The Unread Visions of a Higher Dream II: The Light Under the Mountain by Prackspoor  

I.

“– thus, a function that can be expressed through a Talair-series is differentiable in complex space at any given point and is therefore holomorphic – and that is why, my friend, I must inform you that your theory is regrettably false and therefore not applicable.”

When this triumphant statement was greeted by nothing more than silence, Celebrimbor turned around, only to nearly trip over a root that had been growing across the path and suddenly risen to catch on the tip of his boot.

He caught his balance and whirled around, his hood nearly slipping off his head. “Hey!”

Annatar appeared around the curve that the path took around a big oak and raised an eyebrow at Celebrimbor's accusing look. “What?”

“I saw that.”

“Saw what?” Annatar walked up to him through the mild autumnal drizzle, his hands folded under his long sleeves, the very picture of faux-innocence.

Celebrimbor wiped a few stray droplets of rain off his brow. “The root, of course. I do not know of any malicious forest spirits residing in these woods, but it is either that or we have some other spirit hiding behind trees and tripping up unsuspecting travellers.”

Annatar looked mildly interested. “Why, that sounds outrageous. Do you want me to take a look into the bushes for you and give the spirit a scolding?” Even as he said it, the corners of his mouth were twitching. “You were talking about pathological functions, I believe. You were saying?”

Celebrimbor gave him a long look as they fell back into step next to each other on the muddy path. “One might argue that this is not the only pathological thing in our discussion. Do tell, how would you describe your need to be right on every last matter – oh, and your tendency to distract me with malignant flora when you were, for once, mistaken about something?”

“Do you honestly think I would be childish enough to resort to such petty revenge tactics merely because you have succeeded in proving me wrong?” Annatar asked.

“Absolutely,” Celebrimbor said.

He heard Annatar laugh quietly behind him as he stopped at the bank of the Sirannon cutting across the path, which the continuous rainfalls had turned into a veritable torrent.

He took a careful step onto one of the bigger boulders that were high enough to form makeshift stepping stones for crossing the brown creek, and then looked back over his shoulder at Annatar.

“Don't think I have forgotten about the one time you had a murder of ravens follow me for an entire day –,” another careful step, “– just because the symposium had decided that I had won our discourse on utilitarian ethics.”

“That – oh that,” Annatar said. “I do recall everyone present being very amused by it. The discussion had taken a drearily long time; a lightening of the mood seemed welcome. Besides, it was a sight to behold: you looked like a princess out of an Laiquendian operetta – you remember those dreadful scenes where they start to sing and suddenly all the animals of the forest flock to them? It was the very same with you, only you were constantly grouching instead of singing.”

“They followed me into my bedroom.” Celebrimbor swung out one arm to catch his balance and made the leap from the last stone to the other shore.

“They could hardly have made more of a mess of it than it already was, if it looks even half as chaotic as your study.” Annatar followed him over the slippery stepping stones without any difficulty.

Celebrimbor threw Annatar a side glance. “The longer I think about it, the more I do feel tempted to sneak an ill-tempered and malicious animal into your own chambers.”

“I already own a cat, thank you. Still, you are of course welcome to try. Though I do feel obligated to remind you that I don't sleep,” Annatar said with a smug smile. “So leaving a snake under the cushions would leave me grievously unimpressed.”

“Oh, that need not be an obstacle. I could just leave a worm-eaten tome in the middle of your prized collection of Rhûnian astronomy books.” The glare that Annatar gave him at these words made Celebrimbor avert his face and fake a cough to hide his laughter. “Though I feel obligated to mention that I am not childish enough to go through with it,” he added.

They walked the path in silence for a while after that, raindrops falling in a steady drip-drip from the yellow and orange leaves of the trees overhead while the Sirannon thundered in his bed, foaming and burbling.

After a while the drizzle intensified to a point where Celebrimbor was forced to stop and unpack his oilcloak from his bag. He pulled the neatly folded cloak out of his bag, when something occurred to him and he turned around.

Annatar, who was standing behind him, watching and waiting in silence, raised an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“Do you need one?” Celebrimbor pointed at the oilcloak.

“Do I look like the rain is bothering me?” Annatar replied with a wry smile, gesturing at his pristine and, quite obviously, dry clothes and hair.

“Well, now you are just showing off.” Celebrimbor pulled his cloak on, and stuffed the reserve cloak back into the bag before slinging it over his shoulder again.

Annatar cocked his head to one side. “If this is enough to impress you, Curufinwë, I shall reconsider whether to introduce you to the secret parts of my deeper knowledge at all. I might just show you some parlour tricks instead.”

“There is something to be said for a parlour trick that can keep you dry in the rain,” Celebrimbor replied. “I would not at all object to learning that one. That being said, do not pretend that you would be able to hold back a piece of knowledge you want to share.”

“I am capable of self-restraint, if that is the point you are trying to make,” Annatar said.

“A point that stands yet to prove,” Celebrimbor said, laughing as he resumed walking.

“This point, as you call it, has been proven over and over again over the last century and a half,” Annatar countered. “I am still working alongside you and your Noldor without ever having resorted to tongue-tying even a single one of you – and that includes Daeror when he saw fit to examine the – what was it? Carnal inclinations of the Ainur? – in two hundred verses of iambic pentameter?”

Celebrimbor snorted. “To be honest, I found his treatise interesting and his manner of delivery very refreshing. Its scientific value was arguably debatable, but then again most aspects of the Ainur are too mysterious to allow for a factual discussion – they prefer to stay silent on the matter of their own nature, and as such we all have to rely on guesswork in that respect.”

Annatar made an irritated noise. “Is that so? Well, no harm in staying silent a bit longer then. If only to prove to you that I am very well capable of keeping some knowledge to myself.”

They walked on, but Celebrimbor pulled his hood back a bit to allow for better side vision, regarding Annatar as he ambled alongside the elf, very much not bothered by the weather, although he was making no discernible effort to avoid the rain either with gestures or with spells.

He had just opened his mouth to speak when Annatar said, “You know, I could make a point now about how you simply cannot keep your questions to yourself.”

Celebrimbor shut his mouth again, then he laughed. “Fine. Point taken; we are even. Can I still ask the question?”

“Could I stop you from doing so?” Annatar replied, but even though his tone was deliberately exasperated, it was not enough to hide that he was secretly satisfied by Celebrimbor's curiosity. “Go on then, ask.”

“How do you do it?” Celebrimbor inquired.

“Do what?” Annatar replied.

“The rain does not touch you.”

“Of course it doesn't.”

“Yes, but why? I haven't seen you use a spell.”

Annatar regarded Celebrimbor pensively, as if considering how much to tell him. “Let me amend the statement you made: the rain does not touch my fana. That should be quite enough in the way of hints. Now it's your turn – tell me how I am doing it.” The challenge was clear in his words.

Celebrimbor narrowed his eyes pensively. “No spell, no magic. The rain does not touch you, despite you not doing anything – no, despite you not visibly doing anything.” He thought about it for a bit, then held out his hand and Annatar gripped it. It was dry and warm, but not overly hot. Celebrimbor let go, frowning. “You're not evaporating the water, either. And yet it does not touch you, it doesn't – ah.” He stopped in his tracks and so did Annatar, watching him attentively.

“It does not touch your fana … but you don't stop where your fana ends, do you?”

Annatar smiled broadly. “Go on.”

Celebrimbor leaned forward, closer to his friend and indeed – if he paid close attention, he could see little eddies and vertices in the air around his friend, similar to the hwinder Celebrimbor had observed when experimenting with lenses, candles, and refractive indices of air at different temperatures.¹ Those eddies were whirling around Annatar in every direction, like miniature storms forming a dome of air around him, propelling the rain into imperceptibly changed trajectories and away from Annatar's form.

Celebrimbor watched the aerial movements with rapt fascination. “Is that your ëala?” he asked.²

Annatar's satisfied smirk was enough of an answer.

“And it is keeping the rain from your fana, so it isn't really touching you...” he trailed off. “But isn't that difficult?” Celebrimbor forged on. “I know Ainur can switch between non-corporeal and corporeal states at will, but binding the greater part of yourself to a body while upholding enough of an in-between state for a minor part of you to stay unbound and ever-changing – isn't the contradiction hard to maintain?”

“Hm.” Annatar inclined his head to one side. “Yes and no. It is taxing insofar in that it is a fundamentally unstable state, which naturally takes more effort to maintain, because even our ëalar seek stable, low-energy states-of-being – in that we are not different from any other matter in the universe. But as long as I can provide the energy, it is a permanently renewed state of controlled chaos.”

“So as long as you can provide a permanent influx of energy you can create something akin to a meta-stable state of superposition wherein you can exist both corporeally and incorporeally at the same time.”

“Just so.”

Celebrimbor thought about this for a while longer, frowning. “So if you are not forced to choose between two absolute states-of-being … just imagine what you could do with that.”

“I need not imagine, I know what can be done with it,” Annatar said, waving this off. “And every last bit of this knowledge makes me feel grateful that you don't have the power to accomplish such things by yourself, because Námo knows the dozens of ways you'd come up with in order to blunder around with it.”

“Do I really have to let myself be lectured on responsibility by someone who used his cosmic powers to make a flock of birds follow me around for one entire day?” Celebrimbor shot back.

“You have to admit it was rather amusing how valiantly you tried to shake them off,” the Maia said.

Celebrimbor shook his head. “Remind me, why are we friends again?”

Annatar gave him a smug smile. “Probably due the numerous merits of my person, including – but not limited to – my winning personality, my sharp wit and intellect, and my rarely demonstrated but nevertheless flawless ability to execute a practical joke on a colleague.”

Celebrimbor gave him an incredulous look. “What has gotten into you today?” he asked. “Who are you and what have you done to Annatar? You seem – different.”

Annatar's step faltered briefly, the rhythm of his pace breaking for just a stride, but he regained it quickly and walked on as if nothing had happened. “It's nothing,” he said, turning his face skyward where the cover of clouds was just beginning to tear open, letting through a few golden rays of sunlight. “I am merely … in a good mood.”

“If I had known that travelling does that for you, I would have dragged you along on my treks far earlier,” Celebrimbor quipped, but even while he watched his friend, his amused smirk changed into a genuine smile.

“Well, you didn't ask.” Annatar threw him a brief side glance. “How much further until the gates?”

Celebrimbor shaded his eyes against the bright autumn sun slanting through the trees and gazed at the three peaks of Caradhras, Fanuidhol, and Celebdil rising high and dark against the western sky. “About three miles from here. I've been told that a welcoming committee will be waiting for us. We will be meeting them at the entrance, and they'll accompany us directly to the hall of the King of Khazad-Dûm himself.”

“Excellent. I cannot wait to see that secret door of yours at last. I do hope it lives up to the tales I've heard told about it.”

“Not every great work requires a Maia to have a hand in it,” Celebrimbor shot back. When Annatar raised his eyebrows in a silent challenge, as if to say Oh, is that so?, Celebrimbor added, “Wait and see for yourself.”

*

The rain let up as they wandered on and the clouds were chased away by the high winds, leaving nothing but a pale, washed-out sky overhead. The Misty Mountains drew steadily closer, their snowy peaks set aflame by the red sun, which hung low in the western sky and had by now nearly disappeared behind the southern slopes of the Celebdil. The first stars were beginning to appear in the east, where the sky had turned to midnight blue, and dusk was gathering under the dark trees when at last the lake of the west gate came into view.

There their path joined the Great East Road, the greatest and most-frequented trade route in the northern realms. It ran from the havens at the Gulf of Lune in the West to Khazad-Dûm and beyond that, as far as Esgaroth upon the Long Lake in the East.

This late in the day, only a few travellers were still on the road. At first they saw no one else, save a cart making its slow, rumbling way east in front of them and a group of Men walking behind them. As they made their way upstream alongside the Sirannon, however, they caught sight of more carts and people on the road. Most of the travellers were Dwarves, but they spotted some Noldor as well, presumably hailing from Lindon judging by their light blue-and-green cloaks, and all of them eager to reach the welcoming halls of Khazad-Dûm before nightfall.

They followed a broad, even stone path that ran along the mountainside until it ended before a sheer cliff face without any cracks where moss or vines would have found handholds to climb. Cut into this stone with the ease of cutting water, so effortless and elegant seemed the curves and edges of the stone, was a great door standing open in invitation like its twin at Ost-in-Edhil, save that this one was guarded by six Dwarven guards, who stood aside to allow the travellers through.

Annatar stopped, looking up the cliff face. “So these are the famed Doors of Durin,” he said, and stepped closer to run his fingers over the stone, as if searching for something in their structure that could not be seen, but only felt. His fingers slid over the edges and natural cracks in the stone. When he had finished his examination of the door to his satisfaction he stepped back.

“I must say that this isn't quite what I expected,” Annatar said, still looking at the doors. “They are nicely proportioned, aesthetical, practical, and good – but too plain to be your style, Tyelperinquar. You do not make things that are simply good.” He turned around. “Where is the extraordinary part hidden?”

Celebrimbor held Annatar's gaze, a glint of challenge in his eyes. “What you are seeing now is Narvi's work, and practicality and functionality were very much his style, if you remember.”

“I do,” Annatar said, “and all due respect goes to Narvi's craftsmanship. But I am still waiting to see your own signature flourish. I am impressed, but I am still waiting to be dazzled.”

Celebrimbor did not succeed entirely in suppressing a grin. “Wait a moment,” he said, and turned around to gauge the stream of visitors, which by now had thinned to a trickle. Most of the other travellers had overtaken them while Annatar had been inspecting the doors.

Celebrimbor walked over to the guards. “Good evening,” he said and bowed in the customary fashion of Dwarves. “Celebrimbor of Ost-in-Edhil, at your service. I know it is bad manners to ask something of a host before you have even stepped over his threshold, but I have a request to make in favour of my friend: would it be possible – ”

He didn't get any further, because right then, one guard interrupted him. “Celebrimbor of Ost-in-Edhil?” he repeated, incredulous, his Sindarin only slightly roughened by the sharp consonants of Khuzdul. “The Celebrimbor?”

Celebrimbor blinked. “If you are talking about the friend of Narvi who lived here for nearly three decades and made these doors with him, then yes, that Celebrimbor,” he replied. “At least, there is no other I know of. Elves are not usually in the habit of giving away a name more than once.”

“Says the third Curufinwë,” a familiar voice from inside the gates said.

Both Celebrimbor and the guards looked up in surprise, just in time to see five hooded shapes step forth from the shadow of the inner mountain and out into the fading evening light.

It was a group of five Dwarves, and the eldest of them stepped forward now. He was clad in a blue hood and a fine vest that bore the sigil of Durin – a silver crown with an arch of seven stars. On his breast was the brooch of the Steward of Khazad-Dûm: two finely wrought silver hands, crossed at the wrists, the right one holding a quill and the left one holding a hammer. A few fine lines of age criss-crossed his face, but his beard was still mostly auburn and his movements were swift and precise as he bowed deeply and respectfully.

“Maker's fire upon your path, and firm stone below your feet,” the elder dwarf said in flawless Sindarin, accompanied by a slight bow.

“And may your hammer strike ever true,” Celebrimbor replied formally as he came to stand before the dwarf and returned the bow. “I was wondering whether it would be you to welcome us into Khazad-Dûm.”

“Not for the world and all the mithril hidden in its depths would I have missed it,” the dwarf replied.

At those words a grin broke over Celebrimbor's face, and with a quick motion, much to the surprise of both the dwarf's companions and Annatar, the elf pulled the eldest dwarf into a firm embrace. “It is good to see you again, Fundin.”

“And you, Kurfi.” The dwarf laughed and clapped his hands on Celebrimbor's back, and then pushed him back at arm's length, his sharp eyes searching the elf's face. “Would you look at yourself,” he said. “The sun and the wind have done you good. You look well.”

“I do hope so,” Celebrimbor said, “Living in peaceful times and surrounded by friends must be good for something, after all.”

“Indeed.” Fundin stepped back, his eyes wandering past Celebrimbor's shoulder and resting on Annatar. “And I see you have brought one such friend with you today.” The dwarf stepped around Celebrimbor and bowed, inclining his head at the angle of a respectful bow to a stranger of unknown rank. “Fundin, Son of Finli, at your service.”

“And at yours, Master Fundin,” Annatar replied and inclined his head.

At those words Fundin’s younger companions leapt to attention. Celebrimbor did not know them, for they had most likely not been more than children while he had been staying in Khazad-Dûm, but they were quick to remedy that. One after the other, they bowed deeply towards Celebrimbor and then to Annatar, introducing themselves as Ari, Nali, Buri and Bori, the first two being nephews of the King of Khazad-Dûm himself while the latter two were younger cousins of Fundin.

“And who might you be, Lord Stranger?” Fundin said at last, turning towards Annatar again. “Our mutual friend has been very secretive about your person since he announced that there would be someone coming with him. As such he has not informed us of your name, or your titles and ancestry. I would call you 'Master Elf', but I see that it would be amiss, because upon a closer look it seems you're missing their pointy ears.”

Annatar laughed softly. “Not too far amiss – and no offence would have been taken. I am sure our mutual friend can remedy the missing introductions very quickly.” His eyes flicked over to Celebrimbor, an amused glint in them.

Celebrimbor had hoped to postpone this particular part of their visit until such a time that they were standing before the King of Khazad-Dûm, but the cue – as well as the dawning understanding on Fundin’s suddenly pale face – compelled him to step forward. “This is Annatar Aulëndil, a dear friend and colleague of mine.” He turned to speak to the younger Dwarves, who did as yet appear confused. “He came to Middle-earth as an emissary of the Lords of the West, and has since wandered its farthest and most remote corners, offering up his knowledge and his skill at all ends of the world, before he came to my doorstep one hundred and fifty years ago. He has been staying with us in Ost-in-Edhil ever since. I took him with me since he expressed his desire to see the marvels of Khazad-Dûm for himself.”

“Aulëndil?” Ari repeated, his brows raised. “And an emissary of the Valar?” He looked at Annatar, more closely this time, who held his gaze with calm golden eyes until the dwarf suddenly paled.

“What were you thinking?” Fundin exclaimed. “You might as well have sent us into a dragon cave without warning by not announcing the nature of your friend! Had we known you would bring a Maia to our gates, the king himself would have come to deal with you!” His face had lost all colour as well.

At Fundin’s words, Celebrimbor felt a pang of guilt for springing Annatar on his friend without forewarning. The relationship of the Khazad with their Maker was an ambivalent thing. They were Aulë's children – but they were also children who were very much aware of the failings of their father. As such they were torn between the respect and loyalty they owed Aulë and everyone of his fellowship, and a careful awareness of the broken pedestal upon which their maker stood. It was to be expected that they would look with wariness upon everyone who named himself an associate of the Great Smith.

Celebrimbor had known that bringing a Maia to the Dwarven kingdom was precarious, not only politically but also culturally. For this exact reason he would have preferred to wait with the introductions until they had met the King of Khazad-Dûm. Durin would decide how to deal with an emissary of Aulë and his tone and the warmth of his welcome would determine how all other Dwarves would receive Annatar.

The four younger Dwarves looked on in shock, uncomprehending just what had transpired between their elder and the stranger, as Fundin touched his right hand to his forehead and bowed deeply.

“Forgive us our ignorance, Lord Aulëndil,” he said. “Had we known who you were, we would have greeted you differently, in a manner befitting your rank and nature.” His words were carefully chosen, and Celebrimbor did not miss the fact that Fundin had taken care not to specify the nature of such a welcome.

Annatar quickly stepped forward, put his hands upon Fundin's shoulder, and righted him again. “There is no need for such formalities. Mahal himself wished for children, not servants, when he gave you life at the Dawn of Days, ere the first sunrise. No father would demand that his children bow to him, and neither would I, calling myself only 'of Aulë', and not Aulë himself. Rise, Fundin, Son of Finli, so we might look upon each other as equals and – if you will – friends.”

Fundin righted himself again and took a small step backwards, out of Annatar's reach, while his younger cousins looked on with dumbfounded gazes.

“If there is any way I can be of aid to you, you need only speak,” Fundin said, carefully neutral. “House Silverhand is at your service. I am afraid there is no fixed protocol for such an event, because there is no known instance of any of Aulë's people ever coming to a kingdom under the mountains.”

Annatar smiled. “In this case, I feel honoured to be the first of my kin to be allowed into your halls.”

Fundin did not smile back, but bowed again.

“I am sorry, I should have warned you,” Celebrimbor said quietly, while Annatar received baffled, stuttered assurances of their service from the younger dwarves for a second time.

“You should have,” Fundin said, his disapproval evident in his tone. “And yet you didn't. But there is no changing the past. What has been done has been done.”

“Fundin, I – I am sorry,” Celebrimbor said. “He wanted to be received like any other traveller. It was his wish to remain unnamed until such a time as introductions were inevitable. I apologize if I forced you into a quandary.”

“That you did indeed,” said Fundin, his tone hard. “I understand that you were bound to respect your friend's wishes, but your obligations are not only to your friend. You should have told us!” Fundin took a deep breath. “You of all Elves must know that it is no light matter to bring one of Aulë's people to our doorstep. You have forced the hand of the king himself tonight, Celebrimbor, and you will have to answer for that.”

“I know,” Celebrimbor said quietly. “Believe me when I say that neither he nor I meant any harm by coming here. Annatar is an admirer of the arts and crafts, and a master of both. I told him much about my time here, and he wanted to see the halls of Khazad-Dûm and the Dwarven Kingdom for himself. To be honest, he told me that he would have preferred not to be introduced at all if his nature should rouse trouble or suspicion, but I explained to him that you cannot go nameless among Dwarves if you ever want them to trust you.”

“In this case you also should not surprise them with a Maia,” Fundin said.

“He did not come here as a messenger of Aulë,” Celebrimbor said quickly. “He has not acted in that role for a long time. He came here as my friend. I had hoped you would receive him as the person he is today, no matter who or what he might once have been – just like you did with me, all those years ago.”

Fundin pondered these words. He pushed back his hood and ran a hand through his braided hair with a sigh. “Well, it is as good an explanation as one could hope to receive in such a situation. In any case, it will be Durin you'll have to answer to, not me.” He lifted his gaze and looked over at his younger cousins, who were quietly speaking to Durin's nephews. “Ho, Ari, Nali! Come here when you are done! We must inform the king of Celebrimbor's arrival – and tell him of the friend that he has brought with him!”

The two younger Dwarves came over to where Celebrimbor and Fundin were standing, and Fundin gave them quiet instructions in Khuzdul, after which both cousins quickly took their leave and set off to announce the arrival of their guests to the king of Khazad-Dûm.

“Do you think I could show Annatar the closed doors while your cousins tell the king we are here?” Celebrimbor said.

Fundin frowned. “You are asking a lot of me tonight, Celebrimbor.” His Sindarin name came off the dwarf's lips with a distinct sharpness. “You will always have a right to these doors, since you are the one who built them, but you gifted them to the King of Khazad-Dûm, and he alone can decide whether or not your friend can be allowed to learn their secrets. Be that as it may, we should not let the king wait – come now, and when you talk to him you can bring before him all the strange requests that you have brought with you.”

Celebrimbor nodded, and after Fundin and the nephews of the king had turned around, he threw Annatar an apologetic glance.

Annatar gave him an enquiring look in response.

“Later,” Celebrimbor said, so quietly the Dwarves would not hear them, and then he faced forward again as they stepped under the arc of the doors.

*

Behind the gates there lay a small anteroom with a low ceiling. It was illuminated by the welcoming yellow glow of iron-latticed lamps that hung from the ceiling on great chains. Glowing mosaics of coloured stone illuminated and completed the carvings on the walls, which told the story of the first Khazad who had come here to make a dominion for their people under the Misty Mountains after the Awakening of Durin the First at Mount Gundabad.

As he stepped into the room Celebrimbor felt like he had simultaneously stepped through a window in time. There was a rush of memories and for a moment he was near six hundred years younger again: he had just been allowed into the Dwarven kingdom under the mountain and out of the November rain through heavy gates of iron, with his hair plastered to his skull, his soaked cloak sticking to his ribs and shoulders while rain and mud sloshed in his worn boots. He had waited here in this antechamber – back then devoid of any peoples that were not Dwarves – after the doors had been bolted shut behind him once more. The few Khazad who had been there at that time had watched him with surprise and suspicion, wondering what to do about one of the Eldar turning up on their doorstep, wet and ragged and shivering like a stray dog.

And when even the antechamber had emptied of people, save for Celebrimbor still hunched in on himself on a stone bench, trying to rub some warmth into his arms and calves, the chief of the guard had approached him at last. “What do you want?” he had asked him, to which Celebrimbor had replied, “A place to stay, and work to occupy my hands.”

The guardsman had given him a long look. Even to this day Celebrimbor did not know what the Dwarf had seen when he had looked at the soaked, ragged Noldo on his porch, but the dwarf had not sent him back out into the rain. Instead, he had told Celebrimbor to wait, and after a while, another dwarf had approached him, this one a foreman of the foundries, judging by the golden belt buckle with two crossed hammers.

He hadn't asked his name or why Celebrimbor had come to Khazad-Dûm of all places. All he had said had been, “You said you can work?”

“I worked in the smithies of Nargothrond. If my work was good enough for one king, it might be good enough to please another,” Celebrimbor had answered, and if any recognition or realisation had come to the foreman at the name of the city and who inhabited it, the Dwarf did not let on. He did not ask Celebrimbor why he had left Nargothrond.

“Come,” the Dwarf, who would later introduce himself as Narvi Silverhand, had said. “Tomorrow we shall discuss what to do with you, and if you are allowed to stay, we'll see how good you are. Tonight, though, you need dry clothes and a bed. Follow me.”

Past and present seemed to coalesce and merge. On the bench where Celebrimbor had once waited, lonely and lost and with chattering teeth, a young woman was sitting now, one ankle resting on the knee of the other leg, a pencil behind her ears as she scratched something down on parchment with a quill. Meanwhile two gruff Dwarven travellers from the Blue Mountains had taken a seat next to her, their voices lost in the tapestry of sound woven from Sindarin, Westron, and innumerable dialects of Khuzdul. Where closed doors had once protected the Dwarven kingdom against outsiders and solemn silence had filled its halls, today throngs of scholars, visitors, merchants and artists came and went through the open gates, all of whom had come here for trade, research, families and relatives, or just to look upon the wonders of Khazad-Dûm.

“It must be strange to return here after all this time,” Annatar said, startling Celebrimbor out of his musings. “To see the changes that have taken place here in your absence.”

“Hm? Oh, yes. A lot has changed; there are a lot more foreigners here, for a start – but then again, much is still the same as it was then.” Celebrimbor gestured at the mosaics as they ascended the stairs to the next room, and Annatar slowed his pace.

When his friend had not caught up after a few moments, Celebrimbor stopped on the stairs and turned around. He could not help but smile as he watched Annatar regarding each of the mosaics with great interest, which reminded Celebrimbor a lot of his own reaction when he had first climbed these stairs, nearly unable to tear his eyes away from the marvellous stonework: it was the Dwarves’ history of their people, which the Khazad had set in stone with their own hands. The images pictured the history from the Awakening of Durin the Deathless to the first mines that had been dug, and then on into the noontide of the Dwarven kingdoms after the first mithril veins had been found.

Annatar seemed to notice his gaze, because he turned to look up at Celebrimbor, one eyebrow raised questioningly. “Is something the matter?”

“No, not at all.” Celebrimbor laughed. “I just thought that the strangest thing about being back is having you here with me.”

Annatar climbed the stairs to meet him. “You don't seem to be the only one thinking that. My presence here seems to raise objections.” He paused, then said, “I could leave, you know.”

“As if you would, now that you have the chance to see Khazad-Dûm at last,” Celebrimbor replied as they both moved to follow Fundin, who had been waiting for them a few steps further up. “Besides, I am holding out hope that they are not objecting to your presence on principle. I surprised them in a frankly inappropriate manner, and as Fundin said, there is no precedent for a Maia coming to a Dwarven kingdom. Thus it must be the king who sets the precedent. I am not overly worried, though. Dwarves are secretive, but the mutual friendship between Ost-in-Edhil and Khazad-Dûm would not have been possible if Durin himself had not desired to open his realm.”

Celebrimbor lowered his voice and leaned a bit closer as he added in a mockingly conspiratorial tone, “Besides, I am not about to allow them to throw us out without hearing us out first.”

“Us?” Annatar echoed.

“Well, we came here together and therefore I won't stay if they send you away,” Celebrimbor replied quietly. “If push comes to shove, I am going to tell them as much.”

“This seems like a splendid way to offend every single dignitary in Dwarrowdelf for decades to come,” Annatar said dryly.

“Offending dignitaries has been the main pastime of my family for the last two ages. It is a particular talent of ours,” Celebrimbor said with a wry smile and nonchalance that he didn't quite feel. “And so, coincidentally, is getting what we want – though I do take care not to make use of either talent too often.”

Annatar hmphed. “Let us hope that King Durin takes as kindly to the quandary you and your entitled Fëanorian attitudes have presented him with as you make him out to be.”

“Oh, I am sure he will be curious more than anything else. He is an unusual dwarf in some respects,” Celebrimbor added. “In fact, I think you might like him.”

*

 

Fundin did not lead them down the main roads and through the city; instead, he beckoned them to follow him into one of many side tunnels, which – as Celebrimbor knew – looped around and between the great halls of the Dwarven City. The tunnels were narrow, but well-lit with glowing stones set into the walls and the ground, casting a soft golden shimmer over the rough walls and floors.

Since they avoided the bustle of the city and the main thoroughfares, these tunnels were a fast way to travel great distances under the mountains. Despite this, they were nearly empty. Since these labyrinthine bypasses lacked any waymarkers whatsoever, it was fairly easy to get lost in them. Celebrimbor had heard more than enough stories about curious Men or Elves wandering off to investigate those tunnels in the first years after Khazad-Dûm had opened its gates to the outside world, only to find themselves suddenly on the deeper, more dangerous levels of Hadhodrond.

In the subsequent years, word had obviously gotten around that using these tunnels was a bad idea for everyone who didn't have the Dwarves' sure-footed way of orienting themselves underground without sun or stars as points of reference. Celebrimbor knew from the Gwaith-i-Mírdain's technical correspondences with Dwarves of Khazad-Dûm that these side tunnels were mainly used by maintenance crews and messengers nowadays, or otherwise for transports that were too delicate to make their way through the bustling great halls and the busy streets of the city.

Or, as it were, by unexpected visitors who had to be brought before the King of Khazad-Dûm without delay.

***

The palace had not changed much in the time Celebrimbor had been gone. The throne room was hewn from rough stone, and gilded reliefs covered the walls and floor. A columned walkway, lit by bronze braziers that hung from every column, led up to the throne, and fixed to the walls were tapestries displaying the emblems of every Dwarven house that had sworn allegiance to Durin the First upon their Awakening under the mountains. The entire palace was a marvel of bronze, gold, and grey – a mixture of stone and fire, recalling the elements that had been attributed to Aulë ever since the beginning of time. It was an impressive demonstration of the wonders that could be called forth from rough stone with will, skill, and tenacity, and what greatness could be achieved if one understood to read and work with the structure and weight of the stone, instead of working the mountain by force – much like a carpenter might work with the grain of the wood instead of against it.

A carpet of brown and gold carpet ran up to a dais of stone, upon which stood the Throne of Durin the Deathless, first and eldest of the Fathers of the Khazad. The throne was made of polished black stone shot through with veins of gold and mithril, which flared in the light of the braziers as if the stone possessed an inner fire of its own. One step lower and to the right of the throne stood the chair of the steward that Fundin usually occupied.

Waiting before the dais were Buri and Bori, their backs toward the throne.

Standing at the very edge of the raised platform was another dwarf: tall by Dwarven measure, with a serious face and a long white beard threaded through ornamental bronze loops. His piercing eyes were amber in the fire-shine, and on his vest he bore the insignia of an arch of seven stars over a crown. He was clad in black and gold, and upon his brow rested the heavy crown of the Kings of Khazad-Dûm.

Fundin threw them a brief glance over his shoulder as if to make sure Annatar and Celebrimbor were still there, and then the three of them stopped in front of the steps leading up to the dais while the king's nephews, Ari and Nali, took their place next to Buri and Bori, hands clasped behind their backs and eyes forward.

Fundin bowed deeply. “Greetings to you, Durin³, Third of his Name, the Wise, and Father under the Mountain – my king. As you wished, I went to the gates to welcome our old friend Celebrimbor Curufinwë, and the friend he has brought with him, of whom my cousins must have told you already.” He spoke Sindarin, no doubt out of consideration for their guests, for there was usually no reason for one Khazad to use the tongue of the Sindar with one another.

“They have indeed, Fundin, Son of Finli. And most curious tidings they were,” Durin replied, likewise in Sindarin, his sharp eyes roving over Annatar. The Maia was looking up at him, standing tall and proud, and as of yet had shown no inclination to either bow or kneel before him.

Slowly, Durin descended the steps, each movement slow and well-measured, and he stopped only on the second-to-last step, which left him roughly at eye level with his two guests.

Durin shifted slightly, so he was facing Celebrimbor. “Á-namárië, Telperinquar Cúrufinwion,” Durin said in Quenya. “It has been a long time since we last saw each other. I trust you have been well.”

“Mânazulrû azarul tharakhnúmin”,⁴ Celebrimbor replied with a slight bow.

Durin nodded, then turned until he was facing Annatar. Both king and Maia looked at each other, sizing each other up, and the four younger Dwarves shifted uncomfortably next to their king.

And then Durin spoke.

“Anaškadâz aþar mânâz-eru-oz tharwhan-em-âzir, Annatarâz Aȝûlêzazi."^{5 6}

Not once in one hundred and fifty years spent in Annatar's company had Celebrimbor done anything that had managed to elicit so much as a confused expression from the Maia. Now, however, Celebrimbor was treated to the unique and supremely amusing sight of Annatar being not just confused, but downright dumbfounded. His mask of impassive calm was gone: his mouth had fallen slightly open as he stared at Durin, whose slow smile let on that he had very much planned for that exact reaction when he had used Valarin of all tongues to greet the Maia.

Annatar seemed to notice his derailed features, and quickly collected himself. His calm slid back into place over his disbelief, his face now an expression of open amazement and interest. “I do confess I had not thought to encounter a speaker of my kins-tongue here under the mountain,” he said. “I believed that this language was no longer spoken on this side of the sea at all.”

“And for all but a few places, your estimate would have been right, Annatar Aulëndil,” Durin said. “But we Khazad know where we have come from, and above all else, we put great value in remembering our roots and traditions. But I also take pride in remembering the roots and traditions of others, and I honour them when I can – especially so when they might be shared by both of our peoples. I never thought I would welcome one of the fellowship of our Maker in my own kingdom, both for the past joy and the sorrow that we have experienced with him. But once abandoned is not lost forever, and I see it as a sign of renewed friendship between our peoples that you have come with a friend of ours through the open doors he once made. So – be welcome in my halls, friend of Aulë.”

Annatar regarded Durin with an expression of newfound respect and curiosity. “I can admit without shame that I never expected to be greeted in such a manner by the King of Khazad-Dûm, or indeed any other host. Your welcome and your hospitality surpass the greatest praise that minstrels tell of you – and not only for the sake of your past and the affiliation we once shared, I feel honoured to receive them.” And then the proud Maia took a step forward and bowed, briefly lowering his own head beneath the height of Durin's.

Fundin and the younger Dwarves watched this entire exchange in amazement. To Celebrimbor's best guess, even they had not known that their king was able to speak the ancient tongue of the Powers themselves.

Durin's eyes remained on Annatar, until the Maia had gracefully righted himself once more and stepped back. Only then did the king look at Celebrimbor again. “I take it that you will not object to a welcoming feast in your favour,” he said. “It has been too long since your last visit, and there are many people who would see you while you are here. You and your friend,” he added.

“I apologize for not visiting sooner,” Celebrimbor laughed. “My friend here has kept me quite busy and our work has kept me firmly tied to my workshop in Ost-in-Edhil. I would have come earlier, had I found the time.”

“It must have been extraordinary work indeed if it managed to keep you away from the mountains for so long,” Durin said.

“You may see it for yourself, if you wish. We have brought some of it along with us,” Celebrimbor said, and he saw Durin's eyes light up at those words.

“It would be my pleasure,” the king said. “But I must mind my duties as your host – tonight you must want baths and refreshments and an opportunity to rest. You can have your usual quarters, Celebrimbor, and I am sure we will find suitable accommodations for your friend as well. Fundin, I trust you can lead Celebrimbor to his room, and find another one for Aulëndil.”

Fundin bowed.

“I suggest you go and accommodate yourselves,” Durin told them. “Make use of the next few hours and rest a bit. I expect word has gotten around that you are here, and you might find a lot of old friends knocking at your door before long.”

*

After Durin had dismissed them, Annatar followed Ari, who had been tasked to find the quartermaster in order to arrange for fitting accommodations for a Maia, while Celebrimbor was accompanied by Fundin, their steps tracing a very old, but still familiar, path through the long stone hallways.

At last Fundin stopped before a door in the west wing of the palace, turning the wheels on the rune-lock until the locking mechanism inside the door gave a soft click and the door swung open. “Here you are, your old rooms.” Fundin said and held open the door for him. “You've seen the combination, I trust, and you can change it to your liking. Only tell the quartermaster about it before you leave – he already has enough trouble with doors that have been locked with unknown combinations by forgetful guests.”

“Thank you. I will take care to change it back before I leave.” Even as he spoke, Celebrimbor took in the familiar geometry of the room – the lamps on the walls, the bookcases in one corner, the hearth, the armchairs, the desk, the bed in the next room. Then his eyes followed the slanted beam of moonlight that fell into the room through a high, small window in the wall, and he turned around. “You have added windows!”

“Hm, yes,” Fundin said with a shrug. “It was no easy feat to bring the light such a long way through the stone and it took our glass-cutters a great deal of time to focus the light enough to bring it this far into the mountain, but we've learned that Men and Eldar seem to … wither without the light of the sun and moon if they stay below-ground too long. We found that giving them the outer rooms with windows was the best possible way to accommodate them.”

Celebrimbor, who was already standing with one foot on the stone desk and trying to make out by which means the Dwarves had managed to bring the light so far and bright into the mountains, turned back and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so do I still count as a surface-dweller despite all the time I have spent living here and studying your customs?” He leapt down from the desk and threw his satchel onto the bed, starting to unpack it.

“You do,” Fundin said, not taking him up on the jest. “You are a fine Noldo, and one might even go so far as to say that you act quite Dwarvish for one of the Eldar, but you still have a lot to learn, Kurfi – particularly about our customs.”

Celebrimbor froze. “Fundin – ”

“I know you meant no harm,” Fundin went on without heeding his interjection. “But you must remember that Khazad-Dûm is not Ost-in-Edhil.”

Celebrimbor slowly turned around. “Fundin, about earlier at the gate – I want to apologize.”

Fundin waved it off. “Yes, you said as much, and I've heard it. Now get yourself cleaned up and change into some fresh clothes. By now, every single one of your old friends must have heard that you're here, and they'll all want to talk to you.”

“One of my friends is standing on my doorstep right now, and I would very much like to talk to him,” Celebrimbor said quietly.

Fundin's expression mellowed slightly at these words. “As would I. But now is not the moment. We will have enough time to do that later.” He held up his hand when Celebrimbor opened his mouth to protest. “For now we both have something to do. I must take care of the details of the evening. You, on the other hand, are our guest tonight, and many very important people will want to have a word with you. You should not keep them waiting.” And with these words, Fundin left the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

Celebrimbor looked at the shimmering bronze inlays in the shape of vines on the inside of the door for a while, then turned away and looked at his baggage, half strewn over the bed.

However much he wanted to speak to Fundin and talk to him about what seemed to trouble him so, there was not much he could do about it right now. Instead, he spoke a word of illumination and touched the lampstones embedded into the walls. They lit up, dousing the room in a soft, orange light. Then he set to unpacking his clothes and folding them.

No sooner had he washed and changed into clean clothes than there came a knock at his door. Celebrimbor crossed the room, trying to close the uppermost button of his vest with the left hand while he pulled the door open with his right. “Annatar!” he exclaimed. “I was wondering where they had taken you! How did you know where to find me?”

“Some of us,” Annatar said as he stepped past Celebrimbor and into the room, “are not naturally averse to asking directions.” He turned around and took in the room. “Hm, you'd think they would have given me the rooms with two bookshelves, considering I do not require sleep.”

“These are my old chambers; half of these books I either collected or wrote myself,” Celebrimbor said. “Though you are welcome to come here and read them any time. Also – if by 'averse to asking directions' you are referring to that one time in Mithlond – I knew exactly where we were.”

“Oh, I am certain you did. Unfortunately, you didn't know where everything else was.” Annatar smirked.

“It had been six hundred years since I'd last been there and the port had grown to twice its former size, so bear with me,” Celebrimbor said. He came to stand next to his friend, his eyes wandering the rows of bookshelves as he continued absent-mindedly fiddling with his button that proved remarkably resistant to being buttoned up.

“So your room doesn't have bookshelves?” Celebrimbor asked.

“Just one,” Annatar said, and he somehow made it sound like it was an insult.

“Well, if you find yourself running out of reading material during the few days we are here, you can always come over here – or visit the library. I promise, not even you would get bored there.”

“The library?” At those words, Annatar finally turned his head to look at him.

“The Great Library of Khazad-Dûm. Thousands upon thousands of books, covering topics from mining to architecture and mineralogy, to genealogy and languages. If I were to name all the subsections you’ll find there, we'd still be here tomorrow. It is called the greatest and most comprehensive collection of knowledge Middle-earth has ever seen – and rightly so, from what I can tell.”

“And one that you have somehow failed to mention is open to the public every time we spoke of it,” Annatar said with narrowed eyes. “This, I assume, is for reasons I would be most interested to hear.”

Celebrimbor met Annatar’s eyes head-on. “Oh, don't you try the guilt angle on me! It was supposed to be a surprise! Besides, the Dwarves themselves don't go out of their way to announce that it is open to the public, the opening of the Dwarven Realms aside. And furthermore – had you known of it beforehand, you wouldn't have waited until Durin approved of our visit. You would have picked apart the mountain with your bare hands to get at it.”

Annatar didn't deny the allegation, and he didn't look at all guilty about it, either.

“I will show it to you while we are here,” Celebrimbor assured him. “In fact, I had firmly planned to do it tomorrow.”

“Yes, if you'll have managed to get yourself dressed by then.” Annatar glanced at him askance. “Are you going to close that button anytime soon or should I go and tell the other guests that you've lost the wrestling match with your attire and won't be able to attend the feast?”

Celebrimbor gave him a puzzled look, then looked down at himself and noticed that he was still picking at his vest, and had gotten no further in closing it. “Oh.” He stopped his absent-minded fiddling and closed the last button with a swift, decisive motion. “No need for that. I just wasn't paying proper attention – you have a way of distracting me.”

Annatar raised an eyebrow. “Oh, have I?”

“Seeing how you barged in here without so much as a 'good evening' and started quizzing me about Khazad-Dûm with a few not-so-subtle accusations thrown in – yes, it takes up quite a bit of my attention just to navigate our conversations sometimes. Sometimes you are like a focusing lens for thoughts, and at other times you're all but acting like a diffuser. You're quite a handful to have a discourse with – and I'm very much looking forward to seeing how the Khazad are going to deal with you.”

A glint of fire lit up in Annatar's eyes, briefly giving them an orange-reddish tint. “If they are half as cunning as King Durin, I have no doubts that it will be a most entertaining evening.”

Celebrimbor laughed. “He impressed you, didn't he? Well, I figured he would try something like that to get back at us for showing up unannounced. I wager pulling the rug out from under a Maia has given him enough satisfaction to make up for our breach of etiquette.”

“Our breach of – ha, of course. So long as we are travelling together, I'll be lumped in with you.” Annatar grimaced. “Well, I can't tell you how glad I am that I was able to take the fall for your insolence, Tyelperinquar.”

“I knew nothing would give you greater pleasure, true friend that you are,” Celebrimbor teased, walking over to his desk. There he picked up a hair-clasp and threaded his braids through the small silver ornament at the back of his head.

“If this is how you treat your friends, I won't be surprised if your Dwarven acquaintances are going to have us thrown out before sunrise,” Annatar said with a snort.

“Oh, don't worry, my friends are usually able to give as good as they get,” Celebrimbor said, throwing Annatar a meaningful side-glance in the mirror that hung on the wall next to the desk.

“In this case I am very much looking forward to meeting them in person.” Annatar's reflection flashed him a quick, sharp-toothed smile.

Celebrimbor gave his mirror-image a final once-over, picked up two gift boxes from his desk and turned around. “I'm sure you will get along splendidly,” he said, an amused glint in his eyes. He walked past Annatar, pulled the door open, and gestured with a flourish for the Maia to walk through before him. “Shall we?”

1 For further reference, see shadowgraph and schlieren experiments.

2 ëala: the spirit of a being who does not require a body to exist, but can be clothed in a fana, see the Ainur; contrast with the fëar of incarnate beings.

3 “There he [Durin I] lived so long that he was known far and wide as Durin the Deathless. […] five times and heir was born in his House so like to his Forefather that he received the name of Durin. He was indeed held by the Dwarves to be the Deathless that returned; for they have many strange tales and beliefs concerning themselves and their fate in the world.” (LotR, Appendix A, III Durin's Folk). This would point towards any Durin being exceptionally long-lived, as well as veiled in strange tales and myths by their own kin. Durin's ability to speak Valarin would certainly tie into this.

4 “Blessed be the hour of our meeting.”

Mânazul-rû (“manazul”(MNZ) = to bless”; “ru” = imperative marker = blessed be!); azarul (AZR, from val. a aþar = the time) tharakhn-úm-in (contracted from: tharakhnú-om-in: tharak (THRK) = meeting, encounter; -om = genitive singular marker; in = possessive marker first person plural, so: tharaknú-om-in = “of meeting-ours”) (“Blessed be the hour of our meeting)

Note the similarities to Valarin later on, also note that Khuzdul is an agglutinative language. In contractions, “o” yields to “ú”, because it is stressed. If either of the vowels is long (û/ô), the contracted vowel is also going to be long (→ û). If neither vowel is stressed, the stem vocal of the word will be omitted.

5 “The hour of our meeting be blessed as well, Annatar Aulëndil.”

Anaškadâz (too – from anaškad = ring, but also: “including, too, as well”) aþar (time, nom. sg.) mânâz-eru-oz (mânâz = blessed; -eru = imperative marker (c.f. Khuzdul); -oz = singular marker)

tharwan-em-âzir; tharnwan = meeting, -em = genitive marker (“of the meeting”), -âzir (possessive marker first person plural) thus: tharwhan-em(genitive)-âzir (our) = meeting-of-our → of our meeting

(Syntax: as well time -nominative-singular blessed-be -imperative marker-singular marker meeting -genitive-singular marker of -possessive marker our)

Also note the lexical and syntactic similarities between Valarin and Khuzdul.

6 On Durin's address of Annatar: Aulë in Valarin would be Aȝûlêz, which can be transformed into an ethnonym by adding “-zi”, which is a genitive marker that translates to “of”. So Aȝûlêz-zi, contracted to Aȝûlêzi would mean “of Aulë”. In this particular instance, however, Durin adds a marker that is usually used with adjectives with a past aspect or a marker of the past participle: “-za”. Aȝûlêzaz-zi thus means “having been of Aulë” (formerly, now no longer).

Chapter End Notes

This fic is part 2 of the series The Unread Visions of a Higher Dream. If you want to start the series from the beginning, I suggest you read the first part called Equinox before continuing this fic.

← Go back to read Part 1 of this series: Equinox

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*

Annatar followed Celebrimbor’s lead as they made their way to the dining hall. While they walked Annatar couldn’t help but note the excellent design of the architecture: as long as you were walking in an area meant for guests, all important hallways were easily found, and all of them inevitably led either to the exit or to one of the great halls where Dwarves and their guests alike gathered to talk, sit by the fires and read, or just to spend an evening in the company of others, listening to city gossip and strange tales from other corners of the world, which travellers brought aplenty.

When Annatar mentioned as much to Celebrimbor, the elf only laughed. “Of course! As Narvi once said, 'You'll always know exactly where you are in a well-built Dwarven dwelling. They are clearly designed, straightforward and practical, and none of that looping, labyrinthine nonsense you Elves are so fond of. As long as you remain in an area where you are meant and allowed to be, you'll always know where you are going. The only people who get lost in Dwarven houses are slinkers or thieves, and that is not something that I would call a flaw in architecture, wouldn't you agree?' Of course, the point about Elven architecture stands to be argued, but I cannot find fault with anything else he said.”

Together they followed a torch-lit hallway whose walls were lined with mosaics depicting the heroic feats of the line of Durin the First, until they came to the entrance hall. There, Celebrimbor turned left with the sure-footed certainty of a son returning to his family home after years on the road. They passed an intricate marble fountain, upon which stood an eight-foot-tall statue of Durin the Deathless, and entered the Western Dining Hall.

Although it was one of the smaller halls, it was still ornate and well-appointed. Dozens of bronze braziers chased the chill of being belowground from the air, and the stone walls were hung with tapestries in ruby-red and gold, as well as silver and black. Two rows of long trestle tables were aligned alongside six great fireplaces on the long sides of the walls, and a third connected the long tables at their further ends, forming a row of seats of honour. There was also a high table at the northern end of the hall, which stood empty, and two smaller doors that led off behind it: one leading presumably to the kitchens, the other likely a private door for the king to make his entrance and his exit whenever and as discreetly as he wished. Behind the high table, a great bronze clock hung on the wall, with a great pendulum swinging below it while the cogwheels were playing out their intricate dances: turning, interlocking, parting, all according to a system too vast and too complex for any casual onlooker to comprehend.

They had barely set foot through the door when Celebrimbor was hailed by a group of Dwarves – and one elf, to Annatar's surprise – who rose in greeting and immediately welcomed him into their midst.

Annatar stood back, watching with a half-smile as Celebrimbor found himself surrounded by his friends, not wanting to disturb the scene by getting too close to it.

It was like watching a fish move through water: Celebrimbor could barely turn as fast as his old friends wanted to greet him. He shook their hands and greeted them in turn, remembering names even after centuries of absence and memorising the names of those to whom he was being newly introduced. Annatar watched with quiet fascination as Celebrimbor switched effortlessly between Sindarin and Khuzdul, then turned to greet a Noldorin kinsman in Quenya, all without ever breaking stride or hesitating in his words. Here he was asking after Dwarven relatives and the goings of projects, there he was answering enquiries after his own well-being and laughing when one of the Dwarves made a jest at his expense.

It was at once strange and startling to realize that there was a whole world that belonged to the elf, of which Annatar knew nothing. When he thought of Celebrimbor, he thought of high spires, cluttered worktables bathed in sunlight, ink sketches on parchment, and the open blue sky. And this was only logical, because Ost-in-Edhil was Celebrimbor's home, but this – Khazad-Dûm, the mountains, the stone above their heads, the fire-sheen on veins of bronze and mithril in the walls – was a part of the elf as well that could not be separated from him without destroying the whole.

Annatar inclined his head to one side, regarding his friend contemplatively – his face, his expressions, and his movements, every single one of which revealed to him only the smallest bits about a Celebrimbor he had not known before. It was like examining a diamond under a microscope and discovering that it had ten times the facets he had initially believed.

Just then Celebrimbor turned around and when his eyes found Annatar's, there was a brilliant light in them, radiant like his smile, his face, his entire demeanour – proud and happy and utterly delighted.

“ – and this is my friend, whom I have brought with me today: Annatar Aulëndil, of the Western Shores. He has been pestering me about wanting to see Khazad-Dûm for over a decade now, so I brought him along with me this time.”

A hushed silence fell over the circle of Celebrimbor's friends. Apparently, the metaphorical rumour mill in the kingdom was as well-oiled as any actual apparatus in the mines. News of their arrival must have spread like wildfire – and with it, too, the wariness of a Maiarin guest.

A dwarf with brown hair, clad in reds and blues was the first one to speak up. He crossed his arms, eyeing first Annatar and then Celebrimbor. "Granted, you have always been a strange one, Kurfi. But to call one of Mahal's own people your friend! You certainly haven't learned to keep less strange company during the time you were gone.”

Celebrimbor appeared unperturbed by the apprehension of his friends. “Not to worry, I would not have brought him with me if he did not know how to behave. I have it on good authority that he doesn't bite – most of the time.” He winked at Annatar, who raised both eyebrows pointedly in response.

There was a brief pause in conversation, during which the entire hall was oddly silent, until the dwarf with brown hair uncrossed his arms, moved forward, and bowed slightly to Annatar.

