sparkling burgundy of the wine pensively. “It is strange: I feel I should be more exhausted after what we have done, and I probably am, but I do not feel it at all.” He raised his left hand and flexed his fingers. It was trembling slightly. “It is like we have finally breached that last wall today: I can at last understand what you want me to do, and it is like a floodgate has been opened in my mind, and the torrent has swept me up and is pulling me along. I could not sit down and rest if I wanted to. If anything, I want to continue with our work.”

“I know. Such is the effect of true creation on the mind,” the fair one said quietly. “But you have to resist the urge. Your kind was not intended to do what you have done today; work like this – true creation – is usually reserved for a much higher order of beings. This kind of creation draws on your very being, and you have exhausted yourself today.”

“I am not that tired, Annatar,” Celebrimbor rebuked, but his tone was good-natured.

“You are. In fact, you are a hair's breadth away from depleting yourself completely,” Annatar replied sharply. “You have poured a lot of yourself into the prototype ring, but just in case you have forgotten I would like to remind you that there are limits to what you can give of yourself. You are not infinite, Tyelperinquar, and I will take it as a personal insult to me and my decision to teach you if you decide to wilfully drive yourself beyond your limitations, hollow yourself out, and become an empty husk due to a misplaced bout of over-enthusiasm.”

“I will be dead and you will feel insulted?” Celebrimbor laughed. “Why, that is something!”

“I fail to see how this is amusing,” Annatar said flatly. “I told you before that overstepping your limitations unprepared is no laughing matter.”

“How could I forget that? You scolded me like a schoolboy,” Celebrimbor replied with a chuckle. “Oh, don't give me that look. I know you are right. I will not do any more work tonight.” He leaned back.

Annatar did not look entirely convinced, but he let the subject go. They both sank into companionable silence, both following their own trains of thought.

“I want to try it again,” Celebrimbor suddenly said. His fingers were tapping against the silver goblet, and there was a slight tremor of barely contained energy in his voice. “The first and the second sets of Rings were good, but – there is more to Ring-making. Now we are merely containing power inside a Ring, but if we found a way so that the Ring and the Power might form an organic union, with the Ring acting not only as a vessel, but as a generator, like a magnetic coil where each loop strengthens the power that is already there – if we were to work this technique into a Ring, so that the structure of matter and the fabric of Song might complement and reinforce each other – ” The elf suddenly lapsed back into silence. “What are we doing, Annatar?” he asked, his voice slow and full of wonder, as if he had just awoken from a dream.

“We are making Rings,” Annatar replied. “We are learning, by trial and error, and we keep on improving on the ideas we have, extrapolating from the foundations of our knowledge to discover new theories, and implementing the things we find into our next course of experiments.”

“I figured as much.” Celebrimbor smiled wanly. “But what comes next?”

“As you said, we are going to create a third set.”

Celebrimbor righted himself. “Yes, but after that? How long can we go on doing this? Where will this lead? How high can we reach, and when will it end?”

“Why, Tyelperinquar,” Annatar replied and there was a challenging glint in his eyes as he gave Celebrimbor a long look over the rim of his own silver goblet, “this never has to end.”

“So we will just keep on creating more and more powerful rings, when even the first set is more powerful than anything that has ever been created on this side of the sea?” Celebrimbor pushed himself off the banister, slowly walking over to where his friend was standing. “You have been with us for five hundred years now, and you have shaped this city like no one else. You have raced us almost single-handedly into a new era of progress and prosperity. We keep surpassing ourselves again and again, at break-neck speed. What is your plan for us?” he asked with a sweeping gesture encompassing all of the city below them, and came to a halt but two steps from Annatar. “Where are you leading us?”

“Would you believe me,” Annatar replied, looking up at him, “if I told you I didn't know?”

“You don't?” Celebrimbor let his arm drop to his side.

“Has it never occurred to you that I might have run out of things to teach you a long time ago?” Annatar asked and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth when he saw Celebrimbor's baffled look.

“Then what have you been teaching me all that time?” Celebrimbor asked.

“I've been learning and discovering everything alongside you for quite some time now. Almost every advantage of knowledge I had over you for the last two hundred years was just fleeting and temporary: things I discovered during an experiment with you, or insights our discussions had yielded to me only moments before,” Annatar replied.

Celebrimbor leaned onto the banister next to him, listening intently and never taking his eyes off his friend.

“When I came to Ost-in-Edhil, I had counted on curiosity and willing acceptance of what I had to offer. I challenged you to put your mind to a higher purpose, delighting in setting seemingly impossible tasks before you,” Annatar continued. “I was, however, not prepared for the sheer scope of your ambition and the insatiability of your desire to know more.”  He paused briefly, then continued, “I did not foresee that five hundred years hence, we would be standing here, on the threshold of a work that will be grander and more magnificent than anything ever created before on this side and beyond the sea. I never – “ He hesitated briefly. “I never expected to find someone quite like you: with your fire, your ambition, your vision.”