“Well, if the king has allowed him in here, and if Kurfi trusts him as well, that's good enough for me,” he said gruffly. “Floki, Son of Grimur, at your service. Second foreman of the foundries of Khazad-Dûm.”

Annatar stepped forward and bowed slightly. “It is my pleasure to meet you. Annatar Aulëndil, at your service. I did indeed come here with Tyelperinquar, though I must inform you that I do not always keep such bad company. I usually travel alongside marauders and highwaymen, and their manners are comparably impeccable. Furthermore,” he added, with a glance at Celebrimbor, “I can assure the assembled company that anyone who ever managed to provoke an Ainu into the highly theoretical scenario of biting him would have thoroughly earned it.”

There was a brief, uncertain pause after these words – and then Floki suddenly roared with laughter. “Hear, hear!” He turned to Celebrimbor. “Well, Kurfi, your Ainu seems well-mannered enough, though you must admit that if there is anyone walking this world who would – theoretically, of course – manage to rile one of the Holy Ones up enough to bite him, that would be you; and if his teeth are half as sharp as his tongue, you better watch out for yourself!” Floki made a gesture at his companions. “Now, before we forget our manners entirely, Kurfi, you may remember Alfin and Lassi, both cousins of mine, twice removed. They have been overseeing the mining in the Deep Paths, ever since Lofi of the Longbeards retired.”

Two younger Dwarves stepped forward and bowed, first to Celebrimbor, then to Annatar, exchanging the traditional greetings. After them came Throndur, son of Thróin, master of the goldsmiths; Ólin and Órin of the Merchant's Guild; Rúni, a dark-skinned dwarf hailing from the Iron Mountains, who was apparently a master both of geology and architecture, which seemed to be two trades that went hand in hand in a kingdom like Khazad-Dûm; and many others, all of whom wondrously knew Celebrimbor of Eregion well enough to address him on an informal, given-name-basis.

Annatar watched and listened as what had heretofore been merely names and titles in Celebrimbor's tales of Khazad-Dûm gained reality and solidity before his eyes with every dwarf who stepped forward and bowed, revealing progressively more about this unknown part of the life of his friend whom Annatar had thought he knew so well.

At some point, his and Celebrimbor's eyes met over the heads of their hosts. With the quiet pride and welcome in the elf's eyes, the understanding passed between them that, like everything else he possessed, Celebrimbor was showing Annatar this not in order to gloat, but in invitation – an offer so that the joy found in those memories and experiences might be even greater for being shared between them now.

*

Even though Durin had not yet made an appearance, most of the Great Houses and Heads of Guilds of Khazad-Dûm had already come to attend the feast, and to his delight, Celebrimbor recognized many of his old friends among them.

Seeing the Dwarves he had befriended and worked alongside for so many years, though, also left him with a strange aching in his chest. Even though the turns of the last centuries had passed in the blink of an eye for Celebrimbor – immersed in his city, his studies, and his work with Annatar as he had been – he had been gone for a long time even by the measure of Dwarves.

To see that the friends who had once lived and worked alongside Celebrimbor remembered him still and had come here to welcome him back was wonderful. All the same, though, Celebrimbor could not help but notice that time had left its mark on his old friends. Not all of those he had once known were alive to greet him today, and the Dwarves who had been young while he had stayed in Khazad-Dûm nearly six centuries ago had grown old with the passing of the years.

It was therefore with both joy and sadness that Celebrimbor took the once strong and sure hands of Baldur, Master of the Library of Khazad-Dûm, clasping his friend’s bony fingers between his own.

But when the librarian looked him up and down, the piercing gaze of his blue eyes showed that they had not been dulled by the passing years, and that the mind behind these eyes remained as sharp as ever.

“Celebrimbor Curufinwion,” Baldur said. “That I would be granted an opportunity to meet you once more fills me with joy.”

“The joy is mine, Baldur. It has been too long since I last saw you – but certainly not too long since you last chased me from the library because I was talking too loudly.” Celebrimbor laughed and the eyes of the old dwarf crinkled.

“I assumed you didn’t miss that particular part of your stay with us,” Baldur replied. “I just hope your memories of us are otherwise fond enough that you look back kindly upon your days in Khazad-Dûm.”

“Very much so,” Celebrimbor said. “I did not know how much I missed Khazad-Dûm until I set foot under the mountain once more. I am glad that I did not come a day later than I did; I have been away from the mountains for too long already.”

“Indeed,” the old dwarf said. “Your absence saw many winters come and go; those who were young back then have grown old, and the old ones have passed away. You have been gone for a long time, Curufinwë – not by your measure of years, perhaps, but certainly by ours.”

Baldur must have noticed Celebrimbor's stricken face, because the dwarf touched his forearm softly, but with a surprisingly firm grip. “Grieve not for those who have passed from this world. Our destiny may be different than that of the Eldar, but even for us the end of a life is not the end of our road. Our brothers and sisters sleep the Long Sleep in their tombs of stone, and after this world is ended, they will wake and begin their great work of rebuilding the new one, alongside the kings and queens of the next world.” Baldur gave him a wistful smile. “But let us not talk of death and departure. Tonight is a night of renewed friendship and merriment.”

“And, I might add, a night of Dwarven hospitality,” Floki added, who was readier than most Dwarves to contradict an elder. “Which means none of that Elvish melancholy and long-winded speeches about regret for times long gone by, now. By Mahal, Baldur, more often than not you sound like a Noldorin exile yourself.”

Baldur glared at Floki, while a few other Dwarves threw quick glances at Celebrimbor to see whether the comment had angered him, but Celebrimbor was far too amused to take offence. He had indeed felt reminded of one of the melancholy speeches of Teserias of Tirion, which the old scholar gave to whoever just happened to be in his immediate vicinity whenever a bout of longing for his lost home overtook him. Of course Celebrimbor knew better than to say so aloud. However, a side glance at Annatar, who met his gaze with an almost suspiciously blank expression, told him that they both had been thinking of the old scholar and his melancholic ramblings. Both quickly looked away again and schooled their features into the serious expressions that were expected of them.

“– the lad came here to get away from Elves,” Floki was saying in this very moment. “I don’t think you'll be doing him a favour if you kept talking to him in their vein all evening. You're going to chase him off again!”

“No one's going to chase me anywhere,” Celebrimbor intervened quickly, before Baldur could give his own, doubtlessly heated opinion on Floki's views. “I've come here to stay – for a while at least – and you'll have to try better than that if you want to get rid of me again. Just remember that you tried dropping a bellows counterweight on me once, Floki, and I still stayed for twenty-one more years after that and became your friend.”

“Well, at that point you had been asking for it,” Floki grumbled.

A rush of outrage and excitement went through the group at this revelation. Annatar leaned close to Celebrimbor's ear, not taking his eyes off the commotion. “Can I ask?” The amusement was clear in his voice.

Celebrimbor grinned. “Later. After a few rounds of drinks the contest inevitably comes down to who is able to present the best anecdotes to his table. I have little doubt that it will be any different tonight. For now let us just say that Floki and I initially had our differences, but as you can see, we eventually managed to sort them out just splendidly.”

Annatar rolled his eyes. “Why do I have the feeling that this 'sorting out' between the two of you involved pickaxes?”

“What do you take us for?” Celebrimbor asked, feigning indignation. “We are reasonable people.” He shrugged. “And moreover we are both smiths, so naturally we were using hammers.”

At Annatar's incredulous expression, Celebrimbor had to fight to keep the laughter out of his voice. “Using them in order to underline a few more important points in an honest heart-to-heart, of course,” he added, after a deliberate pause. “Nothing more; no one except a few rough casts and two bellows were harmed.”

“You know,” Annatar said after a pensive pause, “It is things like these that lead me to wonder what kind of character you were before you settled down as a master of the Mírdain, promoting a life of peace and quiet studiousness in favour of whatever you had been doing before.”

“Well, what a coincidence,” Celebrimbor replied with an amused gleam in his eyes. “I have been wondering the same thing about you – what type of character you were before you decided to content yourself with studying alongside us in Ost-in-Edhil and occasionally scaring the wits out of your apprentice classes, that is.”

“I am a creature of many layers,” Annatar replied offhandedly.

“Yes, I can see that,” Celebrimbor replied, amused. “Still, we are going to postpone discussing my past until the time comes when you tell me of your youthful indiscretions – I'm sure even the Ainur have those, or something comparable at least. Then let us determine who was the greater troublemaker!”

“Are you sure you want to turn this into a contest?” Annatar asked, eyebrows raised. “You should pick your battles better, Tyelperinquar – choose fights that you can actually win.”

“Oh, so you are saying you were a troublemaker?” Celebrimbor asked.

“You have no idea.” Annatar grinned back at him, slow and dangerous.

“Ah, good thing I did warn the others that you might bite, then,” Celebrimbor said lightly.

Annatar looked like he had a retort ready at the tip of his tongue, but just then Durin entered through the main doors, and a hush fell over the hall as the king and the four dwarves accompanying him passed through the hall and headed for the high table.

“It seems we'll have to finish the introductions later,” Floki said. “Come, the sooner we finish the formalities, the sooner we can sit down and have a proper talk over a few tankards of ale.”

Their group walked over to the tables, where Celebrimbor and Annatar were assigned two seats on the outer table of honour, while Durin sat down at the centre of the table. His son, Laurin, took the seat to the king's right and his nephews sat down on his left. Celebrimbor could feel dozens of eyes resting on them, particularly on Annatar, and not all of them were friendly.

When Durin III had opened the gates of Khazad-Dûm to the world two hundred and fifty-four years ago, this move had not gone over without opposition from within the kingdom itself. The more conservative houses especially had spoken out against allowing foreigners into their sacred halls, maintaining that only Dwarves could be trusted enough to be granted entrance to the realm. A few centuries later, the distrust of outsiders had generally made way for a certain sort of polite wariness around foreigners – but the Khazad had only ever needed to get used to Elves and Men visiting their halls.

Now, though, they were being presented with one of the Ainur – and one of Aulë's fellowship at that – which was bound to be new fuel for the old conflict between Khazad-Dûm’s conservative and progressive factions. What with the political and theological implications of the Maia's presence, and the lack of forewarning for his visit alongside Celebrimbor, the issue would certainly be complicated. Celebrimbor had of course considered the possibility that Annatar’s arrival might raise some eyebrows when he had planned his journey to Khazad-Dûm. However, in the face of the sombre looks he was receiving now, he had to admit that a few centuries’ absence from the mountains might have led him to misjudge the current political climate – especially considering that he was used to Ost-in-Edhil's approach to strangers, which was about as casually cosmopolitan as it came. But, as Fundin had told him earlier, Khazad-Dûm was not Ost-in-Edhil.

Annatar bore the hard glances directed his way with impassive grace. Durin appeared remarkably calm as well, but his watchful gaze wandered down the rows of tables, and his nephews were obviously on the lookout for any trouble brewing. By inviting Celebrimbor and his Maiarin companion up to the table of honour, the king had made his stance clear: both Celebrimbor and Annatar had been accepted as guests of honour under the mountains, and were to be treated as such, with all the respect and courtesy that the laws of hospitality demanded.

Dwarves, however, while fiercely loyal, bore their loyalty not to a name, but to age, experience, and above all, principles. As such, any opposition would not be afraid to call out even their king on a perceived fault. Perhaps not right now and in front of foreigners, but certainly at some later time, behind closed doors and in the privacy of being amongst their own kin only, they would.

Celebrimbor wondered how Durin would breach the issue tonight. For breach it he must, he thought, if the king did not wish for discontent to grow behind closed doors and in whispered words.

As he thought as much, Durin raised his hands and what little clamour had risen among those in the hall subsided until all eyes were on the king; the hall was so silent that one could have heard a pin drop.

“Sisters and brothers, all of you who have assembled here tonight – I welcome you,” Durin began. “Custom demands that I introduce the new guests you see beside me, but judging from the expressions upon your faces, I see that this is likely unnecessary. I shall do so nonetheless, not least because the introductions will precede the explanation you likely demand and deserve. Here is Celebrimbor, Son of Curufin, who is an old friend of ours and kindred in spirit, and here is Annatar Aulëndil, who is his friend and colleague, working alongside him in the City of Elves.

“I need only look into the faces of you who have assembled here, my blood, my kin, to understand the thoughts upon your minds this evening,” Durin continued. “I see curiosity and welcome, openness and wonder.”

“But I also see you thinking of trust given and broken, of friendship lost and regained, of faith shaken and restored.” His voice was solemn but not grim. “When I look into your faces, I see the memories of our ancestors, far older than even the Elder Days. I see you thinking of the pride of our race: the magnificence of Khazad-Dûm, and the home we have made for ourselves under the mountains – a home not bestowed upon us, but made by us and for us to do with as we alone please. I see caution, I see anger, and I know the reasons for such concerns. And I want you to know that these feelings are neither ignored nor discarded.”

And just like that, Durin had gotten right to the heart of the matter, as was the nature of Dwarves. Where Quendi would have made long, elaborate introductions, Durin had done away with pretty embellishments and sunk the scalpel of his words right into the wound before it could fester.

“You wonder, Why has our king allowed one of the Western Spirits into our realm? and you wonder this in anger and doubt,” Durin continued. “And although you have not voiced these thoughts aloud, I hear you. Your king hears you. I, as much as any one of you, have considered the fate of our race, because the memory of a king is always the memory of his people as well. Our history has taught us to be cautious, to look with wariness at the hand that is extended in an offer of friendship; for was it not the hand that made us that also raised itself against us, to nearly destroy us? We are named the Unintended, in the old language of the Powers, and this perhaps illustrates best our original standing in the world – not unwanted, but not desired either. Irregulars, outsiders, those-who-were-not-meant-to-be-and-yet-are.”

Durin let his gaze glide over the assembled dwarves. “I have not forgotten the bitterness, I have not forgotten the fear. And when one of Aulë's fellowship stepped over the borders of my realm today, I, too, thought of Mahal, who is our maker and our father, and who almost became our doom. I remember our history. I know of the need for caution.” He paused. “But a king's duty is to the shaping of the future as much as it is to the remembrance of the past.”

“Remembering the past means upholding the demand for justice for wrongs once wrought against us. Justice demands that I turn away the Powers as they have turned away from us. And yet justice alone is not the measure by which a wise man does right, by his friends and enemies alike.” He did not quite look to where Celebrimbor and Annatar had been seated as he said this, but the effect was much as if he had.

“It was not justified for Celebrimbor Curufinwion to bring Annatar Aulëndil here, and yet I will not say he did wrong,” Durin said, as calm as he had been from the beginning. “For he meant well and he intended this as a gesture of friendship and trust. Although learned in our ways, it cannot be expected of one of the Eldar to truly grasp what bringing one of Aulë's fellowship into a Dwarven kingdom means to the Khazad.”

Only years of strict training in court etiquette and countenance allowed Celebrimbor to hide a flinch and a grimace at this. Well, I deserved that one, he thought.

Durin still did not look at him as he continued speaking, nor did his demeanour give any indication what he had said was intended as anything other than merely stating facts. “In the same vein, Annatar Aulëndil claimed to have come here to experience for himself the marvels of Khazad-Dûm – neither as a master nor as the emissary of a Power of the West, but merely as a traveller, a craftsman, and a friend.

“Why should that be enough, and how do we know he speaks true? you might wonder, even if politeness forbids you from saying it aloud. How can our king look upon him and welcome him in with open arms after all that has transpired between the Powers of the West and the folk of the Khazad?” Durin asked, looking at the assembled Dwarves in the hall. “Let me share with you, then, the counsel I held with myself, so that you might better understand the reason for my actions here today.

“Like you, I believe that blind trust is folly. Where a bridge connecting two shores has been torn down, trust must be regained before friendship can be built anew, and this is not achieved merely by speaking pretty words. Ancient wisdom claims that actions speak louder than words, and this counts twice for our people; for we do not forgive easily, and we never forget.

“And yet, I know of no deed that would speak louder and with more honesty of the desire for reconciliation than one of the Powers of the West coming here to our doorstep – not pompous and with brash demands, but driven by curiosity and a thirst for knowledge of our world and our people.”

“Blind trust is folly, but so is clinging to old grudges in the face of an offer of friendship. When Celebrimbor Curufinwë and Annatar Aulëndil stepped before my throne I looked closely at both of them, so I might uncover any hidden intentions they had. But when we spoke, their words rang true and they showed all the respect and politeness that is due to our people, our sacred halls, and me as your king.

“A deed is one thing, an intention is quite another. I considered both when I made my decision to allow them to stay,” Durin said. “Like the All-father saw our worth and reconsidered his order to Mahal to destroy us, I looked at our guests and reconsidered the courses of action available to me. Today I choose not to seek the justice we might demand for past wrongs, but to build a future from a new beginning between the Powers of the West and the Khazad. These are my reasons, and if anyone would challenge them, I bid them step forward now.”

No one moved, no one spoke up.

Celebrimbor fidgeted, tensed to get up, slackened, waited for someone else to get up, waited a bit longer, then pushed through his nerves and rose. Suddenly, all eyes in the hall were on him, and although he was used to speaking before great groups of people, today he felt pushed down by a weight he did not usually feel when giving a speech.

He looked to Durin, who waved his hand, allowing him to speak.

Celebrimbor turned back to face the hall. “This is customarily the part where the guest thanks his host for his hospitality,” he said. “But I fear that this evening I must preface my thanks with an apology. I have been told that it has been many long years since I last lived here, and that there are more than a few things I must have forgotten – and more still that I have never grasped fully, if tonight is any evidence. What I do remember, though, is that there is an old Dwarven proverb that says sincerity does not need many words.”

Celebrimbor stopped here, because now came the delicate part, and he had to be careful with how he worded it. “In that vein, I will keep it short and to the point: my intention was never to hurt or to insult, and what King Durin said about friendship is something I wholeheartedly agree with. However, I am aware that intentions neither justify nor excuse the deeds that accompany them. I should have conferred with you on this matter. I did not, thinking that because my actions seemed harmless to me, they would be harmless to you as well. It was ignorant and short-sighted of me to do so. I looked at a matter of Dwarven importance through the eyes of a Noldo, which is bound to end in lacking understanding. I should have known better than to do this, and for that I apologize.”

The assembled Dwarves were watching him intently, but their faces betrayed no emotion. Celebrimbor forced himself to stay silent once his apology was complete. He did not appeal to their long-standing past friendship like he would have done at an Eldarin court. He did not mention the works and projects Khazad-Dûm and Ost-in-Edhil had completed in their joined efforts, and stressed their shared successes in the past. He did not plead with them to understand his side, for either they would see his reasons in their own time, or they would not see them at all.

Being able to admit having done wrong was a trait treasured among Dwarves, and uncalled-for self-defence was regarded as incomplete, dishonest remorse, as well as an attempt to wriggle out of an unpleasant situation.

And so the silence stretched on. Celebrimbor could feel the weight of more than two hundred gazes, some friendly, some expectant, and some grudging and appraising. On a table to his left, he could see the two patriarchs of the Houses Bristlebeard and Blackhammer whispering to each other, now and then throwing dark looks to where Celebrimbor was sitting. It had him feeling deeply uncomfortable, but he knew that he had brought this upon himself.

“Thank you, Celebrimbor Curufinwion,” King Durin said at last. “We accept your apology.” And he motioned for him to sit.

“Forgive me, my king, but I am not done yet,” Celebrimbor said, an embarrassed grin on his features.

“Eldar and verbosity, a marriage made in Aman itself,” someone seated below exclaimed and a part of the left table erupted into laughter.

“Go on, then,” Durin motioned, unperturbed by this sudden outburst of mirth.

“I still have not thanked you for your hospitality,” Celebrimbor said. He turned around and motioned for Annatar to hand him the two boxes – one velvet, one wooden – that they had brought with them. In lieu of giving them to him, Annatar rounded the table and went to stand in front of Durin right next to Celebrimbor.

“We appreciate you sharing your food and shelter with us, King under the Three Mountains,” Celebrimbor said. “And we do not come empty-handed to accept such grace and friendship. To show our appreciation for your hospitality we brought gifts that we hope you will delight in and find useful in many endeavours.”

Celebrimbor bowed as he handed King Durin the small velvet box. He felt his heart beating strangely against his ribs when the king reached for it and opened it, revealing a silver ring inlaid with three little emeralds.

Durin considered it for a long time before touching it, and Celebrimbor wondered whether he could see the nature of the gift he had been given.

“A ring for a king of the Khazad¹, intended to capture the steadfastness of the stony hearts of the mountains, and the grace of the mithril in its veins,” Celebrimbor said.

The king held up the ring so that the emeralds caught the light. “A handsome gift!” he announced to the hall. “Fit for a king and the sons who rule after him!”

“Into it went the greatest efforts of the Guild of Jewel-smiths,” Celebrimbor said quietly, only for Durin, Annatar, and him to hear.

Into it went the labour of my hand and my heart, he thought. And our shared vision of the world.

Celebrimbor could feel Annatar's burning gaze on him and he knew that although he had not spoken these words aloud, they had still been heard.

“I see,” Durin said softly and let his hand sink again. “Yes, I think I do see it now.” He looked at Celebrimbor, then at Annatar, and carefully placed the ring back in its box. “What about this?” he asked Annatar, gesturing at the wooden box he was holding.

Annatar bowed slightly as he handed it over. “Construction plans for an efficient hydraulic engine for vertical shaft drills,” he said. “In the hopes that they may be useful, and that their craftsmanship may, perhaps, be considered adequate for your purposes and standards.”

Celebrimbor would have snorted if it weren’t for the seriousness of the occasion. Annatar had designed the drill himself, and he was not a creature to sell his own works short – mainly because he knew that everything he created was excellent and of indisputable quality. To see him feign humility was quite bizarre and very amusing, mainly because – intentional or not – the proud Maia was so very bad at it. But there was also another, greater part of Celebrimbor who felt grateful to his friend for being so perceptive of the delicacy of the situation, and accepting the restraint it called for.

“I am certain they will be,” Durin said, taking the box from Annatar's hands. Louder, for the hall, he said, “Great gifts for a great kingdom! The friendship and generosity with which they have been given will not be forgotten!”

He stood and reached over the table, clasping both Annatar's and Celebrimbor's hands in a gesture of thanks, as was customary after the giving of hospitality gifts.

“But let us not prolong the formalities any longer. We have heard your words, and we have seen your gifts and your goodwill,” Durin said. “Now, though, it is high time that we proceed to the pleasant part of the evening – sit down.”

Someone behind them rang a bell and then the food was brought in, and at the same time, all of the tables erupted in heated discussions, recapitulations of what had been said, and speeches in favour or against Durin's and Celebrimbor's points.

Celebrimbor sat down heavily and let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. “Thank the stars that's over and done with.”

“Was it that bad?” Annatar asked with a smirk.

Celebrimbor tipped his head back a bit while a young cupbearer filled the wine goblet for him. “Let us just say that there is a reason why I decided to stay far away from politics and grand speeches,” he murmured.

Annatar laughed quietly as he raised his own goblet to drink. “A wise decision – politics are for windbags, and words alone have not changed the world in a very long time. Besides, while you have a way with words, you do speak best with your hands.”

Celebrimbor sputtered and very nearly spilled some of his wine. “Now that is a sentence that opens itself up to misinterpretation if I ever heard one.”

“You are welcome to misconstrue it all you want,” Annatar replied with a wink, leaving Celebrimbor to wonder once more this day what had put his friend in such high spirits.

*

The feast progressed in mirth and merriment, with rich and savoury dishes being served in one course after another. Soon, though, after everyone had eaten enough to last them through the next three days, many of the attendants had a mind for drink and song and talk, and quite a few of the guests left their initial seats to talk with a friend here, then walk to a table over there and share a joke with colleagues sitting just a bit further down the table.

Quite a few of the Dwarves excused themselves early and left, most notably among them the glowering heads of the Houses Bristlebeard and Blackhammer, but most of the other Dwarves seemed to have taken Durin's speech and Celebrimbor's apology to heart and let go of any grievances Annatar's surprising arrival had provoked. Celebrimbor was not so naive as to believe that the last word on the matter had been spoken, but all in all, he was glad that their welcome had gone over as smoothly as it had.

After the tables had been cleared of the desserts, Annatar and Celebrimbor left the dais. While Annatar was being greeted by a few heads of other noble houses, Celebrimbor went in search of Fundin, which ultimately proved to be a futile endeavour. The steward was nowhere to be seen, and after roughly half an hour of fruitless searching Celebrimbor reluctantly accepted that he would likely not be able to talk to Fundin tonight.

So Celebrimbor went back to where he had left Annatar and quite soon afterwards they found themselves hailed by Floki, who waved them over to the table where he, Baldur, and other Dwarves of the group who had initially welcomed them had found a seat for their number.

“Ho, Kurfi, Aulëndil, over here!” Floki motioned for Celebrimbor to take a seat next to him. “We must finish our conversation from earlier, since we were so rudely interrupted by formality and etiquette! Do you have your goblets? Good! Come on then, sit down!”

“Shall we?” Celebrimbor turned to Annatar with a raised eyebrow.

Annatar grinned wolfishly. “By all means. I cannot wait to hear the story about how you almost got a boulder dropped onto your head.”

Celebrimbor ran a hand down his face. “I should have known better than to mention this in front of you.”

“You should have. And that's what you get for not listening to your good sense.”

“It would be too much to ask that you'd simply forget about it, I guess – for friendship's sake?” Celebrimbor inquired without much hope.

“I never forget about anything,” Annatar replied evenly. “You do not get second chances with me, Tyelperinquar, especially as a friend.”

“Oh, stop being so overly dramatic,” Celebrimbor rebuked playfully, and took a seat next to Floki, while Annatar sat down on his other side.

The Dwarves finished introducing themselves, and afterwards there was something of a brief, awkward pause in which no one knew what to say next. Initially, the Dwarves and the few odd foreign elves kept a bit of distance to Celebrimbor and Annatar, engaging them in polite, yet slightly stiff conversation. They were sitting closer to Celebrimbor, while Annatar was given a respectful berth by his seat neighbours. The greater part of the questions were aimed at Celebrimbor as well – there was much talk of Ost-in-Edhil, of the new pipe-lines between the mountains and the city, an upcoming joint project of both realms, and of course the progress of the bells for the great clock tower in the Elven City, which Khazad-Dûm was proud to provide.

When the conversation turned to the ventures the Gwaith-i-Mírdain had undertaken under Annatar's guidance, it drew the Dwarves' attention quite effectively.

“Those are quite the marvellous works you have occupied yourselves with. The ring you gifted the king was especially fine,” Throndur said, setting down his tankard of mead and regarding Celebrimbor with a steady gaze from under his dark brows. “There seems to be no shortage of time and ideas in Ost-in-Edhil if you can focus fully on working on gems and sciences instead of forging weapons.”

“The amenities of peaceful times,” Floki snorted. “At least you'll have a lot of pretty necklaces and mathematical theorems to throw down from the walls at your enemies if you ever were to be besieged.”

“I like to think we built the city walls better than to make that necessary,” Celebrimbor replied wryly.

“Let's see about that,” Floki said. “We should bring our great drill to your walls and test out just how well they're faring against a bit of advanced engineering.”

“Just as well,” Celebrimbor said, regarding his fingernails. “When do you plan to start drilling? I shall write a note to myself to expect the breakthrough of your glorified screwdriver a decade later.”

“Glorified screwdriver?” Floki echoed. “This drill has been fashioned after the construction plans of the Great Drill of Báshing-zě itself! If you weren't a friend and an elf at that – which excuses some of your remarks, but not all by far – I would tell the king to throw you out from under the mountain for that.”

“And my aunt Galadriel would have done much more than that if she were still ruler of Ost-in-Edhil and able to hear the manner in which you were speaking of the walls she raised,” Celebrimbor said pointedly.

“Would she have?” Throndur said, while Floki was muttering something in the background that sounded suspiciously like “See, this is why I tried to drop a boulder on him.”

Throndur did not pay the other dwarf any heed. “I have heard stories of a great Elven enchantress who resided in Ost-in-Edhil, but I did not know that she was your aunt and that she built the city as it stands today,” he continued. “I thought it had been your work.”

Celebrimbor shook his head. “No, I did not found it. I came … later. By that time, the foundation stones for Ost-in-Edhil had long been laid down. I merely joined my efforts to theirs to continue building, and lent a hand where help was needed.”

“Humble as always,” Órin said from the other side of the table. “No need for false modesty, Curufinwë. We all know that it is thanks to you that Ost-in-Edhil stands as the fortress of knowledge and architecture that it is today.”

Celebrimbor lowered his own goblet of wine. “I only finished the work my aunt and Lord Celeborn had started. And I had help every step along the way; if it had not been for the jewel-smiths and their willingness to raise the city up alongside me, Ost-in-Edhil would not be more than a cluster of stone buildings under holly trees.”

“Do not sell yourself short,” Floki rumbled. “Loath as I am to admit it after what you said of our drill, everyone on this side of the mountain knows this much – that while it was your aunt who laid down the foundation of Ost-in-Edhil, it was you who breathed a soul into the place, bringing together the people who would realize the plan you had for the city and its future.”

Celebrimbor looked at him. “We have made a home for ourselves in Eregion. It was a communal effort, and the vision of a people, not that of any one man or elf.”

“And yet it is you who leads the Mírdain now,” Floki pointed out.

Celebrimbor set down his goblet, the good-natured banter gone from his tone. “I neither lead nor rule the guild or anyone else in Ost-in-Edhil, nor did any strife for power take place between my aunt and me. The Lady Galadriel had just as important a part in building Ost-in-Edhil as I had and when she left, she did it of her own free will. I would not want either her contribution to the building of the city or her authority questioned.”

The dwarf seemed to notice that he had touched upon a delicate subject, because he raised his hand in an appeasing gesture. “I meant no harm, friend,” he said. “Though you must admit that under your lead – do not interrupt me, you are the acting representative of Ost-in-Edhil, whether you like it or not – the city changed a lot during the last few centuries, and you with it.”

Celebrimbor blinked, not quite sure how to respond to this sudden turn of the conversation, this move from bantering to serious, from factual to personal, and he felt put oddly on the spot.

“He is right, you know,” Baldur suddenly said to his right. “You're a different man now than you were then.”

When Celebrimbor turned to give him a puzzled look, Baldur gave him a small, wistful smile. “I still remember the lost youth who came to Khazad-Dûm a long time ago, having wandered here and there on the Gulf of Lune, searching for a place where he could belong.”

“I was hardly that young anymore,” Celebrimbor said, trying for a light-hearted tone, but his smile wasn't entirely genuine.

“In body and mind, perhaps. But you've grown in spirit,” Baldur said. “And there are other things that have grown within you.” The old dwarf looked him in the eyes. “You left us drifting like a leaf on the wind, but I see that you have roots now. Like a strong tree, or even a mountain, perhaps.”

Celebrimbor did not know what to say in response to this, but when he turned his head he saw that Annatar had been following the exchange with an intent, pensive expression. He met the Maia's eyes, and for a brief moment, everyone and everything else seemed to be far removed and faded, until Annatar averted his gaze to take a sip from his wine and the world with all its colours, sounds, and smells returned.

*

From here on out – not least thanks to the generously provided wine – the conversation quickly returned to other, more light-hearted matters. Inevitably, the talk came to the initial adversity between Celebrimbor and Floki during the Noldo's first few years in Khazad-Dûm, which, as serious as it had been back then, provided ample grounds for amusement today. Celebrimbor was surprised to learn that their fight in the forges had attained a somewhat legendary reputation among apprentices, and that neither the dent in the floor caused by a five-hundred-stone counterweight nor the incinerated bellows in the northern corner had been fixed or replaced until today.

“Oh, we still use them for demonstrative purposes,” Floki waved it off. “To distinguish between inappropriate conduct that will merely earn you a master' scolding, and histrionics that will get you banned from the forges for at least three months.”

“Good to hear that we at least managed to provide a bad example,” Celebrimbor said with an embarrassed grin.

Eager to steer the topic away from his behavioural missteps, not least because Annatar had been wearing the expression of a cat who had found the cream for the entirety of the last half-hour, Celebrimbor asked about the drill Floki had mentioned earlier.

“It's greater than anything you have ever worked on, that's for sure,” Floki said. “We used it as a means to dig the vertical main tunnels, and we've made good progress thanks to the new adamanit bits you suggested in that letter you sent the first foreman some twenty years ago. If you want to, we can take you both down to the Deep Paths so you can see it for yourself.”

Celebrimbor shared a look with Annatar, who raised one eyebrow and looked back expectantly. “Yes, we'd like that,” he said, turning back to Floki. “We would like that very much.”

*

Midnight came and passed, and eventually, even the most hardy feast-goers found that it was time to go to bed and recuperate for a while. Durin and his nephews had retreated hours ago, leaving the dais empty.

Celebrimbor and Annatar were among the last ones to exit the Western Dining Hall, but eventually even they made their way back, heading slowly in the direction of Celebrimbor's chamber.

Celebrimbor did not question his friend coming along – Annatar did what he wanted, and if he had gotten it in his head to accompany Celebrimbor to his doorstep, he would not say no to that.

They walked down the hallways at a leisurely pace, nearly shoulder to shoulder, when Annatar suddenly drew himself up straighter and leaned a bit closer, a slight smirk on his face.

“So – Kurfi?” he asked.

Celebrimbor chuckled. “That must have been on your mind for the duration of the entire evening now, am I right?”

“By now you must know that anything to do with your past misadventures and youthful indiscretions is of supreme interest to me.”

“More of interest even than the splendour of Khazad-Dûm and its inhabitants?” Celebrimbor inquired.

“Would you claim that you are less interesting than either of those?” Annatar replied, his voice low and teasing.

“Oh, Annatar, the only thing I would claim is that I am the worst person to ask when it comes to answer the question of how interesting I might or might not be,” Celebrimbor replied, running one hand through his hair. “Let other people be the judge of that. Even so, I am flattered.”

Annatar mouth quirked upwards. “So?” he demanded, adding, “About ‘Kurfi’?”

Celebrimbor threw him a side glance. “It's a nickname. A Khuzdul version of my Quenya name. They gave it to me during my first stay here under the mountain.”

Annatar pondered this for a while. “A great honour, no doubt,” he said.

“Quite. Few enough outsiders ever made it into the hidden cities back then, and even today only very few are regarded with enough kinship by the Khazad to be granted a name in their language,” Celebrimbor replied quietly. “Names are even more important to them than they are to the Eldar. The Khazad have true names that they keep secret from everyone outside their closest family. With outsiders, they only ever use their outer names and even those they never change – they are their roots, marking them as the descendants of a lineage and showing everyone where they belong. Without their names, they consider themselves to be just leaves on the wind.”

“Didn't Baldur say something to that effect earlier?”

Celebrimbor frowned. “Did he?”

“He was talking about your first stay here, I believe.”

“Ah.” Celebrimbor nodded. “Yes, he was. Drifting like a leaf on the wind was the expression he used.”

“He did not exactly make it sound as if it was something desirable,” Annatar commented.

Celebrimbor gave Annatar a wan smile. “Probably because there is nothing stranger and scarier to a Khazad than to be uprooted and drifting.”

“You must have appeared very strange to them, then.”

Celebrimbor looked up. Annatar's face was half-illuminated by the sheen of the torches on the walls, and the fire was dancing in his eyes. The Maia's gaze was no longer amused, but pensive and searching.

Celebrimbor averted his eyes again. “I suppose I must have,” he admitted.

“Is that why they keep calling you by your father-name despite everything?” Annatar asked.

Celebrimbor jerked his head up and gave him a sharp glance.

Annatar actually took a half-step away from him and lifted his hands in a placating gesture. “Forgive me. It wasn't my place to ask.”

Celebrimbor blinked, belatedly realising what kind of expression he must have been wearing just now for Annatar to react like that. “No, I am – sorry. I'd just … I'd rather not talk about it right now.” He gave Annatar a tired smile. “Let's save it for another day.”

Annatar glanced at him askance. “Of course,” he agreed. “Some other day.” For a few moments, the only audible sound were their echoing footsteps as they continued down the walkway.

“So,” Annatar suddenly spoke into the silence. “What was the exact expression Baldur used in that idiom? Sîm yavhna zulimor zelkomenon?”

“Close,” Celebrimbor replied absent-mindedly. “Sîm zulimor yavhna zelukhomenon.² Zelal doesn't reduce its verb stem in the present participle, it's an irregular k-stem, therefore – wait.”

Celebrimbor stopped dead in his tracks, staring at Annatar.

The Maia took a few more steps, and when he noticed Celebrimbor was no longer beside him, stopped and turned around. “What?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Why are you asking me this?” Celebrimbor said.

“Why do you think I am asking you, if not because I wanted to know?”

“Because you– ” Celebrimbor interrupted himself when everything fell into place. “You don't know Khuzdul?”

“It is a language spoken only by a very limited number of speakers in isolated linguistic enclaves,” Annatar said. “I told you once that I have never had the chance to befriend any Dwarves in my life, thus I also never had the opportunity to study their language.”

Celebrimbor stared at his friend, baffled at first – then he threw his head back and laughed. “So that's why you were so silent during the feast! And here I was, wondering whatever could have had you acting so reserved for the entirety of the evening! I should have known that the only thing that could have kept you from engaging in discussions with the assembled gentry of the Khazad was not knowing Khuzdul in the first place.” He caught up to his friend, the smile making way for a pensive expression. “But then again, you obviously understood parts of it.”

“I did.” Annatar shot him a thin smile, and they resumed walking down the hallway. “It is, after all, distantly related to Valarin and the lexical similarity is small, but there. Besides, I've lived alongside a few Dwarves in Ost-in-Edhil, which allowed me to pick up some things here and there.”

Celebrimbor blinked. “Oh,” he said. “I just assumed – ” He interrupted himself, shaking his head. “But why didn't you say something? We've been talking in Khuzdul for the greater part of the evening. If I had known, I would have asked my friends to speak Sindarin!”

“Thank you for your consideration, but I would have spoken up for myself if I had wanted to. I was able to understand about half of what was being said, and the rest was a fine exercise in concentration and puzzling out the language.” Annatar smirked.

“That, and you're much too proud to admit to not knowing Khuzdul at a table full of Dwarves,” Celebrimbor added.

Annatar was silent for a while. “That too,” he admitted at last.

Celebrimbor chuckled. “This is an extraordinary day – not only did we cause a political scandal by introducing a Maia to the king of Khazad-Dûm, but no, my friend Annatar also admits to not knowing something and he is being honest about it!”

“I am certainly glad I was able to act as your primary source of entertainment today,” Annatar said dryly.

“Ah, don't give me that look,” Celebrimbor said cheerfully. “It's rare enough that I get to tease you for not knowing something, and you do it all the time! Besides, you don't think I'd let you come to Khazad-Dûm and leave without giving you a chance to learn Khuzdul – if you want to, that is.”

Annatar gave him a side-glance. “Is that yours to decide?”

“It is not some secret language reserved for a chosen few initiates to study,” Celebrimbor told him. “Of course you could learn it. I told you about the library of Khazad-Dûm; I am sure we'll find something suitable for you there.” Celebrimbor tapped his chin thoughtfully when an idea suddenly occurred to him. “Until then, though, I might have just the thing for you to quench your curiosity.”

They both walked to Celebrimbor's room where he opened the door and waved Annatar inside. It was cool, so Celebrimbor lit a fire in the fireplace before changing into more comfortable clothes. Meanwhile, Annatar set a pot of water to boil over the fire and when Celebrimbor returned from the bedroom next to the living space, just in the process of pulling the ornaments from his hair and undoing his braids, two steaming cups of dark minty tea were waiting on a table between the two armchairs before the fire.

“Thank you,” Celebrimbor said, surprised. “You didn't have to.”

“You're welcome,” Annatar said, handing him one of the cups. “Now, what was it you wanted to show me to tide me over until I finally get to see the Great Library of Khazad-Dûm?”

Celebrimbor smiled. “I was thinking of keeping you occupied with the help of my own private library. I'm afraid it doesn't hold a candle to its great sister, but it should be better than nothing.” He stepped up to his two shelves, which were crammed full of books of all ages and sizes. “Now where did I put it – ah, here.” He pulled out three books, one more booklet than tome, bound in green linen that had become grey and dusty with age.

He carried them over to the fireplace and sat down in one armchair, Annatar following and taking a seat in the other.

Celebrimbor set down the teacup and carefully opened the booklet, feeling a strange twinge in his chest when his own inexperienced handwriting looked back at him from the pages. Annatar leaned closer in order to get a look at the contents of the book as well.

“This was my first Khuzdul textbook, including writing lessons in Cirth,” Celebrimbor said quietly, tracing the strokes of ink with his finger. “My father gave it to me when we were living among Dwarves during the campaign of my uncle Maedhros to rally the free peoples of Beleriand against the Enemy in the last great battle of the First Age. He considered it a matter of propriety and respect for us to learn their ways and language, so he wrote this for me.”

“I brought it here with me when I left Nargothrond,” Celebrimbor added, scrolling through the pages. “I was afraid I had forgotten too much after learning it too fast, and it helped me quite often during my first weeks here. My father and my uncle made several annotations on idiomatic and colloquial language, as well as technical terms and Dwarven etiquette, in addition to the vocabulary and grammar explained here. It is not comprehensive, but it contains a great many things no grammar book can provide.” The pages rushed under his fingers and the motion sent the words on the pages dancing, the neat Cirth of the main text body, the spiky Tengwar of Curufin’s handwriting, and the more slanted, flatter scratch of Maedhros' hand in the margins coming together in a great blur.

Annatar was silent, but when Celebrimbor looked up from the page, he did likewise and for a moment they just looked at each other, neither intent on breaking the silence.

“You can have it,” Celebrimbor said and handed the booklet to Annatar, who took it and carefully turned a few pages with a slight frown. “I expect it won't take you more than a day to memorize everything written in it, but you can keep it as long as you want.”

“I'll be very careful with it,” Annatar said quietly.

Celebrimbor leaned forward and took the second and third books. “These are two other books I brought here with me and they were my primary reading material during my first few months here. This is a grammar book on Khuzdul, containing any and every grammatical quirk that you might think of encountering and then some. I wager not even Dwarves know all of the peculiarities mentioned in there.” He smiled as he handed it to Annatar. “Phonetics, syntax, principal verb forms, conjugations, declensions, tenses, and sundry.”

Annatar took the book from him and laid it down in his lap. “And the last one? The 5,000 most important words of Khuzdul?”

“Not quite,” Celebrimbor said. “10,000 words, including commentary on etymology, phonetic shifts, and dialectal differences between the three great branches of Khuzdul.” He handed the tome to his friend.

Annatar raised both eyebrows, and started to leaf through the last book while Celebrimbor watched him, taking slow sips from his tea. After some time, Annatar closed the book and looked up. “Not exactly what I would call light reading.” He leaned back with his own tea cup in hand. “And you know all the words in there?”

“I don't know if I remember all of them today, but I did know them back then,” Celebrimbor replied. “I told myself that if I was to live in Khazad-Dûm as a refugee it would be on the condition that I wouldn't make a fool of myself by not even knowing the language of Dwarves. I could suffer to be a barely-tolerated Eldarin vagabond, but I would at least be an educated barely-tolerated Eldarin vagabond.”

“Back then I spent my days working and my nights studying, down to the obscurest parts of the language. It kept me occupied through the late hours and didn't leave me with a lot of time to think about myself, which was what I needed at the time, I guess.” Celebrimbor paused. “However, as many details as I knew back then, I'd be surprised if I had retained everything. If you want to, though, I would be happy to let myself be quizzed as soon as you're sure about your Khuzdul. And then we can see who has the better memory: you, after having had a few days to learn a new language – or me, after having had nearly six hundred years to forget most of it.” He smiled wryly.

“Is that a challenge?” Annatar said.

“What else?” Celebrimbor replied. He finished his tea and stood. “But not a challenge for tonight. You'll forgive me, but I find the trek and the wine are making themselves noticed.” He yawned. “Feel free to stay here and read as long as you like – I am going to bed.”

Annatar gave him an unidentifiable look, then nodded. “Good night then. And thank you for the books.”

“You're welcome.” Celebrimbor smiled at his friend before ambling into the adjacent bedroom. Instead of lighting the hearth there he left the door open so that the heat of the fireplace in the sitting room could warm the bed chamber as well, and he spent some time watching the sheen of the flames playing on the open door and listening to the sounds of Annatar slowly turning pages, until he fell asleep at last.

1 It is not certain which kind of ring is mentioned here, and whether it is Thror's Ring itself, one of the Rings of Power that Sauron and Celebrimbor created for the Dwarves, or a mere predecessor thereof. While it is possible that the ring mentioned here is the artefact that would later become known as Thror's Ring, there are a few indicators that speak against this. For one, the events described above are estimated to have taken place around the year 1550 S.A. While the Elves and Sauron had already begun working on Rings of Power around fifty years ago, the Great Rings were not created until 1590 S.A. This indicates that the technique of creating magic rings in general might not have been perfected at the time these events took place. Furthermore, it is said of Thror's Ring that the power it had over the Dwarves “was to inflame their hearts with a greed of gold and precious things, so that if they lacked them all other good things seemed profitless, and they were filled with wrath and desire for vengeance on all who deprived them.” (LotR, Appendix A, III Durin's Folk) However, there is no indication that this ring in particular was corrupted by Sauron, either because he still held no evil intent towards Elves and Dwarves at that time, or because he didn't consider it worth his while to corrupt a prototype.

2 sîm = adv. “like”, zulim(û)-or → contracted to: zulimor = khuzd. “on the wind” (ablative loc./instr.), derived from a Proto-Quenyan root of the Valarin word for “Sulimo” = breath, breeze, yavhna = the leaf, nom. fem. c.f. Yavannah, zelukhomenon = “drifting” pres. participle (active)

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II.

Celebrimbor woke late the next day. When he turned around in his bed and touched the lampstone on his nightstand it lit up to reveal the face of an intricate bronze clock, whose hands told him that noon had already come and gone. Considering that the feast had lasted well into the early morning hours, this wasn't all that surprising, but Celebrimbor, who usually rose with the sun, was starkly reminded that he would once more have to do without these natural reminders of the day’s passage for a time.

He sat up and threw back his blankets, gathering up a fresh set of clothes before exiting his bedroom. Yesterday's fire had long since burned down and only blackened embers were left of the coal and wood. Annatar's chair was empty, the tea can and mugs were clean and set back upon a dish board next to the fireplace, and the books Celebrimbor had given him were gone. He must have taken them with him when he had left at some point during the night.

Celebrimbor stood in the middle of the room for a few moments, but since there seemed to be naught else left to do at the moment, he gathered up a piece of soap and a towel before heading out to the water-caves in the east half of the palace complex. The caves were a sprawling marvel of rushing subterranean springs and streams both hot and cold, the walls and floors of the basins covered in scintillating mosaics of deep greens and blues. They were usually well-frequented by guests and inhabitants alike, but when Celebrimbor got there he found them mostly empty. He knelt down by a little natural stone basin and after he had washed up and changed into a new set of clothes, he carried his towel and worn clothing back to his room.

On his way to the Western Dining Hall he took a detour to Fundin's rooms, but upon knocking, found them locked. It would have been highly unlikely to catch his busy friend idle in his rooms at this hour, but Celebrimbor felt a pang of disappointment nonetheless. He slowly let his hand sink and turned around to make his way to the dining hall, deciding to resolve whatever issue was standing between them at the earliest possibility.

He took another detour to the kitchens where the cooks gracefully allowed him to pick out his own very late breakfast (which was in all honesty more of an early dinner), then entered the hall through one of its inconspicuous side doors.

At this hour, only a few Dwarves were seated at the tables, most of them taking their meals in quiet solitude, reading news leaflets or books, and only a few absorbed in whispered discussions.

Celebrimbor spotted Annatar at the table where they and Celebrimbor's old friends had been sitting yesterday. The Maia was alone and obviously deeply lost in thought, poring over one of Celebrimbor's books and writing notes down with his left hand while stirring a cup of tea with his right.

Annatar was apparently too engrossed in whatever he was reading to notice Celebrimbor's approach and only looked up when the elf stopped directly next to him.

“Good morning,” Celebrimbor said, skilfully unloading the couple of plates and his cup from where they had been stacked in the cradle of his lower arms.

“Good afternoon. I trust you slept well?” Annatar replied, looking up at him with a sly smile.

Celebrimbor initially wanted to say something to the point of how Annatar needn't be so smug about pointing out the 'afternoon' aspect, because he was allowed to sleep in for once, but – he froze and looked down at his friend, trying to figure out what had confounded him about the sentence in the first place –

– when the coin dropped and he very nearly laughed out loud.

“Stars, your pronunciation is atrocious!”

Annatar frowned. “Well, in my defence, I did only have one night of studying without anyone to practise speaking with. I'd like to see you speak Valarin for the first time without any prior opportunity to wrap your tongue around some of its longer words.”

“With great pleasure,” Celebrimbor said cheerfully. “Now, if there only was someone willing to teach me.” He raised one eyebrow at his friend, giving him a pointed look. Annatar just mirrored his expression with a slight, curious smile.

Celebrimbor sat down, facing his friend with genuine excitement. “But in all honesty, it's incredible that you can speak Khuzdul at all! How far did you get? Can you understand me when I talk at this pace?”

“Yes, though the fact that you speak mostly textbook High Khuzdul might have something to do with that.” Annatar smiled. “I plan on tackling the various registers and accents later.”

“No doubt. If you continue at this pace, you'll be giving lectures in Khuzdul before long.” Celebrimbor chuckled. “What would your poor students say to that, I wonder?”

“Not much. Most of them are still too scared of me to contribute anything of value to my lessons,” Annatar said and took a sip of his tea. “Apprentices,” he added with a soft snort.

“You should try to be less scary, then.”

Annatar frowned at him. “I am being patient and civil.”

“Which is not the same as being friendly and approachable,” Celebrimbor retorted.

“I am a master, not a mother hen,” Annatar said. “They are grown men and women and they have to learn how to stand up for themselves. What kind of journeymen will they make if they are too scared to speak to their masters, let alone stand up to them in a classroom discussion?”

“So you are saying they all should take a page from the book of – what was her name again? – the woman in your materials science class, who hails from the riverlands in the south?”

An expression of exasperation and annoyance combined crossed Annatar's face. “Alane. And no, Valar forbid that I would have to deal with more students of her type.”

“She's not scared to voice her opinion even to you, if I recall correctly.” Celebrimbor grinned.

Annatar rolled his eyes. “Only if you want to call hair-splitting and constant heckling valuable contributions to a lesson. All she does is argue and challenge me on every point I am trying to convey.”

“And who did she learn that from, I wonder?” Celebrimbor laughed softly. “She's a quick study, I'd say.”

Annatar narrowed his eyes slightly. “Even so, her first aim should be to gain a solid working knowledge of metals, not to butt heads with her teacher. She can challenge me as soon as she has something sensible to say and the learning to back up her cheek.”

Celebrimbor stifled a laugh. “Ai, Annatar, you should be more appreciative of your student's enthusiasm.”

“If her knowledge of metallic conductance were on par with her fervour for disrupting my lectures, then perhaps I could appreciate her enthusiasm more easily, but right now all she is doing is working herself towards a permanent ban from my classroom.”

“Somehow I do not think that would be enough to keep her out. She seems to be determined to pursue materials science. Also, she is rumoured to be quite taken with you.”

“What,” Annatar said flatly.

Celebrimbor forced himself to keep a straight face and took a bite out of his bread, merely raising his eyebrows slightly.

“And you know this how?” Annatar added after a drawn-out pause.

“People talk,” Celebrimbor said, shrugging and taking a sip of his water. “Students most of all. And seeing how I am quite approachable, some of them even confide in me every now and then.” He winked.

Annatar briefly rested his forehead in his palm. “I think I'll pass on the gossip.”

“You really should try it sometime, it's amazing what you can learn when people are not afraid to talk to you. For example, did you know that you apparently have an entire host of secret admirers?”

At Annatar's aghast expression, Celebrimbor only barely managed not to laugh out loud. “If Daeror is to be believed, then the percentage of apprentices who are even more fascinated by you than by your lectures is staggering. It seems that what you lack in approachability is offset by the aura of mystery surrounding you, which apparently makes you a most intriguing enigma in the eyes of our younger apprentices.”

“Merciful stars.”

“Ah, don't pretend you are not flattered by this.”

Annatar frowned. “Hearing that most of my students come to my lectures in order to stare at me like lovesick puppies rather than partake of the knowledge I want to share is hardly flattering.”

“Bear with them,” Celebrimbor admonished gently. “Most of them haven't seen their first or second century come and go yet – and for nearly all of them it is also their first time meeting a Maia. They're hardly as used to one of the Holy Ones walking the hallways and holding lectures as the older members of the mírdain. It is to be expected that they'd be engrossed with you. You must seem to them like something that has stepped out of a storybook of the Old World.”

“I still fail to see how knowing any of this is of interest to me.” Annatar rested his chin in his hand and regarded Celebrimbor intently. “I'm sure there are much more intriguing things to be learned … what do they say about you?”

“I wouldn't know. They are hardly going to tell me. But if you'd like to know, you'll just have to ask around.” Celebrimbor winked. “Just be sure to tell me afterwards; I'm sure there are a lot of delightful stories going around the mírdain that even I am not aware of.”

Annatar smiled slowly, slightly baring his teeth. “Do you think asking around would yield better results before or after I learn not to be so intimidating?”

Celebrimbor hid his face in his hands. “Stars, you are impossible.” He glanced over at the book open before Annatar. “But I do know for a fact that asking anyone here in Khazad-Dûm about anything – regardless of the subject matter – will go a lot smoother if you actually know how to pronounce Khuzdul.”

“Ah, quite.” Annatar turned a bit, so he was facing Celebrimbor. “How else would I inquire about my Elven friend among his Dwarven acquaintances?” He slid the books toward Celebrimbor. “In that case, how about you teach me how it is done, Master Tyelperinquar?” His tone was teasing, and his eyes were bright with the challenge.

Celebrimbor took it in stride, pulling the book towards himself and opening it up. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure than teaching such an eager student. Listen and learn,” he said, before pausing to look directly at his friend and add, “and see that you keep up.”

Annatar's smile grew a bit wider when he recognized the phrase that he himself habitually used whenever he was introducing a difficult new topic to his own apprentices.

They spent another few hours going back and forth on the basics of Khuzdul pronunciation, until Celebrimbor judged that they wouldn't be getting any further without additional reading material on phonetics and phonology and closed the book.

“That is as much as I can teach you, I am afraid,” he said. “For the finer points of the language we'll have to visit the library. Do you want to go there?”

“I was wondering when you would ask.” Annatar looked at the clock that was hanging on the far wall of the hall. According to its hands, they were nearing the ninth hour of the evening. “Is the library open at night, though?”

Celebrimbor stood and stretched, cracking his spine with a relieved grimace, then grinned down at Annatar. “You’ll find that one of the great advantages of living under the mountain means that any diurnal rhythm is entirely moot. The Khazad live and work in shifts as it suits them best, but there is never such a thing as ‘closing time’ down here.”

“Ah,” Annatar smirked. “I see why you would have enjoyed that. Your atrocious sleeping habits would be rather less obvious here.”

“Well, quite.” Celebrimbor chuckled. “It was nice not to be the one with the worst sleeping habits for once. Although you must admit that I have improved considerably ever since I began teaching regular classes again.”

“Do your students know that they are the only thing keeping you from relapsing into your frankly disconcerting habits, and forcing you to sleep at regular and reasonable times instead?” Annatar raised an eyebrow.

“Probably. I’ve never made much of a secret of it,” Celebrimbor laughed. “But come now, I thought you wanted to visit the library!”

When they left the hall, Celebrimbor leaned a bit closer to his friend. “By the way, I think your eating habits have drawn attention.”

Annatar threw him an oblique look. “Have they now?”

“You are kind of a curiosity here, mind you, and as such you're likely watched closely. I believe they’ve noticed you haven't been eating any meat yesterday and today. They must be thinking that you are shunning the finest part of their cuisine in favour of Elven fruit and honeycomb. I think I might have to mention your habit of keeping a meatless diet to them.”

“Well, we should do that if you consider it necessary to avoid another diplomatic outrage. Though I feel obliged to mention that ever since we have come here, we've gone to great lengths not to step on anyone's toes. And if I have to be considerate of their cultural sensitivities, they'll just have to be considerate of mine as well,” Annatar replied. “Sina tanan.”¹

Celebrimbor laughed quietly, then turned to face his friend once more. “Of course. Now let's go and find the library.”

*

They left the palace and Celebrimbor led the way down the fairly narrow but well-lit tunnels, until all of a sudden the magnificence of Hadhodrond opened up in front of them with wide halls held up by pillars under colorfully illuminated ceilings. Annatar followed half a step behind him, noting once again the dream-like surety with which his friend navigated the maze of tunnels, streets and thoroughfares, while taking his time to regard his surroundings with all due attention: houses and stores, taverns and villas on stone-lined streets and alleys. The main streets were lined by tall orange lanterns, whereas smaller alleys branched off in the bluish sheen of smaller, rounder lamps. Stone walkways and bridges arched above them, leading up to even higher levels, which were glowing with the green, blue, and orange light of the various lamps.

There was also a smooth wall of rainbow-coloured glass, shining out like a diamond become visible inside a cracked stone, incredibly high above the bustle of the city.

“This is the back wall of the library,” Celebrimbor said. “From there, you have a marvellous panoramic view of the entire city – light and movement everywhere! But the library is not directly accessible from the city side – we will have to take our way around the city and come in from the back. Follow me.”

Even this late in the evening, the streets were full and light shone from every window. Just as Celebrimbor had said earlier, Dwarves did not adhere to the rhythm of the sun and moon to mark their days, and whoever stayed in a Dwarven city for a few weeks likely adapted quickly to their habit of rising and sleeping at unusual, irregular hours.

They passed by taverns with tables standing outside on the pavement, where folks of all trades and races were sitting and eating, some engaged in heated discussions, others keeping to themselves with a pipe in the corner of their mouth and a book in their hand. There were workshops and pharmacies, lantern-makers and coin-changers, jewel-smiths and merchants selling finger foods at little stands. Elves, Men, and Dwarves mingled freely, each going about their own businesses: lives and conversations and affairs interweaving and splitting apart and intertwining again like tens of thousands of threads.

“There are so many watch-makers here,” Annatar observed, turning his head to look at the fine golden mechanisms laid out in the glass window of a shop.

“Of course there are,” Celebrimbor replied, laughing. “When you don’t have the sun and the moon to orient yourself by, keeping time exactly by mechanical means becomes very important. As a consequence, the Dwarves have become incredibly apt at creating timekeeping devices in all forms and sizes, and the clocks they create last for hundreds of years without gaining or losing even a second.” To underline his words, he pointed up at a massive bronze clock that seemed to hang in mid-air of the great cavern, four clock-faces facing the four cardinal directions of the hall. Even from here, the intricate clockwork of thousands upon thousands of interlocking cogwheels was visible. The pendulum that drove its internal mechanisms, which was slowly swinging back and forth below the clock corpus, had to be over forty feet long.

They rounded a corner. To their left, the thoroughfare opened up into a wide circular square directly beneath the clock, and Annatar saw that the pendulum was indeed nearly touching the ground – its end bore a bronze tip pointing downwards, which was lazily drawing the course of its swings in a round bed filled with white sand, each swing leaving a new line in the intricate pattern just drawn in the sand. Around the circle filled with sand, there were raised golden markings positioned at regular intervals, similar to a sundial.

“Farkantur's Pendulum,” Annatar said. “You were not jesting when you said that the Khazad know their trades, be they clock-making or geophysics.”

Celebrimbor just threw him a smile.

“The clock in Ost-in-Edhil's clocktower is of Dwarven make as well, if I recall correctly,” Annatar continued.

Celebrimbor nodded. “It was a gift from Hafnur, who is likely the finest clocksmith to ever have walked the face of Arda. He made both the great clock of Khazad-Dûm and the one in Ost-in-Edhil, which was completed only twenty or so years before you arrived. The bells of our clock-tower were made in the foundries of Khazad-Dûm as well, and in turn we gave them the lampstones we created. You can imagine that a constant source of light is very valuable, especially if it does not require oil refills or new torches. Our two worlds complement each other very well, I think,” he added pensively.

“That they do,” Annatar agreed, giving him a long side-glance before averting his eyes to look at the passing scenery again.

They climbed a set of long stairs that cut back and forth along the wall of the Seventh Hall, rising ever upward. Three stories above what accounted for the ground level of Khazad-Dûm, Celebrimbor led them into another, smaller tunnel, leading away from the bustle and deeper into the mountain. The air was cooler and stiller here, and the voices of the crowd fell back until they were surrounded by silence.

Then, all of a sudden, the tunnel opened up around them again and they were standing in a hall about two hundred metres high. Just before them rose a wall of wrought iron panelled with tinted glass. It stood like the front of a fortress, cutting across the entire width of the hall and guarding whatever lay behind it. The glass wall was illuminated from behind by hundreds of lampstones, making the front of the library appear like a panorama of a subterranean sunset, ablaze with oranges, violets, reds, and yellows, the colours changing in spectral order the higher the beholder raised their eyes. There was a small entrance door at ground level, and behind the colourful glass, stories upon stories of shelves could just be seen.

Annatar looked the wall up and down, and he was aware that Celebrimbor could see that he was genuinely impressed. “A library that provides illumination not only of the mind and the abyss of time, but also of space and matter...” He turned to Celebrimbor. “The play with light, the splitting into spectral colours – this has your signature written all over it.”

“Not mine,” Celebrimbor replied softly. “My father's … and that of my uncle Maedhros. While they were hashing out the finer points of their alliance with the Dwarves, they mentioned a wish to bring the sun under the mountains and the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains must have come up with a way to make the idea reality. Someone else must have brought the technique here, and then the Dwarves of Khazad-Dûm built this.”

“I think there must not be a place in Middle-earth that does not have the fingerprint of your kin on it.”

He had intended for it to be a compliment, albeit one given in a slightly bantering tone, but Celebrimbor smiled sadly.

“Maybe not,” he said. “Then again, the same goes for Morgoth's darkness, and if our works serve to illuminate the darkness that he left behind, then for once the world will be a better place for having the kin of Fëanor walk upon it. Maybe then we will have left a legacy besides a trail of blood and destruction to rival that of Morgoth himself.”

Annatar thought of a conversation they had once had on the balcony of Celebrimbor's workshop at the topmost level of the tower of Ost-in-Edhil. It had been the night when Celebrimbor had first brought up the idea of them visiting Khazad-Dûm together, as they had regarded the three mountain peaks of the Dwarven kingdom rising on the eastern horizon.

He clearly remembered the words that Tyelperinquar had spoken then: “Morgoth raised those mountains aeons ago, but the Dwarves took them for themselves, and today the Fëanorian star is etched into the stone of the Doors of Durin. Whatever those mountains were before, they're ours now.”²

How proud his friend had looked back then, how calm and self-assured! And so it was all the more painful to watch him now, bathed in the splintered light of a thousand coloured lampstones: a quiet, still figure etched out of light as much as shadow, and so full of regret and guilt that was not his to feel and bear.

Annatar suppressed the urge to tell Celebrimbor as much, and instead laid a hand on his shoulder. “We all do what we have to, and in dark times sometimes there are only dark decisions left to us. Besides...” He waited until his friend turned to look at him.

“Not all that was dark remains bitter,

not all that was shattered is lost.

Cold ashes may hide diamond-glitter

and all hardship be yet worth its cost.

From old embers a new fire will be woken

when winter days turn into spring.

And the ones whom the old world left broken

in the new world shall rise and be king.”

Celebrimbor gave him a surprised look. “I have never heard this verse before. What kind of poem is this?”

Annatar frowned. “I thought it was yours – I found it in the annotations of your father's book, but it was written in neither your father's nor your uncle's handwriting.”

“I am quite certain that I have never written a single poem in my life,” Celebrimbor said, and at last, a genuine smile returned to his lips. “Let us go inside, and maybe we can solve this riddle once we find ourselves a place to sit and think.”

*

The library was just as impressive on the inside as it was when seen from the outside. Seven levels rose up under the arched ceiling, each divided into subsections according to the topic and the age of the books it contained. Each level was lit by lampstones of another colour, rising from a deep red to bright oranges to green and blue and finally purple. The seven levels were held up by pillars, which in turn were ensconced by rounded shelves whose upper boards were only accessible via wooden ladders.

Celebrimbor made a sweeping gesture. “The most comprehensive collection of knowledge this side of the Sundering Seas, and the only place with the entire recorded history of Dwarven-kind. Did I promise too much?” he asked with a playful bow in Annatar’s direction.

“What other way to find out than to subject it to a thorough examination?” Annatar said with a smile. “Where shall we start?”

“We can start here and work our way upwards if you want. The vista through the glass wall at the back that looks out over the city is marvellous.”

“That does sound marvellous,” Annatar said, but what was easily as good as the promised view was the warmth and enthusiasm that had returned to Celebrimbor’s voice. “Lead the way, my friend,” he said, and they stepped into the library proper side by side.

On the ground floor there was a wide open space clustered with wooden benches and tables, where scholars and students were sitting and studying or copying old manuscripts by the light of bright reading lamps. Annatar could see other, smaller reading nooks tucked away further from the main passage through the shelves. Fragments of whispered conversations carried over, but they were not loud enough for him to make out the words unless he set his will to it. The central part of the room was open to the top, and a great winding staircase could be seen spiralling upwards to the seventh level. Each level formed a gallery running around the open space and the staircase in the centre.

They had only taken a few steps inside when the old librarian – Baldur, as Annatar recalled his name – spotted them and came over to greet them cordially and shake their hands.

“That you would still find your way here!” he told Celebrimbor. “I thought you and your friends would be off to the mines first thing in the morning and remain there until your departure. Cogs and wheels and pickaxes and mithril!” Baldur snorted. “I won't deny the importance of technology, but I'd argue that our greatest treasure is here where we stow all the knowledge that makes our progress possible in the first place.”

“It truly is impressive,” Annatar told him earnestly. “I have never seen anything quite like it – and I have wandered the world to its farthest corners.”

Baldur smiled with quiet pride. “This library is one of a kind. You will not find anything like it anywhere else in the world, I assure you.”

“Which is why we have come here,” Celebrimbor said. “Nowhere can curiosity and thirst for knowledge be quenched better than here. Obviously, even the Holy Ones can acknowledge this. Would you grant us permission to take a look around?”

“Certainly. Our doors are always open,” Baldur said. He looked both of them up and down. “Are you looking for something particular? The archive system is logical, but can be daunting for outsiders.”

“Nothing in particular,” Celebrimbor replied. “We just want to admire the sheer size of the collection and maybe browse through a few books. As for the archive system, I think I still have most of it remembered. I certainly spent enough time in here trying to get a grip on your language and customs.”

Baldur's smile turned wry. “Quite. If you need anything, do not hesitate to ring one of the bells at the columns.”

*

They wandered the expanse of the library for a while, passing rows and rows of bookshelves as well as delicate mechanical models of hydraulics and clockwork displayed behind glass cases in the engineering section, finely-drawn maps of the Old and the New World in the geography section, and artfully illuminated tomes in the section dedicated to history and printing.

Annatar allowed himself to be guided, simply following in Celebrimbor's footsteps while the logical map of the library slowly took shape in his mind. It was thoroughly and admirably organized and even cross-referenced. When he pulled out a book about smelting techniques, he found a reference to another shelf number and the book title of a geological treatise of minerals and irons, as well as a reference to a book in the historical section dealing with the evolution of mining and metallurgy, all written on the inside of the cover.

The library was not simply a vast collection of the knowledge and culture that the Dwarven people had amassed over the course of several thousands of years – it was also a masterpiece of organization.

They spent some time just wandering the aisles between the shelves, sometimes idling longer in one section, sometimes just brushing past, and Annatar was satisfied to see that the initial stiffness had vanished from Celebrimbor's spine, that his gait had become easier and the line of his shoulders more relaxed. Celebrimbor wasn't made for stillness and brooding, and it was good to see him back to his usual self, always in motion and freely explaining tidbits about this section and that, or relaying an anecdote of his visits to this library when he had been staying here after leaving his father and Nargothrond behind.

Annatar deliberately didn't bring up the poem again, but at last Celebrimbor waved for both of them to sit down in a seating corner directly next to the colourful glass wall. “Let's take a look at that mystery poem of yours,” he said and extended his hand for the books of Curufin, which Annatar had been carrying under one arm.

Annatar opened the small booklet with Curufin's and Maedhros' annotations and drew forth a small scrap of paper from between the back cover and the linen jacket. “It fell out when I was reading it yesterday. I assumed you had written it when you were younger and forgotten it there.” He handed it to Celebrimbor.

His friend took it and read it, but his brow creased into a frown, his chin resting in the palm of his left hand. “No,” he said at last. “Even when I was younger my handwriting was never quite so neat.” He gave it a closer look. “It resembles Uncle Maglor's handwriting, but...”

Annatar leaned forward in his seat. “But?”

“It's not his, and neither are the words,” Celebrimbor said, with an air of finality. “Besides, he never wrote another poem or song, after – ” He interrupted himself. “He didn't write it.”

“And the dedication? For Father?”

Celebrimbor looked down at the poem, his eyes narrowed. “My father was the only one of his brothers to beget a child.”

“I am aware. That is why I believed that you had written it.”

Celebrimbor shook his head. “No, it isn't mine.” He looked closer. “And it doesn't say 'for father'. That tetha is an 'u' not an 'a'. It says 'atyun'.”³

“I assumed it was a slip of the pen made by a child or faded ink.” Annatar shrugged. “What sense would the dual form make here? A child cannot have two fathers.”

Celebrimbor tapped his chin, then turned around the slip of paper, inspecting the backside and the edges, worn smooth and soft with age. “I have a feeling this poem doesn't belong with these books at all,” he said. “A lot of people have held these books in their hands, Elves and Dwarves have helped create them. Who knows who might have written the stanzas?”

Annatar watched his friend. “I could have sworn it was yours. The words might not be your uncle's, but they would not have been out of place coming from your mouth – or hands.”

Celebrimbor dropped his gaze to the two quatrains again, silently mouthing the verse and the rhythm of them.

“Yes, I can see why you would think that,” he said at last, his words slow and deliberate. “It is the poem of a dreamer.”

“It is the poem of a survivor,” Annatar said simply. “Someone who was not content with the lot that fate had dealt him. Someone unwilling to accept defeat, and who instead looks to create something new and good out of the ruins of old, broken things.”

“Did you write it?” Celebrimbor suddenly looked up, an almost amused quirk to his mouth although his eyes remained sombre.

“As much as I appreciate the content of the poem, I have no father – let alone two – whom I could or would dedicate it to,” Annatar replied. “All the labour of my heart and mind is already dedicated to another – ”

He had initially intended to add “cause”, but then he reconsidered and – didn't. Instead he looked straight at Celebrimbor, who held his gaze and – at last – gave a genuine smile.

***

Over the course of the next week, Celebrimbor immersed himself completely in the task of trying to fulfil the role of a teacher for a primordial being who was, according to his own words, billions of years old and had Sung the universe itself into being. He had initially believed that teaching Annatar would be hard, what with the Maia's age and vastly superior understanding of the world (which he himself had helped create) getting in the way of lessons. Truth be told, Celebrimbor had even expected to be faced with a barrage of questions second-guessing everything he said and Annatar offering his own opinions on matters he had just begun to study.

However, Annatar proved to be a surprisingly docile student. He listened, he asked questions, but – quite out of keeping with his usual behaviour in the masters' circle at Ost-in-Edhil – he never challenged Celebrimbor or his teaching. If there was any indication at all that Celebrimbor was not teaching another elf, but instead a highly intelligent (and usually quite disputatious) Maia, it was that Annatar listened intently and with absolute focus to everything he said, but never took down even a single note – and nevertheless managed to lay down the highly complex groundwork for Khuzdul within a mere week.

Following those days, they fell into an easy rhythm: they visited the library quite often, each one roaming their chosen haunt for the day, and in the evenings, they would go over any questions that Annatar might have encountered during his readings.

Celebrimbor particularly enjoyed those quiet evening hours, which they often spent sitting or lounging side by side on the sofas and armchairs in his rooms (after all, as Annatar had pointed out, he had two bookshelves), quietly discussing the finer points of Khuzdul.

Often, Annatar would spend hours perched on a small stool by the fireside – far too close to the flames for comfort for any merely mortal being – and then, with a rustle of fabric and sans prior announcement, he would walk over to where Celebrimbor was sitting and take a seat next to him, proceeding to point out etymological similarities here or phonetic shifts there, and they would stick their heads together in discussion until the small hours of the morning.

On other days, Annatar would simply hand the Khuzdul dictionary to Celebrimbor and then take a seat on the sofa beside him, demanding to be quizzed on vocabulary.

Today, Celebrimbor had taken up one spot at the far end of the sofa while Annatar had decided to occupy the rest of it, stretched out in an unusually obvious display of ease and comfort, with his feet resting near where Celebrimbor was sitting.

Meanwhile, Celebrimbor was leafing through the Khudzul textbook resting on his lap, skimming it in search of suitably difficult vocabulary.

“Have you, by any chance, got the tune to the Laiquendian Sun Dance stuck in your head?” Annatar asked at last, breaking the silence in the room.

Celebrimbor looked up at his friend, surprised. “Yes, how did you know?”

“You have drummed its rhythm line on my shin three times now,” Annatar replied, his mouth quirking up in amusement.

Celebrimbor looked at his right hand, which had – unnoticed by him – indeed been resting across Annatar’s shins. “I didn’t even notice! I was too busy looking for another useful verb I might quiz you on.”

“Not too busy for your hands to seek engagement in their own way while your brain was busy with something else,” Annatar stated. “It seems you’re insufficiently challenged when you’re not doing at least two things at the same time.”

Celebrimbor laughed. “My hands do seem to have a mind of their own at times. For some reason it is easier for me to focus on something when – ah.” He smiled and turned a few pages, scanning the tables of word stems, until he found the word he had been looking for. “‘To focus’?”

“Azûl.”

“Root?”

“Z-L-K.”⁴

“Principal parts?”

“Azûlmi, azulmikhu, êzúlon, zazûlkha, zazûlkhamai, êzulozum, azulmikhai.”⁵

When Celebrimbor didn't immediately answer, Annatar sat up. “What?”

Celebrimbor looked up with a near-apologetic expression. “The aorist tense was off. Azûl is not a strong verb; it demands a regular ending.”

Annatar bristled. “It's not a regular verb.”

“It is.”

“Give me that.” Annatar reached out and took the book from Celebrimbor's hands. He studied the conjugation tables with a frown until he found it, then his gaze snapped back up to Celebrimbor. “It is not a regular verb.”

Celebrimbor laughed quietly when Annatar chucked the book back at him with quite a bit more force than necessary. “Not to worry about your five day streak; I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were talking about.”

“I wouldn't have to worry if you didn't see fit to throw in theatrics like these.” Annatar harrumphed, but leaned back again. “Go on,” he said.

Celebrimbor chuckled and obliged. “I apologize. Would me drumming out your favourite song on your shins make you any happier? If so, you need only say.”

Annatar threw him a look. “Just continue with what you are supposed to be doing, Tyelperinquar, and maybe I'll get as far as being able to strike up a normal conversation in Khuzdul before we return home.”

Celebrimbor's eyes flicked up at his friend. He wondered whether Annatar had been aware of his choice of words or had he simply not been paying attention when he had called Ost-in-Edhil his – their home.

In the end, Celebrimbor decided, it didn't matter. He just smiled quietly to himself, and turned to the next page in the book.

1 Quenya for: “Quid pro quo”/”This for that”. sina = this (nom. sg.); tana = that. Quenya uses the dative case to express the notion of “for” (for me/for you/for this), therefore = tanan (Dat sg.)

2 This refers to a conversation Celebrimbor and Annatar had in Equinox.

3 Atyun is a curious case of linguistic word-play. The word is clearly derived from the Quenyan word atar for father. Annatar rightly assumes that it is a dedication, for which the proper form would be the dative atan (“for father”) or the more affectionate atyan (“for papa”). However, at(y)un forms the actually non-existent dual form of atar, thus atyun is an affectionate, neologistic dual form of dedication to two fathers. Since having two fathers is not biologically possible, we must turn to a possible historical and figurative background for an explanation, which prominently leaves Elrond and Elros as likely authors. The two boys were taken under the wing of Maedhros and Maglor in the wake of the Third Kinslaying, standing in as surrogate fathers for Elrond and Elros. The content of the poem as well as the dedication make it debatable with which intent the verses were written. However, the fact that the author seems to stress the fact that “the ones whom the old world left broken” would rise again, no matter what had happened to them, strongly hints at an autobiographical reference to either Elrond's or Elros' own life. The poem might have been intended to stress that no matter what the Sons of Fëanor have done to either of the brothers, they will overcome it. In this case, the more polemic intent of the poem would point to Elros as a more likely author, since he was the twin that had always a more distant relationship to his surrogate fathers as well as Elven-kind in general, eventually leading to his choice to embrace the fate of Men. In that light, whether or not the affectionate form of the dedication was used ironically or sincerely is up for debate. What is also notable is the similarity between the poem in Celebrimbor’s book and the quatrains associated with Aragorn Elessar II. In the light of the aforementioned clues it stands to reason that this is the original form of the two quatrains, written by Elros and recorded by Maglor during the Union of Maedhros; after that it was likely relayed down the line of Númenorean kings until a slightly changed version finally makes a reappearance in the verses for Aragorn's name.

4 Khuzdul is built around consonantal roots. Most verbs are made up from a first consonantal root, a second consonantal root and a third consonant which is the tense marker for future tenses, present perfect and past perfect tenses.

5 Annatar is listing up the principal parts of a verb that are crucial for knowing how to conjugate it, especially if it changes irregularly. The forms he names are as follows: infinitive (provided by Celebrimbor) — consonantal roots — first person sg. present active — first person sg. future simple active — first person sg. aorist active — first person sg. present perfect active — first person sg.perfect passive — first person sg. aorist passive — first person sg. future passive.

The consonant roots are important to determine the central parts of each word. There is a first consonant and a second consonant, around which the present and aorist tenses are built through vowel alteration. The third consonant is the consonant marker for future tenses, present perfect and past perfect tenses.

Endings:

-mi = first person sg. present active

-mikhu = first person sg. future active (with consonantal root “kha”)

-on = first person sg. aorist active (irreg.)

-kha= first person sg. present perfect (reduplicative perfect (“za-zû”) with distinct consonant root “kha”).

-khamai = first person sg. present perfect passive (with consonantal root “kha”)

-lozum = first person sg. aorist passive

-mikhai = first person sg. future passive (with consonantal root “kha”)

Note on the aorist tense: é-azûlon is an irregular aorist form which contracts to êzulon, because the e-augment (a past tense marker) is a weak vowel. If it is added before a verb that begins with a vowel, the augment is contracted with the vowel to form a long ê (if the initial vowel is e, i or a) or “ô” (if the initial vowel is u or o).

Note on the present perfect tense: the tense is formed a) by distinct present perfect endings b) by a reduplication of the first root consonant that is added as a prefix to the verb stem: z-azûl-kha

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*

By now, three weeks had passed since Celebrimbor and Annatar had arrived under the mountains.

The Dwarven people might be quick to adapt novelties in regards to inventions or industrial progress, but while industry was one thing about a society, its people and its traditions were another. Change under the mountains happened slowly: over decades, centuries, and – like the stone that was their home – some things, like their most sacred rituals and central worldviews, changed only over the course of millennia.

Celebrimbor's misstep against the Dwarven people had not been forgotten, not even after King Durin had openly taken his side in the debate, and whenever there were colloquies, meetings, and festive dinners, some factions of Khazad-Dûm remained notably absent. The more conservative houses especially seemed to have taken it as a personal slight that an Elda should have brought a Maia under the mountain and gotten away with such a thing unscathed.

Nevertheless, after two weeks had come and gone and Floki and his cousins had regularly been seen sitting with Celebrimbor and Annatar, most of the Dwarves eventually lost their initial wariness of the Maia. Soon Annatar was the centre of attention, mainly of younger Dwarves who had worked up the nerve to address him and ask questions about himself. This started out as a tentative trickle, but turned quickly to a veritable torrent of inquiries.

Annatar did not seem to mind. He was cordial and accommodating with his answers, although it did not escape Celebrimbor that despite the Dwarves' curiosity and polite questioning, his friend elegantly avoided speaking of his time among the Lords of the West. Instead he always brought the talk back to Ost-in-Edhil and his time spent among the Gwaith-i-Mírdain. The Dwarves doubtlessly noticed this, but since Annatar remained courteous throughout and provided them with concise, sometimes drily amusing recounts of his time in Ost-in-Edhil (which the Khazad valued over long, elaborate retellings) they forgave him his reticence, and listened instead to the accounts he was willing to give.

One evening two young Northern Dwarves, Sámur and Sviar, who apparently fancied themselves scholars and theologians, even managed to rope Annatar into a discussion about divine interventions and the justice thereof. Despite the groans of a few older guests, who would have preferred a less controversial subject for their dinner conversation, a small crowd had soon gathered around the three debaters, listening and cheering when either Annatar or the two young Dwarves made a good point defending their respective views.

Celebrimbor leaned back on his bench, watching with great amusement as the debate grew more heated – for both Sámur and Sviar made good arguments, despite their youth compared to one of the Ainur, and Annatar naturally rose to the challenge, dismantling and disproving points as fast as his opponents were able to come up with them. He did not show it overtly, but Celebrimbor knew him well enough to see that the Maia was enjoying himself greatly, not least because he could at last put his recently achieved knowledge of Khuzdul to the test.

“But is it not in itself contradictory for gods, who desire for their creations to make their own decisions, to intervene in mortal matters? Did they not hand the obligation to lead our lives to us, as well as the freedom to decide against what they consider good?” Sviar asked, leaning forward over the table, blue eyes bright and fixed on Annatar. “Should they not keep to their shores instead, and leave the incarnate races to their own devices instead of meddling on our hither shores?”

There was an intake of breath around the table at this barely hidden barb. Annatar regarded Sviar for a long while. “Good is a very dangerous word to bring up in any philosophical decision, not least because everyone seems to mean something different by it.” He steepled his fingers. “But I shall try to explain my view, though I will use terms other than 'good' or 'bad' to make my point. A debater will usually judge the goodness of divine intervention, as you call it, based on his own worldview, so first of all, we must establish an objective framework for our thought experiment.

“We can safely say that divine intervention has no place in a world in which the point of life is to be as free as possible – even if this freedom leads to unfocused efforts of lone, disorganized minds, and chaos. For freedom taken to its extreme also means the freedom to commit folly, the freedom to refuse one's fate, and the freedom to deny oneself and the world one's true potential.

“Now if we were to propose a world instead, where it is most desirable for each being to reach its highest potential, limitless freedom is replaced instead by efficiency as what must be considered 'good'. Here, if someone is unable to realize his or her full potential without external guidance, divine intervention presents not only a possibility, but a necessity. In such a world, intervention has become an obligation for all those who claim to care for the fate of the world and likewise have the means to change its course – and, naturally, it would be the obligation of those of lesser wisdom to accept the guidance of those with superior knowledge.”

“These words are all well and good, but beyond your eloquent wording that all sounds to me like you are saying that the lower races are in need of a minder and should just subject themselves to every Power calling himself a teacher who happens to find them. Is that so?” Sámur asked belligerently, crossing his arms and giving Annatar a dark look.

“Of course not,” Annatar replied. “Such a system needs checks and balances. And just like a teacher is obligated to further the knowledge of his students, the student would be required to determine whether the teacher is worthy to learn from.”

“And how would the lesser student do this, if his exalted teacher knows more than the student possibly could — and if the teacher can, by right of greater knowledge, just determine that the student is wrong in seeing the teacher as unworthy?” Sámur asked.

Annatar frowned. “Naturally, this experiment would require a willingness to improve and be improved upon on both sides.”

“Ah, it is the willingness to renounce power, I believe, that you are talking about – power that you have at hand and can, without punishment, exert over someone weaker.” Sámur held Annatar's gaze for a long time. “Now, we would need truly extraordinary teachers for that to work, because I haven't seen or heard of any being who came into power and did not try to use it some way or another. They might even have had the greater good in mind, but in the end it was their will that they imposed on those they ruled, whether their subjects agreed with it or not. Where would we go looking for teachers who are themselves above the lure of power, I wonder?”

Annatar's glance was unyielding. “I can hardly answer that for you, Master Sámur. I would not want to determine what is best for you in your stead.”

“But isn't that just the premise that your proposed framework is resting on?” Sámur said. “You said that the powerful and intelligent should rule and the lesser ones should obey. But how then would we, the lesser ones, choose our teachers properly, if we must always doubt to have chosen wrongly for our limited understanding of the world?”

“You underestimate the power of communication, I believe, and the will to cooperate in order to reach a higher goal,” Annatar said. “It doesn't take a god to know one, and it doesn't take a genius to recognize the worth of a stranger's knowledge. That being said, a model can only ever be an approximation of an infinitely complicated reality, so you will forgive me if I forgo planning out minutiae in favour of proposing a general idea.”

“Of course I will. But that would naturally leave me wondering about the applicability of your model, Aulëndil.” Sámur crossed his arms and smirked.

“No one said that creating an ideal world was easy or even plannable on a single evening over a few rounds of ale,” Annatar retorted. “But if you want a definite statement on my part, I would go so far as to say that in an ideally efficient world, the student would perhaps even have to forgo the questioning of an indisputably wiser teacher. If the teacher sees a truth that the student doesn't, the student would – for the sake of efficiency – have to obey, even if he disagrees.”

“But would that not preclude necessary mistakes on the side of the students?” Sviar threw in, looking up and down the table. “I think I can speak for us all when I say that sometimes the only way for a headstrong young lad to learn the error of his ways is to commit said mistake himself in order to get it through his thick skull that he was wrong.”

This was greeted with a lot of nodding and murmurs of assent, particularly by the masters, while the younger apprentices either shrank in their seats or bristled mutinously.

Annatar frowned. “I would argue that there are no such things as 'necessary mistakes'. In a truly efficient world it would be nonsensical if everyone had to make the same mistakes over and over again. The progress of civilisation itself rests on the premise of trust in the achievements and axioms found by one's predecessors. The crucial point here is not, as a matter of fact, that beings cannot truly learn from mistakes they have not made themselves, but that the student must trust the teacher's judgement enough in order to believe him and internalize extrinsic wisdom into his own thinking –”

To this, Sámur rose with a heated speech in favour of critical thinking and the necessity to challenge even truths that were considered absolute, which Annatar dismantled in turn by restating the proposed wisdom of the 'teacher' in his model and delivering a scathing criticism of contrarianism for the sake of being contrary alone, proposing instead that knowledge was like a building, built from parts brought in by many contributors, and not something to be torn down at every turn.

“ – do you not trust in the foundations others have laid down for you, as well? Or, following your logic, would you dismantle your kingdom to its lowest level as well to investigate whether the first architects of Khazad-Dûm have in fact done all their static calculations correctly?”

“Of course not,” Sámur snorted. “The contrarianism that I am advocating for aims for change from the inside: I was not speaking of rashly changing the foundations of society by tearing down everything that has come before with reckless abandon. On the contrary, I was talking about a change in the minds of people, which will in time transform and strengthen old knowledge and ideas that are worth preserving, while weeding out what is wrong or faulty. This, however, requires critical thinking and the challenging of old ideas, so that a society might independently come to a greater and intrinsic understanding of how to live better. I see this as a change that would – although slower – ultimately be truer and more lasting than one that is imposed by a so-called greater being by force. Unlearning critical thinking, though, seems neither desirable nor efficient to me, no matter the moral framework of my world. Unquestioning obedience and blind trust are the death of progress and, indeed, society itself, for in the end you will be left with an absolute dictator ruling a populace of mindless slaves.”

“Now you are putting words in my mouth, Master Sámur,” Annatar chided. “I wasn't speaking of unquestioning obedience and mindless trust. Indeed, I was speaking of the opposite: of a critical election of people who are fit to lead, and the willingness of others to follow them and their decisions. I speak not of slavery, but a convergence of ambition in the minds of all people. Right now our world is one where individuals and societies are getting tangled up in personal interests and petty squabbles that prevent any meaningful cooperation, which would be necessary to truly change ourselves and this world for the better. In another world, however, in which desire and greed bow to reason and egoism to benevolence, we could, perhaps, in the end have a world in which everyone raises their eyes to look in the same direction to fight and strive for a more beautiful world.” 

Celebrimbor was so taken up with following the discussion that he did not immediately notice the shadow sliding onto the bench next to him.

“Your friend speaks Khuzdul well, I should think,” Durin said.

Celebrimbor did not flinch, although he did not quite manage to hide his surprise at finding the King of Khazad-Dûm seated next to him all of a sudden. He rose to bow, but Durin waved him off.

"Stay seated, Telperinquar, I get to see enough of people's bowed heads every day. They are not all that interesting."

Celebrimbor smiled and merely hinted at a respectful bow from the waist instead. “Good evening, Your Majesty.”

Durin nodded, then his sharp gaze landed on Annatar again, as he argued yet against another of Sviar's claims with the natural eloquence of a born orator, and as if he had done nothing but debate in Khuzdul for the last few decades.

“Did you teach him?” Durin asked without moving his gaze from the Maia.

“Yes,” Celebrimbor said slowly, suddenly and despite his contrary claim to Annatar, unsure whether he had been right in imparting the knowledge of Khuzdul on his friend. “At least in the beginning. He took to the language quickly, as he does to most things.”

“His tongue is as smooth as his manners, in both your language and mine,” Durin said, and it was impossible to tell what he intended by this except for the obvious statement of facts.

Celebrimbor watched him carefully.

“I tell you this as someone who means you well,” Durin said, “though I am sure you are already aware of it: not all houses are elated at seeing a Maia come here and learn of the sights and secrets of Khazad-Dûm. A language is another thing still, and one that might incense so-inclined minds enough that even the fine manners of your friend might not be enough to placate them.”

“I gave it a lot of thought,” Celebrimbor admitted, “though I hoped that learning their language might let him appear more trustworthy and respectful in their eyes.”

“Perhaps it does, perhaps it doesn't. One thing that you learn when you have to lead people is that you can never appease everyone,” Durin said. “I only know that I would advise your friend to keep discussions of religion and gods to private chambers so long as the situation is as tense as it is now.” Durin gave him a serious look from beneath his bushy brows. “I am aware that your friend is not to blame for starting this debate. Still, I am sure Aulëndil is more than able to convey his decision to abstain from further public discussions of such delicate matters without offending anyone, considering the eloquence and politeness that he calls his own.”

“Of course. I will tell him what you said. We do not want to cause you any further inconveniences.”

“Very well.” Durin tore his gaze away from the trio whose attention was too taken up by their discussion to even notice the King of Khazad-Dûm sitting not two metres away from them. “That aside, I wanted to speak to you on another matter.”

Celebrimbor put his fork down and turned a bit further towards Durin. “What would that be, Your Highness?”

“Durin's Day is fast approaching. A week hence, the sun and the moon will both be in the sky and signal the end of autumn.”

Celebrimbor felt a pang in his heart and a painful twinge in his chest. Of course. He remembered now, and he had even marked the day in his calendar with a circle of ink. But being here with Annatar and showing Khazad-Dûm to him – this rush of excitement and new discoveries and of being able to show his dear friend a place that was so close to his heart – had taken up all of his attention, to a degree that he had almost forgotten Durin's Day.

“I thought you would want to attend the Wake,” Durin said, and his expression was softer now, his voice quieter.

“I –” Celebrimbor felt something lodged in his throat, and for a moment he worried he would not be able to finish the sentence. “I would be honoured,” he said at last. “It would mean a great deal to me.”

“I know,” Durin said. “Elda though you may be, you have done much for our people, and you are and have been a good friend to many of us. It would be only just to allow you to attend.”

“Thank you.” Celebrimbor watched his hands, which were resting in his lap cold and strangely nerveless. “Is Fundin going to attend as well?”

“I expect as much,” Durin said, already moving to rise.

“I think he is angry at me,” Celebrimbor said quickly. “I have not truly seen anything of him ever since the welcoming feast. I would not want to give offence – or worse, cause him to stay away from the wake of his brother.”

“Narvi Finlisson was Fundin's brother,” Durin said sternly, “but he was also your friend. I cannot imagine Fundin would forgo paying his respects to his brother just because you will be there as well.”

Celebrimbor nodded, and then a sudden idea came to him. “A question, if you would, Your Highness. Did he tell you the reason why he keeps avoiding me? I am not entirely sure what it is that causes him so much grief that he won't even talk to me. He is a dear friend of mine, and it pains me not to know how I could fix the situation.”

Durin's brows furrowed. “Fundin's grievances are his own matter, and I will not interfere. He did not tell me and even if he did, it would not be my place to tell you. I trust you to settle that matter in your own time, as is to be expected of respectable Dwarves and Eldar.” And with that curt dismissal, Durin stood to his full height and then left the dining hall.

Celebrimbor looked after him, then turned with a heavy heart and softly touched Annatar's shoulder.

Annatar, who had just been coming to the climactic point of an argument that must have taken a while to build up, gave him a disgruntled look. “What is it, Tyelperinquar. Can this wait?”

“As it is, I am afraid it cannot. There is something I must tell you,” Celebrimbor said.

Something in his expression must have given away his sorrowful mood, because Annatar's frown quickly changed from irritation to enquiring concern.

“It seems we must conclude this argument another time,” he told Sviar and Sámur, who nodded agreeably despite how heated the debate had become.

“We've been holding up proper dinner conversation for too long already, it appears,” Sviar said. Floki, who had apparently been staring down his tankard of beer for the last half-hour in a stupor in an attempt to blend out the discussion, raised his head and snorted in heartfelt agreement.

“We will finish the debate another evening,” said Sámur. “See you then, Aulëndil, and may the Maker guide your steps.”

*

“So I will refrain from starting or continuing any theological discussions in the future,” Annatar said. “Is that all, or did I do anything else that was offending someone's delicate temper?”

“No, that would be all,” Celebrimbor said, putting another log in the fire, but judging by his clouded expression, it was far from all. The elf turned around and then sat down heavily in his armchair, a strange, unnatural tension in his shoulders and a shadow on his face that did not belong there.

“Tyelperinquar,” Annatar said, and then again, in his mind, What bothers you, my friend?, but much to his surprise and dismay, the walls around Celebrimbor's mind slammed down, shutting himself in and locking Annatar out. Where before there had been the comfortable, familiar warmth of a friendly mind, there was now only a faceless void, impenetrable and defined solely by the surroundings that framed its absence.

It was not something Celebrimbor had done ever since they had befriended each other.

Annatar's stunned irritation must have been clear on his face, because Celebrimbor gave him an apologetic, entirely dishonest smile. “Forgive me. But it is nothing.”

The lie was obvious, but Annatar took a long look at his friend and then decided to let it go. Even though he had not outright said anything, it was clear that Celebrimbor did not want to talk about it. And however tempting it might have been to know what was going on with his friend, Annatar would not try to pry open the secrets of Celebrimbor's mind, either by force or by subterfuge.

“Fine,” he said, not quite succeeding in keeping the irritation out of his voice, although he was trying. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

***

Celebrimbor did not change his mind that day, or during the days that followed. He was as polite and courteous as ever, but even when he spoke or answered a question, his thoughts seemed to be somewhere else. His mind remained closed to everyone but himself, a dark, impenetrable cloud shielding it from view.

Annatar attempted to reach out to him a few times, but while Celebrimbor did not outright reject him, he did not disclose anything about his thoughts or worries either. He appeared absent during dinner conversations and lessons, and when he replied to questions his answers were only ever as long as necessary so as to appear polite.

Celebrimbor was less present, both in the metaphorical and actual sense of the word. More and more frequently, Annatar found himself spending his hours in the library alone, or knocking at Celebrimbor's door only to find it locked and the room behind it cold and devoid of life.

Annatar, who was not used to being shut out from his friend's mind like that, tried to suppress his own vexation at his friend's behaviour. If there were things Celebrimbor did not want to share with him, that was within his rights – and if he did not want to share the reasons for his suddenly distant behaviour, then that was his choice as well, although it did make for an unusual lack of manners in him.

And yet.

It seemed like an insult, a judgement that Celebrimbor had passed on Annatar without ever giving him the chance to prove himself – that there was something Celebrimbor could not confide in him, that there was something in Celebrimbor's life that Annatar had no right to. (Just as there were things that Annatar had no intention of sharing with Celebrimbor. Yet.) He was not supposed to feel anger at this.

And yet.

His temper wore thin and his patience frayed with every passing day. Initially, Annatar sought out the loneliness and quiet of his own rooms in order to avoid any hurtful words that might have passed between them otherwise, but on the sixth evening after their conversation, his self-imposed resolution to leave Celebrimbor alone burnt up in a flash of temper and impatience after the Noldo had spent an entire afternoon brooding and giving monosyllabic answers to Annatar's questions, asked through increasingly gritted teeth and a clenched jaw.

Annatar crossed his room and threw the door closed behind him without locking it. He marched down the hallway and only slowed when he realized that to any outsider he must look like he was on his way to wrathfully behead someone.

The thought gave him pause.

When he resumed his walk, his steps were slower and more measured, the fire of his temper banked if not entirely quenched. However, his resolution to drag Celebrimbor out of his room and his brooding – by the ear, if he had to – was still very much in place when he raised his hand to knock on his friend's door.

He had half-expected to be met with silence, so he was surprised when Celebrimbor opened the door almost immediately.

A tentative half-smile nearly faded on his friend's features, then fought to remain in place as Celebrimbor looked him up and down. “Oh, it is you.”

Annatar raised an eyebrow. “Yes, it is me. Were you expecting someone else?”

Celebrimbor scratched the back of his head, and shifted his weight from one foot to another. “I – not really,” he said. “I just – do you want to come in?”

“I'd much rather you stopped lying to my face and tell me what the matter is with you,” Annatar said flatly.

Celebrimbor stilled, obviously caught off guard by what had to be the most brusque answer Annatar had ever given him. “I –,” he started, then obviously noticed that whatever he was about to say was about to become another lie and closed his mouth. “Do you want to come in?” he repeated quietly, and this time he was not only looking at Annatar, but seeing him, and maybe it was this or the tone in his voice that soothed Annatar's bristling temper at last.

“Yes,” he said, stepping past his friend and through the door frame.

Celebrimbor's room was in the state of methodical disarray that every place he inhabited for longer than a few days tended to assume. Scrolls, drawings, and books were scattered over the desks and tables, notes in different states of completion accompanied them, and a teacup was standing forgotten on the table next to the sofa, whose entire surface was covered by what appeared to be a scattering of old verses and ancient chants, next to extensive texts of what appeared to be descriptions of rituals whose nature he could not discern at a glance.

Annatar slowly walked over to the armchairs near the now dark and cold fireplace, and picked up a pile of notes, intending to shift it so he could sit down. His eyes fell on what was either a mournful poem or a dirge, with various passages marked, and a few books that bore religious embossings.

Before he could read anything in greater detail, Celebrimbor took the pile of papers out of his hand and deposited it on the bed. “I apologize for the chaos,” he said, “I've had a lot on my mind lately.”

“But nothing worth sharing, I wager?” Annatar asked pointedly.

Celebrimbor froze, and for a few tense moments neither of them spoke.

“Forgive me,” Annatar said at last, and he wished the words would come easier. “That was uncalled for.”

Celebrimbor just watched him for a while, then sat down across from him. For a while he just sat there, leaning slightly forward, his forearms resting on his knees, his eyes fixed on Annatar. He looked worn out and tired, more tired than Annatar had ever seen him. His usually restless hands were still, his lively eyes dull and dark. “Did I do something wrong?” he asked at last.

Annatar shifted slightly. “Shouldn't I be the one to ask that?” he said.

Celebrimbor blinked. “Why?”

“You have not been talking to – anyone, really, for nearly a week. You look like a ghost, and are nearly as untouchable as one. You barely listen to questions and conversations, and you appear to have lost any and all interest in what is going on around you.” He paused, not quite sure whether to say what he wanted to say next, fearing that it might reveal too much of his own thoughts, lead Celebrimbor to conclusions he was not supposed to make –

“You have been keeping me out of your mind,” he said at last, his voice calm and neutral.

“Well, it is my mind,” Celebrimbor said, just as calmly.

Annatar's mouth twitched. “Quite. I was merely wondering whether there was a reason for it.”

Celebrimbor leaned back, and suddenly, all of the tension went out of him as he slumped against the backrest and exhaled with a small “Oh” of realisation.

Annatar sat completely still, wondering what insight Celebrimbor had come to.

“I am sorry,” Celebrimbor said. “That was a horrible thing of me to do. I should have known – after all this time, it was only natural that you would worry about it.” He laughed, quietly and a bit shakily. “No, Annatar, you didn't have anything to do with it, and I apologize for making you worry about it. Everything is all right. Well. Not everything.” He wrung his hands.

“Nothing is wrong,” he amended at last.

“Would it encourage you to share your thoughts with me if I told you that I am not moving from this very spot until you do so?” Annatar asked.

Celebrimbor breathed out through his nose, giving a soft but genuine laugh. “Ah, Annatar, your methods of convincing me are truly something else. You have a way with words like no one else I know, and yet you fall back upon the delicacy of a charging bull whenever you lose your patience.”

“True – and not at all relevant right now,” Annatar said curtly. “So?”

Celebrimbor didn't look at him. He looked at something on the table, then at the fireplace, his strong fingers pressing into the palm of his other hand. “You knew Narvi,” he said at last.

“I did.”

“The message of his death reached me forty-four years ago, and only after he had already been entombed.” Celebrimbor's hands were restless in his lap – wringing, clinging, stretching, flexing, telling the stories his words could not.

“You never said your farewells,” Annatar said, trying to guess where his friend was heading with this conversation.

“No. Of course not. How should I have known when the time had come to say farewell? I knew Narvi was getting old, but he never wrote of illness or his declining health, and when his time had come, our chances to say our goodbyes were gone.” Celebrimbor met his eyes. “But now Durin has invited me to partake in the wake on Durin's Day, when the Khazad honour and remember their dead. I will finally get to see his – tomb… and recite part of the wake for him tomorrow.”

Annatar watched Celebrimbor carefully, waiting for him to continue.

“It is just – Annatar – it has been forty-four years. I have not been to Khazad-Dûm in over two centuries. I was swept up in life, in my projects, in us – in everything we did, and it did not once occur to me to visit his grave.” Celebrimbor buried his face in his hands. “The world moved on and I with it, while Narvi remained behind in his tomb. What kind of friend am I if I forget about my comrades the moment they pass from this world?”

“You were busy,” Annatar said with a frown, surprised that this is what had had Celebrimbor moping around for an entire week. He would have expected something important, something reasonable. “You were needed elsewhere: the living need you. The future world needs you.”

A rotting corpse in a stone tomb doesn't, was what he didn't say.

“That is no reason for why I didn't visit even once,” Celebrimbor said, sounding wretched. “I could have made time. I am not irreplaceable –” Annatar bristled at these words, “ – and no matter what some people try to tell me, Ost-in-Edhil wouldn't crumble just because I left the city to its own devices for a few months. So why didn't I go?”

Because standing in front of a stone likeness of Narvi and talking to it, pretending his dead spirit is listening to your prayers, is an exercise in futility if I have ever seen one, Annatar thought. Aloud he said, “You wouldn't even have known whether you would have been allowed to do so. Knowing Dwarves and their secrecy, it is a sacred rite that you would not even have had the permission to attend.”

“I could have asked.”

“And now you have been invited, and you get to attend a memory service at last,” Annatar countered, his voice taking on an impatient edge. “So what has you worried now? You have not done anyone harm. You have not broken a promise. You have done nothing even remotely reprehensible that I can discern, and yet you act as if you had failed someone's expectations in you.”

“What –”Celebrimbor blinked. “Who gave you the idea that I failed someone's expectations?”

“You mean other than your every single action this past week, and this conversation in particular?” Annatar responded blankly. “You are speaking as if the dead would hold you accountable for your actions, which – even considering the sentimentality of your race – is something so absurd that I wouldn't have thought it could be an issue, even for you.”

“Well, of course the dead won't hold me accountable for what I did or didn't do,” Celebrimbor said evenly.

Annatar breathed in, breathed out, summoning his patience. “Then why are you doing this to yourself?”

“Oh Annatar,” Celebrimbor said, and it was a sound that was filled with sudden realisation and something else Annatar could not put his finger on. It felt like forbearance, like the irritation of a misunderstanding turned to lenience when he at last understood why Annatar was asking all these questions.

Celebrimbor looked at something in the middle distance, a slight crease in his brow, as he continued, almost absently: “Narvi would not talk to me about either age or sickness, claiming that I as an Elda could understand neither. He always said that he never expected me to stand by his grave and weep after he died. He never demanded anything of me, be it in life or in death.” Celebrimbor paused, then looked directly at Annatar. “I have not failed Narvi's expectations of me.” He breathed deeply, as if mastering himself. “In fact, I have done exactly as he expected an Elda to do, and in this I have failed myself.”