“My vision?” Celebrimbor repeated.

Annatar gave him a sideways glance, and there was a strange sheen in his eyes. “The vision of which you spoke to me two hundred years before, in this tower, on this very balcony. Arda restored, improved – ”

“ – healed, stronger and more beautiful than ever before,” Celebrimbor finished for him.

Annatar nodded. “I came here to offer Middle-earth my gifts, but what use would it have been if there had been no one to receive them? Do you have any idea what it means to find someone who not only carries the very same ambition within himself, but does not flinch back from taking the knowledge and measures needed to achieve it?”

“Yes,” Celebrimbor said.

Annatar looked up and their eyes met. The silence of the night descended upon them, and for a few moments the tower seemed far removed from the rest of the world. The city lay far, far below them; no sounds of the plazas and streets floated so far up here, and yet the stars above them were even further away: they were suspended in a strange place in between sky and earth.

“Yes,” Annatar repeated slowly, and the world returned and with it its warmth, fragrances, and sounds. “Of course you do.”

He looked down at the wine in his goblet, which was reflecting the brilliance of the stars in the dark sky above, then set it aside. “I don't know where we are headed, Tyelperinquar – for once, I am feeling my way forward, step by step, with just the slightest notion where it might lead us.”

“But we are close,” Celebrimbor said. “Very close.”

Annatar nodded.

“I want you to join me in making the Rings,” Celebrimbor said suddenly. “Not just by guiding me through the process, but by joining your power to mine. This third set is going to be the last. I will not create anything greater than them.” His voice sounded strange, and the words did not seem to be his own. A strange shadow was on his eyes, and maybe it was the veil of premonition beyond which he had involuntarily gazed. Celebrimbor blinked, and the shadow was gone. He regarded his hands again, and then he looked up at his friend. “I want us to make them together.”

Annatar made no answer. He stood frozen, his mouth slightly open as if to speak, but then he seemed to think otherwise and averted his face. “You are aware that this would entail us joining our minds and souls to attempt this task – completely and without reservation,” he said, and his tone was strangely devoid of inflection.

Celebrimbor shifted away, as if he had suddenly become aware of the indecency of either his proposal or his closeness to his friend. “If you do not want –”

“No,” Annatar said immediately. “It is just –” He broke off again, and the concern about his hesitation was plain on Celebrimbor's face. It was not like Annatar to interrupt himself, or to doubt and revisit his own words.

Annatar remained unmoving for a few moments, mastered himself and then begun anew. “Do you remember what I told you, that night on the tower?”

“We spoke of the Shadow inflicted on the world by Morgoth, and those marred by him. We spoke of my past, and you asked me not to inquire after yours. You said that you would tell me everything when the time is right,” Celebrimbor replied. “But Annatar, what does this have to do with the Rings?”

Annatar was standing next to the elf, ramrod-straight, every line in his body tense and taut like a bowstring. His gaze was fixed on something not in this world, and his mouth pressed into a thin line. Celebrimbor reached out to him, but reconsidered and drew his hand back.

The motion seemed to pull Annatar out of his stupor. With a visible effort of will, he forced the tension out of his frame and turned to face his friend. “If we are to attempt this, there are some things you must know beforehand.”

Celebrimbor set his goblet down on the banister next to Annatar's and took a step towards his friend. His motion spoke of excitement, but also of apprehension and he regarded his friend with cautious worry. “Then tell me.”

But Annatar did not make to either move or speak. His brow was creased in a frown, and he was looking at the embroidery on Celebrimbor's vest, an intricate pattern both of Elvish imagery of vines and patterns of Dwarvish geometry. Seemingly absent-minded, he reached out and traced his thumb over the golden stitches of the lapel of his friend's jacket, then let his arm drop back to his side again.

Celebrimbor watched him in silence for some time – then, “Annatar.”

Annatar looked up at him.

Celebrimbor held his gaze, and then extended his hand towards his friend. “Tell me.”

Annatar looked at his outstretched hand, and just then and there the whole world seemed to come to a halt, holding its breath, watching the precarious balance of the situation, and waiting to see to which side the scales would tip. The balance held for another few endlessly extended moments, then—

Annatar slowly raised his own hands and took both of Celebrimbor's in his, guiding them to his temples, and then mirroring it with his own hands. He pulled the elf closer until their foreheads were resting against each other and their mouths shared the same air, the breath of one fanning over the face of the other.

“Watch,” Annatar said.

There was a jolt that surged through Celebrimbor's body, and then his eyes were no longer seeing his friend, but staring out over the abyss of thousands upon thousands of years. Images raced past his eyes –

Void. Starlight. Darkness.