“Tyelperinquar –”

“He was my friend,” Celebrimbor said, fixing him with a gaze as dark and unrelenting as the stone at the heart of a mountain. “And I am still his. And as a friend there are duties I have towards him.”

“You should not feel apologetic for living, Tyelperinquar,” Annatar said, his frown deepening and his temper veering dangerously close to annoyance.

“I don't.” Celebrimbor's gaze did not so much as flick away for even the blink of an eye.

“Yes, you do,” Annatar said, then leaned closer, his eyes intent, his voice urgent. “Why are you blaming yourself for your nature?” he asked. “Immortal is what you are, and your life is made for permanence and meaning beyond the lifespan of a mere mortal, just as mine is. Why would you blame yourself for the passing of others who were created lesser than you? Why would you foist their destiny onto your own shoulders, and feel responsibility for not paying them some kind of absurd tribute, long after it has ceased to be of any use to them?”

He reached for Celebrimbor's hand, but his friend pulled away. “Annatar,” Celebrimbor said. His eyes were the colour of slate and when he spoke, he placed each word as deliberately and carefully as a tile in a game of katuranga¹ against a grandmaster. “You do not understand.”

Annatar bristled. “If by 'understand' you mean follow and accept your frankly absurd reasoning and rationalisation of your self-flagellation, then no – no, I do not.”

“Does it really surprise you then that I chose to keep this matter close to my own heart and not share it with you?” Celebrimbor said. His voice was soft and quiet. His words hit with the force of a javelin.

Annatar sat very still.

“This is not about the dead,” Celebrimbor said, and all of a sudden he looked at Annatar with a soft smile that looked like it could shatter at any moment, with the slightest pressure, and any pointed retort the Maia might have made died on his tongue. “This is about the living. These kinds of things – regrets and remembrance, wishes and wakes – they always are.”

He looked down again, and everything about him was still and contemplative and closed, and it made Annatar want to shake the life back into Celebrimbor and pry his mind open, just to be with him again, to understand, and then lecture Celebrimbor on every minute detail of why he was going about this all wrong.

But Annatar was silent. It was not because he was torn between his anger and his desire not to have a fight with Tyelperinquar, but because beyond what Annatar thought and wanted, Tyelperinquar was right.

Annatar didn't understand. And for the first time Annatar could remember, the fitting words that usually sprang so easily to his tongue would not come.

Neither friend knew what to say, and the silence between them was heavy and laden with unspoken words and lack of comprehension.

At last, Annatar shifted in his seat. “So this is it, then? The thing about mortals that even gods cannot truly grasp?” he asked. He was trying to sound neutral, and yet it came out with a tinge of annoyance.

Thankfully, Celebrimbor did not gloat in triumph at Annatar's caustic admission. He looked thoughtful, his fingers tracing his lower lip in contemplation. “I guess,” he said at last. “But then again, how should you? Some things you need to be subjected to in order to truly understand them, and mortality and incarnation are among them. I do not think you could possibly grasp the meaning of mortality, of being an Incarnate fated to die, unless you contrived a way to fashion yourself into a mortal being.”

“Which I do not desire,” Annatar said drily.

Celebrimbor shrugged. “In this case, you cannot possibly understand mortality, just as I cannot possibly understand your nature. It is not so bad not to be able to do something, Annatar,” he added in a softer tone. “Learn to live with it – other beings do it all the time.”

Annatar looked into the blazing fire. “I am not used to being … unable to grasp something,” he admitted, equally quietly. “Even if something is beyond my power, I can usually at least understand it.” His fingers clenched at the armrest of his chair.

“There are some things we cannot do and other things that we cannot even comprehend, and these are facts we cannot change. We can only decide how to go about accepting our limits with grace, make the best of it, and move on.” Celebrimbor leaned back, and they lapsed into silence.

All of a sudden, there seemed to be a divide between them that hadn’t been there before, as the extent of their differences was suddenly laid bare in all its unsettling clarity. Annatar felt like he had never understood Celebrimbor less than he did in this moment: how he acted and lived and thought both like an immortal and a mortal in the most paradoxical ways. How, he wondered absently, could Celebrimbor unite inside himself the greatness of mind that was touching on that of a god, and yet be at once so fettered to mortal limits and fallacies in his being and understanding? How could he exist in this perpetual state of contradiction, and what would it take to free him from it?

Celebrimbor seemed to have misinterpreted his silence, though, because he suddenly said, “Annatar, accepting that you do not understand something doesn't make you deficient.”

Neither of them spoke for a while.

“How I wish,” Annatar said at last, “that I could understand you better.”

“What?”

“I consider you my closest friend, my brother, the one to whom I would go to with the greatest troubles of my heart. I felt like you were more similar to me than the kin I left behind in Aman, and yet – now you make me wonder whether we can understand each other at all.”

“As for that matter, I do think that we have some fundamental differences in our views there,” Celebrimbor said. Annatar noticed movement out of the corner of his eye, and then he felt more than saw Celebrimbor reaching out for him. Annatar raised his gaze to find that his friend had indeed extended his hand to him. “However,” Celebrimbor said, “I do not think there is a gap too vast to bridge – if we only extend understanding to each other for what we don't grasp – and if we put to our work the best of what both of us have to offer.”

A long silence followed in the wake of this statement, but Celebrimbor waited patiently with his hand extended.

“You make it sound so simple,” Annatar said, looking at the offered hand but not taking it. “As if it were truly so easy – to yield and to accept.”

“Would it be so hard for you?” Celebrimbor asked in return.

“I –” Annatar started, but before he could finish this sentence, there was a knock at the door and Celebrimbor leaped to his feet like a coiled spring suddenly released.

“Ah. Is that the one visitor you were actually expecting tonight?” Annatar asked, one eyebrow raised.

“We can continue this later if you want –” Celebrimbor started.

Annatar waved it off. “No, I think I shall take my leave. This evening hasn't yielded the most productive insights in any case.” He rose. “I will see you tomorrow. Good luck with your preparations for the Wake, and good night.”

And without another word he brushed past his friend, and pulled open the door. He looked down at Fundin, who shrank back from him, looking for all the world like he would rather be anywhere else than here, and at the moment, Annatar could empathize – though for different reasons.

He gave the steward a perfunctory nod, then walked down the hallway in the direction of his own rooms, feeling but not quite allowing himself to accept the fact that he was indeed feeling – envy, rejection and not least of all, frustration at having discovered what might just be an unbridgeable distance between Celebrimbor and him.

1 This is likely a reference to the Indian board game chaturanga, which is an early predecessor of chess.

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*

Annatar very much felt like leaving Celebrimbor to his own devices the next day – after all, why should he tag after his friend like a forlorn dog when he clearly wasn't wanted?

He considered going to the library, but the idea appeared stale and unappealing without the Celebrimbor’s brilliant mind leaning against his own. So instead, he wandered the mid-levels of Hadhodrond, allowing his feet to carry him wherever they liked while he brooded on yesterday's argument. As inconsequential as it should have been, it had remained stuck in his head and he kept revisiting the memory time and time again until he had considered it from all possible angles, though it left him in no better mood.

Lost in thought as he had been, it took him quite some time to notice how deserted the usually lively Dwarven city was. All shops and stalls were closed, the usually bustling thoroughfares nearly empty and even the street lights were shining dimmer than usual. Only here and there did he see a finely-dressed dwarf hurrying down the streets, obviously in a haste to get somewhere.

The reason for his hurry soon became apparent when the Great Clock of Hafnur chimed the sixth hour of the evening. All of a sudden, the doors of dwarven dwellings opened, and from every side street and on the walkways above and beyond, the trickle of a few travelling Dwarves soon swelled to a stream that made its way down the main thoroughfare through the Second and Third Hall. The Dwarves wore festive clothes and despite the sheer mass of them, the procession was utterly silent. Not even the usual hushed susurrus of whispered conversation that seemed to pervade a great assembly of people as a given was present. The Dwarves proceeded in silence, and each of them was carrying a candle of purple wax in their hands.

Durin's Day. Of course.

Annatar stepped into a narrow alley between two houses, watching silently as the crowd of Dwarves made its way past him in the direction of where one of the great staircases that connected the various higher and lower levels of Khazad-Dûm was located.

Annatar could see other foreigners watching the procession with great interest while keeping a respectful distance from the procession, knowing better than to disturb the sacred rite.

Then a familiar dark-haired person caught his eye, standing heads and shoulders above the rest of the Dwarven procession.

Annatar carefully made his way along the outer edge of the crowd.

Whenever Annatar had seen the elf sitting among the throng of his friends at breakfast, he had been unable to suppress the same strange stab of resentment that he had felt at Fundin's arrival yesternight. Not even the fact that Celebrimbor apparently neither enjoyed his meal nor partook in the conversation had done anything to soothe it. If Annatar made a distant assessment of the current situation, he was frankly surprised by the ungracious nature of his own thoughts towards Celebrimbor ever since yesterday's argument.

Now, however, Celebrimbor seemed to have lost his group of comrades that had surrounded him for the past few days. He looked pale and didn't seem like he had gotten much in the way of sleep last night. At that, something that had been taut-strung inside Annatar suddenly released its tension and he finally found it in himself to look at his friend in a more benevolent manner.

He caught up with Celebrimbor just when they stepped out of the Second and into the First Hall. Celebrimbor did not even notice him at first, and Annatar leaned over to say, “I hope you have your speech remembered.”

Celebrimbor looked up quickly and seemed thoroughly surprised to see him here. “Annatar! I didn't think you'd be here!” he said, quickly lowering his voice and shooting a furtive glance at Fundin, who had been standing at his side, unnoticed by Annatar until now.

Thankfully, Annatar was prudent enough to bite back the first response that had come to his mind when he noticed Fundin – which would have been as inappropriate as it was undignified. Instead, he gave a curt bow to the dwarf, then turned to face Celebrimbor and shrugged. “To be entirely honest, I did not know I would be here until a few minutes ago myself. But then I saw the procession and I caught sight of you, so here I am.”

Annatar noticed the furtive look his friend threw the dwarf at his side, and the way Celebrimbor apparently reined himself in. He was refraining from saying or doing something else that he otherwise might have done – censoring himself, taking something away from Annatar and himself that they might have shared, were it not for the presence of Fundin, who seemed to have an inexplicable sway over Celebrimbor.

Annatar looked at the dwarf and the dwarf looked back, and for a moment there was enough tension between them that it felt like the air itself might combust spontaneously. After a few moments of staring, the dwarf averted his eyes.

Well, if that is how you want to play this, then be my guest, Annatar thought darkly.

He made a furtive gesture at the dwarves all around them, pointedly ignoring Fundin. “Are you familiar with the meaning of this?” he asked quietly.

Celebrimbor blinked, obviously thrown off his train of thought by the question, but he quickly gathered himself back together. “The – ah. Well, the formal beginning of Durin's Day is when both the sun and the moon are in the sky, which has been predicted by the astronomers to happen at six hours into the evening. This is when the normal activities of daily life are abandoned and all dwarves join together to travel to the necropolis in order to find the tombs of their relatives, where they will honour their dead. The king himself opens the formal beginning of the rituals by unlocking and opening the doors to the necropolis at the seventh hour of the evening.”

“There is an entire city of the dead under this mountain?” Annatar asked.

“There is. They are called the Halls of Waiting, and all Dwarves of Khazad-Dûm find their final resting place there.” Another one of those furtive glances at the dwarf, as if he was a censor, and Celebrimbor had to weigh everything he said twice, unable to speak freely. Annatar felt a dark anger growing inside him.

“I can't tell you any more right now,” Celebrimbor said. “We have to make our way to the necropolis in silence.”

“Ah. Well, lead and I shall follow,” Annatar replied with outward nonchalance.

Celebrimbor briefly looked like he would object – another spike, another stab, and Annatar had to bite down the white-hot wrath that was building up inside him – but then the elf just nodded slightly. “Stay close to me. Do not speak.”

Together, they made their way down to the grand staircase, the greatest and most well-known connection of the numerous levels of Khazad-Dûm. Annatar was aware that both Celebrimbor's presence and his own were drawing many stares, not all of them well-meaning. He ignored them, just as he ignored the dwarf walking at Celebrimbor's left side, who in turn spared him neither glance nor greeting.

The staircase led downwards, turning left at a right angle every fifty steps, so that its descent marked a square spiralling into the depths of the mountains. Annatar watched the subtle changes in the etchings on the walls as well as the surrounding stone as they climbed down the steps. This was the old heart of the mountain, and they were descending directly into it. He knew that the part of the mines that the Dwarves called Deep Paths must be around here, but how deep did they lie? He was not unfamiliar with mines and mountain dwellings, but he did wonder how deep the Khazad of Dwarrowdelf had dug.

It was not long before he could feel the change in the air as well. The entire atmosphere had shifted, and if the procession had not started out silent, Annatar knew the last wisps of conversation would have died by now at the latest. This part of the mountain was old, truly old, even by the oldest reckonings of Middle-earth. This deep, the mountain did not allow for laughter and loud voices. The very stone above their heads seemed to weigh down on them and stifle all desire and ability for talking. The flames of the candles burned lower, almost snuffed out by an invisible presence in the air.

One look at Celebrimbor told Annatar that his friend felt it as well. His face was sombre, but drawn, as if he was labouring under a great weight.

They must have gone a mile under the mountain before the procession finally reached their destination. The stairs ended and the tunnel around them opened up into a great cavern, dimly lit by torches that shone only few and far between. The walls of the cavern were solid, raw rock – untouched by hammers and chisels. The only exception was the gate at the far end of the tunnel: it stood about twenty feet tall and looked as if it had been hewn from one piece and directly from the mountain side. Its stone was smooth, but worn and cracked in places, and chisellings showed a great many Dwarvish runes engraved in the archway, as well as a stylized imagery of sun, moon and stars. The gate was closed.

Annatar looked at Celebrimbor. The elf's eyes were fixed on the door, and Celebrimbor did not blink once in the entire time Annatar watched him. The procession was utterly still and silent. Annatar had never once in his life seen such a great mass of mortal beings standing so still and disciplined without any apparent ordering force from the outside.

Then Durin, King under the Three Mountains, stepped forward. He raised his hands, a candle held aloft in his right hand, and then he started to chant what had to be an old magic invocation. The dialect was so old that Annatar had trouble understanding its meaning, despite his recent Khuzdul lessons. It was a language that the Dwarves of Khazad-Dûm from a thousand years ago must have spoken¹, standing at a crossroads between Valarin and Khuzdul that made it almost impossible to understand from either angle. He caught a few words, though, that seemed to refer to the concept of opening and the lowering of old wards. His assumption was confirmed when the leaves of the great stone doors opened slowly and in complete silence, without so much as a scratch of stone on stone as they were given their first view of what had to be the Dwarven necropolis of Khazad-Dûm.

Durin lowered his arms and then, with his son and his two nephews following behind him, he led the way into the city of the dead.

The procession followed, the Dwarves falling into orderly rows of two guided by no organizing force except their own discipline, and filed under the archway.

Celebrimbor hesitated, so Annatar stopped too. A few Dwarves passed them, some throwing them glowers but most ignoring them utterly.

Celebrimbor exhaled. His breath came in a cloud of white smoke, and the sound was strangely muffled. Then he stepped forward. Annatar followed, and they passed under the gate and into the city of the dead, walking side by side once more.

Annatar had expected some kind of resistance, but he still nearly misplaced his foot when he felt the sheer unexpected strength of the magic of the gate. It felt like walking through thick spiderwebs, and for a moment he wondered whether he would be able to pass – and then he was through, the tearing at his body gone.

Beyond there lay a long hall that led towards another stone gate, with a broad walkway in the middle, filled with light by the candles of the procession. To the left and right, there were niches hewn out of the stone and in those niches stood great stone likenesses of Dwarves in helm and armour, each at least ten feet tall, and all of them resting their hands on the pommels of war-hammers or war-axes.

The old Dwarven Kings, Annatar thought and although he was not usually impressed by such things he felt a quiet reverence as he saw the effigies of the noble Dwarven rulers of old lined up in silent, solemn majesty.

As they slowly walked down the hall, the blind eyes of the stone likenesses of the long-dead Dwarven kings seemed to follow them.

At the end of the hall the procession before them passed beneath the second gate: a stone archway etched with runes and symbols that must have been inscribed thousands of years ago, and yet appeared newly-made in this grey underworld of stone where nothing ever changed. The path behind it took a turn and hid from the view of the beholder that which lay behind.

All of a sudden, Celebrimbor stopped in his tracks.

Though he was nearly on the threshold already, Annatar looked back over his shoulder, then turned around to look at the elf, a wordless inquiry passing between them.

This time, Celebrimbor did not look at Fundin – and yet it could not have been any clearer that anything, everything that would come out of the elf's mouth after this was tainted by the dwarf's presence, his expectations –

“You cannot go any further.”

And yet he had not expected this. Annatar opened his mouth. “I – ” He frowned. “What about you?”

Celebrimbor's expression was pained. Fundin was a dark, stifling presence at the elf's side, waiting and watching.

How had it come to this? Why was it suddenly the dwarf and Celebrimbor standing on one side, and Annatar on the other? How had he been so close to the elf only a week ago, and now someone else had wedged himself between them? Now Annatar was facing down two mortals, whose every movement signalled that he was not welcome, that he was not wanted.

“I have been invited to take part in the Wake,” Celebrimbor spoke suddenly, his face etched with something akin to guilt, and in this moment Annatar despised Fundin for leaving the unpleasant explanation to Tyelperinquar, even though this was a Dwarven custom – one they were supposed to defend themselves, including all the asinine reasonings why a Maia should not cross that threshold.

“It is a sacred rite, and it takes place in the innermost sanctuary of Khazad-Dûm,” Celebrimbor continued. “Outsiders are not allowed in the Halls of Waiting.”

Their argument had drawn attention. A few Dwarves had stopped, and they did not walk on or around them. Instead they were watching, waiting, just like Fundin was.

Suddenly Annatar knew what this was about: it was a public gesture, a demonstration. It was about taking sides. It was about making Celebrimbor choose – and when Celebrimbor met his eyes, Annatar knew that the elf had made his choice.

Annatar looked at the elf, then the dwarf at his side. His gaze was cool and unaffected. They would not see anger or frustration from him. “I understand.”

Celebrimbor paused and then nodded. It was stiff, unhappy, altogether unnatural. “I see. I am … glad you do.”

They looked at each other for a moment, wordless, and although Annatar's eyes were fixed only on Celebrimbor, the Dwarves might as well have stood between them, so intrusive was their presence.

Annatar took a step backwards, then another, and circled back around Celebrimbor and Fundin.

It was easy to head back the way they had come now, as the stream of the procession had thinned out to a trickle of a few stragglers, who were just now passing beneath the stone gate and out of sight.

Following a sudden impulse, Annatar stopped in his tracks. Without knowing what he was hoping to see he looked back, and saw that Celebrimbor had turned around as well. The elf was looking at him, obviously wanting to speak but unsure what to say, even though he had never been lost for words around Annatar before.

Celebrimbor opened his mouth. Tried to say something. And didn't.

“Kurfi,” Fundin said quietly. “We have to go.”

Celebrimbor did not look away immediately. He seemed to plead for something with his gaze alone, but for once, Annatar could not understand him and he did not care to.

And because he did not want to be the one left staring, because he could not bear – out of anger, and out of pride, and nothing else – to watch Celebrimbor turn away from him, Annatar turned his back on them and walked backwards through the hall, past the statues of dead kings, at whose feet someone had placed wreaths of flowers, now withered and dead and nearly mummified by the cool, dry air down here.

The echo of his steps was too loud as it bounced back from the walls, every footfall almost like a drumbeat.

He did not turn around. He did not turn around.

Until he did.

Just in time to see Celebrimbor and Fundin passing underneath the stone archway side by side, and into the darkness beyond where the city of the dead lay hidden.

Briefly a vision flashed before his mind's eye: Celebrimbor, who was kneeling before the stone likeness of his old friend Narvi, whose face was hard and grey like the stone around him, his hands stiff and cold as they were folded in prayer – and then it was Celebrimbor himself who had been cast into a stone likeness, and around his tomb there was a sickly green light that spoke of death and decay, and Annatar knew that beneath that slab of stone at the cold heart of the mountain, lay his brother, his friend –

And then they were gone.

Annatar stood in the middle of the empty hall, alone save for the monuments of the Dwarven kings towering above him. His arms hung stiff at his sides as the cold of the old heart of the mountain bloomed within him, together with an ache he could neither place nor name.

He could have pushed the chill and the numbness away, of course, for his body would only feel what his mind allowed, but.

He didn't.

He did nothing as the cold slowly took hold of him and the numbness crept from his fingers and legs into his chest, curling around the hollow feeling in his heart.

*

He could not have said how much later it was when Durin found him. Some time ago, Annatar had moved from his spot in the middle of the hall and leaned against the wall at the edge of a niche. He had been lost in dark, brooding thoughts concerning tombs and loss and death, and as such, he only noticed the Dwarven king when Durin had approached quite close to him.

“Aulëndil.”

Annatar looked up, then uncrossed his arms and indicated a formal bow. “Your Majesty. You are back early.” He gestured at the still empty hall around them.

“Old age does have its advantages, one way or another,” Durin replied. “The official ceremony of Durin's Day is over, and what follows now is the Wake, which is private and personal for each of us. It lasts three days, and at my age, it becomes more of a pain than a pleasure to conduct the ceremony. My son is now old enough to oversee the Wake and so I am stepping back to make room for him, much as the old have always done so that the young might carry on and one day take our sceptre from us.”

“Three days?” Annatar repeated. “Quite a time to spend this deep under the mountain without food or water,” he added, hoping to distract from his dismayed tone a moment before.

Durin gave him a shrewd look, but did not comment on it.

“You will have your friend back before long,” he said. “Do not begrudge him that he left you here. This is a rite for us mortals. We live, we die, and we say our farewells, which is something very far removed from your own nature,” Durin said. “Let him have this today, and let him have it alone. Come, I will show you something else in the meantime.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Annatar followed and they walked back through the hall and under the gate alongside each other.

“The Wake – an unusually fitting word even in the Elven tongue,” Durin said as they ascended the stairs together. “Watch. Wake. It implies alertness and sleep, and the promise of waking once more.”

“A hopeful belief,” Annatar commented with a look back over his shoulder where the entrance to the sacred necropolis lay.

“True, particularly if you believe in the old myths of Aulë, who put the Dwarves to sleep one time already, and later awoke them in Middle-earth.”

Annatar gave a slight hum, which could mean anything from assent to mere acknowledgement that Durin had spoken. He was in no mood to discuss the Valar and their past achievements – or failures, respectively.

“In any case, it is one of the rare instances where such great meaning is preserved across the divide of different languages,” Durin said. “Speaking of which, I have heard that you have acquired a passable proficiency of Western Khuzdul during your time here?”

“I did,” Annatar replied. “Although as for the passability, I will let Dwarves be the judge of that.”

“Show me, if you would,” Durin said. “It has been a long time since I spoke my own mother-tongue with an outsider who was not your friend Kurfinni².”

Annatar hesitated, which was not something he did very often, before continuing in Khuzdul. “Tyelperinquar is a good teacher. But although he speaks like one of the Khazad himself, I fear I might not quite match him in that regard, though through no fault of his.”

“Rest assured that I understand you quite as well as one of my own brethren, and better than some of my cousins from the Iron Hills,” Durin responded. “That being said, you might be one of the Beautiful Ones, but modesty is a garb that does not suit you, Aulëndil. I am surprised that no one has yet commented on it.”

“Not every people is as direct as the Khazad,” Annatar replied.

“True. We appreciate straightforward speech.” Durin hummed pensively. “And yet. If anything, I counted on Kurfinni to tell you. If anyone would dare to make sure that an Ainu's head is screwed on right, it would be him.”

“He has been nothing but polite to me as well, I fear.”

Durin gave a non-committal grunt. “Well, the years seem to have mellowed him somewhat. I for my part have not forgotten why two furnaces in the Northern Forges are unable to be used to this very day, save as an example to disobedient apprentices.” He started climbing the great stairwell that led back to the higher levels.

“I keep hearing of this story,” Annatar commented, “as well as the insinuations of many others like it. Tyelperinquar seemed to have had quite a reputation in your kingdom, Your Majesty.”

“Let us hope that you don't hear too many others, lest his reputation take a bigger dent than the one he and Floki made into to the floor of our forges,” Durin said. “I was tempted more than once to throw him out on his ear.”

“And yet you didn't.”

Durin threw him a quick glance. “No, I did not,” he said in Sindarin. “He might have been angry and troubled and his temper might have been quick to snap, but no matter his shortcomings, he was also honest and loyal. He worked as hard as any Dwarf during his time in the forges, and in his free time, he was interested in our culture in a way that the Dwarven peoples had not seen since Finrod Felagund himself. In exchange we taught him what he wanted to learn. We gave him a new name, and we gave him a home – for a short while at least.” They reached the landing of the stairs and the hall from where streets led to the city of Khazad-Dûm and the palace.

Durin took another turn and led them down a passage that was so well-hidden behind a slight outcropping of rock that it was almost impossible to find its entrance if one did not already know to look for it there.

“I guess Tyelperinquar has given you a tour of your city already,” Durin said.

“He did. But he did not show me this passage, or mention it,” Annatar replied.

“No, he would not,” Durin said, and although Annatar was tempted to ask why Celebrimbor would not do that, he kept quiet, waiting for the king to elaborate. But Durin did not explain any further, simply waving for Annatar to follow him. “Come. I will take you to a place that you haven't seen yet.”

The path was narrow and winding and only intermittently lit by sputtering torches. It neither looked nor felt as refined as the rest of Khazad-Dûm at this level, and no dwarf passed them by the entire time they were walking down its length. The path seemed to be far older than the elaborate walkways and bridges and highways that spanned the entire city, and it did not seem to have been created by any mortal hand. In a way, it felt like descending the stairs to the City of the Dead – they had crossed an unseen threshold and passed from one discrete space into another.

Annatar sensed the change in the air even before the path ended. The air became cooler and more damp, and the sound of his footfalls suddenly gained an echo that hurried ahead of him and Durin, to be lost and fade in some gigantic hollow space straight ahead.

“Watch your steps,” Durin said. “The path ahead is rough and uneven, and more than one careless fellow has broken a leg down there because he favoured gaping over paying attention to where he was walking.”

Annatar would have been amused at the warning, but then they rounded the last turn and what he saw next – for all that he did not need to breathe any more than he needed food and water to exist – made his breath catch in his throat.

In front of them there opened a wide cavern, so broad and vast that its walls were only visible as smudges in the distance. Usually, such a wide space underground should have been pitch-black, but this one was filled with glowing crystals. There were clusters sprouting like wild bushes on the floor, some of them growing in great columns up to the ceiling a hundred feet above, while veins and bushels of crystals grew from the columns like branches and leaves extending from tree trunks.

The crystals were glowing in every colour of the spectral light, from the colours of sunrise to the deep blues and violets of dusk, intermingling and overlapping, creating soft spheres of light that surrounded the clusters like an otherworldly nimbus. Annatar turned and saw landscapes – hills and forests of crystal, and dark paths strewn only with a few glowing pebbles winding between them. He even saw bridges crossing a softly gurgling subterranean river that was likely a tributary to the Sirannon. It cut through the cavern, dividing the landscapes of hills and caverns, before its looping course was lost between the walls and cliffs rising in the distance. Other flecks of light danced like orange fire-flies in the few spots of dusk between the glowing crystals, and when he looked closer, he could discern torches that had been driven into the stony ground.

“These are not ordinary lampstones,” Annatar said, looking around in wonder.

“No, they are not,” Durin said. “No mundane magic binds light to these stones – in fact, light is not something that was bound to these crystals by force, but something that has always been part of them. They do not deteriorate, either in brightness or colour, and they grow like a tree or a bush would grow: not along saline structures, but branching and thickening and growing from a central node. We have long studied them in the attempt to unravel their mysteries, but it seems that it is not a riddle we can solve—simply because it might not be a riddle at all. It might be a leftover of the divine powers that created this world, a piece of old magic in a land where wizards and spells have long since lost the power they once had.”

Durin led the way down the stone steps and Annatar followed, noting the uneven path underneath that sometimes twisted this way and that, tilting or dropping suddenly without warning. Durin had been right to advise him to be careful: the path was difficult enough to make any mortal stumble in his steps, be it with awe or a treacherous turn ahead. And yet this did nothing to take away from the ethereal beauty of the place. Everything seemed weightless in the sheen of the crystals, entire halls with pillars of diamond-white appearing to be suspended in the soft darkness.

Durin led him to a small clearing in the midst of a meadow of tiny, sparkling green crystals and turned around, gesturing at the cavern around them. “What you see here is one of the greatest and yet most unknown treasures of Khazad-Dûm,” he said. “These are the Shimmering Caverns, the Light under the Mountain. They have no equal in this world anymore ever since the crystal caves of Nargothrond and Menegroth were drowned under the seas when the Old World ended.” Durin bowed his head, as if weighed down with grief by the memory of the lost beauty of a bygone age. “Khazad-Dûm and Aglarond alone remain to give us a glimpse of the wonders that must have been ever-present in the olden days, now lost, never to be recovered. Ah!”

Annatar turned on the spot, tilting his head back, his eyes following the intricate patterns the crystals drew on the ceiling, rendering it a canopy of light and colour, as beautiful as evening and morning themselves.

“This is a marvel, your Highness,” he said, still unable to tear his gaze away. “Of all of Khazad-Dûm's countless treasures, this must be among the greatest and most beautiful.”

“It is,” Durin agreed. “And yet it is unknown to many, for the path is not found unless you know how to look for it, and we do not normally bring outsiders here.”

That made Annatar turn and face Durin. “You do not? Then why would you bring me?”

Again, instead of giving him an answer, Durin walked on and waved for Annatar to follow. “Come, and I will show you.”

They walked further down the path, down a hill and into a gentle dale where flowers of crystal bloomed from the ground in bright colours. One would almost expect them to nod and sway in a soft breeze, but in this at least they were different from real flowers: they were cold and hard, forever frozen in shape and time.

They also passed one of the numerous torches that illuminated the darker patches of the cavern, and Annatar spotted a team of four Dwarves a ways off the path, apparently taking probes and examining the crystalline growths. They were so lost in their work that they did not even look up when Annatar and their king passed them by. This had to be one of the groups of scientists who still tried to unravel the mystery of the crystals, undeterred by the superstitious assumption that there was no underlying explanation except magic.

The cavern grew brighter the further they progressed. They followed the path to one end of the hall where it rounded a rock formation that only revealed the crystal structure within when one was almost about to run into it.

Annatar stopped.

“This is – ” He interrupted himself, then turned around and looked out over the vast expanse of the cave, only to find his idea confirmed. He turned back and looked at the tower that rose before him: it was entwined by vines of glowing golden stones that climbed to the top of it, whereupon sat a crystal that dwarfed all others in the cavern in size and outshone their light. It was a crystal the size of a dragon's egg, and it shone with the golden light of the sun itself. And suddenly it occurred to Annatar that it would not be as bright in the hall only with the hazy glimmer of the other, smaller crystals, and that the notion of increasing brightness came from the fact that he had, quite literally, walked from evening into bright day.

He turned and looked out over the cavern once more. Far off, at the other end of the hall, the glimmer of light was less bright. More patches of dusky rose-and-violet darkness lay there, and there rose a second tower, and resting upon it was a second great diamond, and its light was gentle silver.

“Two lamps,” he said, and his voice was barely above a whisper.

“Yes,” Durin said. “I know that you do not look kindly upon rites and beliefs, and you seem awfully fond of scientific explanations for a being of magic and spirit—but perhaps you need to see that there is still magic left in this world that is not diminished. I brought you here because we are both children of Aulë the Maker, and it was he who wrought the towers of the Two Lamps, back when the world was still whole. I would not be so foolish as to believe that these lamps are in any way equal in splendour to the original ones, but I do think that there is a reason why they are here, and meaning to their existence. They certainly mean a great deal to us Khazad. They are a mirror image of a great work of our Maker, and they have been placed here by someone, so perhaps it is a sign of goodwill, a sign that we are not so abandoned after all. You are a child of Aulë just as we are, and perhaps you may find meaning or even solace in their presence as well.”

Annatar did not answer immediately. He stood still, trying to sort through the torrent of conflicting thoughts and emotions that tore through him. He slowly reached out and touched the pillar of the lamp. Immediately he felt the surge of ancient magic rush through him, hot and bright enough to make him pull his fingers away instantly. A dull pain settled in his chest in the aftermath, though why, he could not say.

“It is truly of him,” he said quietly, his voice barely more of a whisper. He did not name his old master – but then, perhaps he did not have to.

Annatar looked at King Durin who was staring out over the landscape of light and diamonds, his back to Annatar and his gaze lifted to the lamp of moonlight. He couldn't tell whether the king had heard him or not. He intended to ask, but then something else occurred to him.

“Why did you say that Tyelperinquar would not bring me here? Does he not know of this path?”

“He knows of it,” Durin replied. “But I never showed him this place.”

“Tyelperinquar would want to see this,” Annatar said, touching his hand to the lamp-tree once more.

“No, he would not,” Durin said simply without turning around.

Annatar frowned, suppressing the spike of anger that had flared up at this statement. Who was the dwarf that he believed he knew Celebrimbor better than he, Annatar, did? Then again, maybe Durin did know the elf better. The thought gave him pause.

There was so much that Annatar did not know, so many layers to his Elven friend that he had only ever gotten a brief glimpse of. Celebrimbor appeared so content and at ease with himself and his place in the world most of the time that it was easy to forget that there had been a time when he had been fighting in the great wars of the world – and after that, a time when Celebrimbor had had no place to call home and no kin to call family. Celebrimbor did not speak much of those times, but Annatar had gathered enough from the rare, odd conversation to gain an idea of the years his friend had spent drifting between places, torn in heart and soul.

Celebrimbor seemed to wear his heart and feelings on the sleeve, and yet his openness for the problems of others only served to hide his own emotions and issues all the deeper, concealed behind his easygoing smile and even temper.

Who was Celebrimbor, this friend whom Annatar had thought he knew so well?

The patient teacher, or the hot-headed young smith who had almost come to blows with a Dwarven colleague over a minor issue? The son of a doomed dynasty, or the creator of a new world? A maker, a breaker, a seeker, or one who had found everything he needed in his life? Was Celebrimbor all of these things, or was he none of them?

In the end, Annatar did not know. So many things that he had been sure of until just recently had been turned on their heads—Celebrimbor turning his back on him to favour his petty Dwarven friend, Celebrimbor who had never before walked away from him, who had shared his mind and his ideas indiscriminately, Celebrimbor who was immortal like him and yet almost desperately seeking the vicinity of Death—

Annatar's voice was quiet when he asked, “Why? Why doesn't he come here?” The question was small in the greatness of the cavern, and he almost thought Durin had not heard him, when the Dwarf shifted his weight and answered.

“The Light under the Mountain is a distant echo of the Old World, and a reflection of its splendour before it was broken,” Durin said. “Do you think that it would bring any comfort to someone whose memories of that world are an open wound upon his heart?”

Annatar opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.

“You know a lot about Tyelperinquar,” he said at last. He tried to keep his voice neutral, merely observant, but it came out flat and toneless, like the dull pain that he had felt inside his chest ever since he had touched the likeness of the crystal tree.

Durin looked at him, one eyebrow raised, his sharp eyes searching Annatar’s face, but didn’t say anything in response to this.

The next question was harder to ask – and perhaps that was because he at once craved the answer, while at the same time shying away from it. “What happened to him?” Annatar asked.

Durin looked at him and his eyes were deep and bottomless, betraying nothing of what was going on inside his mind. “There is much that you do not know about your friend,” the king said. “But it is not my place to speak of it. Kurfinni's past is his to share.”

And after that, they spoke no more of Celebrimbor. They lingered for a while, watching the light of the golden tree wane, while the glow of the silver tree was slowly waxing, dousing the hall into a soft dusk of pinks and lilacs. As dusk gathered in the great cavern, the strange ache in Annatar’s chest became sharper and stronger, and although he had full control over every molecule in his body – try as he might, he could not will the ache away.

In the end, he was glad when they left.

1 This is an actual and intentional deviation from canon. Tolkien notes that Khuzdul is a conservative language that has been passed down unchanged for generations in 12,000 years of its existence. In this universe, though, Khuzdul is the language that is most closely related to Valarin in mortal Arda. Unlike any other language, it stems directly from the language of the Powers and has been influenced very strongly by it. (Which is, incidentally, the reason why it also sounds so unpleasant to most mortal ears.) Despite the fact that it is a constructed language spoken by a notoriously unchanging people, it appeared way more appealing and logical to me to think that Khuzdul should also be subjected to the usual shifts and changes of a spoken, living language that changes and evolves over time (if slower than other languages). So while it was initially almost identical to Valarin from a grammatical and lexical standpoint, it slowly evolved away from its predecessor. So while the most fundamental linguistic principles (agglutination, sounds in the language) mostly stayed the same, the vocabulary and grammar have changed enough to render Khudzul a separate, distinct language by now, which also calls a great variety of dialects its own. As of today, speakers of Valarin would not understand Khuzdul and vice versa, though speakers of either language might still grasp the most rudimentary concept of a sentence that is being said in the other.

The Khuzdul that Durin is utilizing in this scene would be a very ancient version of High Khuzdul that is still a lot closer to Valarin, and at the time this story takes place it would be used exclusively in old, mostly ritualistic contexts.

2 This is the full name of the epessë “Kurfi” for use in formal contexts.

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III.

Time passed slowly in the wake of Durin's Day. Hadhodrond was left almost completely empty and dark, with almost every single Dwarf gone to keep their vigil in the Halls of Waiting. All shops were closed, the doors of taverns and community halls were barred, and the windows of most houses were dark. No laughter or clamour was in the air, and when Annatar walked through the abandoned city, the only sound he heard on the wide, empty thoroughfares was the eerie sound of his footsteps echoing back from naked walls and out of dark alleys.

Ironic, he thought, how the Dwarves had gone to remember their dead, and left the city of the living a ghost town.

The few of Celebrimbor's non-Dwarven friends who currently resided here in Khazad-Dûm had stayed behind as well, but without Celebrimbor at his side Annatar felt neither familiar nor welcome enough among them to venture into their groups. Besides – in the end, it was not their company he truly desired.

Annatar ended up haunting the library quite often over the following days. Initially he had been pleasantly surprised to find that Baldur had stayed behind, being too old and frail to subject himself to the strain of the Wake. Being able to at least visit the library seemed like a nice prospect at first, but Annatar quickly discovered that half the appeal of roaming the different levels and locating books like treasures was talking to Celebrimbor about them. In the end, after leafing through books for hours on end without seeing the writing on the pages, he left the library more discontent and angrier than he had gone there.

By the end of the third day after Celebrimbor had left, Annatar felt truly bereft of his friend. Angry as he might be at the elf, he still missed the bright presence of the Noldo's mind against his own, their thoughts and ideas blazing like comets through each other's heads, intermingling and glittering like stardust. Thrown back onto himself and his own ideas alone, Annatar felt bored and restless. The beauty of Dwarrowdelf and its many wonders was dulled by Celebrimbor's absence and no longer held any fascination for him.

He had not seen or met with Durin again after their visit to the crystal caves, but at the king's behest he had refrained from descending the grand staircase to the level of the necropolis. Durin had never wavered in his polite tone towards him, but the unspoken message that he was not welcome in the City of the Dead was clear nonetheless. It rankled Annatar, but he had accepted the order with outwardly grace and had not acted against it.

Besides, for all that he was awaiting his friend's return, he did not want to give anyone (not Celebrimbor and especially not that dwarf Fundin) the impression that he had been waiting for Celebrimbor at the gates of the necropolis, like a dog sitting on his master's porch, waiting to be let it in.

Still, when the Wake drew to a close and at last the procession returned from its seclusion in the Halls of Waiting, Annatar watched the return of the tens of thousands of dwarves from the highest of the Dwarven city’s numerous clocktowers. The procession trickled back into the dark city and into empty houses like blood flowing back through veins, and soon the city was pulsating with life, light, and clamour once more. Torch-bearers entered houses and manses, and window after window lit up as shops reopened and doors were thrown open, filling Hadhodrond with light and life. Now that the time of remembrance was done, the time had come for feasts and revels, for celebrating life and the harvests of earth and stone.

Annatar watched the lights, the music, and the movement, listening to the clangor of joy and life that drifted up to his vantage point – the sounds and images softened by his position far away. Save for the bells tolling at his back, as it were, calling out to the other towers all over the city and joining their song to those of their sisters.

In the end, he pushed himself off the railing that ran around the platform of the clocktower and descended the steps. He ambled down the main thoroughfares for some time, listening to conversations and songs, and taking in the din of living beings and smells of feasts that were being prepared. He thought to bide his time for a while longer at least, but quicker than he had thought, he found that he had traversed the city and the palace, and he was now standing before a familiar door.

For the last few days, the room behind it had been empty and cold, but now Annatar sensed the presence of someone there even before he lifted his hand to knock. He did not have to wait for long until the door swung open and Celebrimbor greeted him with a wide smile.

“Annatar!” he exclaimed. “It is good to see you!”

“You as well,” he replied, but trailed off, his eyes wandering from Celebrimbor's face down his shoulders and arms. He was – not exactly thinner than Annatar remembered – but he appeared to be less than he had been before: emaciated, drained in a way that could not only be ascribed to deprivation of food and sleep. It was an effect that was mental rather than physical: for all his smiles, Celebrimbor was wounded, diminished in a way that he had not been before, and the stink of incense and cold stone and death was all about him.

Annatar only barely suppressed a flinch and he had already opened his mouth to ask how and when and why? – then he spotted the dwarf Fundin sitting in the armchair that Annatar customarily occupied whenever he stayed with Celebrimbor. This at least gave him a good excuse when Celebrimbor threw him a puzzled glance at his sudden stop.

Meanwhile, the dwarf caught his glance and rose, giving a curt bow from the waist as he said, “At your service, Aulëndil.”

“At yours,” Annatar replied curtly.

Fundin nodded again, then gathered his belongings, which had been lying on the table in front of them: a waistcoat, a small notebook, and a mechanical pencil that allowed him to write and sketch without having to carry around an inkpot. Annatar vividly recalled Celebrimbor's own collection of these pencils, and most of all their astounding tendency to get lost in the organized chaos of his workroom.

“I think I will be taking my leave now,” the dwarf said.

“There is no need,” Celebrimbor offered. “You are welcome to stay, and we could plan the excursion to the Deep Paths, if you want – ”

Fundin did not even stop gathering his things. “Thank you for your offer, but I find that the Wake has exhausted me.” He pocketed his notebook and pencil and put on his waistcoat. “I would like to go home and rest, which would no doubt do you some good as well, and we can speak of all else later.”

“If you want to rest, certainly,” Celebrimbor said and held the door open for Fundin, appearing a bit confounded at the dwarf's sudden haste to depart.

“I do, and I advise you to do the same,” Fundin said. “Fare well until then, my friend.”

“Good evening,” Celebrimbor said. “I will come to you tomorrow, if you wish.”

“As you like.” And with that, the dwarf was gone.

When the door had shut behind him, Annatar turned to Celebrimbor. “Well, you two seem to have sorted out your differences admirably fast.”

Celebrimbor frowned, and his easy smile faded a bit. “Yes, we have. Is it of any issue to you?”

“No,” Annatar said with a shrug. He strode over to a bookshelf, took a book, and placed it back without having so much as looked at it. “So, how was your sojourn into the underworld?” he asked, his tone deliberately nonchalant as he sat down in his accustomed chair.

The smile returned to Celebrimbor's face, but it didn't come as easily as usual, and there was a visceral pain hiding behind it. He took a seat in the armchair across from Annatar. “It was … interesting. Exhausting, but first and foremost, impressive and interesting. You must know I cannot tell you the most of it, as I was sworn to silence regarding the sacred rites. But Annatar – I found healing down there.”

Annatar watched him through narrowed eyes. “You don't look healed.” The vision of Celebrimbor that he had had in front of the necropolis, dead and entombed, tried to creep back into his mind, but Annatar locked it away with a violence of spirit that left his head aching on a level beyond even his control.

“The healing that death gives is hardly soft and comforting. But there is comfort in closure, and deliverance in confrontation – in a way.” Celebrimbor watched his own hands, as if some hidden truth was inscribed upon them, slowly opening and closing his fingers, while his muscles and sinews moved under his skin. “What surprised me is how … how beautiful it all was. I cannot tell you too much, Annatar, but it was different than anything I had imagined. Not mournful like a wake of the Eldar would have been, where we would have only wept for our loss. This wake – there was hope in it, and less finality than I would have expected – and yet even that finality was comforting rather than saddening.

“It is nice to think that when you grow weary of this world there might be a door open to you that you can walk through,” he continued quietly. “That beyond, there is a homely place waiting for you with a fire in the hearth, and all the pain, all the losses and the wounds you carry – you leave them behind as you step over the threshold. And it is not like the halls of Mandos, an in-between, where you just wait until you are released back into the old world once more – it is a different, more final leave-taking. You go on and into another world from whence there is no returning, but that need not be a bad thing. To know that there is an exit, should you wish for one –” He looked up all of a sudden, a slight, sad smile upon his face. “I am sorry, I am rambling. I'm not sure I am making sense.”

Annatar was staring at him, and he did not take care to hide the look of open revulsion upon his face. “I am quite certain you are not.”

At those words a transformation seemed to take place with Celebrimbor. His exhaustion vanished, and there was suddenly tension in the lines of his body where there had been none before. “Why are you always so scathing when it comes to the matters of mortality and death?” Celebrimbor demanded. “Are you so unable to respect something that your nature does not allow you to understand?”

“What is there to respect?” Annatar spat. “The mourning? Rotting corpses in tombs, crying widows and children? The loss of lives? Forgive me, I'm not romantic enough to find the higher meaning in that.”

“What there is to respect, Annatar, is the inevitable fate of all mortals. Of me.”

Annatar looked at him – Celebrimbor's unusually pale face, his drawn expression, and beyond that, the quenched fire of his very being – and for a moment, that vision rose unbidden in his mind once more: the lifeless form of Celebrimbor being entombed under marble and stone, like the Dwarven friend Celebrimbor was grieving for. Hands that had never been meant to stop moving folded over a chest in absolute stillness, and in that chest a silent heart that had never been supposed to stop beating – a life extinguished and its mortal remains forever entrapped under miles of stone, alone in a cold crypt until the mountains themselves were eroded away by the black winds at the end of time itself.

For a moment Annatar was overwhelmed by this vision of stillness and death, and he felt his entire being revolt with repulsion and unwill. His hands twitched involuntarily, a helpless, aimless expression of wanting to move, to act, in order to do something about this future that he would not allow to come to pass.

“Annatar?” Celebrimbor asked, leaning forward with a frown on his brow.

Annatar's gaze snapped up, distraught. Even seeing his friend alive and well did not suffice to chase the terrifying image from his mind, and it took him a few moments to remember their conversation and where they had left off. Impulsively, he leaned forward and took Celebrimbor's warm, strong hand in his own.

Annatar traced his thumb over the elf's knuckles, then fastened his grip around his fingers, feeling the microscopic shocks of electricity hurrying along his nerves, the rush of blood through his veins, carrying the echo of his strong, slow heartbeat. Alive.

“Annatar, is everything all right?” Celebrimbor repeated.

Celebrimbor looked down at where Annatar still held his left hand in his own, and slowly put his right on top of them both.

“I used to think we were so similar,” Annatar said quietly. “The dreams we had, the visions we shared – there seemed to be no difference between you and me. When we looked at the world, we seemed to see the same: what it was, and what we wanted it to be. And yet these past days have made me wonder whether we do not live in two entirely different worlds, describing our cosmoses in languages that are foreign to each other and ascribing different meanings to the same things.”

“Like what? The meaning of life? The meaning of death?” Celebrimbor offered, a wan half-smile playing around his lips.

Annatar gave him a hard glance and pulled his hands away. “There is no meaning to death,” he all but spat. “Death is the end of variation and development. Death is a standstill and the sum of lost opportunities. Death is nothing but a waste.”

Celebrimbor's smile faltered. “Death is a natural part of life, and I don't see how it would do either of us any good to deny that.”

“You make it sound so simple,” Annatar snapped. “Desirable, even, to take the world as it is, to put your hands in your lap and just accept whatever future has been laid out for you, advertising utmost annihilation itself as a natural part of life.”

“Annatar – I am mortal. However far removed from the Edain our kin might be, we still have this in common. Our souls might not leave the circles of this world, but we are bound to our bodies and they die just the same.”

Annatar threw him an angry glare. Disappointment was welling up within him like a poisoned fountain, and it was hard not to let his temper take over and spit venom. “Why the reverence of Death as something natural, something holy? Either life is natural or death is, but not both at once. Why do you shy away from naming death as the unnatural thing it is? Why are you so reluctant to fight it? You had no such reservations about seeking cures for other ailments, and if Death is anything at all beyond a perversion of life, it is just another illness to be cured.”

Celebrimbor threw him a disbelieving look, like he had been asked to explain number tables to a master of mathematics. “Death is not something to be fought, Annatar. Even we Eldar have learned not to delude ourselves in that respect.”

Annatar leapt to his feet, unable to contain his agitation. “You have in your mind this conjured image that death is natural and that it is just – like a slave who has been whipped by his capricious master so often that the slave himself believes this must be the natural order of things, which you are so fond of quoting. For why else would he be beaten if not for that reason? It is not something he can change, it is something out of his control. Thus, so as not to despair, he invents reasons for why the world is as it is, and tells himself that his torment has meaning.”

He paced up and down, gesturing wildly, and the words – the poison that he had kept bottled up inside him ever since he first learned of the Wake – now finally poured forth.

“And just like that, because you do not have the means to overcome death yet, you seek to apply meaning to something that is ultimately meaningless, just as farmers say that a bad harvest is a divine punishment.” He stopped and looked at Celebrimbor. “But this is nonsense. Nature and life are simply as capricious as that – they do not reward you or punish you and nothing that happens because of nature has meaning. But you ascribe and interpret and reason and conjecture, just so you do not have to face the fact that the world cares as little for fairness as it does for all other things. Let me tell you this, Tyelperinquar: if you want meaning, the only way to create it is by shaping it yourself, and in order to do that you would have to acknowledge your delusion first. – But alas, you subject yourself to powers without goodwill or reason, and you tell yourself that you are better off for it. You tell yourself that it is meant to be this way, that there is something inherently noble in accepting death, and that in believing otherwise you would be trespassing upon grounds you are not allowed to tread!”

Celebrimbor had watched his outburst from where he sat in his armchair, fingers interlaced and watching Annatar calmly. He did not appear to be too impressed. “Are you done?” Celebrimbor asked. “Because in this case, I would like to get a word in on behalf of the affected party, before you continue to disparage the way we mortals have arranged ourselves with our fate – a fate that, I might add, has nothing unnatural about it, no matter how much you might argue against it.”

Annatar narrowed his eyes, then sat down across from him once more. “Fine. Say your piece.”

Celebrimbor leaned back. He closed his eyes for a moment, as he usually did when building up an argument in his head, then opened them again. “How do I begin? Well, you talked about meaning a lot, so perhaps we should begin with broad strokes, and start with the metaphysical and philosophical angle. I, for one, have a hard time believing that the three Fëanturi¹ would even exist if Death had not been foreseen in this universe. It stands to reason that the existence of primordial forces tied to Fate is a fairly strong philosophical indication that death as a facet of Fate has a deeper meaning. Those metaphysical implications aside, the existence of Death is a fact and we have to accept this reality, whether or not we decide to like it, which brings us straight to the reality of the world as it is: death has been in this world from the very beginning and likely always will be as long as there is life.”

Annatar scoffed at this, but Celebrimbor continued, unperturbed.

“Secondly, death brings about not only loss, but above all change, which is the very engine of development. Sometimes you have to let a beloved idea die in order to implement another, better one – as you well know from our works. Sometimes the one who has to die is an old master, so that a new master might replace him. When I speak of this like that, I should add that I speak not as an individual. As an individual, I very much possess the desire to live and retain my place in this world. But when I look at the broader picture – thinking in terms not of decades, but centuries and millennia and of peoples rather than individuals, the conclusion I come to is this: change is what allows us to evolve, and what allows us to better ourselves as a species to an extent a single being could not. And death is the ultimate, most undeniable catalyst for change. Look at the Atani, Annatar – their lives are brief and rushed, and yet they are already overtaking the Eldar in every respect that counts. The fact that they live and die so quickly means that their lives are all the more busy, and that they adapt to change quicker and better than we do. Knowing that their time in this world is limited gives them an urgency and motivation to invent and create that an Elda, who has all ages of the world to begin his work, can never understand. Death and change and progress are inevitably intertwined – and one day, the Eldar might be lost due to this, because we cannot keep up.”

Annatar snorted. “Ridiculous. The Atani are inferior to the Eldar in any way that is meaningful, and using them as an argument for change frankly defeats the purpose.” His fingers dug into the upholstery of the armchair, and he knew that he had to be careful not to tear the fabric.

Celebrimbor watched him, his eyes dark, his expression unreadable. “I think it illustrates the purpose very well. The Atani thrive, whereas the Eldar are already in decline, our long lives and accumulated wisdom notwithstanding. What does this tell us if not that long lives are no longer the key to happiness?” He sighed. “In Aman we might have been able to live forever without loss or pain, but this world is not kind to those who dwell too long in it. At some point you stop living and you only survive, clinging to life – for another day, another year, another century. What good does it do if we can endure for all eternity, but are forever unable to heal? What good does sunshine do when it only burns our eyes in the end, and any taste of joy and happiness turns to ashes in your mouth?”

Annatar looked at Celebrimbor, appalled. “Is that how you think of your life? To hear you speak, you must indeed have little to live for in this world!”

“That is not true, Annatar,” Celebrimbor said wearily. “It is just –”

“It is not? Why, it doesn't sound that way!” Annatar snorted disdainfully. “To hear these words from your mouth – listening to you, one would think that you have been cursed! The mere thought! You were given an opportunity: you can live long enough to see the change that you desire to bring about in this world! What other mortal race can say the same? You should count yourself lucky – ”

“I should count myself lucky?” Celebrimbor interrupted harshly. “Do you honestly believe for a moment that being immortals in a world filled with death means that we are the lucky ones?”

Celebrimbor stood suddenly. His eyes had gone hard and dark when he looked down at Annatar. “What is lucky about outliving everyone you ever knew and loved, and know that you are forever destined to remain behind, tending to the growing number of memories and graves that your friends leave behind? What is lucky about being so strong that you know exactly how much pain and torment must be inflicted on you before your body can finally release its hold on your soul? What is lucky about having to carry the weight of your sins forever, with no chance of returning to innocence?”

Celebrimbor stood there for a moment, unmoving and just staring down at Annatar, before he slowly let out his breath and sat down again. He brushed his hands over his brow and when he spoke next, his voice was calm and quiet once more. “No, Annatar, there is nothing lucky about this. We Eldar were not made for eternity, and even we can't endure here forever. I have seen too many of us wounded and tired, until the weight of centuries became too much to bear. I fear this is the inevitable fate of our kind on these shores – we do not die, but we keep accumulating losses and wounds until we are too tired and broken to continue on. This world does not reward those who overstay their welcome.”

“Then it is the world we must change in order to conserve your life, simple as that,” Annatar said matter-of-factly. “Your answer in the face of difficulty cannot be to simply not try in the first place.”

Celebrimbor threw his head back and laughed. It was a raw, wounded sound, painful and utterly humourless. “Do you think we didn't try? You don't know us very well then, my friend! Oh Annatar, you should have been with us when we first came to these shores – how we clung to life, how we fought and bled and endured just to see another day in our futile hunt for our pledged cause! You should have seen what it did to us! Do you think my grandfather would have chosen to leave the world as he did? In the end, smitten by three Balrogs of Morgoth, he still wasn't ready to die, but even his will was not enough to keep his soul chained to his body. It tore him apart at his very core and I am afraid to even imagine what his shade in Mandos must look like. But even before, do you think that what he did could be called living? He was a ghost, Annatar, haunted by his oath and his crimes, and haunting Beleriand in turn, and when he finally died it was a relief for him and the world.

“His sons are chained to life even now, long after they should have been eroded away by pain and hardship, and look at what has become of them. There is only so much life that can flow through our veins, Annatar, and only so much pain and loss we can bear. We can stretch our lives and thin them out, but in doing that, we destroy ourselves. I know what it did to my grandfather, my uncles… even my father. They lost themselves. Perhaps we could have been immortal in Aman, but –not these shores, Annatar. Here, death is a gift, the door that you keep open for yourself when all other ways are closed to you.”

Annatar shook his head. “There is a strength in endurance that cannot be found in species that flare and die like sparks from a fire. I can't believe – I refuse to believe that there is nothing for you in this world that is worth staying for.” He looked Celebrimbor directly in the eye. “And if it must be me who puts this world in order so that you can live forever in it, then so be it. I'll do it, just to prove to you that you are wrong.”

Celebrimbor looked at him in disbelief. “This is not at all like you, Annatar. I thought you wanted to change this world. Now you sound like one of the Valar, sacrificing change for preservation.”

Annatar shook his head. “Change for the sake of change is worthless. Why throw away what is already good? You have the ability to hone your minds and abilities over hundreds of years – would you honestly say that this is not better than to exist as a mere spark? To flare briefly only to vanish almost immediately, your life come and gone in the mere blink of an eye, leaving others to begin where you once began learning – all in the vain hope that they might build something worthwhile from the rubble of a tower that is torn down at every turn?”

Celebrimbor frowned. “The claim that a civilization is thrown back to the very beginning at the start of a new generation is as unfounded as it is wrong – you yourself know of the empires rising in Rhûn and Harad, with cities and machinery the likes of which we have never seen. Believe me, Annatar: long after there is nothing left of the Eldar, long after our towers have crumbled, our walls fallen, and our bones turned to dust, Man will still adapt and rule and spread – and perhaps even harness the sun and moon and stars where we did not.”

He stopped and stood still, suddenly fully in control of his temper once more. “I do not know what the Guardian of Change names himself,” he went on quietly, “but he must be powerful indeed, and the world would be poorer without him.”

Annatar did not reply to this for a long while, hesitating before finally speaking again. “Change carries its dangers. There is no change without loss. I am not against change – I just … do not want the wrong things to be lost.”

Celebrimbor nodded. “Then we must preserve those. But Annatar, are we still talking of life and death?”

Annatar gave him a pointed look. “We certainly are. And my point still stands – if the world is the problem, then the solution is to change the world, not to stick to your frankly disquieting habit of succumbing to death. And changing the world is something that can be done.” He caught Celebrimbor's eyes. “We have already begun to do that.”

Celebrimbor held his gaze, his eyes hard and unyielding. “It must be easy for one of the Ainur to judge the entirety of mortals from your pedestal. I do wonder whether you would believe life and death so easily solved if you had ever been subjected to them yourself.”

“Certainly,” Annatar said acidly. “My opinion is not dependent on my personal … circumstances. As I see it, you simply, and illogically, shy away from bettering your own lives while calling the means of doing so blasphemous. For you, it is just so very comfortable to accept the current state of things as a given.”

“And you are unable to accept the decisions of others if they differ from what you think is right,” Celebrimbor shot back. For once, he had raised his voice and the words cracked like a whip. “You rib and argue and scoff at things you know nothing about. You throw aside the concerns and feelings of others like you might bat away a fly, with no regard for their desires and needs.”

Annatar looked at him, taken aback. It was rare for Celebrimbor to lose his temper. His self-control was beyond compare, but when his patience snapped, it usually gave everyone around Celebrimbor pause – just as it did now.

Annatar was momentarily stunned, but then his own temper flared and he was just about to give an angry reply of his own when he noticed a sudden blaze out of the corner of his eye. The fire in the hearth was burning much higher and hotter than it had been built to. The temperature in the room had risen, and it had grown warm enough to make a sheen of sweat appear on Celebrimbor's forehead, although the elf did not seem to notice.

Annatar reined himself in. He breathed in, breathed out, and the fire burned itself down to a more normal blaze. This had gone too far, Annatar realized – he had just let the poison that had ensnared his mind take hold of him. What he hadn't foreseen was how much disbelief, how much fear, was intertwined with his anger. It was nearly enough to throw even him off balance.

“Accepting limits is not something I usually do,” Annatar said at last, his tone calmer now.

“I know,” Celebrimbor said.

“Do you, though?” Annatar asked pointedly. “I thought that you of all people wouldn't be so quick to accept some things as being set in stone either.”

“Well, what would you have me do?” Celebrimbor asked sharply. “Cry and rage against the inevitable? Go to war against – what? – Death itself?” He laughed. “It would make me the maddest of my kin yet!”

“Maybe we should,” Annatar said quietly, ignoring the last sentence. He looked down at Celebrimbor's hands. Strong, sun-tanned, alive – and yet his vision of the future that held nothing but a tomb and his dead friend crept into his mind, a shadow that laid itself over the present, draining the colour and life from his field of vision. He reached out and took Celebrimbor's right hand in his own hands. “More avenues are open to me than they would be to you alone, and together...”

Suddenly, a shiver went through Celebrimbor's hands and when the elf's eyes snapped up to meet Annatar's own, he knew that he had let too many of his own thoughts filter through the bond of their minds.

“Annatar, you are not seriously thinking about fighting death, are you?”

Annatar did not answer immediately. “Would that be so bad?” he said quietly, idly brushing the pad of his thumb across the back of Celebrimbor's hand and watching the play of light and shadow on skin as he did so. “Is death not just another force of nature waiting to be tamed?”

“Annatar,” Celebrimbor said warningly, “you cannot mean to try to go toe to toe with death itself.”

“What, you think I wouldn't do it?” Annatar looked up, attempting a mischievous smile, but it fell flat when Celebrimbor pulled his hand back, his body and mind withdrawing from Annatar at the same time.

The elf was regarding him intently, his shoulders tense and his features closed. “Annatar, you yourself told me once that there was no use in trying to overstep your limits when the only possible outcome would be for you to get hurt in the process.”

Annatar leaned back, scoffing. “I was talking about your mortal nature when I said that.”

“I know,” Celebrimbor said. “But – Annatar – barring the likely actual impossibility of doing this – when you go against the cosmos like that – I fear for you to get hurt, no matter your powers, no matter your nature.”

“Well, I shall just have to become more powerful then, don't I?” It was only partly meant as a joke, as he intended for Celebrimbor to read it as a jest. But when he saw the worry, the beginnings of fear on his friend's face, Annatar felt his own expression darken, displeased.

“I was jesting.”

“You weren't,” Celebrimbor said quietly. “In fact, I think this might be the most sincere that you have been with me in this entire conversation. Annatar,” he said imploringly. “Whatever you are thinking of doing – don't do it.”

Annatar didn't answer, for the only responses left to him were to either displease his friend or lie to him.

An uneasy silence lingered between them.

“It is so easy to accept unpleasant things as part of ‘the natural order’ in order to justify not even trying to do something against them,” Annatar said at last, his tone scathing. His eyes flicked up to meet Celebrimbor’s. “I would never have thought to hear you say it.”

Celebrimbor frowned. “Are you trying to make me feel guilty for my principles?”

“No. I just expected something different from you than not even wanting to try.”

“Enough,” Celebrimbor said sharply. “You will not twist your inability to accept death and mortality into a weakness of me.” His tone was hard, cutting, and brooked no further argument. The sheen of the fireplace caught his eyes, turning their grey to shimmering bronze, and for a moment Annatar thought he could see a glimpse of what Fëanor himself must have looked like when the ships of Alqualondë were burning like pyres around him, the fire-storm visible from the far end of the world over the Sundering Seas.

Annatar forced the tension that had unwittingly taken hold of him from his shoulders. He lowered his gaze. “No. I will not. It was not my place to tell you this. Forgive me.” And he was sorry for angering his friend, even though he remained firm in his opinion that he was right. Also, his barb at Celebrimbor had been enough of a distraction that it had spared Annatar himself from making a promise that he would never have intended to keep.

You cannot make me promise to give up before I have tried fighting, Tyelperinquar. You cannot expect me to submit to fate and accept losing you without a challenge. You cannot make me promise not to try to protect you.

And he wouldn't. He felt like cursing himself for having missed it for so long; but for all the times that they had spoken about Tyelperinquar’s incarnate nature, it had taken Annatar more than a century and half, as well as seeing Celebrimbor surrounded by mortals in a passing world, to realize that he was, in fact, just like them. Perhaps with marginally more life force, yes, but otherwise just as fragile, just as finite, just as easily destroyed as every other incarnate creature. The ethereal, eternal surroundings of Ost-in-Edhil, where time seemed to pass only as a mere afterthought, had hidden it well.

But no more.

The thought of how often he could have lost Celebrimbor in the past was nauseating, but Annatar would not let things come to that point. Anyone of a lesser mind might be inclined to assume going up against time, death, and causality was impossible, but for Annatar – no, for Celebrimbor and him both – it would simply be one more project among many others that he had planned for the future. Perhaps marginally more challenging, and requiring a bit more creativity in utilizing and transforming the laws of the world they existed in, but still.

As it was, it was possible for something truly immortal to exist. The Ainur were the –for lack of a more fitting word – living proof of such a concept. And if they could exist, then – by extrapolation – a being like them could be created.

The key was power.

As it was, power was an issue that could be addressed. Would be addressed, what with the direction he had been carefully nudging their shared studies in for years now.

1 It is curious that Celebrimbor should name three Fëanturi, when most sources only ever list Námo and Irmo as Masters of Spirits. Since Celebrimbor's point is based around the argument of the Fëanturi being tied to fate, this strongly suggests that he counts Vairë as one of them as well. This could well stem from some more obscure Noldorin religious texts that were circulated in Northern Beleriand during the First Age. Those texts noticeably deviated from other, more popular sources in their interpretation of the Valar – for example whereas some texts saw Manwë and Melkor as twin brothers, less known treatises proposed that Melkor and Aulë had been created as twin brothers and later developed into two fundamentally contradictory entities: the Architect and the Destroyer. These texts were especially popular among Noldorin exiles, but later on spread to countries as far as Rhûn and Far Harad as well.

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Celebrimbor did not see Annatar for two days after their argument. This was not the first time they had fought – far from it – but the intensity and the fundamental disagreements in their views, which had led to Annatar's disquieting and (Celebrimbor knew, however much the Ainu might argue it) honest proposal to fight death itself, had left Celebrimbor with the need to keep some space between them for a time.

Sometimes, Celebrimbor thought, he simply forgot that it was a Maia whom he had at his side, and that for all the things they had in common, there were some rifts that could only be bridged with difficulty or not at all. There were times – rare, but nonetheless existent – when Annatar could focus on a topic or a goal with such intensity and reckless abandon that he no longer cared about whether the mortals at his side were comfortable with it. It was at such times that Celebrimbor sought to put some distance between them – both to give himself the opportunity to take his mind off Annatar, and to give Annatar some time to let his enthusiasm or anger cool down to a more reasonable degree.

He just hoped that a bit of time to think was enough to get the foolhardy idea to fight death out of Annatar's head. Not once in the past centuries of their friendship had the Maia managed to unsettle Celebrimbor even half as much as he had with his frankly disturbing promise to remove death itself from existence – the likely impossibility of such an endeavour notwithstanding.

In any case, a bit of separation did wonders to take Celebrimbor's mind off their disturbing discussion. After attending the Wake, he felt lighter and easier than he had felt for days before the event, and it also seemed to have convinced some of the more conservative Dwarven families that he had not meant their kingdom ill by bringing a Maia here. As such, Celebrimbor attempted to mend fences where he could, and tried to at least leave a good impression where he could not.

During this time he often saw Fundin, who seemed to have forgiven him for his transgression. They had had a long talk on the evening before Durin's Day after Annatar had left, and afterwards, during his partaking in the Wake, Celebrimbor had tried to prove that he was serious about being more mindful of Dwarven customs. He and Fundin spoke easier now, and Celebrimbor was glad for it. He would hardly have been able to bear losing such a dear friend to such an insensitive misstep.

Annatar in turn did not try to seek him out, which was frankly a relief. Celebrimbor did not know where his friend spent his time, but now and then he heard rumours about the strange immortal guest having taken an interest in the library and the clocktowers of Khazad-Dûm. All the better if the Ainu had found some ways to pass his time alone. Celebrimbor was still not sure whether Annatar felt at ease in the Dwarven kingdom. He certainly seemed polite and interested enough, but Celebrimbor could not help but notice that neither of them was accepted unconditionally – and if Celebrimbor had noticed this, then Annatar would surely be aware of it as well.

They finally met again when their long-planned excursion to the Deep Paths – the lowest mining levels of Khazad-Dûm – was scheduled to take place. Annatar met Celebrimbor at the doors of his friend’s chambers, and they walked to the designated meeting spot together. Annatar seemed more aloof than usual and rather less inclined to talking, but since he appeared pensive rather than ill-tempered, Celebrimbor let it slide and kept his silence as they walked.

They met the dwarves at a crossing of tunnels where a hydraulic elevator would lower them to the tunnels and shafts where the current mining for iron ore and mithril was taking place.

Floki, Fundin, Lassi, and Alfin were already there waiting for them. Celebrimbor saw Fundin give Annatar an uneasy glance when they stepped out of the tunnel that had brought them here from one of the thoroughfares. However, when Fundin met Celebrimbor's eyes, the dwarf gave him a faint smile.

Floki noticed nothing of the tension in the air and stepped forward to greet Celebrimbor as soon as he reached the group.

“Good to see you here, we were already wondering whether you would show up.” Floki grinned.

“Why wouldn't I show up?” Celebrimbor asked.

“Oh, you'd be surprised how many folks are not too keen to go down there, even if the miracles you can catch a glimpse of are beyond compare,” Floki said. “The deep paths of Habbad-Dûm¹ are not for the faint of heart.”

Lassi, a younger dwarf with a blond beard and one of the mining overseers, stepped forward. “Don't let yourself be fooled by nurses’ tales,” he said to Celebrimbor, giving Floki a side glance. “It is true that the entrances to the Deep Paths are locked for a reason, but if you are careful where you step and listen to the birds, they are not any more dangerous than other parts of the mines.”

Celebrimbor's eyes dropped to the bright yellow bird that Alfin was carrying in a cage. “Are there pockets of gas down there?”

Alfin nodded. “Not too many, but the deeper we go, the less we know about the stone there. The mountain grows stranger the deeper we dig, and we have had some nasty surprises – though none that was catastrophic, thanks to prudent miners and many fail-safes.”

“We have to remain careful, though,” Lassi said. “The adamanit drill brings us three foot deeper into the mountain every day it drills – we must take care to secure the shafts and tunnels properly and explore the caves we find before we go on. There's no telling what we might hit if we just dug on blindly. I'd be lying if I said that we're not going too fast for my own liking at times, but we've either been careful or lucky enough until now.”

“Well, now that we've got a Maia with us, we can surely make good speed for the day without having to worry about any of that,” Floki said. “I can't imagine a bit of magma or a gas pocket would do harm to someone like Aulëndil. Nothing that would ruffle your feathers, am I right?” He turned to the Maia.

Annatar simply shrugged. “I imagine that anything that doesn't ruffle the feathers of your bird would have a hard time ruffling mine.”

Floki laughed.

“I'll thank you to leave the mining expertise to us, foreman of the foundries. You might have made the drill, but miners will operate it,” Alfin said, but it was without bite. “Come along now. The ride down will take some time. The shaft is already very deep.”

Lassi stepped forward and lifted a great key-ring from his belt. The elevator itself was located behind an iron cage and accessible only by a door set into the cage, which Lassi unlocked now. He slid the door aside with a metallic clang and waved the others inside. Even with six people inside, the elevator was spacious enough, and there were two more elevators to either side of the one they would be riding down in.

“How many dwarves travel down here during one shift?” Celebrimbor said.

“Fifty, sometimes sixty, not counting the gear they might need to bring with them.” Alvin set the caged bird down on the floor and pulled a lever. The elevator started to sink soundlessly down the shaft.

“Ah.” Celebrimbor nodded, eyeing the walls of the shaft that were sliding past the elevator cage, upward ever upward. Lampstones were set into the stone of the shaft walls at regular intervals to brighten the eternal darkness under the mountain. They slid past the elevator and drifted upward like the bioluminescent fish in the ocean trenches of Rhûn that Celebrimbor had been reading about in an encyclopedia that one former student had sent him a few years ago as a gift of gratitude for being allowed to study in Ost-in-Edhil.

The thought of a dive, though, brought his mind back to where they were headed now. He turned to Fundin. “Have you ever been down here?”

“I only apprenticed as an engineer for a short time before the king called on me to make me his steward,” Fundin said. “But even then, I never worked in the Deep Paths, only on the upper levels. They do not allow apprentices down there.”

They sunk deeper and deeper for an immeasurable stretch of time. They passed exit station upon exit station at progressively lower mining levels, but the cage just continued sinking further. After a while, it seemed impossible that they should still be descending and not have arrived at the core of the world yet. Celebrimbor tried to look up through the meshed ceiling of the elevator, attempting to estimate how deep they must have sunk, but even with the lampstones still passing them by, the shaft above them was an endless tunnel lost to darkness.

As they continued to descend, Celebrimbor suddenly felt a deep thrumming in his bones and in his veins, like a humming just beyond his range of hearing.

Alfin must have noticed his surprised expression, because he smiled. “Can you hear it?”

“To say that I’m hearing it would be too much, but … it is as if the air itself is vibrating, and the stone and me with it.”

“We call it the Song of the Mountain,” Alfin said. “Most miners start hearing it around a depth of about two miles belowground. We do not know what causes it, and why some hear it while others don't. But it has accompanied us ever since we have started drilling down here.”

“Two miles...” Celebrimbor started, and then trailed off. He looked up again, trying to envision the sheer mass of rock and ore that was resting above their fragile little cage, only an earthquake away from burying the entire Dwarven city under tonnes of stones forever.

“Are you afraid?” Alfin said.

“No,” Celebrimbor said slowly. “I think not, even though my heart is beating quickly. But this song … it makes my very bones vibrate. It is as if the mountain itself had a heartbeat, or breathed. And knowing the weight and mass of the mountain above us – well, it shows you how truly small you are. Have you ever been afraid to come down here?”

“Is a fish afraid to dive to the bottom of the ocean?” Alfin retorted with a wry smile. “Courage, Kurfinni, it takes heart to go to the heart of the mountain – even if you are a Khazad.”

Celebrimbor exhaled and it did indeed do something to ease the pressure that seemed to have built up in his chest. He leaned back against the cage, which gave a slow rattle as its centre of gravity shifted and the steel cable that held the elevator shifted in the groove of the pulley, scraping against the flange.

Annatar was leaning against the cage in the corner opposite Celebrimbor, and his eyes appeared unnaturally bright in the dimness of the shaft. He had not said a word for the entirety of their descent. His posture was reserved and stiff, and his eyes soon flicked away, eyeing the ventilation openings drilled into the wall of the main shaft.

The cage kept descending and silence lowered itself upon the group. The deeper they went, the more oppressive the atmosphere became and Celebrimbor thought he realized now why they wouldn't send an apprentice to work in this environment. Strangely enough, the air also seemed to get warmer instead of colder.

When at long last the elevator stopped, Celebrimbor had lost all estimate of time and distance. For all that he could tell, they had been descending for hours and were now a dozen miles beneath the mountain.

Alfin unlatched the doors and slid them back, then waved the group out and into a great cavern. Celebrimbor estimated its diameter to be about one hundred feet and its height to be about thirty, which was greater by far than he had expected to find in these depths.

At the opposite side of the cavern stood an opening guarded by two massive double doors that seemed to have been made entirely of mithril. More than anything else, this spoke of how seriously the dwarves took these deep places: the doors were six feet thick and engraved all over with runes of protection and warding. They must have been worth more than all the gold and gems in King Durin's treasury itself – and it spoke volumes about the riches that must be hidden here if the dwarves thought it worthwhile to invest such a large amount of mithril to guard the place.

“You now look upon the entrance of Habbad-Dûm, the Kingdom in the Abyss, the deepest part of the Mines of Khazad-Dûm,” Lassi said as he stepped out of the elevator.

“Incredible,” Celebrimbor said, his voice breathless. “And this is where you started mining?”

Lassi nodded. “This is the cavern where we found the first ore vein. After we had ensured the structural integrity of the cave, we dug the first tunnel, which was only about six feet high and eight feet across. Then came the ventilation shafts.” Lassi pointed at the ceiling, which was dotted with narrow black holes that had to be part of the ventilation system. Indeed, the air was remarkably fresh, if also warm. “By fire-setting, we expanded the cave with thermal fracturing and used the extracted ore and mithril to further build structural support. What you see here is the work of five decades – even with the newest technology available back then, we were not able to dig much faster.”

“How old is this cavern?” Celebrimbor asked.

“Three hundred and forty-two years, counting from when the first tunnel was made. But we have not been idle in the meantime, and technology has advanced rapidly. The mining system down here has expanded exponentially since then. With our new drills and explosives, we could cut a cavern this size in only eight months. Also, we were not the first ones to dig down here. When we expanded this cavern, we stumbled upon an entire network of tunnels and walkways, each one older than the oldest stone of Khazad-Dûm itself.”

Annatar seemed to perk up at that.

“So there were already tunnels down here before you even got here?” Celebrimbor asked, astonished.

“Why yes! And what a maze we discovered: halls and walkways, tunnels and shafts, bridges and caves!” Lassi said with a wide, sweeping gesture. “There are quite a few natural tunnels and caverns down here, which is surprising given the depth we are digging at now. We break into them every now and then when we are expanding our own network of tunnels. Dwarves do not usually use paths through the stone other than ones they have dug themselves, but the marvel of this place was too great and the advantage too big not to make use of them!”

“And these doors?” Celebrimbor asked, gesturing at the mighty double doors that now stood wide open.

“To keep the mithril in and thieves and illegitimate visitors out,” Lassi said, more curtly than before. “From here on out, the tunnels are divided into compartments. If we set off an explosion in one part of the mines, we can close down the affected compartment and evacuate safely. Furthermore the doors are fit to contain whatever nasty things we might set off down there while we are digging.”

“You keep mentioning these nasty surprises,” Annatar said, speaking up all of a sudden. “But gas pockets and magma seem like daily occurrences of the trade, and events that you seem to have well-handled, at that. What else is down here?”

Celebrimbor did not know if he only imagined it, but he thought he saw both Alfin and Lassi stiffen.

“The darkness at the heart of the mountain hides some things that are better left alone,” Alfin answered at last, his tone evasive. “Thieves and cutthroats travelling on hidden paths, for one. But these mountains did not belong to us in the beginning of time, and now and then we encounter creatures of the Old World that do not take kindly to us invading their territory.”

“So it is not just the mithril that is supposed to be kept inside by these doors,” Annatar said, narrowing his eyes. “When were you planning on telling us this?”

Celebrimbor threw Fundin a side glance and the expression on the steward's face told him that this was not news to his friend either.

“We hardly encounter them any more these days, Aulëndil,” Alfin said stiffly. “As such, we did not deem it necessary to announce it. For us, some treasures make risks worth taking. The old parts of the mines that were most haunted by such creatures have been long closed up by now, their entrances sealed. As for the newer parts of the mines, we send warriors along with the miners for every primary excavation we do, and the practice has served us well. However, for our excursion I assure you that we will stick to the main roads. They are safely guarded and well-explored and we won't encounter anyone save miners and their birds.”

Annatar did not look pleased by this answer, but he did not argue any further and followed them through the mithril gates and into another cavern. While it was just as big as the first cave, this one seemed to be a natural hollow in the stone. Seven tunnels were hewn into its walls, and Celebrimbor caught glimpses of what had to be storage caves and common rooms.

“This is what serves as the common hall down here,” Alfin said. “The miners sleep here whenever they work more shifts in a few days. You might have guessed that the depth of the tunnel doesn't make an ascent after ten hours of mining an appealing prospect. We also maintain some workshops here, as well as food storage and common rooms.” Alfin walked over in the direction of the doors. “But come over here now! Before we enter the mines, you must be properly outfitted.”

Celebrimbor turned to Annatar and smiled. “Workplace safety again! Isn't that just your favourite topic?”

Annatar seemed even less amused by the prospect of wearing a helmet than he did during their usual discussions about workplace safety regulations and which of those should be applied to one of the Ainur. He threw Celebrimbor a humourless glance. “Go and find a helmet then. I will be waiting here.”

“No helmet for you?” asked Floki. “You'd think you'd want to protect that golden head of yours, Aulëndil, even if it's only your fana we're talking about.”

“I assure you, I know how to look after my own head,” Annatar said drily.

Floki caught Celebrimbor's eyes, raising one eyebrow questioningly.

“There is no convincing him to bow to rules such as these,” Celebrimbor said, shrugging in apology. “He maintains he doesn't need them, and if we start to argue now, we'll still be here three days hence.”

Alfin and Lassi shared a look between them, but didn't contend the matter. While their little group made their way over to one of the storage rooms, Annatar remained standing alone in the middle of the hall: a slender white-vested shape, almost silver-grey in the dim light, craning his head back to study the ceiling.

Strange, Celebrimbor thought. He didn't appear to be so ill-tempered when we met earlier this morning. Annatar had not talked during the elevator ride, and as such, had had no reason or opportunity to get angry at anyone. There was nothing, reasonable or otherwise, that would justify Annatar's suddenly shortened temper. Maybe he is still angry because of our discussion after all, Celebrimbor thought. If so, then Celebrimbor would not bring it up again. If Annatar took issue with the state of the world, that was his own problem and nothing that could be solved by talking. Celebrimbor would not change his opinion just to please Annatar, and if their argument a few days ago was anything to go by, a change of mind in the Maia was entirely too much to hope for. Celebrimbor certainly would not give in merely to give his friend peace of mind. Some truths had to be borne, and there was no way to soften them, terrifying as the concept of death might be for one of the Holy Ones. The intensity of Annatar's agitation had surprised Celebrimbor, though, and in that light, it might not be too far off to assume that his friend was still aggravated.

In any case, it would be better to just let him be, Celebrimbor decided. Either Annatar would come around on his own, or he wouldn't, and in any case, there was nothing Celebrimbor could do, so he turned and followed his friends into the storeroom.

After trying on a few helmets, he found one that fit him comfortably enough. Thankfully, the difference in head size between Khazad and Eldar was not as pronounced as the difference in height.

A few miners entered the storeroom as the last few members of their group were trying to find fitting helmets. Some of them threw the newcomers surprised glances, others sullen glares, though a few greeted them pleasantly.

“Where are you bringing them? They don't look like miners to me,” one of them – a foreman, judging by the three silver stripes stitched to his belt – asked Lassi, gesturing towards their group.

“They are guests of King Durin. Those are Celebrimbor and Aulëndil of Eregion, and this is the king's steward, Fundin Silverhand,” Lassi said. “We are to show them the adamanit drill and the great body of mithril we have found.”

“Ah, then you've come at the right time,” the foreman said. “The new echographs show that it must be one huge hollow down there. Might be the biggest mithril body we've found yet. We're going to make the breakthrough today – if you hurry, you can be there when it happens.”

“And you are not going to stay for the breakthrough?” Lassi asked.

The foreman shook his head. “I've been down here for four days now, so my arms and legs need rest more than my eyes need to see the mother lode. It will still be here in four days when I come back, unless the mithril suddenly grows legs and scampers off, which I don't think is likely. Besides, my wife is waiting for me and she does not stand for tardiness.”

Lassi clapped him on the shoulder. “Go and rest then, brother. We will see you again in four days.”

“And you'll rue the day when you went home to your bed instead of watching the breakthrough!” Floki added with a roaring laugh.

“May an ore shelf drop from the ceiling and hit your head, Floki,” the foreman said cheerfully, which only made Floki laugh harder. “Why are you down here, annoying honest working Khazad, when you should be in the forges and making yourself useful?”

After a few more exchanges in this vein they said their farewells to the departing shift, and after everyone had donned their helmets, Alfin and Lassi led them to the next cavern, which lay behind an even thicker set of doors made of some dark grey metal that Celebrimbor guessed had to be adamanit. He had never before seen it with his own eyes and as they passed the doors, he ran his fingers over the surface of the door. The metal was cool and smooth and spoke of a hardness even greater than mithril. Only reluctantly, Celebrimbor let his hand fall away as he passed, looking back over his shoulder at the doors, wishing for a moment that he had the time to examine it more closely – and then he noticed that he had already fallen behind the group while staring at the door and hurriedly jogged after his friends to catch up.

The cavern behind them appeared to be smaller and of natural make. Seven more tunnels ran off from the cavern, and Celebrimbor thought he could hear the distant dripping of water, as well as a strange thrumming.

The Song of the Mountain again? Or the drill?

It was impossible to determine, and Alfi and Lassi quickly led them onwards and down the third tunnel from the left. It descended slightly, winding its way through the stone in a soft left curve.

“The air is fresh down here,” Celebrimbor remarked.

“Quite,” Alfi agreed. “And it is not even our ventilation system that extends down here. Whoever – or whatever – built or eroded these tunnels did so with fresh oxygen always in mind.” He brandished his torch and in its sheen, Celebrimbor could see that the ceiling of the tunnel had small holes in it, all of them leading upwards, and most of them too narrow even for a child to fit through.

“Water fissures,” he murmured.

“Most likely,” Alfi said. “We think that there are a lot of deep lakes beneath Khazad-Dûm and it would explain a lot if water has been trickling down and eroding these paths for thousands of years.”

They passed more passages and crossroads where other tunnels branched off, most of them sealed by sturdy doors. Others were still open, and the faint clanging of pickaxes could be heard from them.

Alfin and Lassi led the group down a side tunnel. They walked down the passage, following its gentle turns, before they came to a small nexus. Only a narrow side tunnel lay to their left, while a door lay directly ahead of their group. Alfin pulled it open for them and they stepped inside. Beyond lay a chamber that was built in the shape of a small dome. It was about forty feet in diameter and roughly half as high. The walls were absolutely smooth and shimmering even in the near-darkness. No torches burned inside and no tunnels led any further from here, as far Celebrimbor could see.

“What is this cavern?” Fundin asked.

“This one?” Alfin said. “It was one of the chambers that were already here before we came. This one is not for mining, but only for marvelling. Step inside.”

The group walked inside and Celebrimbor almost shivered when he felt a cold breeze of air touch him. The mountain breathes, he thought.

They came to a stop in the middle of the cavern, the dome arching above them like a black sky.

“What now?” Floki asked impatiently. “The stone is remarkably smooth, but why would you have us stand in the middle of the room to admire that?”

“Because you are, as always, hasty when you conclude what other people might want you to do and think,” Alfin said calmly. “Wait and see.” And with that he walked back to the exit and closed a door that had leaned, unseen, against the stone wall.

The cavern was plunged into complete darkness and any sound from the outside was suddenly cut off.

“By the seven hells under Utumno!” Floki shouted. “What are you doing?”

“Do not say that name here!” Lassi hissed.

“I will use whatever names I wish when you lock me in a dark cave, Morgoth be damned,” Floki growled.

“The cavern only yields its secret in the darkness,” Alfin said and Celebrimbor nearly jumped when the dwarf unexpectedly spoke up from immediately beside him. “Look up!”

Celebrimbor did as he was told, and what he saw there made his breath catch in his throat. Even the faintest light had hidden them before, but now that they were standing in absolute darkness, he could see the faintly glowing silver veins that rose from the ground, intertwining and separating like the twigs of bushes as they rose higher and higher – until the veins gave way to a ceiling that was strewn with shining white and silver stars. He felt like standing in a clearing in the woods during a cool moonless night, even though he was miles beneath the surface with only stone around and above him. It was incredible.

“What is this?” he asked breathlessly.

“We call it the Chamber of Stars, or the Underground Sky,” Alfin said. “We do not know who made it or how it came to be, but sometimes we come here for the peace and quiet – there is a feeling of comfort here that goes beyond the calm and the darkness.”

They were right, Celebrimbor realized. Although he was standing in pitch blackness and had quite forgotten which way the exit lay, he did not feel lost or threatened. The chamber seemed to exude a welcoming calm that invited you to stay and just let your thoughts wander in its utter silence.

They remained like this for a while, until Floki, who seemed quite immune to the magic of the chamber, became impatient and they wandered on.

After the darkness and silence of the chamber even the faint light of the lampstones was glaring and the distant sound of mining felt grating at first, and it took Celebrimbor a bit of time to get used to the brightness and noise again.

The marvels of this strange underworld did not cease after the Chamber of Stars, though.

They walked along long, looping tunnels, taking detours and ambling down huge natural caves with stalactites and stalagmites as big as towers. They encountered what looked like a naturally formed fortress that had grown out of the back wall of a huge cavern, the porous stone forming archways and window slits and even something akin to crenellations on the walls. It was a strange and eerie thing to find so deep beneath the last reaches of civilization, and the longer Celebrimbor looked at it, the more twisted and alive this eerie stone structure seemed to him. For some reason, he was glad when they left that particular cavern.

Once they came to a mining site in a cavern that was so huge it defied any attempt at guessing its true size. There was only a narrow pathway clinging to the leftmost wall, and to its right was a sheer drop into blackness. A few wooden bridges and a bit of scaffolding showed where the miners had been working at the mithril veins here, but it all appeared ridiculously small compared to this eerie hollow in the mountain. Celebrimbor leaned out, but there was no telling how deep the cavern went and even Alfin and Lassi did not know what lay at its bottom. With a slightly queasy feeling in his stomach Celebrimbor righted himself again, and they went on.

Soon they came into another cave, this one clearly hewn by the Khazad themselves.

It soared as high as one of the smaller halls of Khazad-Dûm above and at its end stood another great set of mithril doors. The thrumming was louder here and there was nothing vague or ethereal about it now. It was the drill doing its slow, steady, relentless work, and judging by the noise, the great machine had to be just behind the doors.

The doors themselves were about twelve feet high, and when they opened to admit the small group, Celebrimbor could see that the metal was surely at least four feet in width.

They stepped through – and the heat and noise hit Celebrimbor as if he had run into a wall. It was warm here, so warm that many of the miners here had foregone their vests in favour of going bare-chested.

The cavern they were working in was narrower and higher, but of a smaller diameter. The walls were black as obsidian, and shimmering damply as if the stone itself was sweating. The origin of the heat was no secret – it came from the centre of the cavern.

There stood the Great Drill of Khazad-Dûm, hissing, rumbling, and glowing white-hot like a dragon. It was a massive contraption of mithril, iron ore, and adamantium, that had been planned with the joined efforts of the master construction engineers of Khazad-Dûm based on plans drawn up by Narvi, Annatar, and Celebrimbor during Narvi's last visit to Ost-in-Edhil. Mithril had always been notoriously hard to mine due to its extreme hardness and the fact that speckles of it permeated the stone around every greater lode. Drill bits made of lesser materials wore down incredibly quickly, and only when the metal adamantium was discovered had a promising alternative to mithril drill bits been found.

In a joint effort, Elves and Dwarves and Men had drafted the construction plan for a new drill, unprecedented in size and strength, save maybe for the mystical drill of the Dwarven Kingdom of Báshing-zě in the Far East, far beyond where the maps of Middle-earth ended. The parts had been forged in the foundries of Khazad-Dûm and Ost-in-Edhil, and had to be brought down by the elevator in parts. Only down here the drill could finally be assembled for its specific task. Its body was a hollow cylinder about six feet in diameter and twenty feet in height, set above a vertical shaft and stabilized by iron scaffolding that encased the entire drill almost like a cage. Parts of the scaffolding were movable and allowed the drill to be lowered as it dug deeper. Only the upper part of the corpus of the drill and its engines were visible. The rest had been lowered into the great vertical shaft where the drill was turning and screeching against stone even now. Celebrimbor knew that a bit lower on the shaft, there was a hydraulic torque ring that in turn grasped the upper part of the actual drill bit.

The shaft was also where the heat was emanating from. The energy created by mithril mining surpassed anything generated during normal mining, even when those methods involved fire-setting and thermal shocks to blast loose chunks of iron ore or gold. An entirely new water cooling system had had to be invented and conducted to this depth, and warm water was poured on the drill bit at all times, only to burst into steam within moments of making contact with the drill bit. Cold water was out of the question, as the material strain for the white-hot drill bit would prove too much even for adamantium in the long run. Great clouds of white steam rose from the tunnel and for a moment, Celebrimbor had the bizarre thought that there might as well be a dragon resting down there, breathing steam and fire and heat from its nostrils.

“By Aulë, it's hotter here than it is in the forges!” Floki said.

Lassi threw him a brief smirk. “Mithril does not want to be mined and resists with all its strength. Overcoming it means dealing with the heat of a dragon's maw all day. Think of that when you complain about the heat in the forges next time.”

There was a walkway inside the scaffolding that led around the hole the drill had dug, and when Celebrimbor approached, he could see the drill turning about fifty feet below, making its slow but inexorable progress through the ancient stone.

Hot air wafted up and blew his hair from his face. His heart was beating quickly and the palms of his hands were damp, though why, he could not say.

Fundin joined him at the edge for a moment, then took a step backward. “So deep,” he murmured, and it was hardly audible over the roar of the engine.

“How deep are we?” Celebrimbor asked and turned to face him. Dwarves had an impeccable sense of scale and direction, even without external pointers.

“By my best estimate, we must be more than three miles below Khazad-Dûm,” Fundin said. He knelt down and touched the bedrock that was vibrating under the soles of their boots. “Alfin spoke true. The stone itself feels strange here.”

“Strange how?” asked Celebrimbor. He touched the ground as well, but whatever it spoke to Fundin, the stone was silent to him.

“I cannot describe it,” Fundin said. “But there is a saying of the Khazad that things – stone, air, and even one's soul – change in the deep.” The dwarf turned his head and Celebrimbor turned as well to follow his glance.

At the other end of the cavern, as far from the drill as possible, Annatar was walking down the perimeter of the cave, running his fingers over the stone just like Fundin had done, though what he was searching for was anyone's guess. His expression was hard and closed-off, and betrayed nothing of his thoughts, and his brow was furrowed in intense concentration. His gait was more of a prowl, and he stalked the room like a predator in search of prey – single-minded and unapproachable.

Changes in the deep.

“He is not usually like this,” Celebrimbor found himself saying. “We had an argument a few days ago and didn't reach an agreement. If he is ill-tempered now, it is because of our row and nothing else.”

Fundin didn't comment on this, even though he did not look convinced.

Celebrimbor gave him a wan smile, then they both righted themselves again and returned to the group, careful to keep out of the way of the drill operators.

All of a sudden, the rumble and screeching of the drill quietened down.

Lassi, who had assumed the lead of the next shift, walked over to them after having apparently gotten the newest reports from the miners. “The breakthrough is imminent now,” he said. “Take care not to get in anyone's way.” His eyes shone with excitement. “The measurements are telling us that this has to be one of the greatest hollows beneath the mountain that we have ever opened up and the echographs show that the density of the surrounding matter is enormous. Just imagine the amount of mithril that lies down there – it must be enough to last us a decade!”

“Slow the drill!” one of the Khazad shouted. “You – Alfin, call back your group!”

“Step away from the shaft!” Lassi called, while the bird in Alfin's cage began to flap its wings wildly. Celebrimbor and Fundin returned to the group, then turned around to watch. Everywhere else, dwarves who were not needed to operate the drill were retreating from the shaft, forming little groups side by side with the visitors, the door at their backs.

Steam rose hissing from the great engine like from the maw of a dragon. The rotation of the drill slowed, the grinding of metal on metal changing to a deeper and more drawn-out sound.

“Slower!” the foreman shouted, leaning slightly over the edge of the scaffolding down to where the drill was still turning. Another dwarf pulled down a lever, and behind a removable pane of diamond-glass a system of interlocking cogwheels inside the engine separated and came together again, and the drill changed to a lower gear.

“It's marvellous,” Celebrimbor said as he watched the dance of cogwork mechanics and the pumping of the pistons, which turned a crank shaft as thick as his arm in turn. “Isn't it, Annatar?”

He turned around in search of his friend, but was distracted when the sound of metal grinding against stone suddenly changed. Everyone else around him felt it, too. There was a new quality to the sound of the drill, as less of its noise was now contained in the small shaft. Instead of echoing back, it was lost somewhere in a greater space – which could only mean one thing.

“Slow down! Slow down! Stop!”

There was a crack and then utter silence.

Steam shot from the cooling outlet at the top of the drill and its rotation slowed, slowed – and then stopped. Behind the pane of diamond-glass the cog wheels and pistons stood still. The noise of the engine was gone.

There was a brief silence, then all at once, a great noise of shouting and cheering rose up from the workers and foremen, all of their toil and efforts forgotten as they left their positions, jumping down from their operating seats on the drill or storming forth from where they had been waiting at a safe distance.

“The breakthrough! The breakthrough! We made it!”

Cheers rang out everywhere, and Celebrimbor felt the sound buoying him up into a state of excitement and joy, even though he was only a chance witness of the event whereas the dwarves must have spent months working toward the breakthrough. Alfin's bird sang loudly and flapped its wings, while the drill operator jumped from his platform on top of the drill, shouting with mirth even though his forehead was shining with sweat and grey with grime. He was welcomed by his companions, tired but content and full of pride.

“What happens now?” Fundin asked Alfin, who was trying to calm down his bird. The little creature had apparently gotten over-excited with all the noise around it and was still singing shrilly.

Alfin looked up from this task at Fundin, then over to the drill. “Now we must wait. The drill and the shaft must cool, and then one of the foremen will climb down to the hole and see for himself the hollow that must lie down there.”

“It is wondrous to witness this,” Celebrimbor said. “I only wished I could still be here when you start the actual mining.”

Alfin laughed. “We won't be starting to mine it in the next few months. First the pulleys and the scaffolding have to be built, then the ventilation, and until we have explored and secured a hollow so great and deep, it will be winter again before we can start to mine mithril.”

“Then I know what I will be doing next Yule,” Celebrimbor said. “If you will have me, of course.”

“Nosy elf,” Alfin said. “But fine – I will talk to the miners and the king.”

Then something rumbled and the ground beneath Celebrimbor's feet lurched so hard that he nearly lost his footing.

“What was that?”

“An aftershock,” Lassi said, who had just returned from rounds of congratulations among his fellow miners. “Sometimes shelves of stone rest against each other, but when we work the stone long enough, the shelves shift against each other and the tension is released very suddenly.”

Celebrimbor looked at his own feet with a pounding heart. “Does this always happen?”

“Not always, but often enough that we are used to it.” Lassi smiled wryly at what was doubtlessly a shocked expression on Celebrimbor’s face. “Nevertheless it will be safer if we leave the cavern for now – the drill is safely anchored, but our feet less so, and tripping over your own toes for hours afterward is neither pleasant nor safe.” Lassi turned around and waved for the other workers to follow him. “Come now, brothers, come now! The work is done for today, and now is the time for celebration and merriment!”

“Ale and stew!” one of the Khazad shouted, and was cheered on by the other miners for the suggestion.

“That and more!” Lassi called back. “Come now to the common hall, there we shall feast and drink and share stories! The work is done, come!”

And thus the Khazad came together in a group, and there was much chatter and laughter in the air among the usually quiet dwarves. The joy of the successful breakthrough seemed to have loosened their tongues and lifted their tired spirits.

Alfin's bird was still singing shrilly in its cage, flapping excitedly and hopping from one thin bar of the cage to the other. Alfin marched off to the side to calm it down, while Lassi made a headcount of the miners to make sure nobody would inadvertently be shut in with the drill.

When the count was finished, including Celebrimbor and his friends (with someone asking in jest whether the elf and the Maia should count for two apiece, since they were near twice as tall as most Dwarves), they turned to go.

The great doors opened for them to admit them to the outer hall. The massive metal door-leaves moved slowly and ponderously, and Celebrimbor stopped to stare at the structure, awestruck by its size and complexity. How the Khazad had managed to build something so great and awesome in these great depths would forever remain a mystery to him.

Then Celebrimbor looked at Annatar, who was standing next to him. Together they brought up the rear of the group. The Maia still looked sullen and his face was taut, as if he was fighting off a bad headache.

“Is something the matter with you?” Celebrimbor asked.

Annatar gave him a side-glance. “It's – ”

And then the floor lurched again. There was a sound of breaking metal and iron, and the group whirled around to look almost as one.

Behind them the great drill shivered, then one of its supporting struts that was braced against the rim of the shaft gave out and fell over. It was so heavy that Celebrimbor could feel the impact even through the soles of his boots.

Lassi cursed and a few of the other workers had stopped as well, staring wide-eyed at the destroyed strut. It looked like it had been ripped apart by a giant, its edges frayed and rough.

“That one was seventy centimetres thick,” Floki said, and he looked as if he was not sure whether to be horrified or impressed.

“Well, one of your workers must have blundered the tempering, otherwise such a measly shock wouldn't have done anything to it,” one of the miners said, which earned him a dark glare of the Dwarven smith.

“Ah, curse it,” Lassi said. “Now of all times – Bilbur, Dorin, come with me, I have to inspect the damage. You others can leave – and Alfin, take that bird out of here, I don't know what has gotten into it today.”

But no one left and everyone watched as Lassi and the two miners approached the drill, carefully watching the ground for fissures or cracks caused by the second shock. They approached the drill, the light of their lamps wandering over the surface of the drill and the other struts, searching for additional damage. Slowly and thoroughly they rounded the entire drill.

Celebrimbor was watching along with everyone else when suddenly a small sound to his left drew his attention. He turned and a shock jolted through him from head to toe when he saw that Annatar was hunched over, his hands at his temples.

Celebrimbor reached out. “Annatar, what is the matter with you?”

Annatar ground out something nearly unintelligible. “ –ache.”

“You? A headache?”

“No. It's aw – ”

Annatar did not get any further. There was a hissing sound, like the sound of water rushing through a narrow passage and turning to steam, and then all of a sudden a geyser of darkness and flame shot from the shaft and, within fractions of a second, the entire drill – and Lassi, Bilbur, and Dorin along with it – were gone.

Darkness billowed from the hole, the light of the lampstones in the wall dimmed and doused the cavern in twilight. Colours were sucked from the world and all of a sudden the air itself was almost too hot to breathe.

The Dwarves and Celebrimbor stood in shock, staring uncomprehending at where the drill had stood moments ago. Something inside Celebrimbor was telling him that he had to move, to do something and help Lassi and the others – but he felt slack and sluggish, and his feet would not obey him. He distantly realized that Alfin's bird had stopped singing. There was a puddle of molten metal pooling around the shaft, and it slowly dawned on him that this puddle had been the drill mere seconds ago.

Next to him, Annatar pulled himself up to his full height, his movements slow and deliberate, as if every move pained him.

Then came the next shock. The cavern shook. Small pieces of stone dropped from the ceiling. Another shock. And then something far down in the shaft gave way before a superior force. There was a crack like the world itself being broken and then everything was quaking, and the floor would not stop moving, and one dwarf was hit in the head by a boulder and fell.

Annatar stepped forward then, and that was finally enough to snap Celebrimbor out of his trance.

“What are you doing?” Celebrimbor asked. The cavern around them was shaking and more and more boulders started to come loose from the ceiling.

“You have to run,” Annatar told him. His voice was strained.

“What? Annatar, what is going on?”

“Nothing any of you can do anything about,” Annatar said. “Run, take as many of the others as you can, and don't stop.”

“Annatar!” Celebrimbor cried over the rumbling of the crumbling cavern. “Why? What is going on?” He tried to reach for his friend, but then Annatar whirled around and his robes slipped through Celebrimbor's fingers before they could close around the sleeve, and Celebrimbor found himself staring at a being he no longer knew.

Annatar's eyes were those of a stranger, wide and wild and ablaze, and he moved like a wolf and a hawk and a living flame all at once.

“Now is not the time! Run!”

He did not know whether Annatar was shouting at him with his voice or in his head or both. His vision was swimming, and his head rang.

There was another shock. The ground below their feet lifted and then dropped nearly two feet, and this time, Celebrimbor and ten or so of the dwarves could no longer keep their balance. Celebrimbor fell hard to the ground and hit his elbow, which took the brunt of the impact. He rolled onto all fours, trying to regain his footing…

… and then it appeared.

At first Celebrimbor thought that another bout of flame had risen from the shaft, but then he saw that the darkness and flame had something corporeal to it that was more than mere fire and billowing smoke. Darkness aflame rose from the shaft, and smoke coalesced around its centre, spreading like terrible wings.