Betrayal.

The breaking of a sacred bond that was more than master and servant, almost father and son, a fate refuted, an alliance refused –

Flight - over a dark sea, dark waters, into a new land.

A small figure kneeling before a star-crowned mountain. A pledge, and a new bond –

A three-peaked fortress. Meandering hallways, going deeper, ever deeper, and unfolding at a logarithmic scale into a web of paths through hyperbolic geometry, space expanding exponentially no matter where you turned, descending into an ever-growing maze of madness and darkness –

A tower on an island, and a pack of wolves that was prowling near its walls. A desolate mountain and a winged figure, a wounded warrior falling to his knees before it and holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender –

Time seemed to accelerate, and the ancient landscape started to revolve around them: the two figures vanished, mountains rose and fell, trees grew and were cut down, constellations of stars raced across the sky in streaks of white fire. Forests grew and then retreated after the arrival of the first settlers, mountain slopes turned to quarries, and the foundation of a city was laid, and it grew and grew with breathtaking speed, walls, bridges, walkways, aqueducts – centuries and millennia raced past both of their eyes in a blur while Eregion changed around them, until the memories caught up with reality. Only then did the rapid passage of time slow, and finally ground to a halt in the present.

Neither of them moved.

Celebrimbor's eyes became clear again, and he slowly looked at Annatar, who was still clasping his head, and whom he was still holding onto in turn. Another few moments passed, another balance, teetering, swaying, leaning over to one side – and toppling.

Celebrimbor ripped his hands off Annatar's temples as if the contact had burned him. He stumbled back, his eyes wide and wild, and there was something in them that was broken – and a terrible horror flooded through the cracks, sweeping away everything in its way.

“No.” He stared at his hands, then at Annatar, but it was as if he did not recognise him any longer. “No. No.”

“Tyelperinquar – ,” Annatar attempted, but Celebrimbor started back from him, three hasty steps, until the banister of the balcony was at his back. Annatar took a step towards him. “Come now, don't be ridiculous.”

“You,” Celebrimbor croaked. “You are –”

“– still me. Nothing has changed.” He attempted a half-hearted smile, but it died on his lips when he saw Celebrimbor's face. “It was always me.”

Silence followed this sentence, while the implications it carried slowly sank in. “Always. All this time. And I let you – I allowed you –” Celebrimbor stared at him, and the Void itself was in his eyes. “Oh gods, what have I done? What have I done?”

“Tyelperinquar.” Annatar frowned and took another step closer, but Celebrimbor abruptly came back to himself.

“Come no closer!” he said. “Stay away from me!” His eyes were already becoming unseeing towards world around him. He was looking at events far, far away, as if the visions were still visible to him. “It was you,” he said. “My cousin Orodreth—Tol Sirion, Finrod, Maedhros, my kin, my blood. All of it was you.”

Annatar stopped in his tracks, and there was betrayal in every line of his body. “You wanted to know. You asked me to show you,” he said, his voice controlled. “And I did as you wished, because I thought you would understand –”

Tension. Silence. Then – “You thought – I would – understand – you,” Celebrimbor choked. “Oh gods. No.” He grasped the balustrade to steady himself.

“Yes,” Annatar said through gritted teeth, “I assumed you would understand, given your own history of the First Age was hardly glorious – given how grandly you once talked of forgiveness for everyone who would ask for it. Was it not you who said that there was no one in this city who did not have blood on their hands? And was it not you who claimed that you would welcome everyone who came to you, regardless of their past?”

Celebrimbor gripped the banister tighter, as if he feared the ground would break away beneath his feet. “You cannot mean to compare our deeds to what Sauron has—,” a pause, a sickening shift, as a new reality asserted itself, “—to what you have done.”

The lines of Annatar's face were hard. “How are your murders in any way less reprehensible than my own, Curufinwë?”

Celebrimbor made no answer. He was almost doubled over, he looked like he was going to be sick.

Annatar took a moment to rein in his mounting anger, to regain control of himself and summon everything he recalled of patience and of reason. “Tyelperinquar,” he said, his voice restrained, forcibly calm. “Think. I know you are overwhelmed, and I know this is a lot to take in, but think of the things we have made together. Think of the things we can still do. Do not destroy this over an unreasonable overreaction.”

“An overreaction?” Celebrimbor looked at him. His voice was strangely hollow, and it was obvious from his tone that he was not yet comprehending the situation fully – or perhaps he was not allowing himself to comprehend it. Annatar could see it in his eyes: how a numb part of him was desperately clinging to ignorance in the face of knowledge, averting its face from the revelation, his mind retreating into itself, away from the world. Celebrimbor's face was a mask when he asked, “Do you really think there could possibly an overreaction to what you have just shown me?”