The thing of fire and smoke moved, and then the heat hit them, together with a wave of pure, unadulterated terror. In the next moment they were screaming. Celebrimbor felt memories wash over him that he had hoped he would never have to live through again: his grandfather, surrounded by three towering shapes of shadow and flame, looking up as all of them raised their swords and struck downwards at the same time – a desolate wasteland under a red sky, with thousands of corpses lying sprawled on the sand like puppets with their strings cut, while creatures of fire and darkness were prowling the battlefield, looking for survivors, and all you could do was duck and run, duck and run – Celebrimbor, running through a dark and twisted wood alongside his father and his uncle, as far and fast as their feet would carry them, while something crashed through the underbrush behind them. A whip of flame cracked only inches from his face, and only moments later the whip caught Celebrimbor around his ankle and he fell. But even as he fell, he saw his father whirl around, sword aloft and hellfire reflected in his eyes, crying, “Not my son, you –

Celebrimbor wanted to run, but he couldn’t move his legs. Frozen with fear and terror, he and the Dwarves were only able to stand and watch the ancient horror that unfolded before them.

The Balrog shouldered its way free of the shaft, and in its claws it held a whip of flame, and when it opened its maw, white fire shone in its gullet.

Annatar stepped forward, and suddenly Celebrimbor was able to move again. He did not know where he found the strength and the courage to reach for his friend – this strange being who had begun to shimmer like pale fire in the twilight of the hall – and grab his wrist.

“Annatar, what are you doing?”

“Fool!” Annatar cried. “Run! This is a foe beyond any of you! I must hold it! Run!”

“I will not let you face it alone!” Celebrimbor shouted, tightening his grip. “I will fight with you!”

Annatar looked at him, and for a fleeting moment there appeared to be something shining and soft in his glance, but then his eyes hardened. “No, you won't.”

The wrist under Celebrimbor's hand turned into a limb of corded muscle, hard and unyielding as steel. Annatar freed himself from Celebrimbor’s grip as easily as he would tear through a spiderweb.

Behind Annatar, the Balrog roared and reared up to its full height. It cracked its whip over all their heads and bridged half the distance to the group of miners with one single step.

Annatar's head jerked around, then immediately back to Celebrimbor. Their eyes met, just briefly, and then—

The Maia whirled on the spot so fast that the movement made his robes fly around him, and then his arms came forward, throwing forward the compressed air in the chamber with them – and a shockwave slammed into Celebrimbor's chest hard enough that his breath was punched from his lungs. His feet lost touch with the ground and he was propelled backwards through the air, flying for an impossible time, until the ground slammed into him and he rolled backwards over his shoulder with the sheer force that had catapulted him. He hit his head on the stony ground, the helmet banging against the back of his skull, rolled once more, and then came to lie on his back.

His head was swimming and he saw sparks dancing in his vision, but he righted himself immediately, just like the Dwarves around him who had also been catapulted backwards and out of the cavern of the drill.

Beyond the doors, Annatar stood alone, small and bright before the consuming dark fire of the Balrog. The demon screamed when it saw that its prey was beyond its reach now, and moved forward to try and pursue them. But Annatar raised his hands, and then the giant doors were closing, faster than their mechanisms would have permitted, as they were pulled shut by nothing else than the inexorable will of a being older than the world itself.

Celebrimbor found his footing, and almost lost it again when a wave of nausea hit him. “No!” he screamed. “No! No! Annatar! Brother!” He fell to his knees, and as he was struggling to get up again he saw that the doors were closing, faster and faster and faster.

He saw them like that in a moment that stretched into eternity, framed in that shrinking gap between the leaves of the doors – Annatar bright and small and straight-backed, and the demon before him – a giant of roiling smoke and flame, a shadow of the evil of Morgoth himself that had come back from the Old World to haunt and destroy and kill.

Stumbling back to his feet, Celebrimbor reached the doors just as they slammed shut, trapping his friend in with the Balrog, this monster from his nightmares of the First Age.

Celebrimbor nearly sprained his wrists as he crashed into the metal, then hammered his fists against the door. “Annatar! Open up! Annatar, Annatar! Brother!” He felt the skin chafing off his knuckles with every hit, but desperation clouded the pain to something not more significant than a slight sting. “No! No! No!” He slammed his hand once again against the metal, but then a flash of white-hot agony lanced up his arm and Celebrimbor stumbled backwards, clutching his arm to his side with a grimace of pain.

“Kurfi! Kurfi! Stop!” Someone pulled him backwards and away from the door. Celebrimbor would have none of it and threw his weight forward again.

“I must help him! We cannot leave him alone in there!”

“You cannot help him!” someone cried, and Celebrimbor would have liked nothing more than to shove them away, for who were they to keep him from his friend, his brother –

“Let me go!”

Other arms grabbed his shoulders and waist and wrists, and then it was too much and he could fight no longer.

“Get away from the door!” someone else shouted, a broken, shrill voice that echoed madly from the walls of the cave. “Get away, can't you see what is happening?”

And indeed the door was changing – unnoticeably at first glance, and Celebrimbor thought it was because his vision was blurring from the hits to the head he had suffered, but then he realized that the surface of the door was indeed no longer smooth and the hinges and edges no longer clearly defined. The door was dissolving like a painting left out in the rain.

Celebrimbor stared at it, uncomprehending, but he offered no resistance as he was pulled away from the door and the mounting heat. The door started to glow, first orange, then yellow, and finally white – and there were no more contours, no more distinguishable elements like screws and hinges and engravings. Its surface was moving and rippling like water. The door was melting.

“We must go!” someone shouted, and Celebrimbor knew the voice, but neither name nor face came to him – he could only stare at the door and the fire that was seeping through the cracks, at the stone around the door, which was glazing over as if it was turning to glass from the sheer heat inside the drill cave.

“Fly! Fly! The door will not hold!”

Screams were everywhere - screams of pain, of agony, of fear. And there was terror – the nameless terror that manifested only when all hope was lost. He was young again, young and wounded, and he was on the battlefields of the First Age, and his brethren were dying around him, and Arda itself was drinking their blood. The living abandoned their wounded comrades to flee before the greater powers, leaving them to die. And yet, even though the dying stayed behind and vanished from view, their screams still echoed in the heads of the fleeing long after they had fallen out of earshot, the cries of agony coalescing into a single scream, a cacophony of terror that rose above them all –

The scream persisted, turned longer, higher, then fell, then rose again – until it lost any and all mortal quality and turned into the howling of a siren. Celebrimbor would not have managed to make his way back on his own, but there were others shoving him forward and pulling him along, and somehow his legs were still capable of walking, so he stumbled along as fast as he was able. Red lampstones flared up along the ground and showed them the way, through narrow and twisting passages, along a great mining site where an abyss spanned by scaffolding yawned to their left, its bottom lost in blackness, then into a cave, and into another, and into another –

Before long, all the places he passed through began to blur together. He saw throngs and throngs of Dwarves emerging from other tunnels that fed into the main passage where Fundin was hurrying them along. Soon the tunnels were cramped and everywhere Dwarves were barking orders and pressing forward into the narrow dark, while the air around them became hot and stuffy and the passage grew so cramped that all Celebrimbor felt were shoulders and elbows to his left and his right. Door after door slammed shut behind them with the finality of a coffin lid being nailed into place.

They walked and ran and stumbled on, though where they were going Celebrimbor could not have said – not until someone shoved him into a cage, and there was a lurch beneath his feet. Celebrimbor grabbed the bars of the elevator cage, close to retching. Bodies were pressing close and the chain of the elevator was groaning with the weight of the excess load. His vision swam and dim lights passed them as they ascended, rising and falling at the same time.

His vision blacked out. When he opened his eyes again the lights were still there, soft and unreal like everything else around him. The ground beneath his feet was swaying and his head was swimming. He leaned his aching head against the bars of the elevator cage, the cool metal pressing into the skin of his forehead. His fingers were bent like claws around the bars. They cramped from the strain, but he didn't let go. If he let go, he would fall and he would fall forever.

He closed his eyes. He opened them again.

Someone pulled him from the cage.

There was a great rumbling of machinery, a hissing of chains, and a deep grinding of something heavy being slid over stone.

“Kurfinni, look at me,” someone said.

Celebrimbor looked up and Fundin's face swam into view.

“Kurfinni, are you all right?”

“We need to go back,” Celebrimbor croaked.

Fundin shook his head. “We can't.”

Celebrimbor blinked. “But – Annatar, Lassi, Dorin – ”

“They were lost when the Balrog appeared.”

“But – the others –”

Fundin's eyes were empty, his voice hollow. “We tried, Kurfi. We tried to get everyone out. But not everyone made it in time.”

“Then we need to go back.”

“It is too late. The mines have been locked down, the elevators sealed. There is no way back. Whoever is still down there is lost.”

“No way back,” Celebrimbor repeated tonelessly, and collapsed backwards against a rough stone wall. “There must be something we can do,” he said, desperation making his voice crack on the last syllable. He rubbed the heels of his hands over his face. He felt numb and detached from reality, yet he forced himself to feel the pain, the burning of skin rubbing over skin, of grounding pressure. When he opened his eyes, Fundin was no longer standing next to him.

The Dwarves were sitting or standing together in huddled groups, avoiding each other's glances and staring ahead with empty eyes.

What did just happen? Celebrimbor wondered.

He spotted Floki, who was cradling his left arm against his chest and staring at the sealed shafts where the elevators had hung with an empty expression. Fundin was making the rounds and doing a headcount. Then he did it again. And again. The steward talked to one of the other foremen, and they gestured and shouted, and almost came to blows, until a third dwarf interfered and the fight went out of both of them.

And slowly, ever so slowly, Celebrimbor saw the realization of what had happened sink into the minds of the Dwarves. One after another they sat down and looked at injuries that they were just now noticing for the first time. Others stopped calling out names of brothers and sisters, cousins or fathers or friends who would not answer, and sank down to the cool stone floor, boneless and hollowed out. Foremen compared tallies, counted their comrades, again and again and again and kept coming up short. Others murmured amongst themselves, still fighting off the sickening truth of what had happened, comparing experiences, comparing rumours, comparing their memories against a reality they dared not yet face.

Celebrimbor could feel his own realization pushing against the wall in his mind – a nameless terror, but even so, only a herald of the far greater horror that had yet to sink in. Celebrimbor did not allow himself to face it. He would not think about Lassi. He would not think about fire. He would not think about Annatar, most of all.

Not yet. Later. For now, he had to keep on functioning. For now, he had to help where he could.

Celebrimbor didn't remember when he pushed himself off the wall he had been leaning against and walked over to where Floki was kneeling over a crumpled shape on the ground. As he got closer, he saw that Floki was leaning over a dwarf and holding his hand. The dwarf on the ground was bleeding and his leg was clearly broken. A puddle of blood was spreading on his shin: too dark, too fast, too much. Celebrimbor stopped in his tracks.

“Safe passage, cousin,” Floki said. “May the Maker guide your path.”

Alfin did not respond. He breathed and blinked, and then stilled.

Floki lowered his forehead until it was resting on their clasped hands, and then he began to weep.

Celebrimbor stood behind him like a looming shade, unable to move forward, unable to move away. He stared at the cousins, at their clasped hands, and at least his gaze fell on the cage that Alfin must have carried with him even in their desperate flight and only dropped when his strength gave out.

Inside the cage, stretched out like a little yellow flower in the gloom, lay the bird with its wings spread; small and broken and dead.

*

 

Someone must have run to Khazad-Dûm for aid, because King Durin's men finally came in battalions and centuries, armoured and armed and ready to defend their brothers and sisters, their realm and their king. But when they saw the group of wounded and dying brethren before them the warriors, they stopped dead in their tracks.

“What happened?” they cried. “What evil befell you down in the Abyss?”

“A Balrog!” someone answered. “A demon of Morgoth, who came from the Old World and was loosed when we broke through. It came with fire and shadow, and it slaughtered our brethren before we could aid them. The Maia locked it into the drill cavern, but many others were lost down in the Abyss during our flight, because they got turned around or did not flee fast enough. Woe is them! Woe is us!”

At those words King Durin's soldiers threw away their weapons and dropped their shields, and beside their wounded brothers they fell to their knees and began to weep.

They stayed there for a while, mourning the lost and the dead. When they finally moved to bring the wounded to the hospitals, the dead to the mortuary, and the living back into the city, their eyes had run dry of tears and their souls gone numb with a grief that was too much to bear and feel.

The next few hours passed as if in a dream. Celebrimbor did not remember much of what followed their ascent, only that they were pushed from place to place by people whose faces he could not remember and barraged with questions that he could not recall even five seconds after being asked. Apparently, he must have given some answers that had been satisfactory, because all of a sudden, Celebrimbor found himself all but shoved out of a council chamber to stand alone in a hallway.

He blinked at the door and then turned around, trying to remember the shortest way to reach his sleeping chambers. This proved to be more difficult than expected, because he had apparently never been to this particular part of Khazad-Dûm before and no one had bothered to give him directions on how to return to the palace. After wandering aimlessly for a time, he finally found his way back to one of the main thoroughfares and from there to the city proper. All houses of Hadhodrond were brightly lit, windows and doors stood open, and many Dwarves ran to and fro, asking questions and shouting, while others were weeping. Thankfully, none of them spared Celebrimbor a glance or asked him what had happened, because he was no longer sure he could have given them an answer even if he tried. He felt cold and numb, as if walking through very deep and dark water, and just as if he were under water, everything around him seemed to pass very slowly.

His legs finally found their way back to his chamber when his frozen brain could not. His hands remembered the combination to unlock the door without the help of conscious thought, and Celebrimbor stepped inside. For a moment he stood in the middle of his room, looking around himself, trying to remember if there was something he was looking for – but that was ground that he could not tread, that he would not tread, because if he did, there was a very real chance that he would just break down here and now and never get back up again.

Celebrimbor stood in the middle of his room, ramrod-straight and breathing shallowly.

Think, he told himself. Not of what has happened, but of what needs to happen now.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He allowed his brain to grind into motion again, but forcefully kept it from touching on what had happened in the abyss.

Think not of the past that cannot be changed, think of the consequences that you will have to deal with.

His hands were trembling. With a slight effort of will, Celebrimbor steadied them.

Think. Help was needed. Assistance for the wounded had to be given. Guarding the exits from the Deep Paths was necessary. He could do none of this. He was neither a healer nor a warrior of the Deep, unlike many Dwarves here. But there was something he could do.

Slowly, Celebrimbor turned around and left his room. He walked down the corridor, tracing a path that he had walked countless times, hundreds of years before. The further he went, the surer and the faster his steps became.

When he reached the smithies of Khazad-Dûm, he found the rooms dark and abandoned. All hands that could help were currently needed elsewhere.

That suited him fine. Slowly, methodically, Celebrimbor lit the lampstones, then went to prepare his workspace. He didn't even need to think about it – once again his arms did not need his memory or his brain to interfere. They went through motions that he had completed thousands of times before, slowly, fluidly, absolutely sure. Binding the heavy leather apron about his neck and waist. Setting out his work table, choosing the tools that he would need.

After what seemed to be mere moments, he found himself standing in front of a sketchtable, fires burning around him, the tables set, his tools prepared.

Think, he had told himself. That he had done, and he knew what he had to do. All that was left now was to act.

Celebrimbor got to work.

1 “Kingdom of the Abyss”. Note the curious similarity to the Hebrew term “abaddon/avaddon” and the Ancient Greek "ábatos".

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IV.

433 years ago (1125 S.A.)¹

The boom that reverberated through the forges was deafening. Fundin's quill slashed a thick black line right through the construction drawing of the flange that he had been sketching for the last five hours with painstaking care.

He and all other apprentices looked up searchingly to Master Naugrin, who had been overseeing the drawing exercise. Naugrin had turned around as well, looking down the tunnel that led out of the classroom and around a turn to the greater forges.

“What in the deepest pits of—” His rust-red moustache quivered and he broke off in the middle of the sentence. Master Naugrin turned back around and faced his pupils, all of whom were staring back at him.

“That sure sounded like the entire ceiling just came down in the forges. I'll go and take a look to see what the ruckus was about. You wait here and finish your sketches. If I catch anyone copying someone else’s drawing or trying to leave before I come back, it will be the last day that person is apprenticed to me.” And with that he turned on his heel and left.

Fundin turned to his right where his friend Branka was sitting. The other young dwarf answered his questioning glance with a shrug, then dutifully went back to her sketch. Fundin looked back to the exit of the classroom again and tried to fight down the rising worry in his chest.

He knew that Narvi had been working in the forges. Fundin's older brother was an excellent smith and had never so much burned a fingertip while handling the most volatile and flammable alchemic elements in his experiments, and yet Fundin couldn't help but worry. Because if the entire ceiling had indeed come down – and it had certainly sounded that way – then all of Narvi's smithing prowess would not guard him against tonnes of stones coming down atop his head.

However, Master Naugrin's orders still rang in Fundin's ears, and he knew that Narvi would not approve if his younger brother lost his head over a minor incident and got banned from Naugrin's prestigious apprentice class for disobeying orders. Naugrin had promised to throw out everyone who left the classroom before he returned, and the master was not known for going back on his word.

Naugrin was an excellent teacher, but he was as stern as he was able. While all of his former students excelled in their respective fields of mastery without exception, many of Naugrin's apprentices didn't even last through the first year of his tutelage. The master engineer tolerated neither failure nor disobedience.

Fundin knew that Narvi was counting on him to complete his apprenticeship and bring honour to their house. Thus, despite wanting nothing more than to see for himself what had happened, Fundin stayed where he was and kept on drawing, even though his sketch was likely beyond saving and would award him a failing grade, no matter how much he tried to tidy it up. He sighed. Even if the ceiling of the forge had indeed come down, he doubted that Naugrin would accept it as an excuse for a badly executed assignment.

Annoyed, Fundin finished his sketch and rolled it up, long after most of the other apprentices had finished theirs. When Fundin placed it on Master Naugrin's desk to be marked, he just hoped that whoever had been the cause of the ruckus had gotten a heavy piece of the forge's ceiling dropped on his head.

*

When Naugrin finally returned and allowed them to leave the day had progressed well into the seventh hour of the evening. The apprentices quickly gathered their satchels and pencils and left the classroom. Fundin followed, but while his comrades quickly made their way through the forging halls in the direction of the main halls of Khazad-Dûm, he suddenly stopped.

He was sure that Master Naugrin would have told him if something had happened to his brother, and it didn't look like something had caved in or exploded in the forges. Since Narvi was sure to work late into the evening, despite any disturbance during the day, and because Fundin did not particularly feel like returning home on his own, he decided to take the detour through the forges to fetch his brother.

He crossed the long hall, walking past big-bellied furnaces of brown steel and huge bellows standing more than six metres high. The monstrous machines were abandoned and still now, the fires in the furnaces quenched and the worktables tidy and empty, waiting for the next shift to take up its work. It was curious to see the hall, usually so busy, silent and empty now. Only a few odd smiths were still walking to and fro, cleaning up or preparing plates of tempered steel on wagons so they could be brought to the metalworks first thing during the evening shift.

Fundin had crossed almost the entire hall when he suddenly saw what could only be called a veritable crater in the floor next to one of the furnaces. He stopped dead in his tracks. Sitting in this crater was one of the huge counterweights that were used to operate the bellows, the cement cracked and broken. The big belly of the furnace was dented as well and the iron scaffolding of the bellows next to it was broken in some places, whereas in others it looked as if a giant had taken hold of the thick iron bars and bent them into a strange piece of abstract art. The bellows of the adjacent furnace were scorched in places, obviously caught by an escaping stream of flame from its damaged neighbour.

Fundin stared at the scene of destruction, then caught himself and walked on. Now he really wanted to find his brother, if only to find out what in the Maker's name had happened here.

He walked on and then he suddenly heard his brother's voice.

“ – cannot let yourself be provoked like that.”

Fundin quickened his pace but came to a sudden stop when his brother's form came into view, standing behind the last furnace on the left side of the long hall. For Narvi was there, his back turned to Fundin, but he was not alone: sitting at a small table shoved up to the wall, half-hidden from view where Fundin was standing, was an elf.

Fundin had often heard of this strange guest they were housing here in Hadhodrond, but he had not seen him up until now. He was tall and dark-haired, though Fundin was certain that his current posture cowering at a worktable belied the elf's real height, which had to be even more imposing. The elf reminded Fundin of a wolf that had been backed into a corner, every muscle tense and ready to lash out. His face was stained with soot and grime and his dark locks fell wildly around his face, no longer held back by the red bandanna that he had tied around his brow to keep his hair out of his face. His fingers were gripping the table so tightly that his knuckles had gone white.

Fundin took an involuntary step backwards into the deeper shadows between the bellows when the elf's eyes briefly flicked over to where he was standing.

“Pray, how else am I supposed to react when he says something like that?” the elf snarled. “I will not be taken for a fool!”

Narvi, however, appeared unimpressed. He was leaning against the worktable and if the black anger seeping from the elf frightened him, he didn't let this show in the slightest. “So what do you plan to do in the future?” Narvi asked sternly. “Do you plan to demolish a venerable old workspace every time someone so much as looks at you the wrong way?”

“That is not what I meant and you know it,” the elf hissed. “Besides, it was Floki, who – ”

“Don't you start putting the blame on someone else now,” Narvi interrupted him. “It was you who raised your voice first, and it was you who rose to Floki's bait, however misplaced it might have been. He has his share of the blame to bear – but you have yours and it weighs just as heavily.”

“What? He started it, why is it suddenly me who is at fault here?” The elf leaned forward and grasped the edge of the table. His grip was so tight that Fundin wouldn't have been surprised to hear the wood crack under his grip. “Why do I have to defend myself, when it was him who spoke out of turn?”

“Are you a Dwarven prince, Noldo?” Narvi said, his voice hard.

That seemed to actually baffle the elf into stopping his growling and snarling. “No, why – ”

“Is Floki a servant of yours, sworn to obey? Is he only allowed to look you in the eye when you permit it, only speak when you give him leave to do so?”

The elf gritted his teeth and actually made as if to stand up. “No! Why are you –”

“Good. Then stop acting like he has risen above his station by giving you a piece of his mind, ill-thought though it might have been,” Narvi said sharply. “Spoke out of turn – if you say that once more, I'll have you thrown out from my shift. I will not have any pompous would-be princes working with me. We are comrades and equals, and like equals, we shall deal with any issues that arise – I won't have any of this ridiculousness on my shift, either from Floki or from you.”

The elf leaned back and crossed his arms, his face haughty and full of wounded pride, while his dark eyes were fixed on Narvi in a glower. “So what do you suggest, then?” he asked acerbically. “How would you, as a comrade and equal, deal with this situation?”

“Me?” Narvi said. “Do you really want to hear that or do you just want me to throw you some arguments that you can barrel over without even considering them?”

The elf's glower deepened. “I want to hear your honest opinion,” he said after a while, barely managing to get the words out from between his clenched jaws.

Narvi put one hand on top of the table and turned to face the elf fully, thereby turning his back on Fundin, who was still waiting in the shadows, not daring to move. “Good, Kurfi, then you shall have it. I think that Floki was wrong in bringing your father into the argument. However, I also think that you of all people should have known better than to descend upon him like a furious hellhound for mentioning your family.”

“He had no right.”

“He had no right to insult you, no. But he had every right to his opinion.”

At that, the elf rose so suddenly that the chair he had been sitting on tipped over backwards and crashed onto the floor behind him. “He had no right!” he repeated, more hotly now. “He doesn't know anything, anything at all about the First Age, about my family, or my father! He has never met them, he has only ever heard stories like all the others who keep throwing me these suspicious glances out of the corners of their eyes – as if they were just waiting for me to go up in flames like Fëanor or turn to slaughter innocents like my father did! They never knew them, and yet they have already judged them – just like they do not know me, but have already judged me!”

Narvi held up a hand and miraculously, the elf snapped his mouth shut. Narvi let out a deep sigh. “I know only of the few things that you have told me, but even that is enough that I can say this with certainty: you are right that no one here knows what you or your kin have lived through, suffered, and endured. We Khazad have different fates and histories, and some might be just as hard in their own way —but no one here can imagine what it is like to be you. On that I agree with you completely. However,” Narvi added after a pause, “that does not mean that others are forbidden from comparing you to your family. You cannot take that away from them. They watch you, of course. They expect certain things of you, and they would be foolish if they dismissed what they know from history or their own experience.”

“They shouldn't! Why can't they just take me for myself?” The elf's voice cracked. “I am not my grandfather and I am not my father!”

“Then how about you stop acting like them?” Narvi said. The words were softly spoken, but they impacted with all the precision and brutal force of a javelin.

The elf froze. He opened his mouth as if to grasp for words or gasp for air – but no sound came out.

“I do not know very much about your family,” Narvi continued. “The only things I know about your father are the few tidbits you have divulged to me, and even that little tells me that you are trying to escape the shadow of your family by treading the exact same path that your father has walked down before you.”

The Noldo had gone deathly pale. His hands, which had been balled into fists before, now hung open at his sides, gone nerveless and numb.

Narvi seemed to have noticed this as well, and when he continued, his voice was softer. “You will never convince them that you are not your father so long as you keep up the aloofness and pride that are the trademark of Curufin in every legend of Beleriand. You will never manage to step out from your father's shadow so long as you are acting exactly like he would do.”

“But what am I supposed to do then?” the elf asked, his voice cracking. “Just take the insult and give the impression that I will never defend myself, no matter how unfounded the accusation?”

“I did not say that, though you must begin acting contrary to their expectations at some point.”

“How?”

“Apologizing to Floki would be a good start.”

The elf bristled. “I am not so weak as to let others walk all over me and then ask them for forgiveness.”

Fundin could not see his brother's expression, but all the same, he was almost certain that Narvi was raising one eyebrow, just like he did every time when he had Fundin cornered in one of their arguments. “Are those your words or are they the words that your father has taught you to say in situations such as these? There is never a weakness in apologizing, and if you do not realize that, I feel sorry for you,” Narvi said.

Fundin was glad that looks could not kill, otherwise his brother must have dropped dead on the spot from the venom in the Noldo's glare. “I won't apologize for something when I'm not in the wrong.”

“Do you truly believe that you have had no part in the situation that would warrant an apology?” Narvi asked. “I would suggest that you take a long time thinking about yourself and the way you look at the world, if you think that the fault for issues with your family history always lies with others.”

The elf's expression did not change. He stared Narvi down with a dark, mulish sort of stubbornness that suddenly made Fundin understand why Floki of the Foundries would have felt compelled to drop the counterweight of a bellows onto the Noldo's head. The elf's self-righteous, haughty expression was hard to stand – and Floki had always hated abundant pride with a passion.

Narvi watched the elf, who was obviously debating with himself about what to say, then sighed. “Go to bed, Kurfi, and think about what you have said and done today. If you come to me in three days and tell me honestly that you don't see anything that you have done wrong, I will take it upon myself to resolve this argument between the two of you. But I warn you, it might not be pleasant for either of you. If you change your mind about having no fault in the situation – well, there is something to be said for a man who can own up to his mistakes. Now go – this day has been too long and exciting already. Sleep – sleep, and think less about how others see you and more about why they might see you as they do.”

The Noldo did not answer. He just stared Narvi down for a few more moments, then he nodded stiffly and stood abruptly. “Good night, Narvi.” He walked around the dwarf with long strides and Fundin had to duck back into the deeper shadows behind the bellows and between two crates when the elf passed him. However, his caution was unwarranted. The elf stared straight ahead as he walked, his stride as long and sure and swift as if he was marching to battle instead of going to bed.

When he was gone, Fundin stepped out from between the crates.

Narvi was standing with his back towards him. The dwarf sighed then ran his hands down his face.

Fundin approached him carefully.

“What do you think of our adopted elf?” Narvi asked, then turned around to face his younger brother with a tired, wry smile on his face.

Fundin tried not to look too guilty at having been caught eavesdropping. He floundered a bit, wondering what kind of answer his brother might want to hear. The elf was Narvi's friend, Fundin knew as much, however unlikely that might seem judging by the scene that he had unwillingly overheard.

In the end, he settled for honesty, because he knew that Narvi would care more for an honest answer than a friendly one. “I don't like him very much, I think,” Fundin conceded.

“Well, then you and Floki would agree, although I doubt that Floki would be as polite about it as you are.”

Fundin frowned. “I can understand why. What I don't understand is why you remain so patient and friendly with him, even when he is nothing but haughty and rude.”

Narvi sighed. “Not always, but often enough, I must admit. Celebrimbor has a harsher temper than some of the Bristlebeards, and he is even more impatient. Sometimes I think I would have an easier time arguing with a piece of rock than to persuade this Noldo to do as he is told.”

“Why do you keep him company then? Khazad-Dûm has provided him with work and a place to stay. If his way of repaying this kindness is acting with insolence and pride, then perhaps he doesn't deserve your friendship.”

Narvi threw him a long look. “When a sword is all sharp edges, that might be because it has always been that way. Perhaps it was badly wrought from the start. But then again, perhaps it was once well-made and smooth, but bits and pieces have been chipped off and broken with wear and time – until its balance was off, its edges had become vicious and it had become almost impossible to handle.”

Narvi turned around and started packing his toolkit that had been laid out on the table. His hands hovered briefly over one of his cutting knives, then he slowly pulled it out, regarding its blade. “With great care, these edges might be sanded down again, but one has to be careful and patient. Lose patience and you might cut yourself – or break the sword.” He slowly placed the knife back into the loops of leather that held it in the kit. “There is a great deal that could have happened to a sword that has been broken,” Narvi said quietly. “Try not to judge too quickly, little brother.”

Fundin didn't know how to reply to this. He only said, “Don't cut yourself on his edges then.”

Narvi laughed loudly. “I've dealt with worse. Besides, I am too smart and too stubborn to let a few papercuts wear me down. Now come, let us go home. Supper awaits.”

Fundin followed him quietly and while they walked, he thought a lot about brothers and pride and broken things. He also thought of the sullen, dark elf who had so inexplicably gained the friendship of his brother Narvi, who was usually so reluctant to grant it, and he wondered what Narvi saw in the elf that made his brother think the effort was worth it.

***

It was only a week later when Fundin met Celebrimbor again. He had been assigned the task of attending to some maintenance works on the bellows' mechanisms, which left him working under the various masters in the forges as he progressed from one bellow to the next. He was currently taking a break from oiling the gear unit in Narvi's forge when a familiar tall figure made its way down the central aisle between the busy forges and the dwarves walking to and fro, and over to them.

Fundin set down his waterskin. “Brother,” he called, half aloud.

Narvi turned around and his gaze immediately homed in on the elf walking over toward them, his stride quick and determined. “Ah.” He wiped his hands on a rag and waited until the Noldo had reached them. Celebrimbor gave a curt bow, which was the most polite that Fundin had ever seen him act around his fellow workers.

Narvi acknowledged it with a nod. “Kurfi, what brings you here?”

The elf looked at the furnace across the street, as if there was something particularly interesting going on there that only he could see, then scratched his head. “I apologized,” he said quickly, as if he wasn't keen on talking about it, much less having anyone hear it. He fixed Narvi with a glare, challenging him to say something in response.

Narvi appeared confounded at first, but when he understood what the elf was talking about, a small smile tugged on his mouth. “Good. I am glad that you did. Did Floki accept it?”

Celebrimbor glowered. “I don't know and I don't care. I didn't wait around to hear him gloat and make another snide comment.” He crossed his arms. “I hope you are content,” the elf said. “Because that is as far as I will go to cooperate with Floki.”

“I would not ask any more of you,” Narvi said. “I don't need you to become friends, I only want both of you to be capable of working side by side without bashing each other's heads in. Do you think you two can do that?”

Celebrimbor frowned. “That depends on Floki. I will try to get along with him, but if he so much as mentions my family again, I won't refrain from giving him a piece of my mind.”

“As long as it is only your mind and not your hammer,” Narvi said.

“I won't make any promises,” Celebrimbor replied.

Narvi sighed. “I am sure you won't, Kurfi. If I would bet on anything concerning your person, it would be that.”

The Noldo raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment on this. “I have to go,” he said after a few moments of awkward silence. He turned around stiffly and then made his way back along the central aisle, quickly being swept up in the bustle of workers, smiths, and carriage dwarfs.

He was almost out of earshot when Narvi called after him. “Kurfi!”

The elf didn't stop in his tracks, but turned around, walking backwards. “What?”

“I am proud of you,” Narvi told him.

It was quietly spoken and the elf turned around too quickly for Fundin to know for certain, but he was almost sure that he saw a small smile on the elf's lips before he turned away from them.

427 years ago (1131 S.A.)

Fundin had just finished his first year in the mines after graduating from Naugrin's class to become a mining engineer in his own right, when King Durin III called upon him. The king's calling didn't come unexpectedly, all things considered. However, when Fundin found a royal missive on his desk one day, asking him to present himself to King Durin in the throne room, it still managed to take the young dwarf by surprise. The House of Durin had always been close to his Fundin's own family, and yet he had not expected to be noticed so soon.

“I have heard of your prowess in the mines and the workshops,” Durin said when Fundin was standing before his throne. “And yet Dwarves who know you well tell me that your true calling has always lain elsewhere.”

Fundin bowed deeply. “To work where my talents are needed is honour enough in itself, Your Majesty,” he replied. “My mind grasps numbers well enough, just as my hands feel comfortable working with tools. After a long day of hard work, I can look back upon it with contentment. But if you were to ask where my heart's desires lie, I would tell you that it would be with languages, history, and economy.”

“What would you say if I told you that there might be a post where these interests would not only come in handy, but – I daresay – be necessary to distinguish an acceptable steward from a formidable one?” Durin inclined his head to one side and watched him, his eyes sharp and calculating.

Fundin righted himself again. “I would leave it to your wisdom to decide upon a fitting applicant, Your Majesty,” he said. “As for myself, I could only tell you that I would give my best and strongest efforts to attend to your tasks as diligently as I can.”

“Your speech honours your name and that of your ancestors,” King Durin said. “I ask you then: do you want to serve Khazad-Dûm as a steward instead of an engineer? Think well before you answer, for the post will demand much of you and you will get to see your family less than you are used to. Your task will demand that you are present during all formal occasions, that you proofread or even write my letters to our distant cousins in the Blue Mountains and Erebor – or to peers such as the Lord and Lady of Eregion and Lord Círdan of the White Towers. You will share many of my and my family's secrets and be expected to bear their weight without confiding in anyone else. You will no longer be able to travel, except to accompany me on my journeys. You will work both days and nights and you will be my closest confidant and present during all meetings of the Lords of Khazad-Dûm. I will ask much of you, sometimes more than you might be willing to give. And while I will give my greatest effort to be fair with you always, sometimes you will bear the brunt of my failures, just as someone standing close to a great fire will at times get burned.”

The king shifted in his seat and the flickering flames in the sconces on the pillars of the hall seemed to shift with him. “If you would rather go back to your engineering in the forges and the mines, you need only say so and I promise that the royal line will bear you and your family no ill will for refusing us. But know that to say yes means to bind yourself for a long time.” King Durin leaned forward expectantly. “What do you say?”

Fundin felt like he should beg for some time to consider such a momentous decision, but strangely enough, he felt no insecurity or doubt when he looked inside himself. Deep down he had always known that he could live doing many things, be it mining or engineering, but he had only ever really wanted to assume one particular post. And now that he was being offered this very opportunity on a silver platter by none other than the king himself, he felt that he did not need to consider at all.

“I will gladly take you up on your offer, Your Majesty,” he said. “It would be an honour for me and my house to have me serve as your steward. Thank you.” And he bowed once again, even deeper than before.

When he looked up, he found to his surprise that King Durin was smiling at him.

“I need to thank you, Fundin Finlisson,” King Durin said. “Your answer was quick and steadfast and you do not shy away from responsibility, despite my warnings of what the post might demand of you. You should know that your answer makes me glad, for I do not think that there is a Dwarf more suited to this task than you are.”

Fundin did not know what to say. He was at a loss for words, so he just bowed again. “You honour me, Your Majesty.”

“Only as much as is your due, and only as much as befits the occasion,” Durin said. “All further praise will be hard-earned, I promise you, for your tasks will be as manifold and as demanding as my own. But we can talk about that when the time has come. I expect to find you here in the throne room in seven days so we might discuss the obligations of your office and equip you with the steward's attire and brooch. In the meantime you should get your affairs down in the mines in order and prepare yourself for your new office.” Durin's expression became a bit softer when he added, “Also, I feel like this is a festive, honourable day for your entire family, so perhaps you should return home and celebrate this occasion.” He smiled again, almost imperceptibly. “You are allowed to go.”

Fundin thanked him once again, and then turned to leave. As he walked down the long gold-and-black carpet between the rows of columns, he felt strangely heavy and self-assured, as if any step now he might begin to become one with the firm stone beneath his feet. He glanced aside as he passed the tapestry hanging from the Western wall of the throne room, where the emblem of his family’s house hung,ever since Durin the First had awoken under the mountains and the old Dwarven houses had sworn him their allegiance: a silver hand on a blue field.

Fundin allowed himself a small smile, then turned his head forward again and exited the throne room. He thought about telling Narvi about his new post and something in his chest clenched with excitement and joy.

426 years ago (1132 S.A.)

It had been a long time since Fundin had had the time to attend a real family dinner at home, and when the invitation came, he was very happy to return to the familiar stone mansions of House Silverhand in the Eastern part of Khazad-Dûm. As always, the gathering itself was quite a formal affair, but after dinner was finished and the first few rounds of Blue Mountain Strongbrew had found its way into the stomachs of his uncles and aunts, there was laughter and jesting aplenty. As was to be expected, Fundin's younger cousins ran up to question him about how he was faring in the king's service and Fundin tried to answer them as well as he could, until Narvi stepped in and rescued him.

Under the pretence of cleaning up the remainder of the feast, both brothers stole away into the kitchens and sat down at a simple stone table. The din from the party was diminished here, softened by thick stone walls and a flight of stairs.

“It is hard to find a bit of quiet with the entire family around,” Narvi said.

“That it is,” Fundin agreed. “I should thank you for rescuing me. When did our little cousins grow up to be so tenacious? I was on the verge of either not answering or else divulging the king's secrets!”

Narvi laughed as he went over to the pantry and found a bottle of Elven wine for both of them. “As the king's advisor and steward this is to be your fate, for as long as you hold your office and even afterwards, I fear. But come now, let us drink and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet.”

Fundin nodded and let Narvi pour him a small crystal glass of wine. Above, one of their uncles broke into raucous laughter and the whole family followed suit. For a while, both brothers just sat in silence and drank, each following his own thoughts. It was Narvi who broke the silence at last. “How are you faring?” he asked. “I got to see so little of my younger brother for the last year that at times I am in danger of forgetting that I have one!”

The shock that Fundin felt at this must have passed over his face, because Narvi immediately became serious again.

“That was a joke, little brother! Now you wound me, if you think that I could forget you so easily!” He leaned forward and clapped a hand down on Fundin's shoulder. “Ever since you left, no single day has passed when I didn't think of you. So tell me, how is your life in the palace?”

Fundin looked at the blood-red wine glittering in his glass, then up at his brother. “Hard,” he admitted. “The king warned me when he offered me the post, but truth be told, I couldn't have imagined the work and effort that goes into keeping a kingdom safe and prospering. I work day and night, with ten assistants to help me, and still there is no end to the tasks that are to be done. Even now, I am already thinking of the letters that I must still write to our cousins in the Iron Hills – and I don't even speak their dialect perfectly.”

“I am sure you speak and write it more than adequately,” Narvi said.

Fundin gave him a long look. “Was it not you yourself who told me that 'adequate' is no longer enough at a certain level?”

Narvi chuckled and leaned back. “There he is, my little brother! You must truly have grown up and I must truly have grown old if I have my own words thrown back at me now. But you are right, of course. 'Adequate' does not serve, either when you are calculating the structural statics of a tunnel or when it is the king himself whom you work for.” Narvi regarded Fundin with a solemn expression. “But that does not matter, as long as you feel like you can fulfil your responsibilities to your king's content.” The unspoken question hung in the air between them.

For a moment, Fundin did not know what to say, but then he smiled. “He asks a lot of me. I must know the ins and outs of everything, from trade and economics to the mining expansions, the treasury, and familial relations across the kingdom. I must be his eyes and ears, his advisor and his diplomat, his proofreader and, at times, even the poor soul who has to contradict the king if he has gotten it into his head to do something I find inadvisable.” He paused. “I expected to grow overwhelmed, I expected to get tired at some point, but – ” He looked at Narvi, who was holding his gaze intently. “I found that it has made me love our kingdom all the more, brother. I know it now, as intimately as only one can know it. I feel almost as if it is a crystal that is growing under my protection and supervision, and as it grows bigger, more stable, more beautiful, I know that I have done my work well.” He looked at his hands. “At times I almost feel that one cannot truly appreciate the home they have until they have seen it at both its best and its worst. But if they have … they must come to love it unconditionally.”

At those words, a broad, radiant smile broke over Narvi's face, making his auburn beard bristle and his eyes crinkle. He reached out and laid his hands on Fundin's shoulder and then he said the words that Fundin had so hoped to hear, years ago, in the forges, when they had been spoken to another.

“I am proud of you, little brother.”

Fundin smiled and laid his hands on Narvi's shoulder as well. For a while they remained this way, then they pulled their hands back and looked at each other, full of pride and love. They remained in the kitchen for the remainder of the evening, drinking and talking about everything they had missed out on in each other's lives throughout the last year. When Fundin went to bed later he could not recall when he had last been so content.

***

After the celebration Fundin was allowed to remain a few more days at his family home with the king's express leave. He spent some time wandering the grounds and visiting the stone garden, but in the end, his work would not wait forever. Thus, one afternoon, he excused himself and went to find a quiet, unoccupied reading room. There he unpacked the correspondence to the Lord of the Iron Hills that he had brought with him, as well as a few dictionaries and phrase-books, and started to translate the king's missive into the dialect of their remote brethren. He worked for hours without interruption, as no one disturbed him. The day had progressed late into the evening when a small knock came at his door.

“Enter!” he called without looking up.

The door opened with a click and someone entered the room.

Fundin finished translating the sentence, then laid aside his pen and looked up – only to nearly jump to his feet when he recognized his visitor.

“Kurfinni,” he said, surprised, and rose from his seat.

The elf quietly closed the door behind him, then turned around. “Good day, Fundin. I hope I am not disturbing.”

“No, you are not. Are you looking for Narvi?”

“Actually, it was Narvi who sent me here. I was looking for you,” the Noldo said.

Fundin raised both eyebrows. “For me?” He didn't have the slightest idea what the elf could want from him. Their acquaintance didn't extend beyond the few odd times they had coincidentally run into each other, mostly with Narvi serving as the connecting nexus they both revolved around. Now that Fundin worked as a steward for the king, he hardly ever saw the elf anymore. “What can I do for you?”

“Well.” The Noldo looked aside and scratched his head, and at the gesture Fundin was reminded of the time when Celebrimbor had told them that he had apologized to Floki – only that the elf didn't look angry or irritated this time. In fact, everything about him today was quiet, almost sheepish, as if he wasn't quite sure about himself or the cause that had brought him here. It was an oddly different side of Celebrimbor that Fundin hadn't seen before, and yet it made the elf a lot more likeable than his angry, haughty persona from a few years ago.

At last, the Noldo looked back at Fundin, seemingly gathering his courage before he said, “I have been trying to learn Khuzdul for a while now, and even though I think I can comprehend the gist of it, the language is too complex and nuanced by far to study all by myself. I have been looking for a teacher for a while now, but I wouldn't want to impose myself on the miners, who have better things to do. Baldur the librarian seems reasonably competent, but he, er, has a tendency to …”

“Ramble,” said Fundin in the same moment that Celebrimbor said, “Get carried away.”

There was a brief, confounded silence. The elf blinked. “Why, yes. The long and short of it is that I talked to Narvi about it and he said that he doesn't have the time or the nerve to teach an outsider the finer details of Khuzdul. However, your brother also told me that you are the undisputed master of Dwarven languages and dialects in Khazad-Dûm. You work with Dwarves from all ends of the world and know the language like hardly anyone else. I know that you have a lot on your mind, and hardly any free time, but I was just wondering if I might sit by your side when you do your translations and you could, perhaps, just think loudly, so that I could learn why you would translate it that way.”

Fundin stared at him. For a while, no one said anything. Thoughts were whirring in Fundin's head. His bafflement that Narvi considered him to be the highest authority on language in Khazad-Dûm was only barely surpassed by the strangeness of the Noldo's actual endeavour. “You are learning Khuzdul?” he said, baffled.

“Yes.”

“Why?” asked Fundin. “Everyone here speaks Sindarin, you should have no problems making yourself understood.”

Celebrimbor shrugged. “It is not about making myself understood. But I have been living here in Khazad-Dûm for years now. I have been given shelter and food and work, and I think it is more than time that I show my appreciation for everything that has been done for me. I do my work as best as I can, but those are just my usual obligations and I want to do something beyond that, something to show everyone that I don't take what has been given to me for granted. A gesture, if you will.”

Fundin thought that he had heard it all when Celebrimbor had said that he was studying Khuzdul, but now he only barely managed not to let his jaw drop and gape. Whatever it was that he had expected the elf to say, this had not been it. Fundin regarded Celebrimbor from head to toe. There seemed to be a softer light about the elf today, and less shadow, rendering his face less hard and more open. Not all sharp edges after all, Fundin thought. Celebrimbor seemed to be honest about his request and Fundin admitted to himself that there might be more to the proud Noldo that he had initially suspected. He was still baffled, but outwardly, he schooled his face into a calm expression. “An outsider learning Khuzdul is unheard of,” he said. “Besides, the sheer difficulty of the language for someone who hasn't grown up speaking Khuzdul would make any success worth mentioning highly unlikely.”

Celebrimbor's expression fell, but Fundin held up his hand. “That being said, I know of no rule that would forbid a stranger from learning the language. I cannot let you attend while I translate the king's missives, for they have to remain confidential. However … I might be able to make some time in the evenings. You could come to me and we could try to converse in Khuzdul and I could try to answer any questions you might have about the language.”

Celebrimbor and Fundin stared at each other, and both appeared equally surprised about the suggestion that Fundin had just made. Truth be told, Fundin hadn't known that he would make this offer until the words had already left his mouth.

The elf was the first to find his verbal footing again. “That is a most generous offer, Fundin, but I know how much you have to do, and to impose upon you in addition to your daily tasks...”

Fundin knew Celebrimbor was right, but to his own surprise, he found that he did not mind the prospect of teaching the elf during what would otherwise have been his rare free evening hours. Among the things that he enjoyed doing most was teaching, but unfortunately he had spent most of his younger years being a student himself, then a young master not yet fit to teach, and after that his steward's post left him with no time and opportunity to find someone he could impart his knowledge to.

“It is no trouble at all,” he said quickly. “I would gladly teach you the basics of the language, though you will have to put in a lot of time and effort into your studies by yourself, if you ever want to make any notable progress. That being said, I won't guarantee that even your hardest effort will get you anywhere.”

“I'm well aware,” Celebrimbor said. He looked down at his hands, then up again at Fundin and all of a sudden, a lopsided smile worked its way across his face, although the elf appeared to be trying to bite it back.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You're welcome,” Fundin replied flatly, while his brain was still trying to keep up with this sudden turn of events and failing.

The elf stood. “Should we say… I don't know. When are you free?”

Fundin thought about it for a moment. “When do you finish your work?”

“That depends.” Celebrimbor shrugged. “Tomorrow I have the night shift, so I will be finishing at around six in the morning. Then I will be working the late shift for two days and after that, I will be in the early shift for a week.”

“Hm.” Fundin tapped his pen against his chin. “As a steward, I must mostly adhere to the diurnal days of our visitors from the outside world, so I am most often free in the late evenings and early mornings. What would you say if we met in five days, ninth hour of the evening?”

The transformation in Celebrimbor's expression was amazing. Where before he had been guarded and almost sheepish, his expression now lit up, a broad smile spreading over his face. Without forewarning he reached over the desk and shook Fundin's hand vigorously. “That is perfect! Thank you so much!”

Fundin stared at him, then down at their hands, then back up at the elf, resisting the urge to pull his hand back while trying to keep a straight face. “Well,” he said and politely tried to extricate himself from the Noldo's tight grasp, “I am glad that this arrangement is to your liking.”

“Yes, yes it is.” Celebrimbor nodded. Then he jumped to his feet all of a sudden in an abrupt motion that made Fundin jerk back in his seat and almost topple over in his chair. “I must get back to work now – but thank you so much! See you in five days!” The elf strode over to the door, then actually turned around and waved, and then he was gone.

Fundin just stared at the closed door for a few more moments, not blinking.

Quite flustered, he sat back down in his chair. This evening had brought far too many surprises for his liking, and all of them had come in the shape of this strange elf. He's like a storm locked inside of a mortal body, he thought. Wild and unpredictable and quite unable to sit still.

Teaching him Khuzdul would be interesting indeed.

***

Teaching Celebrimbor Khuzdul was, as it turned out, a challenge of its own kind. Fundin had always believed himself to be a good and patient teacher, but working with the elf was unlike anything that he had had to deal with before.

It was not the fact that the elf was not a native speaker of the language – Celebrimbor was more than making up for that with his sheer and endless tenacity – but the fact that the elf was a complete stranger to the cultural ways of the Khazad. He had not grown up with the various registers of the language, he was unfamiliar with the finer customs of rank and address, and more than once Fundin found himself at a loss at how to explain to him why he would never use this address with a higher-ranked dwarf or that form of address with a peer. It was simply something he had grown up with and never questioned, and now that he was supposed to explain it to a student, Fundin found that a lot of the finer points of his own mother tongue eluded him as soon as he sought to put them into definite words.

More often than not, both of them vanished into Khazad-Dûm's Great Library for hours on end, sifting through dozens of books on the tiniest details and finesses of the language, until one of them would suddenly cry out triumphantly and run over to the other, shouting “I found it!” loud enough that the librarian Baldur would descend onto them like a haggard bird of prey and angrily hiss them into silence.

Celebrimbor didn't make it any easier with his constant questioning. It was enough to strain even Fundin's patience, but even when he was growing noticeably fed up with Celebrimbor's constant asking of Why at every turn, the elf was undeterred. Fundin was sure that Celebrimbor must have noticed his annoyance at being interrupted and challenged at every turn. The Noldo was neither dumb nor unobservant – he simply didn't care as much about annoying his teacher as he cared about mastering Khuzdul.

When Fundin had agreed to teach him, he couldn't have imagined even a shred of the fixation and single-mindedness with which Celebrimbor would follow through on his near-impossible mission to learn the language. To say that the elf was holding himself to high standards would be a laughable understatement. He was a perfectionist, in the truest and purest sense that Fundin had ever seen. He had seen many Dwarves who worked diligently, trying to do their best at what they were doing. Celebrimbor, on the other hand, did not accept anything less than the absolute best. If his abilities kept him from achieving perfection, then the elf would work on with a stubborn, dogged determination that put even the most stiff-necked Dwarf to shame – night and day, at the cost of sleep and food, until he was able to do whatever he had done well before perfectly. It was almost as awe-inspiring to watch as it was frightening.

“Why are you doing this?” Fundin asked him one day.

Celebrimbor looked up from his conjugation tables, and it took some time for his eyes to focus on Fundin. “Doing what?” he repeated slowly.

Fundin gestured at the fifteen tomes that lay open around Celebrimbor, his countless meticulous notes in their margins, noting down even the slightest mistakes that he tended to make, as well as the proper solution and variations in different registers. “This. You do not have to speak the language perfectly. It would already be considered a miracle if an outsider like you could even hold a daily conversation in Khuzdul without a major mistake.”

Celebrimbor's eyes narrowed briefly at the word outsiders and for a moment Fundin thought that he would see the same angry Noldo again that he had not glimpsed ever since the incident at the forges six years ago.

But then a strange smile appeared on Celebrimbor's lips. He did that often, Fundin noticed, when the talk was of something that the elf didn't agree with or was uncomfortable discussing. Instead of anger, he now preferred to meet such conversations with a bland smile. It was a smile that let nothing slip, a smile that let everything just roll off the smooth, polished surface of his soul without touching the angry black feelings underneath – feelings that the elf kept under a tight lock at all times now.

“I was taught to never aim for anything less than perfection,” Celebrimbor said, not quite curtly. His face was friendly, but his tone was devoid of inflection.

“Then you were taught to set yourself up for a series of lifelong disappointments,” Fundin said. “It is impossible to achieve true perfection. You have come so far already, further than I could ever have anticipated. Must you really torment yourself with an impossible ambition?”

Celebrimbor's smile didn't change. “Nothing is impossible. 'Impossible' is just an excuse to build a hurdle in your mind that you tell yourself can't be overcome, so you can stop trying in good conscience.” And then he went back to his books.

Later Fundin talked to Narvi about this and when Fundin finished telling his brother of the incident, Narvi looked at the same time fond and sad.

“Is he the same when he is working with you?” Fundin asked.

“I do not think he knows any other way, to be honest,” Narvi said. “I feel like he must do everything he does with all his heart, or otherwise not do it at all. Just let him be. If this is his way of showing respect and remorse, let him.”

Remorse? Fundin had wanted to say. For what? But he had never asked. The sad look in Narvi's eyes had stopped him then, and somehow Fundin didn't think he was ready to hear the answer.

***

Fundin and Celebrimbor's study nights soon became a regular occurrence.

Celebrimbor would turn up as surely and reliably as clockwork, every Thror's Day at the ninth hour of the evening when his shift schedule allowed it – or on a different day when it wouldn't. He would knock on Fundin's door and Fundin would already await him with a jug full of hot black kófi and a plate of bread and cheese to last them through their discussions.

Without either of them realizing it, the frequency of these meetings slowly started to increase from weekly sessions to twice-a-week meetings, and sometimes Celebrimbor would even knock on the doors of Fundin's chambers in the palace randomly and without prior announcement, more or less inviting himself in. Fundin was surprised every time, but strangely enough, he found that he didn't mind.

The more he got to know Celebrimbor, the more Fundin found himself taken by a weird mixture of fascination and bewilderment. Never in a million years would he have thought to spend time willingly with this elf, let alone befriend him. But like so many assumptions that Fundin had initially had about the Noldo, this one, too, turned out to be wrong.

Fundin learned that Celebrimbor was not only an eerily perfectionist student, but he was also a quite pleasant and stimulating conversational partner. In hindsight it surprised Fundin that he had never noticed this, but the elf was far from a one-track specialist regarding smithing. Celebrimbor was incredibly knowledgeable about a sprawling variety of topics and sciences, and it seemed strange to Fundin now that he had never noticed this before. No matter the topic, no matter how specific or outlandish or theoretical, Celebrimbor seemed to be familiar with it – or to at least have an informed opinion on it. He was knowledgeable and talkative without being overbearing or showing off – and indeed, there seemed to be a careful reluctance to the elf not to go too overboard with either his gestures or the extent of his remarks. Now that Fundin knew how to look for it, he saw that careful reluctance everywhere – especially when Celebrimbor interacted with other dwarfs.

For whatever reason, the elf seemed to prefer not to be seen for who he really was. Instead, he seemed to have crafted a mask of indifference and middling intelligence that he wore whenever he was around other people.

And yet, somehow, Celebrimbor was less reluctant around Fundin. For one, the nature of their conversations didn’t allow the elf to keep up the pretence of mediocrity for long; in addition, the longer they knew each other, the more that Celebrimbor seemed to grow comfortable with opening up around Fundin. However, even though Celebrimbor spoke readily of things that interested him, and always with great enthusiasm, Fundin noticed that the elf was still holding back somehow. The mask might have cracked, but it still stayed in place, firm and immovable – except for one memorable occasion, that is.

It happened roughly a year and a half after Fundin and Celebrimbor had begun holding their evening meetings. During one of their discussions, Fundin dared to breach the topic of blame and forgiveness, and before he could take back what he realized too late might be a breach of a sensitive subject, there was suddenly a torrent of words – of theological, ontological, moral arguments – gushing forth from Celebrimbor as if a dam had been broken and the water had only been waiting for the chance to pour forth.

He spoke quickly, his tongue almost stumbling over itself as if Celebrimbor was somehow afraid that he might not get everything out in time or else that he would be interrupted. His argument started in a linear fashion, but then began to split and intertwine as if Celebrimbor was drawing a tree from the trunk upwards, only with words. The elf became more heated and animated the longer he spoke, the different arguments started to circle around each other, measure themselves up besides each other, intertwine and merge and split again when they couldn't be reconciled.

When Celebrimbor was finished, Fundin could only stare at him. “You can not possibly know these arguments without having read Palathion's Apologia.” Which was, incidentally, one of the most challenging philosophical texts that existed in Khuzdul and widely deemed untranslateable due to the extremely specific linguistic connotations of exclusively Dwarvish philosophical concepts. Which meant that...

“You did read it, didn't you.”

Celebrimbor met his gaze, but didn't reply.

Fundin fell back against the backrest of his chair. “Well... the argument was well constructed.” He thought back to the torrent of words that had broken forth from Celebrimbor's lips, weaving concrete ideas and abstract concepts at a speed that most Khazad would have had trouble following what was being said, freely interspersed with vocabulary so outlandish and specialized that most Dwarves wouldn't encounter it unless they entered Khazad-Dûmʼs academy of philosophy. “But how, in the Maker’s name, do you know all these words in Khuzdul?” His tone was surprised, and in no small part awestruck.

But, to his astonishment, the effect of his words was as if Fundin had reached out and hit Celebrimbor. The elf immediately deflated and half-turned away from Fundin. His eyes, so burning and open only a moment before, were now shuttered and opaque and all that fire and enthusiasm, those high emotions, were once again tightly locked away behind a blank, insurmountable wall.

“I'm sorry,” Celebrimbor said, and that was it.

And Fundin finally understood why the elf was so reluctant to be himself around anyone at all. When he caught fire, he was as overwhelming as a force of nature. Anyone or anything in his way would be overwhelmed and thrown to the ground with the force and heat of his fervour, his enthusiasm, his fire. He was not someone who could lead a discussion with casual bearing: if Celebrimbor was fighting, he was fighting tooth and nail even over the smallest issue – Fundin had seen that from the very beginning when he had listened in on the argument that his brother Narvi and the Noldo had had about Floki. If Celebrimbor was ever allowed to catch fire, then he would burn and roll over everyone in his way with a heat and intensity that would leave the casual disputant bewildered or even put-off. If he didn't meet someone who shared his enthusiasm and wildfire-fervour, and who had the strength and intellect to stand their ground against him, then he would scare everyone else away simply by being himself. Thus, Celebrimbor had obviously chosen not to be himself at all.

Fundin watched him, not knowing what to say and not sure what he was feeling. It wasn't pity, though. He could pity the elf as little as he could pity a fire for burning too hot or a storm for being dreaded. But he felt… regret. Regret that someone like Celebrimbor should have to lock himself away for no other reason that he would overwhelm anyone in his vicinity with his force. There was, of course, nobody to blame, but Fundin's heart ached when he thought of all the thoughts and ideas that Celebrimbor had to keep to himself – that everyone was missing out on – because the elf was simply too much if unleashed.

But perhaps…

Fundin watched the elf closely. You couldn't unleash wildfire, of course. But maybe, just maybe, you could give it a safe space where it could burn and lose some of its strength.

“That was a very compelling argument that you made on the lasting guilt of one deed, but I am not sure I am yet convinced that the only way to to earn redemption is a lifetime of penance or death,” Fundin said. “It seems unreasonably unfair towards immortal races. Would you care to elaborate?”

Celebrimbor gave him a sideways look, as if he wasn't sure whether Fundin was making fun of him. Fundin thought of the images that Narvi had invoked for him – of broken, brittle swords.

With great care, its edges might be sanded down again, but one has to be careful and patient.

So he just sat there and waited patiently.

Celebrimbor kept eyeing him, then slowly, he righted himself again: unfolding, sitting straighter. “You want me to continue?”

Fundin nodded. “By all means. I was looking forward to seeing where you were going with all of this, and I would find it very bad form if you left me here with half an argument, wondering what your conclusion might have been.” He smiled to take the edge off the jab.

“All right, if you are really sure you want to hear it. It might get a bit long-winded, though...” Celebrimbor trailed off, still watching him intently for any sign that might hint at – bewilderment? Annoyance?

“I do want to hear it,” Fundin replied evenly. “I wouldn't have asked otherwise.”

Celebrimbor just stared at him, and then – slowly an indescribable change went through him. His posture unfolded from its cramped, hunched position, his eyes brightened, and his entire face lit up with a smile that made Fundin's chest ache because it was so rare.

And then Celebrimbor spoke.

***

As time passed, Celebrimbor's grasp of Khudzul got better and better, far surpassing any expectations that Fundin might have once held. But although Celebrimbor needed Fundin less and less as a teacher, somehow his visits didn't become any less frequent. Studying Khuzdul gradually became an afterthought during their meetings, though, and then fell by the wayside entirely when their focus shifted away from language learning and towards exchanging thoughts and ideas.

Celebrimbor kept showing up every Thror's Day at nine o'clock in the evening. He was always punctual and full of new notions and ideas that he was ready to share. At some point, Fundin realized that his weekly meeting with the Noldo was the one thing that he was looking forward to the most during his work week. He would still fulfil his duties with due diligence, but more often than not, he caught himself looking at a clock while taking minutes or proofreading ledgers and counting the hours until they would next meet again.

It was a fixed point in both of their weeks, and Fundin – who had never before lost himself in such single-minded enthusiasm – suddenly found that a mere pastime was taking up most of his thoughts now. Talking to Celebrimbor had filled his minds with ideas and possibilities that he had never had before. Indeed, talking to the elf had made him realize that he felt like he had never held a proper conversation before getting to know Celebrimbor.

It was so easy to speak with him, too. Fundin didn't even always need to find the right words, for the Noldo just somehow seemed to understand what he was getting at, often enough even before he had finished speaking. More than that – when Fundin spoke, Celebrimbor didn't simply wait for his next chance to get a word in himself. He listened. Whatever ideas Fundin proposed, no matter the topic, Celebrimbor never disregarded them in favour of his own thoughts. He patiently waited for Fundin to finish, then took up his ideas and ran with them, adding some of this own thoughts and developing them into shapes that Fundin couldn't even have imagined, before throwing them back at Fundin, analysed and regarded and altogether changed.

He had never felt so heard, so understood before.

Before long, it was Celebrimbor whom Fundin went to when he sought advice, and it was Celebrimbor that he asked when he wanted to have a second opinion. The elf was always ready to listen, and he never pried or tried to push his own views on Fundin. Conversely, slowly but surely, Celebrimbor started to open up to him as well. Not much, and only ever piece by piece, but it allowed Fundin to slowly and steadily gain a picture of the Noldo's past, and the circumstances that had brought him to Khazad-Dûm.

Celebrimbor never delved too deep into these topics, though, and he refused to think that he was in any way “haunted” by what was – in his own words – long past and forgotten. Still, it was more than anyone else besides Narvi knew about the elf, and Fundin was glad that he could, in some small way, be of help to someone who had done so much for helping him with his own problems. (That, and the thought that Celebrimbor had chosen him, of all Dwarves in Khazad-Dûm, to talk to, gave Fundin a strange feeling of satisfaction and happiness. But he didn't dwell on this overly much.)

421 years ago (1137 S.A.)

It was at some point, roughly five years after they had started to meet up regularly, that Celebrimbor invited Fundin to spend a night out with him for the first time. They had kept their meetings strictly to Fundin's quarters and hadn't strayed from the habit until now, so Fundin was caught quite off-guard by the offer to spend an evening out.

They were nearing the eleventh hour of the evening, when Celebrimbor looked at the clock and suddenly stood. “Ah, Maker's fire, I'm sorry, I have to go now,” he said.

“All of a sudden? You usually stay past midnight”, Fundin said and set his cup of kófi aside.

“Usually, yes, but I have another engagement tonight. I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you,” Celebrimbor said and put on his jacket. “I told Narvi and a few friends that I would play cards with them at the Sapphire Dell. They have been teasing me for years that I'm too scared to face them at the gambling table, so I finally gave in and said yes. Now I have every intention of squeezing every last gold coin from them.”

Fundin gave him a long look. “I wouldn't have expected you to be the gambling type.”

Celebrimbor threw him a quick grin. “Neither would I, but lo and behold, here I am.”

Fundin dragged a hand down his face. “Oh my. Well, good luck then, and have fun. Tell the others I said that they should let you keep at least enough money to last you until your next payday.”

“I will do that,” Celebrimbor replied, laughing as he fiddled with the buttons on his jacket. Then he stilled. “Come to think of it, why don't you come along and tell them so yourself?”

Fundin tensed. “Me? Coming along to a gambling den? No, there is no way. That would be highly improper. I am the king's steward, just imagine what it would mean if I were seen out in such a place – ”

“It would mean that all the others got to see that you have some sense of fun as well,” Celebrimbor said, nudging Fundin amicably with his elbow. “Besides, I don't know what you were thinking the Sapphire Dell is, but it is a respectable establishment in upper Khazad-Dûm, near the Third Hall. Not some dingy dive bar on the lower levels. We are going to have some drinks and play a few rounds of cards – surely there cannot be anything disreputable about that.”

“I don't know,” Fundin hedged. “I should be translating those missives I received earlier today and –”

“Well, if that's going to be your excuse, you might as well lock yourself in your study forever.” Celebrimbor exhaled with a look of exasperation on his face. Then, without forewarning, he pulled Fundin to his feet, threw his waistcoat at him, and said, “Come on, get ready, we are going to spend an evening out tonight, you'll like it!”

Fundin, whose heart had nearly stilled when Celebrimbor had grabbed him without forewarning, gave his friend a disgruntled look as he plucked his waistcoat from his shoulder where the elf had unceremoniously tossed it. “You leave me no choice in the matter, do you?”

“If you're putting it like that, no.” Celebrimbor turned around. “Come on, it will be fun!” He smiled at Fundin and upon seeing that smile, something in Fundin's stomach seemed to drop.

He looked away as he put his arms through the armholes of his waistcoat. “Fine,” he muttered. “But not for too long, and we won't do anything ribald.”

“We won’t, cross my heart.” Celebrimbor threw him another grin and again, Fundin's heart jumped, but it wasn't the shock this time. “Are you coming?”

*

They walked out of the palace wing together and into the main city of Khazad-Dûm, crossing the Second Hall and entering the Third. Celebrimbor obviously knew exactly where he was headed, which was quite strange, considering that this was Fundin's city and he had no idea of where they were going. Besides, Fundin had never known that Celebrimbor was involved in social gatherings with his co-workers. The elf had never mentioned as much and Fundin likewise hadn't assumed it, as solitary and obsessed with his work as Celebrimbor had appeared.

As it was, Celebrimbor had apparently made some friends among the Dwarves besides Fundin, despite how abrasive he had been during his first years in Khazad-Dûm. It should have come as no surprise, since the elf was no longer as hot-tempered and moody as he had been in the beginning. It stood to reason that his enthusiasm and openness would draw in other people eventually.

And yet, somehow it did come as a surprise to Fundin, because he had – for reasons that he couldn't name – believed that Celebrimbor only ever met up with him outside of work, and vice versa. The mere fact that he had automatically assumed this annoyed him, because there was no proper reason to do so.

Still, Fundin almost stepped backwards out of the door again when they entered the Sapphire Dell. Fundin only had enough time to take in the warm, yellow lamps hanging in ornamental mesh sconces over every table, the dark wooden furniture, the stone bar, before a veritable uproar interrupted his thoughts.

“Finally!” someone shouted. “I almost thought you had ducked out at the last moment!”

“Indeed!” someone else cried. “I hear that the brood of Fëanor doesn't like to lose money or gems!”

Fundin threw Celebrimbor a shocked glance, but instead of getting angry the Noldo just laughed and stepped into the throng of friends that had risen from a corner table to greet him. It was startling to see the elf – who had for so long appeared to be too withdrawn and too angry to strike up a normal conversation, let alone spend a night out with comrades – surrounded by more than a dozen of what had to be long-time co-workers and friends, clapping down on shoulders, shaking hands and laughing.

Fundin stood and watched from the sidelines, unsure of where he fit into this picture. What was he, a steward of the king, supposed to do here? Celebrimbor's friends weren't even sparing him a glance. Merely the bartender gave him an odd look, taking in Fundin's noble finery and, Maker, he hadn't even taken off the Brooch of the Steward. Fundin hurriedly fumbled the clasp open and shoved the brooch into his pocket, then glanced over the where Celebrimbor stood. The elf was too busy shaking hands and exchanging greetings and japes to notice that Fundin hadn't followed him into the bar and was, for all intents and purposes, frozen on the doorstep and blocking the only entrance to the bar. No one paid Fundin any mind. The laughter and the noise felt almost like a wall that hit him, pushing him backwards and outside. He had no place here. He didn't fit in with these people. Didn't belong with them. They didn't even see him.

He knew that it would be impolite to vanish, considering that the Celebrimbor had asked him to come along. However, the elf appeared to be fully taken up with his other friends anyway. He wouldn't even miss Fundin. And even if he did, Fundin could always explain himself later.

Fundin was just about to turn around and quietly take his leave when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder and he looked up to see Narvi standing next to him and smiling at him.

“Brother!” Fundin exclaimed, hoping he sounded merely surprised and not as if his heart was about to leap out of his chest from the shock. “I didn't see you, I'm sorry.”

“I thought not, riveted on the group as you were,” Narvi laughed. “I know they can be a bit overwhelming, but you know that the dogs that bark loudest don't bite. Don't let yourself be scared off by them.”

“I wouldn't,” Fundin lied, and gave a weak laugh.

Narvi didn’t look convinced, but thankfully refrained from discussing the topic further. “I must say, I am surprised to see you here,” he said. “I stopped asking you to come along with me years ago, for you never seemed to be able to make time. And now all of a sudden, here you are, with a Noldo in tow.”

“Change that around to the fact that Kurfi had me in tow, and you'd be a lot closer to the truth.” Fundin scratched his head and sighed.

Narvi chuckled. “I should have known.” He gave Fundin a warm look. “Be that as it may, I am glad to see you here, little brother.”

“Yes, me too,” Fundin admitted, and in that moment he didn't feel quite as out of place anymore.

After the cheer caused by Celebrimbor's arrival had subsided, everyone found their seats around the corner table. There was a bit of scuffing and shuffling, in the process of which Fundin ended up between Narvi and Snorri, a young dwarf who had once attended the same apprentice class as Fundin. Snorri was an easygoing fellow who wasn't hard to talk to, and for a while they asked each other about this and that, how they were doing and what was going on in their lives. Snorri told Fundin that he had recently completed Naugrin's master class and had moved into a house in the Fourth Hall of Khazad-Dûm with his wife. When Snorri asked him about his own life, Fundin hedged for a while, but in the end told him that no, he wasn't married, as his position as the king's steward wouldn't allow for much of a family life, but yes, he was still happy with his life.

“Well, we're still young, aren't we?” Snorri said. “You won't be a steward forever, I believe, and you will find yourself someone before you're old as stone. Just don't do as old Helkir did before you. Poor chap literally lived and died in the king's service and never got to know someone who wasn't an envoy or a royal entourage. All he ever saw of the outside world were the delegations that came traipsing into Durin's palace or the throne rooms of other kings, but he never so much glimpsed the sea by the Grey Havens or wandered Eregion to enjoy the air, the wind, and the trees.”

Fundin didn't know what to say to that. In the end he made a noncommittal noise and took a sip out of his tankard of ale. When he looked up, only the self-control he’d gained through his long formal education and current position prevented him from spitting it out almost immediately.

He swallowed part of the ale though, and doubled over in a coughing fit until the entire table was embarrassingly quiet and everyone was staring at him.

“Are you all right?” asked Narvi.

“I am,” Fundin wheezed, coughing as he waved it off. “Don't worry. Just – ” He righted himself again, then pointed at Celebrimbor and Floki, the latter having obviously arrived at the table while Fundin had been engaged in conversation with Snorri. Both were sitting next to each other, directly across from Fundin and giving him worried glances. “Since when are you and Floki friends?” Fundin asked incredulously. “You always used to fight!”

Celebrimbor looked befuddled. “That was years ago.”

“Aye,” said Floki. “And since then, Kurfi here's had plenty of time to get his head out of his arse and back onto his neck where it belongs. Turns out when he isn't throwing tantrums – or hammers – at colleagues, he's actually a decent chap.”

“You have an incomparable way with words as always, Floki,” Narvi said drily.

“Thanks.” Floki took a long gulp from his tankard.

“And a likewise incomparable talent to mistake a rebuke for a compliment,” Narvi added.

Floki slammed his tankard down. “Now that wouldn't be a problem if you could just be forward with your compliments and your criticism as any decent Khazad, and not do it in that backhanded, sarcastic Elven way. I think you've been around Kurfi too much – his way of talking has rubbed off on you!”

“I apologize,” Narvi said. “I will be sure to tone down the irony to match your mental capabilities next time, Floki.” Several of the Dwarves around the table as well as Celebrimbor burst into laughter.

“See! See!” Floki was red-faced and actually stood in order to point over the table at Narvi. The table's legs scratched across the floor as he pushed it forward. “That's just what I meant!”

“Sit down, Floki, or you'll shove over everyone's ale and no one will like you the more for that,” an older dwarf with greying streaks in his beard said. “I understood Narvi just fine, by the way, but if you're having trouble keeping up with what's being said, then you can just ask. I'm sure everyone here will be happy to help you out in a pinch.”

The other Dwarves only laughed harder and Floki sat down, his face blazing deep red and for a moment Fundin wondered whether the other dwarf would lose his infamous temper – but then that moment passed and Floki, too, threw back his head and joined in with the laughter.

All in all it was a pleasant evening. As always, it took Fundin a bit of warming up to the strangers before he started talking more freely, but in the end, they were an easygoing lot and they accepted him into their midst quite naturally. No one seemed to pay any mind to the fact that the king's steward was sitting among them.

It was easy to imagine that this group of people, loud and raucous though they might be, would also manage to coax a withdrawn, distrusting Celebrimbor out of his shell and make him a friend. Some dwarves of the group were difficult characters themselves, like Floki, but in the end, they were hard not to like and it was almost impossible not to feel comfortable around them.

They drank and soon several of those at the table, including Celebrimbor, began to play cards. The others kept drinking and cheering on their favourites. The atmosphere was warm, easy-going, and friendly.

Fundin kept quiet through most of it. He enjoyed sitting back and just listening in, happier when no one was paying him any direct attention. He looked around the table and watched a few games of cards, thinking ahead of what the players might do – but in the end, he always found his eyes drawn back to Celebrimbor.

There was no trace of the dark, angry Noldo who had come to blows with Floki over a minor issue all those years ago. Sometime and somewhere between then and now, Celebrimbor had shaken off his hard shell, his anger, his distrust, and the worst of his temper. Today, he was all smiles and glittering eyes and easy jokes, a friend among friends, as truly a part of the group as any of the dwarves.

Fundin watched him for a while, then lowered his gaze to his hands and the grainy wood under his fingers, cool and smooth and hewn and polished from a tree that he would never see. He ran his palm over the table, feeling the smooth texture of the grain and the way it rubbed softly against his finger pads.

Maybe Narvi had been right all these years ago. A broken thing could not be unbroken and it could never return to how it had been before; too jagged the break, too deep the wound. But vicious edges could be sanded down and even shattered things could be repaired in the end. They would emerge changed and perhaps even unrecognisably altered from what they'd been before. The deeper the damage had been, the more thorough and absolute the transformation would have to be: a shattered blade would have to be melted down entirely and cast into a whole new form. But even if such a blade was different in the end, it was no less well-made and able and good than it had been before.

Fundin looked over at Celebrimbor, who had stuck his head together with Floki, trying to hash out the remaining cards in the game, and a strange, beautiful ache bloomed in his chest. Fundin had to close his eyes to try and ride it out, and he had to hope, desperately, that no one noticed it. He was lucky. When he opened them again, everyone's attention was still on the current game.

Celebrimbor laid down his last card, and Narvi put down his own. A cheer went up from Narvi's side of the table. Celebrimbor groaned and let his face sink into his hands. Floki gave him a friendly jostle, then grabbed him around the shoulders and shouted something in his ear and laughed, until Celebrimbor raised his head again and then he was laughing too as he handed Narvi three gold coins.

Narvi accepted them gracefully, then winked at Fundin.

Fundin smiled back.

It was a good evening.

412 years ago (1146 S.A.)

And time went on.

Looking back, Fundin couldn't have said where the years had gone, only that they had flown by incredibly fast. There was always new work to be done, always something to be organised and built. On the side, he kept up his meetings with Celebrimbor, and – less regularly – went out with Celebrimbor’s group of friends, who had somehow become Fundin's friends as well. The days rushed by in a haze, and in a way they were all similar to one another. Maybe that was why Fundin thought that life as it was now would continue in this way forever.

So it was with surprise and disbelief that he found himself sitting at his desk one day, Celebrimbor standing before him and not quite looking at him.

“You're leaving?” Fundin repeated incredulously.

Celebrimbor nodded.

“But – ” Fundin made a helpless gesture. “So soon? So suddenly?”

Celebrimbor gave him a sad smile. “I know that it must come as a surprise to you, but I have been thinking about it for a long time already. It has been nearly twenty-two years, and believe me when I say that this has been the best and happiest time in my life ever since I have – ”

Celebrimbor exhaled, perhaps realizing what he had almost said. “In my life,” he amended firmly. “You gave me work, which was my meaning in life, and a place to stay. But I have been granted far more than that. I have found a purpose here – and friends. Better friends than I could ever have imagined. I found your brother and you, and although I didn't believe it was possible, all of you made me feel like I could belong somewhere again.” Celebrimbor's gaze wandered off into the distance, far further than the end of the room, then it returned back to the present time and place.

“But I can't stay here forever. Or, I mean, I could, but that is not what I should do.” Celebrimbor sighed. “I keep making excuses, I'm sorry. The real answer is this: it is not what I want to do. It has been a wonderful time, and I've felt as accepted and welcome among you as I could only wish for. But, truth be told, it isn't enough.”

Fundin sat, completely still.

Celebrimbor obviously felt some kind of internal pressure, and the fire of his temper must have been burning him up inside, because he started moving, pacing, gesturing, anything that allowed him to vent the pressure, to allow him to not have to stand rigidly and look at Fundin's face.

“I miss the sun,” he said. “I miss the sky and the stars, and the wind in the trees.” He stopped. Turned around. Faced Fundin, with an openness that made the dwarf hurt all over. “I miss my people, Fundin. It's been too long since I've slept under the open sky. Too long since I've run among trees and felt the rain and the stormwinds on my face. I want to go home.”

And home is not here, was what he didn't say, but both of them felt the words hanging in the air between them all the same.

Fundin watched him. He felt like there was something he should say, but for all his famed eloquence, no words would come to him. He felt a strange pressure in his chest, screaming there is something I must say, and I must say it now before it is too late, but he stayed silent despite the skirling and wrenching sensation that threatened to tear him apart from the inside.

“Then you should go,” he said instead.

“I will write,” Celebrimbor added immediately, as if that would make any difference at all. “I promise.”

“I thought you didn't make promises,” Fundin said and in the next moment, he could have punched himself. Was that the only thing that he was going to say to that?

“I usually don't,” Celebrimbor agreed. “I'll make an exception this time, though.”

Fundin knew that this meant a lot and that his reaction should demonstrate to Celebrimbor that he understood this and appreciated it. But all he could do was nod stiffly and force a smile onto his face. “I'll hold you to it, then. I wish you the best, wherever you may go.”

Celebrimbor looked relieved. “I think I will stay here in Eregion. My uncle and my aunt have started to build a dominion for themselves not too far from here. I think I will pay them a visit. I wish you the best as well, Fundin. You have been a true friend, perhaps the best that I have found here.”

Fundin nodded, because his throat was suddenly too tight for any words. “When will you leave?” he managed to get out at last.

“In three days’ time,” Celebrimbor said. “At sunset.”

*

Fundin did not want to attend Celebrimbor's departure. The entire day he kept looking for excuses not to go, but for once, there seemed to be no urgent work to do, no one wanted to speak to him or the king, no ledgers had to be proofread, no letters translated. And thus, Fundin found himself at an utter and complete lack of excuses to stay away.

In the end, he went and waited for Celebrimbor to show up at the gates, his travel sack packed with what few belongings he called his own. Naturally, his group of friends was also there to see him off. Narvi stepped forward as the first of his friends to embrace him and say his farewells. Then followed Floki, then Throndur, then Ólin and Órin and Runi, then Snorri and so many others that Fundin couldn't put a name to them all.

At last, Celebrimbor stood before him and it was time to say good-bye. Fundin congratulated himself, because like with so many meetings and delegations before, he managed to gloss over his own uneasiness and make his way through the expected protocol without a single hitch. When he smiled and embraced Celebrimbor his laugh didn't waver and his arms didn't shake. He kept up the embrace for exactly the correct amount of time, neither too hurried to end it nor too long to hold on. He stepped back into the line of Celebrimbor's many, many other friends and like them he expressed his best wishes. He told Celebrimbor to write and jokingly threatened what would happen if he didn't, and promised to visit, knowing fully well that he would never leave Khazad-Dûm, because he was sworn to King Durin before he was sworn to anyone else in this world.

Then in the end, everything was done and said and Narvi hailed the guard to open the heavy iron doors. The stone rumbled and the floor of the entrance hall vibrated as they did, and a strip of golden sunlight fell into the gloom of the antechamber, growing and growing until the dim entrance hall was bathed in red-and-golden evening light.

Cold air rushed in, fresher than anywhere inside the mountain, and the sound of birds and the smell of trees and wet grass and autumn flowers wafted inside. There in the doorway Celebrimbor turned around, and for a moment he just stood there, framed between the leaves of the great door and outlined by sunlight, the entire world beyond a backdrop to his dark silhouette, all edged in blazing red and gold.

Then he turned around for the last time.

“Well,” Celebrimbor said, and there was a smile on his face that he was keeping down, as if the elf knew that he couldn't show too much happiness in this moment of farewell. “It's time. Stay well, all of you. We'll meet again.”

“That we will,” Narvi said. “And now out with you before we change our minds and I tell the guards to lock you in here with us for good.”

Celebrimbor laughed, briefly and loudly – and then he turned around and walked out the doors. His back was straight, his cloak swished around his ankles, and his stride was long and sure as he took those first steps into the outside world.

He didn't look back.

Fundin watched him walk away, along the path next to the lake, until he vanished between the evening shadows of the trees and bushes, a shadow among shadows, and then Celebrimbor was gone.

1 Canonically, Dwarves who are alive during the Third Age live 250-300 years on average. Considering that both Narvi and Fundin were adult (if young) Dwarves at the time these events take place, neither of them would have lived into the 1500s S.A. The timeline of this story suggests that Dwarves – much like their human counterparts – had longer lifespans in the past, averaging 400 to 500 and sometimes even 600-700 years.

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Letters from Eregion

14 ^th of October, 1146 S.A.

Dear Fundin,

I told you I would write and as I said, it is a promise I intend to keep. So! I have safely reached the settlement that my aunt Artanis and her husband have built and they have gracefully accepted me into their midst. They say that they will build a city here, but for now it isn't much more than an assembly of a few walls and houses and an abundance of flets up in holly trees. (I don't know if Dwarves are familiar with the concept of flets, but I don't believe so. They are a unique dwelling of the Sindar and, among the Noldor, the Galadrim. Flets are wooden platforms affixed to trees. They are round in shape and range from very small to big enough to build tree-houses and palaces upon. They must seem very strange to you and truth be told, now that I force myself to explain their concept to an outsider, it only occurs to me how strange I find this method of living as well. Then again, no wild animals and no orcs or goblins can catch you unawares up there and you can safely span a great territory by connecting flets with bridges and ropes and stairs.)

The spirit here is very much one of new beginnings, which I like very much. I'm not much use when it comes to building, since the only thing I've ever learned to do properly is smithing, which is not much needed here at the time. However, I am a fast learner and I find that I like working with wood almost as much as I like working with stone and metals. There is much to do, and I see and learn something new every day.

It is strange to be outside and among Elves again – at times, I miss the straightforward company of Dwarves. I feel like I've gotten rusty regarding some of the finer points of Elvish communication, and more than once my aunt has asked me not to be so brash when I only intended to be concise and to the point. I will try to do better in the future, but the difference amuses me greatly.

How are you doing? Are there any news under the three mountains? Oh, and by the way, I have only now gotten around to re-reading A Tale of Three Kingdoms, which you gave me and I noticed an annotation that you've made in the margins of p. 422, concerning the judgement of faith and loyalty. There is a word in there that is kanarûz, which I am almost sure means undying loyalty and devotion to a single sworn partner, but which is in the next sentence contrasted with the word mídrûl, which I thought meant the exact same. Could you explain to me what the difference is?

I hope you are all doing well, and for your sake especially, I hope that King Durin leaves you enough time for your beloved books. Write to me, if you can; I cannot wait to hear from you!

Kurfinni Kurufinwion

5 ^th of November, 1146

Dear Fundin,

Thank you so much for your quick reply.

I am happy to hear that you make good use of the free evenings that you have gained, now that you must no longer lecture me on language. I hope that answering my questions by way of a letter doesn't take all that newly-acquired free time away from you. It seems I cannot stop asking questions, not even from afar.

As you suggested, I looked up the definition of kanarûz and mídrûl in Skafi's Dictonary of Western Khuzdul, and it helped me immensely. It would never have occurred to me to linguistically distinguish between a loyalty that is directed at a worthy object or person as opposed to an unworthy one. Although I must add that we Eldar surely should not complain in this aspect since we tend to distinguish between the strangest ideas, which are frequently specific to a single tribe and its views and mores. This of course means that, in the end, we Eldar often enough don't even understand each other. For a race that likes to claim the mastery of language as one of its finest traits, we certainly do have a lot of difficulty understanding our distant cousins.

We are beginning to prepare for winter right now, and we hope to finish the last ongoing building projects before the first snowfall. After that we must settle down for the snows and the storms and wait for spring to come. Four months of keeping still, with nothing to do but read and write journals! I completely forgot about this significant drawback of working overground! I am afraid you'll get a great many letters from me, Fundin, but I hope that you'll forgive me, knowing that I cannot keep myself occupied with anything else and thus must turn to writing curious and wordy letters to the only one who can be bothered to answer them. (I've always known that Narvi isn't the most verbose, but his letters are spectacularly monosyllabic and for every five questions I ask him, he only ever answers three at most.)

Please tell me what you and your brother are up to, as I would otherwise have to wait until next summer to know half of what he's done this winter.

Kindest regards to you and Narvi,

Kurfi

PS: It would be better to address your letters to Tyelperinquar, since that is the name that I go by around here and there was a lot of confusion the last time when the messenger couldn't deliver his letter to “Kurfi”. It caused enough of a fuss that even I am not keen on a repeat performance.

6 ^th of July, 1288

Dear Fundin,

As promised, I'm writing to you again as the city is being finished. It seems so strange to even write this: the city is finished!

It must not be quite as startling to you, seeing how I have kept you up to date in many letters over a long time, but standing here before its walls and seeing the finishing touches being put to what we've been working on for decades, it is unimaginable that such a project should ever come to an end. I feel like we must have emptied out every quarry in the radius of thirty miles (or fifty kilometres – I know, I know, I must lose this Elven habit of using nonsensical metrics).

To say that a city is finished is never quite right, of course, since these dwellings keep expanding and growing as time progresses. However, Artanis and Celeborn have finished their dwelling and the first ring of walls is up. Everyone else has a house to live in, should they desire one. However, many of the wood-elves still prefer to stay up in their flets. When I asked one why that is, she just told me that she doesn't trust a roof of stone and shingles not to collapse on her head while she sleeps. I asked her if she trusted a wooden contraption in a tree so much more to protect her if the wood rots or the tree ever falls, but apparently that was the wrong answer, because now she won't talk to me.

Also, Artanis has finally allowed me to found my own guild!

You know that I have been wanting to bring metalworking into this city for a long, long time. For whatever reason, Celeborn always had some reservations about letting me do some crafting of my own where I don't have to answer immediately to him or my aunt. Perhaps he is afraid that my Fëanorion blood will come out and I will create my own Silmarils and throw him out of the city.

On that last aspect, he may not be entirely wrong. There are times when I would like to throw him out, but only because he has been horrendously unagreeable ever since we first met. I don't quite know what I have done to offend him, but perhaps my mere existence suffices for him to see me as a thorn in his side.

Thankfully, Artanis has been more on my side of things lately (something that must have annoyed Celeborn further) and finally overruled him regarding not letting me have a guild of my own. However, she made me promise, and I quote, 'not to do anything rash or precarious, and if you absolutely must do so, consult with me first.' I am not quite sure how I feel about being watched that way. I am almost three thousand years old and I'd like to think I could do without the supervision of elders.

Then again, I know that I would be obliged to do the same with any liege – and my liege she is, no matter who else she might be. In truth it is my problem, because I see her more as my aunt than my sworn lady, and whatever she tells me always goes two ways. I know this because, just as she struggles to differentiate between ordering around a nephew or a subordinate, I struggle to distinguish between being ordered around by an older relative and being given lawful instructions by my superior. We always tend to be a lot more ungracious towards demands from our own kin than from our sworn lords and ladies, for there is always something personal to any order, which makes us question orders that in fact only bear obedience.

Be that as it may, I am very excited at the thought of founding my own guild and looking for like-minded people who might appreciate smithing and metalworking for other reasons than its uses in warfare. We live in peaceful times now, and there are many more beautiful things that should be made from iron and ore, gold and silver, than swords and shield and armour.

I am glad to hear that you are doing well – and imagine my surprise when I read that Floki had asked you to be the best man at his and Birta's wedding! You must tell me how you ever managed to come by that honour! I wouldn't have imagined you and Floki as friends – indeed, he is the last dwarf I could imagine holding a conversation with you. All he's got in his head are stones and iron (I leave it to you how literally you want to take that), and I can't imagine that he's all too interested in your office affairs. Usually only the mere mention of administrative tasks is enough to send him running.

(Then again Birta is perhaps the one dwarf in the entire kingdom of Khazad-Dûm who differs even more from Floki in those aspects than you, and she still decided to marry him, even; so I guess if I should be surprised about anything at all, it would be that.)

All the same, please give my best wishes to Floki and Birta. I would write Floki his own letter, but I know he would simply throw it away without opening it, because the only thing he's ever read voluntarily in his life are assembly instructions and the drinks list at the Sapphire Dell.

I hope you are well and give my regards to Narvi, too!

Tyelperinquar

17 ^th of June, 1290

Dear Fundin,

Thank you for sending me the books, I cannot tell you how ardently I have waited to hold them in my hands and show them to my students! The Eldar are not bad at metalworking at all, but there is a difference between our approach and the way you Khazad are so intimately familiar with the elements of the Earth. They will learn some appreciation of your arts tomorrow when I show them, of that I am sure.

To be honest, I never thought I would enjoy teaching, as it always appeared to entail suspending my own studies in favour of teaching others; also, it seemed to me it would require staying in place and repeating old already-known wisdom instead of forging ahead and pioneering new fields of science. However, at your suggestion I have taken on a few students who seemed promising. It's been a few months now and I must admit that I stand corrected. I think I understand now why some masters always wanted nothing more than to take on new apprentice classes: there are few things that are more satisfying than being able to lead and teach bright minds, to broaden their horizons and see how they reflect your own teachings back at you, changed and refined and altogether different and spectacular. In the end I am not even slowed in progressing with my own projects either, because the additional perspectives of untainted minds can make a world of difference when it comes to creative problem-solving.

All in all, the guild is thriving. Indeed, it is getting more interest than I ever thought possible. Apparently a lot of people are looking for new approaches to familiar crafts, especially if it doesn't come with an exclusively utilitarian approach. We create what we love because we find joy in it, not because we seek to make something more effective or create things of utility. Of course we do aim for usability as well – we spent a great many months trying to bind light to stones until we succeeded with a prototype, for example. Still, utilitarianism is not the prime maxim of our creation, and beauty often justifies its own existence.

You know, I was actually thinking of sending you one of these stones as soon as we've established that they're a reliable light source and don't burn out as quick as candles (which they still do from time to time). I imagine it would be a great relief for the entirety of Khazad-Dûm if you didn't have to rely on candles any longer!

Please tell me what you think of this plan – I wouldn't want to send in one of these stones unannounced and then come across as the precocious Noldorin know-it-all who wants to tell the Khazad how to best live their life under the mountains.

Ost-in-Edhil – which is what this city is named now, apparently – is ever growing. We are in fact currently building a second district – or ring – to the city that is big enough to hold all the new inhabitants and acolytes, apprentices and travellers who keep coming in. Lately, not only Elves come to seek us out, but more and more humans and a few Dwarves as well.

Naturally, Celeborn was against allowing them into the city and Artanis had some misgivings as well, but I made a case on their behalf along with many of the other guilds, all of whom were convinced that we could only profit from more knowledge and different perspectives. My aunt and uncle didn't look like they agreed, but they didn't say anything more on the matter and the next day, everyone was allowed inside the walls. I'm not sure if they are angry with me, but when I asked Artanis she only told me not to worry and keep an eye on the newcomers in my workshop.

I'm glad to hear that little Falda is growing up well! If your tales are anything to go by, she's quite a handful to deal with! She's taking after her father, it seems. Then again, I think Floki wouldn't want it any other way. I imagine him gifting Falda her first tongs and metal-wire as soon as she is old enough to hold them properly. If I know Floki at all, he is going to teach her everything he knows about smithing, and quite a few things beyond that. I just hope you as her godfather are going to make sure that she doesn't miss out on the marvellous fountain of knowledge that is to be found in books. It would be a pity if Falda grew up as allergic to words and ink as her father.

That being said – and forgive me if this is too personal – you only ever write of other folk’s families. I know you are close with your brother and your extended family, but you have yet to write anything about having a family yourself. I know that your position makes this hard, but I'm sure King Durin wouldn't stand in your way if you ever thought of making more time to pursue founding your own family. Is this something you are planning or would like to do?

Please give my kindest regards to Narvi, Floki and Birta, and, of course, Falda.

Tyelperinquar

9 ^th of September, 1290

Dear Fundin,

Forgive me the delay in responding to your latest message. The Guild of Metallurgy and Jewel-smiths is ever-growing and I am ashamed to say that I was too taken up in our latest project to remember your letter until I discovered it among my journals by chance.

On the matter of families: touché. It seems that we are the same in that regard – hopeless bachelors only ever in pursuit of more knowledge and another edge on our peers. I should have known better than to ask, since my own reasons for not pursuing settling down can only be your own as well.

Artanis has brought up the topic of marriage more than once, but I must confess that I always sought to evade her as quickly as possible, because the thought of seeking a wife merely for political reasons always made me deeply uncomfortable. As it stands, though, political considerations are the only reasons I could give myself for marrying, for I don't feel the need to bind myself to someone, and verily I balk at the thought of spending all the time that I could spend in my workshop doting on a wife or a toddler. One needs to have desires and feelings for their partner to be happy in such a scenario, and I currently have no desire to marry nor do I harbour even a trace of feelings for a prospective partner whom I would like to keep close to myself.

You must think me a horrible, egotistical person now, and perhaps that is true. And yet I hope it is not unworthy to follow one's true ambitions, if the alternative is feigning false affections for someone who only deserves all the love and truth that you could give them.

If my reasons are immoral and my points moot – well, then I guess I am a terrible individual and it is only all for the better that I should not impose myself on someone who would have to bear my wiles and fancies day in, day out, while I couldn't even give them the attention and love that they surely deserve.

In any case I feel it is better that I should stay alone until I find someone – perhaps like-minded – who completes me so thoroughly that life without them would hold no meaning, and who could unite in themselves the wishes and ambitions that I have with those of their own, so that we might work together on something greater than ourselves.

Until then, I must keep denying my aunt's wishes, although I know that she would feel a lot happier to see me married off to some influential Eldarin tribe in order to secure the few alliances we have. Alas, as of now, “No” is all I can tell her. I know that this is not what she wants to hear, but I appreciate that she doesn't force me into an arrangement that I do not want.

Artanis has been distant lately, but whenever I ask her if something is the matter, she evades me and brings up a different topic. I'm not sure what I have done wrong, if that is indeed what has happened, but I will try to behave in accordance with her wishes so as not to give her any more reasons to be discontent with me.

I hope you and your family are well. Please tell me more about the new delegation from the Blue Mountains – they seem like delightful fellows, quite contrary to how you described the Erebor delegation that you welcomed two years ago. I hope I didn't say anything untoward, but I find it hard to decorate simple truths with ornate embellishments to hide their edges.

Best of wishes,

Tyelperinquar

11 ^th of November, 1290

Fundin,

Artanis and Celeborn have told me that they are leaving Ost-in-Edhil. I tried to ask them their reasons, but they would not tell me, only that the matter was decided and that they bore me no ill will, whatever that means. I don't know what I have done wrong. I don't know why they would leave.

Perhaps this has been building up for some time. I am aware that my aunt and uncle were never happy with the idea of guilds to begin with. Considering that the Guilds have become ever more influential within the city, they might have felt that the masters undermined their own position of power. In this case me (of all people!) speaking out against their reluctance to open trade with Númenor during the last meeting of the Guildmasters might have been the last straw. I know that I assured them that I would always defer to their opinions and orders, but they cannot fault me for standing up for my principles, just as much as they cannot fault me for acting as the leader of my own guild – because that is what I am and what my fellows expect of me. Is it going to be pride and principles that divide the line of Finwë yet again?

I must talk to them again. I will ask them to stay. I don't know what else to do.

I am sending you this message just to inform you that I might not write again for a longer time, depending on what happens now. A lot of things are changing already. People are packing up. Unseen chasms that I had no idea existed are opening. The city is divided. Some will stay, some will leave.

I wish you were here now so I could talk to you and you could tell me what to do.

Already I feel I should not have written that last sentence. Please do not burden yourself with this.

I will write as soon as I know more.

C. Cf.

12 ^th of December, 1290

Celeborn and Artanis left.

I asked them why, again and again, but Artanis just said that they realised that this city had grown more and in different ways that they had imagined. It was not a bad thing, she assured me, and she was happy that Ost-in-Edhil was thriving. She said she and Celeborn only felt that they didn't have a place in whatever Ost-in-Edhil had grown into. In that moment I saw my fears confirmed: the Guilds, and the Jewel-smiths among them, had grown too influential, too powerful in the city. All matters of importance were decided in the guilds, and only laid before Artanis and Celeborn as an afterthought, even though by that time all decisions had already been made.

I tried to tell her I knew this. I tried to tell her that I would set it right, but she interrupted me gently and said that it would be untoward to impose themselves upon a structure that foresaw no place for a lord and a lady to rule.

She gave me her best wishes before we parted and asked me to take care of the city. I said that I would try my best, but that she couldn't ask of me to swear. She told me she knew, and that she would tell everyone who asked that she and Celeborn had left of their own free will. She said she knew what it must be like for a grandson of Fëanor to be left alone as the ruler of a city, from which the former rulers had all of a sudden left.

I feel like she has deliberated her departure very thoroughly, and planned it for a very long time. Artanis is seeing ends that I cannot even fathom, and although I fear not for her, I am afraid of what will become of Ost-in-Edhil.

So many people have left the city, and not all of them looked kindly upon me when they departed, despite everything that Artanis might have said.

What of the rest? Will they leave as well? Will they stay? If they stay, what will be their reason? Will they want to be present to see if the grandson of Fëanor fulfils some dark expectations that they have for him? Do they wait for me to be a better ruler than Artanis? Or do they wait for me to fail, so that they can tell each other “I told you so” while regretfully shaking their heads?”

I wish I could leave now. I wish I could return to Khazad-Dûm and we could sit in your study and I could do anything but rule a city, anything but clean up the mess after I have inadvertently caused the departure of two lawful rulers from their own domain.

I have never felt in more need of a guiding hand or a friend. I have many friends here, but they know so little of me and I don't have it in my heart to tell them more so they might understand what causes me such grief. Everyone within the Mírdain seems to celebrate Artanis' departure. Some of them even proposed that the city might thrive quicker and breathe more freely without their supervision. I cannot confide in people who think like that.

I don't know what to do, and yet I know exactly what I must do.

I have to rule.

I cannot tell you how much this thought scares me.

It feels like touching a cursed blade that you have taken great pains to get rid of, only for it to be laid down right at your feet one day.

I am rambling, I am sorry.

I apologise in advance if my next answer takes me longer.

Give my regards to Narvi, as well as to Floki, Birta, and Falda. I hope you are safe and sound.

C.

15 ^th of February, 1295

Dear Fundin,

I know that my last few answers have been short and sparse, but at this point I can at last say with certainty that I am going to do better than that in the future.

Thank you for your enquiry. The short answer is: I am doing well. The long answer, which I am sure you would demand of me, is this:

I think we have made it. I think we have weathered the storm and have come out stronger on the other side.

Things are finally settling down. The past years have been anything but easy, but in the end it was just another complex problem to be solved. We had to go through a lot of changes. More than once, we had to question our plans and ideas and not least ourselves to ascertain whether we were right in doing as we did, but – well. The results speak for themselves, as any craftsman would say.

Ost-in-Edhil continues to grow and flourish. Every day more traders and artisans, merchants and scholars make their way here. We are gaining a reputation as a city of study and learning, of “open doors and open minds” as I've heard one merchant say recently. I cannot imagine a higher praise for our home.

This city has always had to struggle against adverse circumstances, not least because it was founded in difficult times and by difficult people, all of whom had different ideas on what they wanted of it and what they wanted it to be. Looking back, I know now that the departure of Artanis could have easily meant the end of this city, even if I didn't realize it back then. There was a chasm running right through the middle of it, and right through the hearts of everyone who lived here. A city so young should not have put its inhabitants to the test by making them choose sides and loyalties so early. Only a few hundreds remained here after Artanis had left, with nothing and no one to hold them together. The guilds were mere acquaintances to each other. We knew those we worked with and were friendly with our fellow guild members. However, when we had to come together as leaders and decision-makers in order to determine how to best govern a city – we might as well have been strangers. There was no one left to keep us, no one who we could look to, and who would unite us. In short, what we had tried to build so carefully could have broken apart in a matter of weeks.

And yet it didn't. To this day I can't say I truly know why; only that I am relieved and, above all, grateful that it lasted. Somehow we have done something great, something remarkable, even if no one knows how we got here.

What I do know, however, is that I could never have done this alone. Thankfully, I didn't have to. I expected difficulties and obstacles after Artanis left, and they came. However, this city and all its inhabitants – my friends – continue to surprise me. Ost-in-Edhil has had to grow many new structures in these trying times, but almost all of them were supportive and assisted me with the changes that needed to be made in order to make the city our own.

The most important, most indispensable beam of support, however, remains you. I wouldn't have known how to go about re-ordering and running an entire city without a friend who imparts his knowledge of governing and administration to me via stealthy correspondence. I almost feel like an impostor, like an actor who knows none of his lines and needs a prompter to walk him through the entire play from start to finish.

I've never had the time to say this adequately during the past five years and therefore I want to say it now – thank you. You know me well enough by now to know that I don't see mere words as sufficient for what I want to express, so I hope that you will accept the package that I have sent you with this letter.

The pen is one that one of my students has enchanted with a light-spell – indeed it is very similar to the concept of embedding light within stones to use them as lamps. My student Nelwen handed it in as her master's work and was duly awarded a graduation with highest marks. I did my best to replicate her work, and with her permission, I am sending you this exemplar – in the hopes that it might be useful when you have to take notes while walking down darker hallways or when you forget to infuse the lampstones on your desk with new magic.

The books I have sent you are copies of The Annals of Beleriand and The Annals of Valinor, as composed and edited by Pengolodh of Nevrast, one of the greatest Elven scholars of our time. I have also taken the liberty of mentioning your name to him, since you are at the very least his equal among the scholars of Dwarves, even though you have to govern a Dwarven Kingdom on the side. (As far as I know, all Pengolodh ever does is digging through libraries and experimenting on new shorthand scripts for Tengwar.) In any case, Pengolodh himself expressed that he would be very interested in getting to know you. I suspect that you will hear from him shortly. However, don't be fooled by his pleasant mannerisms – all he wants is your knowledge: of politics, of history, and most of all, your language. Be careful if you do indeed allow him into Khazad-Dûm and keep him away from the library at all costs if you ever want to get him to leave again.

I hope you can make good use of the books and the pen. I added a few pages of vellum to the parcel since I know that it has marvellous properties for writing and illuminating manuscripts and it has always been a favourite pastime of yours.

Know that I will forever be grateful for your help and that no amount of gifts I can send you could ever pay back this debt.

Give my regards to your family and friends,

Celebrimbor

PS: On a side note, I have been formally appointed the leader of Ost-in-Edhil. I tried to talk them out of it, but unfortunately all the guildmasters agreed that we should have a formal leader – at least in name – who acts as the representative of our home. For reasons that still elude me, they have chosen me to fill this role, so don't be surprised if my name shows up in a correspondence with King Durin himself sooner or later. We are neighbours, after all, and we won't be able to ignore each other's presence forever, especially if Ost-in-Edhil keeps growing in size and power.