Annatar paced to the other end of the balcony, then he abruptly turned around with a sweep of his robes. He gripped the marble banister so tightly his knuckles went white, as if he was trying to dig his fingers through the stone itself. He closed his eyes, breathed in, breathed out. “Tyelperinquar, you asked for my trust. You begged me to show myself to you. All I ever did was giving you exactly what you had asked of me.” He forced himself to let go of his grip on the banister and turned towards the elf again.

“You made a promise, Tyelperinquar. Was it not you who said that there was no one in this city who did not have blood on their hands? And was it not you who claimed that you would welcome everyone who came to you, regardless of their past?”

Celebrimbor's gaze lost focus, then he wrenched himself back from wherever his mind had fled.  “This is not what I meant when I said – ”

“'My line especially gives me no right to sit in judgement over the iniquity of all those others who bear the scars of Beleriand'¹,” Annatar quoted coldly. “What of it? What then did you mean by it if not this? You claimed that nothing that had once been tarnished was corrupted forever. You promised not to reject what had been touched by darkness, but embrace it.”

“Spiders and Void, Annat—” The name withered and died on his tongue. Celebrimbor grasped for air, for words, for anything that would allow him to continue. “I did not think of the lieutenant of Morgoth himself when I said this!” he said, and his voice almost broke.

“You spoke of forgiveness without reservations.” Annatar's voice was very quiet.

Celebrimbor did not answer. The elf was standing opposite of him, his head hanging, his eyes shadowed, his hands limp and dead at his sides. The elf did not look up at him when he said, “Some things cannot be forgiven.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

“I see,” Annatar said stiffly. “So this is the extent of Celebrimbor Curufinwion's goodwill, and the firmness of his resolve.”

“Leave.”

Annatar turned his head. Celebrimbor had slid down the banister and was sitting with his head buried in his hands.

“Tyelperinquar –” He made another attempt to reach out to him, in body and in spirit, but the elf was already halfway to his feet again, like a deer poised to flee.

“Leave!” Celebrimbor repeated, louder.

Annatar froze. Then, abruptly, he righted himself. “Fine.” He adjusted his robes and went to the open door of the balcony. He stopped on the threshold. “I guess I should count myself fortunate – at least I encountered your limitations before I decided to build anything of consequence on such a feeble foundation,” he said icily.

And yet he did not walk away, but stood rooted to the spot, unable to tear his gaze away from the hunched-over figure, doubled over, and gripping his own head in his shaking hands. “I thought you were different,” he heard himself say, not knowing where the words were coming from.

“I believed you –”

He interrupted himself. He could not say it.

“Leave,” Celebrimbor repeated for a third time, and his voice was broken, small, almost inaudible. “Don't come back.” The elf was not even looking at him.

Annatar left.

*

 

You come back to yourself after who knows how much time.  You are hurting, you are weak, but the anger is still there – fresh and burning like on the first day, even after all this time. You are in a cave, and you remember getting caught by the rangers who had found the hobbits the day before. You are bound, and there is little you can do except move your limbs experimentally within the small range of motion you have, getting used to the brittle bones, the old, atrophied muscle and the stiff tendons.

A guardsman watches you from his post, but he does not move or call out to you to hold still. Just as well. His presence does not bother you. After all, you do not need to be alone in order to keep a conversation private.

Speaking of “alone”.

You dig deeper into your own head, reckless and cruel, until you find what you have been looking for: a feeble spark of awareness, curled up like a wounded animal and flickering like a dying candle. It notices you approaching, but it is too weak to put up any resistance. In the blink of an eye you are upon it, smothering it. It rears up and tries to fight you, but in here you are invincible.

Do you remember what I told you about fortresses being destroyed from the inside? you ask kindly, while the small spark of consciousness is thrashing wildly to get free. I was initially going to let you make an example of the two hobbits, but your recent instability has convinced me that it might be a bad idea to leave such an important task in your hands. I shall take care of this myself. Besides, I think it will make for a much more poignant demonstration if I showed it to you directly. After all, it is always so much easier to understand an abstract concept when it is applied to oneself. Such a shame that the experience will be wasted on you, but well, one cannot have everything.

You press down harder. The spark is flickering.

Farewell, Sméagol.

The spark snuffs out.

---

 1 This quote as well as the entire conversation Annatar and Celebrimbor are referring to throughout their discussion can be found in Equinox.

---

Chapter End Notes

Credit where credit's due: the revelation scene was heavily influenced by "These Gifts That You Haven Given Me" by arrogantemu, which is basically my headcanon for how things went down between Sauron and Celebrimbor and acts as my go-to primary/secondary literature for all things concerning Those Two Awful Dudes Who Just Couldn't Get Along. Go read it if you haven't already. It's a great story.