I just wonder how the Elves of Ost-in-Edhil would react if they found out that actually a dwarf of Khazad-Dûm has been governing them from afar, and that their chosen leader not only allowed it, but also actively requested it. I suppose I would be dismissed in the blink of an eye.

On the upside, this would at least leave me with more time to work and teach again. Perhaps I should indeed start to spread some rumours and stage a coup d'etat against myself! Such a deed would certainly be a first even among my kin and our infamous penchant for unfortunate decisions.

I know my family has a proclivity to reliably and regularly set new standards for bafflingly bad choices, but even so, as far as I know none of my ancestors have ever conspired to topple themselves from a seat of power so far.

However much the thought of orchestrating my own overthrow amuses me, though, I ascribe far greater importance to making sensible choices in my own life. So I think this shall stay our secret for now until I’m either feeling less sensible or until I get fed up with ruling in general and decide to vanish from the face of the world for a bit. In this case, a rumour that the madness of my kin has at last taken hold of me will make for a fine excuse to give me a quick way out from a ruling position.

2 ^nd of August, 1300

Dear Fundin,

I am doing something sudden and untoward again, and I must warn you beforehand so it doesn't catch you unawares. Besides, I must once again impose upon you to ask your help in this matter.

I have sent a request for trade negotiations to King Durin. I know this is unheard of, but if you are still alive and have not yet died of a heart attack after this announcement, please read further, because I think this time I have actually good reasons for my impudence: I am hoping to open trade routes between Ost-in-Edhil and Khazad-Dûm and beyond. The Mountains are such a great landmark and it would be the obvious solution to open the route under the mountains to facilitate travel and trade from the East and the West.

Could you imagine how much easier travel and trade would go if they could just pass through Ost-in-Edhil and Khazad-Dûm instead of having to take the East Road around it? We would create a trade route that goes from Lindon by the Sea to Erebor in the East. Imagine the possibilities! What we could do, what we could achieve!

We could open our gates to each other, we could trade knowledge as well as wares, maybe hold exchanges of craft and masters and sciences, so that each of our peoples could learn the best of what the others have to offer! Just think of the possibilities!

I know there is a great deal standing between our two peoples, but I think in the end both Dwarves and Elves would be better off opening our doors to each other. Look only at Pengolodh – Khazad-Dûm was so reluctant to allow him in under the mountain and in the end you both learned so much from and about each other. After you had allowed him into your kingdom, Pengolodh's view of the Khazad was forever changed, just as you likely see Elves differently from how you saw them before. Both of you gained something, however small it might have been in the grand scope of things. Just imagine what could be gained if all of us extended our hands towards each other and we began to trust again.

I know I am asking a lot of you, but if you have any regard for my idea and if you hold any sway over King Durin at all, please ask him to consider it.

Celebrimbor Curufinwion

Master of the Jewel-smiths

Eregion

13 ^th of September, 1308

Fundin,

I cannot thank you enough for your engagement on behalf of both my city and your kingdom. I think by now we have convinced everyone who spoke out against it in the beginning that opening our doors to each other was the right decision.

Trade and science and exploration have flourished these past six years like never before. I am grateful to everyone who has made this possible, but most of all to you and your king. I have written many letters in the past, but I feel like these have never been quite enough. As I have told you long ago, sometimes it requires more than words – another gesture, if you will.

I have already spoken about this with Narvi and King Durin: Ost-in-Edhil has grown a lot over these past years and the wall around its third ring is in dire need of some gates. Likewise, the doors of Khazad-Dûm could use a bit of restoration. We have already opened our doors to each other as a sign of friendship, so why not take the opportunity and build these old doors anew? Two sets of doors, one for Khazad-Dûm and one for Ost-in-Edhil, each built by representatives of both Elves and Dwarves, with both peoples adding in the best that their craft has to offer. We would set an example of what can be achieved if we forget about prejudice and old enmities, if we bridge the differences between our races and join hands in order to create something greater than ourselves that we couldn't have done alone.

I have sent Narvi some concept art and plans for the undertaking, and King Durin has agreed to review the plans with him.

I am still waiting for his answer, and it cannot come fast enough.

What do you think of this?

Celebrimbor

28 ^th of September, 1308

Fundin,

You likely already know this as you probably wrote the letter that has just reached me, but all the same:

King Durin has agreed to the idea of building the doors! I don't know where to begin, how to express how this makes me feel, and everything that is going to happen now –

These doors will be a symbol for so many things and so many people. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate this show of trust on King Durin's part and I assure you that I will not disappoint him or the rest of the Khazad. The Noldo and the Khazad are so similar in many ways – and now they will finally, as representatives of their cultures, join hands in order to create great work for both races. Not out of necessity, or out of force, but simply for friendship and the joy of cooperation and creation.

Work on the doors will begin in as little as six months' time, after the last frosts in March.

I keep rambling on about these doors, but what I actually wanted to tell you, Fundin, is something different. It is so obvious that it should have occurred to me a long time ago, and yet I only became aware of it now that I am planning tangible schedules for the stages of the building process.

The long and short of it is – I will be returning to Khazad-Dûm for a time. I will be working on these new doors myself, and naturally, this would require me to come to the Mountains. Somehow my mind kept skipping over that little fact every time I sat down to plan out this project and thus I have inadvertently avoided a realization that brings me more joy even than the fact that the doors are finally being built.

I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to seeing all of you again. It has been ages, and I can't wait to see for myself that streak of grey hair in Narvi's beard that you've told me about and tease him for it, to share drinks with you, to revisit the city under the mountain, to drop by the library – there is just so much I want to do and see, so much that I have to tell you, all of which has had to wait until we finally see each other in person again.

Half a year – it's only the blink of an eye, considering the years I've lived, but right now those months might as well last forever.

I cannot wait to see all of you again.

Kurfi

246 years ago (1312 S.A)

As always, Fundin had tried to prepare himself. He had tried to think of every catch, every eventuality, every way that this venture could possibly go. He had tried to map out everything that he could be confronted with, and plan his reaction to each one accordingly. He knew his rank and his post, and he knew that as the king's steward, he could never be seen as anything less than absolutely self-assured and composed.

He had tried to prepare himself for it, weeks in advance, and yet in the end, when the moment came he found that he could never be prepared for this.

The sun was so bright in his face, and the wind whistled as it blew past his ears and whipped through his beard. The halls of Khazad-Dûm were high and wide, but even they were dwarfed in comparison to the world itself stretching away from horizon to horizon under a dome of sky so high and great that Fundin could almost believe that he would just lose the ground under his feet any moment and fall into that endless blue. There were so many smells: earth, flowers, grass, fruit – only the scent of stone and ore that was ever-present in Khazad-Dûm was distinctly lacking.

Everything was so … wide, so open, so endless. There were no walls and ceiling to give boundaries to this world, and it seemed that you could go in any direction, as far as you wanted, and never find your way back to the starting point again. Fundin felt ruffled and uprooted, as if at any moment a gust of wind might carry him away, and so he tore his gaze from the too-great world all around him and focused on his hands. They were clutching the reins of the little garron, who was slowly plodding along the road, only a little way behind King Durin and his son.

There, this is better, he thought to himself. Look at your hands and your horse to make sure that it stays on the path. It was a needless caution, he knew, but he felt that if he looked around for much longer, the sheer size of his surroundings might overwhelm him.

From out of the corners of his eyes, he saw a brown pony riding up to his left, with familiar boots in the stirrups.

“What is the matter, Fundin?” asked Narvi. “I thought you wanted to come along so badly, and now that we are out here, you don't even want to look at the world around us.”

Fundin threw his brother a sullen look. “No one told me that it would be like this. How can you live without a firm ceiling of stone above your head? How can you be so exposed all the time?”

“Well, you'd be surprised,” Narvi said. “A lot of folks do it, and all of them are fine. Come now, what's with that face? Surely it can't be that bad.”

“Easy for you to say,” grumbled Fundin. Narvi had had plenty of time to get used to living and working under the open sky. He had helped Celebrimbor build the new doors of Khazad-Dûm, and then went on to stay in Ost-in-Edhil for three years in order to finish its twin gates there. Fundin wondered if Narvi had been this nonchalant the first time he had to step out under an open sky.

Then again, most dwarves left the mountain sooner or later – and probably any Khazad you might meet in Khazad-Dûm would have more experience out here than Fundin. Yet he knew that he should not fret or whinge. If anything, he had to be grateful that he was allowed to come along at all.

Usually, whenever the king travelled, it was the steward who stayed behind in his kingdom and ruled in his stead. Dwarven stewards especially did not leave their home kingdoms in the absence of their king. Steadfast and eternal as stone, ever present, never budging. He remembered the words of his oath all too well. In that respect, he knew that it was an unprecedented concession – no, a privilege – that Fundin should be allowed on this journey as well.

He had not asked to come along, of course. He knew his place, he knew his duty, and he took both of them far too seriously to ever overstep in such a manner. He knew what was expected of him and he had always taken great care to fulfil any expectation his king might have of him, while never asking for anything for himself in turn. But something must have had happened – either Durin had seen Fundin's face when he mentioned the destination of his travels, or (more likely) Narvi had been speaking to the king – for when Durin announced his departure, he told Fundin to hand over his office to the council of Elders for the time being and prepare himself for travel as well.

And thus it was that when it was time to leave and the great doors of Khazad-Dûm rumbled open, Fundin was beside his king as they both stepped out into the bright sunlight. And now King Durin, Fundin, and Narvi were on their way to Ost-in-Edhil, the great city of science and trade in Eregion.

Fundin tried to hide his nervousness, and as usual, he succeeded. Slowly but surely, his apprehension vanished and he straightened in his saddle, taking in his surroundings for the first time. The road wound itself in slow, wide curves through woods and hills, over the Sirannon, and then out into more open lands where tilled fields and meadows of flowers stretched out in every direction. The late summer air was heavy with the smell of pine needles, resin, and wet moss as they rode through forests of holly. When they reached the open plains, the smells of the forest were replaced by the sweet fragrance of flowers, hot dry earth, and fruit. They rode through little bluffs and orchards, between acres of farmland. Birds flitted overhead like little colourful spirits and lazy bees droned through the warm air in the dappled shade of the trees.

The further they got, the more Fundin lost his fear of this strange new world, and before long, he was craning his head around to take in as much of this wide open land as possible. A strange feeling rose within him as he looked around, a strange pressure pushing against his ribs from the inside. His heart was beating faster, and he was so impatient to see what lay around the next corner or curve that he could hardly resist trotting ahead to have more time to look, and smell, and listen.

Suddenly, he was overcome with a feeling of exhilaration so strong that he had to restrain himself, lest he burst out laughing with joy. This is it, he thought. This is what everyone has been talking about – what Kurfi saw, what Snorri saw, what my brother saw. This is the world!

He was finally getting to feel the wind in his hair and the sun in his face that he had read and heard so much about but never gotten around to experience until now – and it was incredible.

A few hours into their journey Fundin couldn't imagine how he could ever have lived without this. The warmth! The smells! The colours! Where Khazad-Dûm presented itself in cool, eternal majesty, this world out here was fleeting, ever-changing, but so much more bustling and bright. And the sky overhead! This endless, startling blue! He must have spent hours riding with his head craned back until his neck began to hurt, but still he couldn't tear his gaze away.

Just as the Dwarves were fascinated with the lands of Eregion, their group seemed to attract attention as well. Whenever they happened upon travellers, their stares would follow the entourage and only when they recognised the King under the Three Mountains, they would hastily bow and gape after the procession for a long time. Fundin couldn't fault them for it: it was an unusual sight to see a Dwarven King travel outside of his own realm.

They made good pace, and yet it was only after midday on the second day of their journey when Ost-in-Edhil finally came into sight. It was as if the city had appeared by magic all of a sudden: surrounded by the hilly forest, the city was hidden right until the Dwarves came around a small mountain ridge. Then, all of a sudden, the ridge fell away behind them and the land before them opened up into a wide plain. And in the middle of this plain, rising tall and magnificent, was a city built of white stone, with spires and towers, bridges and archways, all rising so tall that the highest spires appeared to be fingers reaching for the sky itself. The city was built in three levels, each of which was surrounded by a tall ring-wall, rising from the outermost, lowest ring to the innermost and highest ring.

All of a sudden, Fundin felt nervous. He had not been able to visit Celebrimbor and Narvi while they had been building the Doors of Durin, as the doors of Khazad-Dûm had come to be called. Too many duties and a sudden visit of a delegation from Erebor had demanded his attention and destroyed any plans he might have had for seeing his old friend. Fundin remembered all too well the disappointment he had felt back then – so long had he waited to see his friend again, only for the opportunity to be lost to duty and protocol.

It had been decades – nay, centuries – since he had last seen Celebrimbor. What would their reunion be like? Would they know each other again instantly, or would time and distance have created a divide between them by now?

Far too quickly now that his thoughts were churning the city grew taller and nearer, and before long, the Dwarven caravan was crossing the Bruinen. The horses' hooves were clomping across the stone bridge and the river below them was rushing quickly, burbling and hurrying away towards the sea. White crests foamed where the water hit stones and silver-scaled trout darted to and fro in the clear stream.

From there on out it was only a short last leg of their journey, and before long, Durin and his entourage were riding up the long ramp of white stone that led up to the outermost wall. That close the city seemed even taller.

These towers must be nigh twice as high as our highest halls in Khazad-Dûm, Fundin thought.

The gates of Ost-in-Edhil were flung wide open, as if to embrace any visitor heading up towards the gate and Fundin could see that a small group of people had gathered there, obviously waiting for them.

Something inside Fundin twisted as they rode up to it. He saw a mass of faces, mostly Elven, some human and some dwarven, but none that he recognised. King Durin halted his pony. No one stepped forward to greet the king. Fundin got the distinct impression that this was not a selected delegation to meet them, rather than just a mass of random spectators that had gathered to see who was coming to visit the city.

Irritated, Durin swung down from the saddle. Fundin did the same.

“I announce to you the arrival of Durin, King, Third of his Name, the Wise, and King under the Three Mountains. Who holds command here?” Fundin said and stepped forward.

The spectators shared a few glances, some of them shook their heads. At long last, one old elf stepped forward. “I apologise, King Durin, but – ”

He interrupted himself as a ripple went through the crowd. The spectators parted and then – there he was.

A tall regal, figure clad in fine robes of warm browns and gold, stepped forward to stand in front of his white city: Celebrimbor Curufinwion, leader of the Brotherhood of Jewelsmiths and Lord of Ost-in-Edhil. The Noldo stood straight-backed and solemn, and Fundin could see how the crowd parted for him. They did not fear him – but in their eyes he saw deep respect and something that could only be described as adoration.

“That would be me,” Celebrimbor said. “Maker's fire upon your path, King Durin, and firm stone below your feet,” he said in Khuzdul and bowed at the waist.

“And may your hammer strike ever true,” King Durin responded.

“Welcome to Ost-in-Edhil,” Celebrimbor continued in Sindarin. “Be welcome in our city, King Durin. We are honoured to receive you and your company as our friends and guests, and whatever hospitality we can grant you during your stay, we shall give it gladly.” He bowed again, never faltering in his perfect countenance, and gestured for the caravan to enter the city.

King Durin appeared to be appeased now that the proper respects had been paid and he had been welcomed officially. The king nodded gracefully, then mounted his pony again and rode past Celebrimbor and into the city.

Celebrimbor fell into step besides the ponies of Narvi and Fundin.

“You're late, Lord of Ost-in-Edhil,” Narvi said. “Did nobody ever tell you that it is impolite to keep a king waiting?”

Celebrimbor just kept on looking straight ahead. “Did somebody ever tell you how long it takes to scrub off soot after working with green apprentices for three days straight?” he asked quietly.

“No.” Narvi smirked.

“Me neither.” Celebrimbor leaned a bit over towards Narvi, who was still seated on his pony and whispered, “What does it feel like to ride in under your own gate into the city?”

“Makes me less afraid that the archway will collapse onto my head than if you'd built it without me,” Narvi said. “That way, at least, I'll know that the static calculations have been done properly.” His face was completely straight and he kept on looking right ahead, but Fundin could have sworn that his brother was doing his best to bite back a grin.

Celebrimbor looked like he wanted to give a pointed retort to this, but then seemed to notice that his presence was required next to the king. “We'll talk later,” he said to Narvi, then looked past him at Fundin and gave him a wink that almost made Fundin's heart stop, before accelerating his steps to catch up with the royal entourage and escort King Durin into the city.

*

 

Ost-in-Edhil was even more magnificent on the inside than it was when seen from the outside. Like a diamond, it revealed many of its facets and traits only upon closer inspection. For instance, Fundin saw that the city was divided into living and working quarters, and the working quarters were divided again into districts assigned to the numerous guilds that had found a place for themselves in Ost-in-Edhil.

With all the hustle and bustle going on inside its walls, the city should have appeared cramped and full – and yet there were so many open spaces, so many vaulting archways and bridges, towers and terraces, balconies and gardens, that there might as well have been no walls in here at all.

Celebrimbor proved to be a magnificent host. He showed the Dwarves to their accommodations, then took them on a tour through the city, during which he explained its building process and its history with grace and a stunning command of detail.

Fundin already knew much of this information from the letters that Celebrimbor had sent him over the past several years. So, instead of listening, he craned his head and tried to take in as much of the architecture and the residents as possible. Everything in this city seemed to strive upward. There was such an atmosphere of freedom here, of being unbound, that was mirrored in the architecture as well as the people who walked about everywhere. The inhabitants of Ost-in-Edhil seemed to care little for status or rules. Every now and then, one of the guild-members simply approached their party without a formal introduction and started to talk about their fields of expertise, only to excuse themselves at their own convenience and go back to their work. They didn't hail either Celebrimbor or Durin in a particularly special manner, and spoke comfortably as if they were among friends. It was very laid-back and, in Fundin's opinion, very lacking in manners.

At first this seemed to irritate King Durin, but since the guild-members proved to be otherwise courteous and well-mannered company, the king soon forgot his misgivings and began speaking to them, as well. Fundin didn't hear too much of what his king was saying, though.

He was watching Celebrimbor, this strange Noldo whom he had gotten to know so many years ago, and who had somehow evolved from a ragged, ill-tempered refugee into the lord of a city who was all proper etiquette and manners, easy smiles and effortless courtesies.

Only now that Fundin got a chance to really look at him, did he notice how different the elf appeared from Fundin’s own memories of his friend. Fundin regarded Celebrimbor's sun-tanned brown skin, his strong shoulders and sure hands, which were gesturing in a lively manner as he spoke. How still, how pale, how gaunt the elf had appeared in comparison while he had been staying under the mountain! During his time in the outside world, the sun had chased the pallor from his skin. Celebrimbor appeared more carefree now, and less stress paired with healthier eating habits had managed to put a bit of meat on his bones at long last, filling his hollow cheeks and broadening his frame.

Smiles and laughter also seemed to come so much easier to Celebrimbor now. There were no signs of his angry outbursts, of his loneliness and insolence from when he had first come to Khazad-Dum, or of his desperate pleas for help in his letters to Fundin during the first months of his solo reign of Ost-in-Edhil. Nothing in Celebrimbor's demeanour now suggested that he had ever been anything other than an easy-going, good-natured elf and a capable leader. Celebrimbor had gone from a lost runaway who would wear neither father-name nor coats of arms to an Elven lord whose clothes were covered in patterns both Elvish and Dwarvish that seemed to merge and intertwine in strange and unexpected harmony. The combination was unusual enough, but it was the centrepiece of the embroidery that gave Fundin pause:

In the middle of these patterns, stitched onto the back of Celebrimbor’s vest just between his shoulder blades, was a motif that all the other patterns seemed to be centred around and pointing towards. It was a simple yet eye-catching design, neither so small as though it should be hidden nor so great that it dominated all other designs: stitched onto his back in silver thread, integrated into the greater whole and yet distinct enough to appear unique, was the eight-pointed star of Fëanor.

So he doesn’t shy away from his heritage any longer, Fundin thought. And neither do those around him. The people of Ost-in-Edhil see the star of Fëanor, but they don't recoil from it. Far from it, in fact. Fundin had noticed this during Celebrimbor's time in Khazad-Dûm already: if the elf allowed himself to open up, he had an irresistible effect on people to draw them in. Now that effect was stronger than ever: where Celebrimbor had been alone at first, and had spent his time among a small, chosen group of comrades later, he was now surrounded by friends and admirers on all sides. These were his people, and they looked up to him for guidance, which Celebrimbor gave as naturally as if he had never done anything else. He looked healthier, stronger, and – as Fundin noticed with a pang – all in all, happier than he had ever looked while he had been in Khazad-Dûm.

But looking around, Fundin could understand the reasons for the change. There was so much here – sun and air, freedom and openness, science and friendship – in a way that was entirely Celebrimbor's own, and in a capacity that only Ost-in-Edhil could grant him and Khazad-Dûm could not.

*

It was later, much later, when the official part of the evening was finally over. A great welcoming feast had taken place in one of the gardens in the upper ring. A pavilion had been erected under the canopy of a few young trees, whose branches had been hung with paper lanterns, while helpers had carried benches, tables, and a little stage there to accommodate guests, hosts, and musicians. There had been speeches, formal and less formal, as well as toasts and exchanges of gifts. After that, there were songs and recitals, all in no particular order. It appeared as if anyone who felt like it could just climb up to the stage and present a song or a poem, and both Elves and Men made good use of this. Fundin listened intently at first, but soon let his attention drift away as his concentration faded after a long day, simply allowing the atmosphere and the music to take his thoughts wherever they pleased, while contented tiredness soaked into him.

The feasting and singing lasted into the late night hours, and only after midnight did King Durin finally excuse himself and retreat to his quarters. It was then that Celebrimbor caught the eye of Narvi and Fundin, nodding towards the darkness of the gardens before excusing himself from the gathering and leaving in the direction of a darker, quieter part of the gardens.

The two brothers followed Celebrimbor into the semi-darkness under the starry sky. Crickets were chirping in the bushes, and the smell of damp, dewy grass rose from the ground as they made their way across a stretch of lawn. When they had made camp by the roadside the night before, Fundin had spent the entire night lying awake and staring up into that marvel of darkness and pinpricks of silver light. How big it was, how far away the stars were! He had heard of it and read more descriptions of it than he could count, and yet he found that even the best description fell impossibly short of the wondrous reality that surrounded him. Even now he could hardly tear his gaze away when they finally caught up with Celebrimbor.

The elf was waiting at the edge of the garden where it was framed by a low wall of white stone. Just beyond, the wall dropped about two hundred feet until it met a backstreet and some gardens of the middle ring beneath.

“Stealing away from the party, my lord?” Narvi asked as they approached.

Celebrimbor turned around. “And successfully luring you away from your king, as it would seem.”

“By Mahal, whatever have you planned for him, you rascal?”

“Who says I planned something for him? I lured you away.”

Narvi laughed. “That's fair.” Then, all of a sudden, both friends stepped forward and embraced each other.

“It's good to see you again, Kurfi,” Narvi said, beaming. “And look at you – how much of a lord you act now! You are learning at long last, it seems!”

“Even I can't help but learn, if I have to keep up the act at all times.” Celebrimbor grinned. “I do, however, much prefer to be around people where I can be a friend and colleague, and I don't think that will ever change.”

“Good thing we're all friends here, then, isn't it?” Narvi laughed quietly.

Celebrimbor nodded, then turned to Fundin, looking at him properly for the first time since the Dwarves had arrived in Ost-in-Edhil. “Fundin, my friend. It's been so long.”

“It – ” Fundin's voice broke on the word. He coughed and tried again. “It has been.” Now, why was his voice coming out so hoarse and quiet? “How are you?” he managed to ask. “You're doing well for yourself, it seems.”

Celebrimbor grimaced. “The lording still takes up too much of my time for my taste, but I'm slowly getting to the point where I can get all the other lords and ladies around us to accept that I really care less for protocol and invitations to feasts than for working partnerships and travel routes.”

“Must have put them off quite a bit.”

“Not as much as could have been.” Celebrimbor shrugged. “Some of them still know me from the West – apparently that's more or less the behaviour that they've been expecting of Curufin's son since he grew up.” He looked at Fundin again. “But tell me of yourself! How have you been? It was such a shame that we couldn't see each other while I was working on the gates. Of all the times you had to be gone to attend to a delegation! Narvi could tell you how angry I was when I learned that they wouldn't even let you go briefly to come visit us – I would have liked to talk to you so dearly!”

Fundin nodded, not quite meeting the elf's eyes and looking out over the nightly city with its countless lights and lanterns instead. “It was a shame, yes. I would have liked to come as well. Very much. But you know. My duty.”

Words seemed to have fled him. Fundin took a deep breath and tried to pull himself together, finally looking back at Celebrimbor. “But here we are now, and that is what counts, isn't it?”

Celebrimbor smiled. “Yes, I suppose it is. But now, tell me what has been going on under the Mountains? What have you been up to since we last spoke? What about Floki, Birta, and Falda?”

Fundin gladly took up the new topic and together, he and Narvi started to relay the goings-on in Khazad-Dûm to Celebrimbor, who seemed very eager for every bit of news from the Dwarven realm. The elf remembered a surprising number of the names and incidents that came up. He asked about former colleagues and friends, as well as the state affairs of the kingdom. Fundin and Narvi answered his questions to the best of their abilities, and when Fundin told Celebrimbor that Floki's daughter Falda had – prematurely and by pure stone-headedness – argued herself into one of the apprentice classes of Nazri, the son of the late Master Naugrin, Celebrimbor burst out laughing.

“Oh, I would just love to get to know her!” he said. “If she is anything like you describe her, she must be the spitting image of Floki – only hopefully with a better-kept beard!”

“You're not too far off,” Narvi said. “She's grown up to be quite a handful. Got the stubbornness of her father and the smarts of her mother. She's driving every master in Khazad-Dûm to despair because she keeps hounding them down to teach her, and throwing tantrums if they decline because 'she's still too young'. If you're ever looking for a challenge, let me know and I'll send her over to apprentice for you.”

A glint flashed in Celebrimbor's eyes. “Ask her. Please do. I would love to have her here and learn from her.”

“What, not the other way round?”

“I don't think there's anything I could teach Falda. Especially not when it comes to dealing with stubborn diplomats, who 'Yes, but' their way through the entirety of a conversation.”

This time, all three of them laughed.

He hasn't forgotten us, Fundin thought, watching as Celebrimbor turned to Narvi to ask something else. He still cares. The realisation made something inside him that had been stiff and cold until now finally loosen up.

They talked late into the night. The stars wandered overhead and below them, a sea of lanterns and lights shone in Ost-in-Edhil’s lower rings. At some point during their conversation, all three of them climbed up onto the ringwall and sat down side by side. The wall was still warm from the day's heat despite the white stones, and it was broad enough to sit upon comfortably without needing to fear the danger of falling off one way or the other.

Finally, after a long time spent talking and laughing, they lapsed into a comfortable silence, looking out over the city and letting their thoughts wander.

Fundin ran his hand over the white stones while a warm breeze caressed his face. The air smelled of flowers and warm stone, of grass and mountain air. He tilted his head back to gaze up at the starry sky above, then looked out over Ost-in-Edhil, which lay sprawled below them, the bustling city now subdued and silent, but with no less splendour.

“This is a beautiful city that you have built for yourselves,” Fundin said quietly.

Celebrimbor, who had apparently been deeply lost in thought until Fundin spoke, turned around. “Hm?”

“It is a beautiful place that you have created for yourselves,” Fundin repeated. “Not only the architecture and the location, but the… the spirit of this place. It is so free, so open. No matter who you are or where you come from – I feel like you would welcome them with open arms and share what you have, regardless of what they had to offer. If I was lost and didn't know where to turn or what I was looking for – I think I would come here.”

Celebrimbor just looked at him for a few moments, his mouth slightly open. “I – thank you.”

Fundin averted his gaze and looked out over the countless streets, houses, shops and towers. “I know that it is often more of a hassle than a blessing when you have to rule an empire, but for a city like this? I would do it, a thousand times over.”

Celebrimbor blinked, apparently at a loss for what to say to this. He mulled it over, then leaned forward a bit, his elbows resting on his knees and his feet dangling in empty air.

Fundin watched as Celebrimbor regarded the city – his city. When the elf spoke again, his words were slow and thoughtful. “You are right that it is a hassle, and ruling brings with it responsibilities and duties that are not always pleasant. But … just as you said, when I look at how we started out, and what this city has grown into… I think to myself, It was worth it. And no matter where we go from here, no matter what happens, it will always have been worth it. I feel almost as if it is a tree that is growing under my protection, and if it thrives I know that I have done my work well.”

He looked at his hands. “But with a city, it is not only about the beautiful and easy things, isn't it? And yet, at times I feel that I could not truly appreciate the home I now have until I have seen all the work that goes into maintaining it. Now that I know this city at its best and at its worst, I have come to love it unconditionally.” Celebrimbor paused. “But I don't think I could have done this without getting to know the two of you first, and seeing how much one can love and care for their home and their people.”

Fundin and Narvi shared a look. A moment passed between them, as they both remembered words that had been spoken centuries ago, in a different place, a different time: Fundin had only recently been made Durin’s steward, and during a family feast he had, for the first time, articulated what ruling Khazad-Dûm meant to him to his brother. His words then had been startlingly similar to those Celebrimbor had just spoken now.

Celebrimbor seemed to notice the shift and looked between them. “What?”

“Nothing,” Fundin said quickly, but when Celebrimbor wasn't looking, he couldn't hide a smile. So we still understand each other, after all that time.

And for some reason, Fundin no longer minded as much that Celebrimbor had left. He knew now that Kurfi had not forgotten Khazad-Dûm, that he had not forgotten his friends and the time that he had spent there.

Even though he stopped living under the Mountain, that doesn't mean he stopped caring for Khazad-Dûm and everyone he knows there. He had to come to us and learn to belong again. But he also had to leave in the end, I see it now. He could never have become who he was today if he had not come here to Ost-in-Edhil. I wouldn't ever want to take that away from him.

Thinking back later, Fundin couldn’t remember how long they sat there and talked, side by side, and in the moment, he also didn't notice that Narvi eventually fell silent and simply listened as Celebrimbor and Fundin were completely lost in one of their long, branching conversations. Fundin didn't notice the stars passing overhead, and he only looked up when he noticed that the sky in the east was becoming tinted grey with the early dawn.

Fundin blinked as if pulled from a place where no time existed back onto the material plane. Too soon, he thought, and yet he knew that he could not fight down his tiredness much longer. Their journey to reach Ost-in-Edhil had been long for a Dwarf who had never ventured beyond the mountains before and Fundin hadn't slept in a few days; now his exhaustion was beginning to really make itself known.

“We should probably go to bed,” Celebrimbor said with a yawn. “I can't think straight for much longer, and we can finish this conversation in the morning. The late morning, preferably.”

“Finish? When have we ever truly finished a conversation, instead of being made to stop by our duties or the hands on our clocks?” Fundin asked, unable to keep from smiling despite his exhaustion.

“True,” Celebrimbor conceded. “Continue, then – after all, we still have time.”

*

We still have time.

In the end, though, even that time passed far too quickly. Far too soon, Fundin realised that the last day of their stay had come. All of a sudden they were required to fetch their ponies, clear their rooms, and gather at the gates to say farewell.

It had all passed in a blur, but his entire stay in Ost-in-Edhil seemed to have gone by even quicker than their good-byes.

So much to do, so much to say, and so little time. Never enough time.

There was an ache in his chest as Fundin pulled himself up into the saddle, but as always he didn't let it shine through. He kept a smile on his face as he said his farewells for the fifth time, and then all of a sudden they were riding away, down the long ramp of white stone that led down from the open gates of Ost-in-Edhil to the plains below.

Fundin rode behind King Durin and next to Narvi, and when he turned around he could still see the group of Elves, Men, and Dwarves who had seen them off there at the gates. Celebrimbor stood at the front of the group. When he saw Fundin looking back, he lifted his hand and waved in farewell.

Fundin waved back, regarding the many, many other figures standing behind Celebrimbor as he did. They get to stay. I must leave. There was a clenching in his chest and a burning feeling at the back of his throat. He closed his eyes, then tore his gaze away and looked forward, toward his king’s back. Because this is where my path lies, where my duty is.

He told himself this, and he told himself that it was right and proper that he was going home again, because he loved Khazad-Dûm and he could never abandon it.

It was true, of course. Fundin did love his city, his home, and his king.

And yet, he could never forget what it had been like to be outside of the Mountain Kingdom: to amble through streets of warm cobbled stone, with no duty demanding his attention and only friends, the wind, and the sun for company.

Even years after this journey, Fundin still dreamed of endless blue skies.

158 years ago (1400 S.A.)

Fundin had to read the letter twice to make sure that he had read it right, but the words stayed the same. When he looked up, he found Narvi looking back at him with an amused expression.

“What – ” he started, then broke off again. He read the letter for a third time.

Narvi smiled and leaned back heavily in one of the armchairs in Fundin's study. His frame had become portly and rounded and his expression mild with age. His formerly red-brown beard was by now entirely consumed by white and grey.

“I don't understand,” Fundin said at last. “How? Why?”

Narvi chuckled. “It seems that our Kurfi is being … well, very much Kurfi again. He just can't do anything the usual way, it seems. Where other people acquire friends, or allies, or dogs, our Kurfi got himself one of the Holy Ones.”

Fundin blinked, then laid the letter aside. “I still don't understand how this came about. I thought that the Holy Ones were gone from these shores.”

Narvi shrugged. During the last few years, he seemed to have lost the zest to investigate every strange incident to its cause, and had instead become more content to accept things as they were. He didn't seem overly bothered by the recent developments. “I thought so as well, but who can tell the intent of those creatures? As far as we know, they don't seem to be bound by any loyalty or duty. And if this one has taken a fancy to return here and visit the mortal lands, who is going to tell it no? No one, I should think, and especially not our Kurfi.”

Fundin made a noncommittal noise, then read the letter again. Indeed, Celebrimbor didn't seem to be too suspicious or taken aback by a Maia turning up on his doorstep. If anything, he sounded excited.

Fundin sighed. “I only hope he knows what he is getting himself into with this. The Maiar have their whims and wiles. I need only think of that sorceress who bewitched the Elven king Thingol to stay with her, and made him forget about everything else that he should have been doing at the time.”

Narvi waved it off. “They are strange, but most of them aren't malicious. Besides, do you really think a mere Maia could lure Kurfi's thoughts away from the things he's decided to put his mind to?” He shook his head and laughed. “No, I think greater forces are needed for that. Kurfi will be fine, you'll see.”

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157 - 44 years ago (1401 - 1514 S.A.)

And Celebrimbor was fine. More than fine, even, judging by his increasingly long and elaborate letters detailing his latest exploits with the Maia who had obviously become his new favourite colleague. Celebrimbor never called the Maia 'friend,' but his growing admiration – adoration, even – for this creature was unmistakable. Fundin could see it in every word, every sentence, every line, that Celebrimbor wrote. The elf went on and on about how much the stranger knew about history and language, mathematics and physics, smithing and metallurgy, and what a joy it was to work alongside the Maia.

It is as if we understand each other even without words, he wrote one time. Even at times when I myself struggle to put into words what I mean or intend to say, he grasps my intention effortlessly and always answers in as concise and detailed a way as anyone could wish for. Talking to him is less effort than it is joy, and I am learning so much with every hour, every day we spend together. I have never felt so understood. Sometimes I feel almost as if he's the long-lost brother that I have never had, so like-minded are we at times.

The more Fundin read of those exuberant thoughts and their like, the more sour his mood became and his letters in response became shorter and more evasive concerning the Maia. In the beginning, Fundin had politely asked about the newcomer, but he soon discovered that at even the slightest prompt Celebrimbor would go on and on about the stranger for multiple paragraphs, which Fundin soon took to skipping. At some point he just stopped asking about the Maia entirely, and instead resolved to ignore the gushing treatises on how greatly the creature contributed to seemingly everything that was going on in Ost-in-Edhil.

However, as time passed the mysterious stranger began to take up more and more of Celebrimbor's correspondence to Fundin, until the creature pervaded the entirety of Celebrimbor's letters. Fundin's letters became shorter and curter, and ultimately he stopped replying to Celebrimbor entirely. Lately, he had found it brought him more annoyance than joy to write to the elf, whose entire mind seemed to be taken up with the Maia, if his letters were even a remotely accurate reflection of his thoughts.

Maybe it is just the initial enthusiasm, which is understandable, Fundin thought. Give him a few weeks, a few months, and perhaps we can speak of other things again. If he writes to me in the meantime, I shall reply, but otherwise I will just let it rest for the time being.

He was content enough with that resolution and even if there was still a twinge of annoyance every time Fundin thought of Celebrimbor, who had so suddenly and utterly turned his attention to a different friend, the dwarf resolved to ignore it and turned his own mind to other matters.

If Kurfinni has so many other things to keep him occupied, it is only fair that I should do the same, rather than postponing important tasks in favour of a distant friend who is otherwise busy.

And thus weeks passed, and then months, during which Fundin did many things he had not done in a long time. For one thing, he visited Baldur in the library and found a few older manuscripts in dire need of copying to new parchment. The old scrolls were brittle enough that Fundin feared they would turn to dust the moment he unrolled them, and when he did open them, the ink had faded to a point as to be almost unrecognizable. He busied himself copying those old texts to soft new vellum pages whenever he had some time to spare, and also added a few illuminations here and there. Baldur was overjoyed to receive the new copies and thanked Fundin profusely. Fundin in turn reassured him that he would gladly copy other manuscripts if the other illuminators and scribes in the scriptorium were too busy with more urgent tasks. Fundin, of course, was no professional and as such, no scrolls of great importance would be entrusted to him for that matter. He was mostly only allowed to copy old ledgers and lists of trade exchanges, but the content of those scrolls mattered little to him. He was satisfied enough if he could only sit at his desk and transfer those old, faded numbers and words to new, soft vellum. The knowledge of preserving something that would otherwise be lost, and losing himself in the joy of bringing something to paper with precise, neat strokes of his pen, better than before, was enough for him.

He also visited Floki, and once they even went to visit the Sapphire Dell together. It was strange with just the two of them sitting at the table. Whenever Fundin had gone out with Floki in the past, they had been accompanied by a raucous horde of Floki's friends, who filled the pub with their excitable chatter and bawdy jests. Without those friends now, the room appeared much too big, much too empty, and for some reason his conversation with Floki never lasted longer than a few strained sentences before lapsing back into silence. They exchanged the usual news – how their families were doing, how work was going, how more and more Elves were coming into Khazad-Dûm – and then it was as if they did not know what to speak of anymore.

“Strange, it is,” Floki said finally, wiping the back of his hand over his greying moustache. “For ages it has been only us, and now suddenly there's Elves and Men and stranger folk coming to knock at our gates and we're letting them in.”

Fundin stared into his tankard. “Yes, the times are changing.”

“Aren't they just,” the older dwarf hummed. “Then again, I guess it's only fair that we're letting them in, now that our own kind is travelling all over Eregion as well to trade and work and learn. Falda says she's enjoying her time in the Elven city greatly, and I wonder if I will ever get to see her again, properly, before I make my way into the Halls of Waiting.” He chuckled, but the sound was only half in jest.

“I'm sure you will,” Fundin said. At Celebrimbor's invitation, Floki's daughter had left for Ost-in-Edhil sixty years ago, and while the young Dwarf had returned to visit her family from time to time, it appeared that she had no intention of returning to Khazad-Dûm permanently in the long run.

“I doubt that. She's still as excited about being there as she was during her first week. You'd have to see the letters she's writing me – they could fill an entire library by themselves! And no matter how often I tell her that I'm no good for reading and that she should just come to visit in order to talk to me in person, she just says that she can't for fear of missing this colloquy and that guest lecture, and all of them way too important to be missed. So I guess I must take a back seat to my daughter's work.” Floki grunted. “How's Kurfi doing, by the way? I know he was always writing letters to you. Anything new from him and this Maia he's picked up off his doorstep?”

Fundin tensed. “Not that I know of. They appear to be very busy and we haven't exchanged letters in some time.”

Floki just chuckled. “Our Kurfi appears to be really taken with this new friend of his. Still, he's always had too much of a liking for writing letters for my taste – he's one of those people who just need to talk about everything that's going on inside their heads at all times. I'm sure you'll hear from him soon.”

But Celebrimbor didn't write, either in the week after Fundin and Floki had been to the Sapphire Dell, or the months after that. Fundin hadn't really been expecting any letters, and he himself hadn't written to Celebrimbor in turn, but still. Every day that passed without news from Ost-in-Edhil – and from Celebrimbor specifically – made that tight black knot in his chest pull just a little tighter and sprout a few more thorns.

Fundin resented himself for the fact that this should matter to him so much – after all, Celebrimbor didn't appear to take any issue with their current situation either, so why should Fundin? And yet, the matter was always there in his mind. Even if not at the forefront, it was always lingering somewhere in the back: a curious mix of disappointment and anger that Fundin didn't know whether it was directed at Celebrimbor or at himself.

The matter was mundane, and not at all important, and yet Fundin's mind refused to let it go.

Until his brother Narvi fell ill, that was. From there on out, suddenly nothing else was important anymore.

44 years ago (1514 S.A.)

Fundin watched as the heavy stone plate slid in place over the tomb. His eyes were dry and burning, and although Fundin was blinking rapidly, it didn't seem to help much. His gaze was fixed on the stone plate. The grinding sound as it slid into its final position made the insides of his skull vibrate. He didn't look at the stone bust that stared back at him empty-eyed from a pedestal behind the tomb, which looked nothing like Narvi had ever looked in life.

He felt the pressing presence of his family standing behind him – aunts and uncles, cousins, more and less distant – but he didn't turn around. They all kept their respectful distance in turn, giving Fundin his allotted space at the front as the closest remaining kin of Narvi. Fundin knew that he should talk to them, but even thinking of turning around and opening his mouth to speak made him feel ill.

They would not approach him, he knew. They would give him as much space as he needed in his grief, and he was glad to use it as an excuse to forgo all courtesies and just remain standing there, his eyes fixed on Narvi's tomb without seeing it. He could not say how much time passed as he stood there. Eventually, he more felt than heard them move away and he was alone. The cold of the surrounding stone seeped into his fingers and through his boots into his feet, until Fundin himself felt like he would become one with the stone, cold and unmoving. In this moment, he would have welcomed it.

For now, he was cold and stiff and comfortably numb, but he knew that as soon as he moved away and up into the city of the living again, his body and mind would thaw again, leaving him vulnerable against the onslaught of grief that was now only just building, like a far-off storm. If there had been a way to escape this, he would have been sorely tempted to take it.

But in the end he wasn't stone, and when his back and feet were hurting so much that he could no longer stand straight, when his tongue was sticking to his try palate, when every movement made his body ache as if he had to break through a thick crust that had laid itself about his bones – Fundin took a step, and then another, and slowly walked away. His steps echoed across the cavern in which the mausoleum of his family lay. The torches down here in the Halls of Waiting burned with a cool, blue flame that gave off only cold. He saw a few priests moving to and fro when he crossed the main halls, but other than that, the city of the dead was deserted.

Back in his office, he slowly and methodically prepared himself a can of kófi, although he had no intention of drinking it. He briefly considered alcohol, but quickly discarded the thought. In the mausoleum he had briefly entertained various plans of escaping his feelings when they finally made themselves known in their entirety, but he knew that he would not give in to this weakness. He would face the deluge, no matter how brutal it would be or how long it would last.

The worst was knowing that he would survive it. That he would forget. Heal. Get better. The thought should have made Fundin feel better, but all it did was put into perspective how momentary and marginal his grief would be, and thus rob him of any reasons and justifications to wallow.

And yet. Right now, he still felt numbed. He stood in the middle of his office for a moment, thinking of what to do. In the end he decided to sit down and work. He might as well get some of his duties done while he still could. When the realization finally hit him, Fundin knew, he would spend enough time as it was paralyzed by the grief, so there was no need to laze about while he was still able to get his work done.

He worked for three days straight, quick and efficient, but always keeping his senses heightened for the first indicators that he might lose his composure. Strangely enough, the signs didn't come until almost a week later. When they did, King Durin offered to entrust someone else with the steward's duties for the time being, but Fundin declined. His work was the only thing keeping him together and he could not lose that lifeline now.

And so the storm came.

For weeks on end, Fundin would see no one and barely left his office. He had food and drink brought to his solar, and he took to spending the few hours of sleep that he could achieve each night in his armchair, slumped to one side and plagued by tempestuous dreams. When he awoke from one of those nightmares, he would take a few moments to ground himself, and then immediately immerse himself in his work again to chase away the lingering shadows of the latest dream and its shadows of loss and loneliness.

With time, even the worst of the storm passed. Although the pain never went away entirely, it gradually lost its acuteness – or perhaps he simply got used to it after the greater part of his heart had turned to numb, insensitive scar tissue – and Fundin eventually realized that he would survive. He didn’t return to anything resembling his old life, and his days still seemed to consist of shades of grey bleeding into each other, but eventually the dark moments (when a wave of blackness would roll over him and bury him beneath its suffocating weight, leaving him petrified and gasping for breath) became less and less frequent, and Fundin knew then that he could, if not heal, then at least move on in a way.

It was almost the beginning of spring when he suddenly found a letter from Ost-in-Edhil on his desk one day, bearing the sigil that Celebrimbor had taken to use for his correspondence. Fundin blinked at the letter, not truly understanding what he was seeing until a few minutes had passed. He had finally, actually completely forgotten about the Noldo. For the last few months, his life had held space for nothing more than restless nights and busy days, amply filled with the affairs of Khazad-Dûm. To see Celebrimbor intruding upon this space all of sudden, after Fundin had gotten so used to not thinking of him, was strange and disconcerting. Fundin grabbed the letter opener and sliced the envelope.

The message inside was very short.

Fundin,

I have heard the news from Floki. I am so sorry that I have only heard of it now after months have already passed, but I had no word from anyone from Khazad-Dûm during the winter. Do you need me to come? Please tell me, because if so, I will prepare my journey immediately.

Kurfinni

Fundin blinked. No courtesies, no asking how he was, no offerings of condolences. He slowly laid the letter aside and wondered how this was supposed to make him feel.

It was a good letter, actually, if he thought about it. It wasn't lengthy, full of bloated hollow phrases and assurances that Celebrimbor's misery was just as great as his own must surely be. Instead, the elf had just cut directly to the core of the matter, offering to drop everything and come to Khazad-Dûm. Celebrimbor hadn't asked how Fundin was because the elf knew what it felt like to lose family. It would all have been ornamental, courteous, and ultimately, useless. In fact, the offer to come and visit him was nothing short of insightful and caring, and spoke volumes about the lengths Celebrimbor would go to in order to offer Fundin some comfort.

So why didn't that make him feel good, touched, or any other reasonable emotion? Why did he feel upset, even angry?

Fundin stared at the letter.

Because he wasn't here.

It was a ridiculous thought. There was no way that Celebrimbor could have known of Narvi's illness and death, for Narvi himself had insisted upon not telling the elf. And yet Fundin couldn't shake his anger. The thought that the elf had walked through sun-flooded workshops in his high towers, filled with even higher ideas and plans, laughing and working, while Narvi had lain dying and Fundin had watched the last of his rattling breaths pass from his brother’s body –

What good will your words do now? Where were you when we needed you? Where were you when I needed you? Gallivanting about with that Maia in those high spires of yours, philosophizing about even higher dreams, sparing no thought for –

Fundin didn’t realize that he had crumpled the letter and moved to throw it into the fireplace until he was already standing before the hearth and felt its heat scorching the underside of his trembling fist. His right arm was stretched out over the crackling flames, his fingers digging into the crumpled ball of paper, already moving to loosen their grip, to let go. He only stopped himself at the last possible moment and hastily pulled his hand back. He stumbled backwards and had to close his eyes for a moment because his mind was reeling, faced with what he had almost, almost done.

Fundin let out a deep, slow breath. He knew that he was being rash and illogical. He knew that he was not being fair. And yet. He could not fight the anger. It was simply there, regardless of whether it had a right or a reason to exist. He couldn't change that. However, Fundin would not let his feelings dictate his actions.

It took him weeks to work up the nerve and the calm to answer, but when he finally did, his hand was sure and his message betrayed nothing of his feelings.

Dear Celebrimbor,

Your offer is kind and I appreciate it. However, you needn't come. What is past, is past and this matter is resolved. Your presence here would achieve nothing, and no one will bear you any ill will for staying where your duties demand you to be. In fact, it was Narvi's own wish to keep his illness private and only inform his friends it had come to pass after he had passed on himself, so no blame rests on you.

If you ever want to come to Khazad-Dûm, its doors will always be open to you, you know that. Until then, take care of yourself and your friends.

May the Maker shine his fire upon your path.

Your friend,

Fundin

Fundin re-read the letter very often, thinking about changing it some way or another, but in the end he left it as it was. When he finally gave it to the messenger to be sent to Ost-in-Edhil, he had read its contents so often that he almost believed them himself.

33 days ago (22^nd of September, 1558 S.A.)

Ever since Celebrimbor had announced his upcoming arrival on the evening of the 22^nd of September, Fundin had been preparing the welcoming party that would greet him, planning for its members to meet in the early hours of the afternoon so that they could ready themselves. The Lord of Ost-in-Edhil was an esteemed guest and as such, Fundin selected Ari and Nali, two nephews of King Durin, to accompany him to the gates. As further companions he chose Buri and Bori, two of his own younger cousins. They had distinguished themselves as honourable members of their house in recent years and proven themselves as able servants of the king, so Fundin felt it was right that they should accompany him to greet Celebrimbor and the unspecified “friend” he had said he was bringing with him.

They went to the antehall, where Buri and Bori busied themselves talking to the gatekeepers, while Fundin went around greeting strangers and welcoming them into Khazad-Dûm, all the while keeping an eye and an ear out for the arrival of his old friend. He was feeling a strange combination of excitement and nervousness. It had been a long time since he had last seen Celebrimbor, far longer now than the time after Celebrimbor had left Khazad-Dûm and Fundin had visited him in Ost-in-Edhil. It was also to be the first time that they had seen each other since Narvi had passed away, and Fundin felt the absence of his brother almost like a tangible ache at his side.

What would it be like, he wondered, to see Celebrimbor again after all these years? Would Narvi's death stand between them? Fundin had firmly decided that he wouldn't let it – not after the four decades that they had each had to get used to the fact that the fulcrum that had first brought them together no longer existed.

At last Fundin heard a familiar voice over the din in the ante-room. A tall figure had walked up to the guards at the gate outside.

“Good evening,” the figure said, bowing in the customary fashion of Dwarves. “Celebrimbor of Ost-in-Edhil, at your service. I know it is bad manners to ask something of a host before you have even stepped over his threshold, but I have a request to make in favour of my friend: would it be possible – ”

He was interrupted by one of the guards. “Celebrimbor of Ost-in-Edhil? The Celebrimbor?”

With a polite excuse, Fundin extricated himself from the conversation with a young Dwarven traveller from the Blue Mountains. He signalled his four young companions and they made their way over to the gates just in time to hear the elf say, “If you are talking about the friend of Narvi who lived here for nearly three decades and made these doors with him, then yes, that Celebrimbor. At least, there is no other I know of. Elves are not usually in the habit of giving away a name more than once.”

“Says the third Curufinwë,” Fundin said wryly as he stepped out of the gate, his cousins and Durin's nephews behind him.

Both Celebrimbor and the guards turned around in surprise.

He still looks the same, Fundin thought. He hasn't changed one bit – and yet, something is different about him. He couldn't pinpoint what exactly the difference might be, though. Just as the Celebrimbor whom he had seen in Ost-in-Edhil had been nothing like the Celebrimbor he had gotten to know when he had still been an apprentice, the elf appeared very different now – even though he had not changed outwardly, nearly untouched by the course of time and age.

Fundin stepped forward. “Maker's fire upon your path, and firm stone below your feet,” he said, in the way of formal greeting for high-ranking guests.

“And may your hammer strike ever true,” Celebrimbor replied, following proper protocol too as he returned the bow. “I was wondering whether it would be you to welcome us into Khazad-Dûm.” When the elf straightened again, he was smiling. It was the same smile that had first shattered Fundin's impression of the elf as an irredeemable ill-tempered grouch, and had later begun to touch him in a very different manner.

Fundin swallowed those old feelings with decisive firmness, smothering them before they could bud. And yet, he did allow the joy to well up inside himself, because this was his old friend, and by Mahal, he had missed him. It had been so long.

“Not for the world and all the mithril hidden in its depths would I have missed it,” Fundin said and smiled.

At those words a broad grin broke over Celebrimbor's face, and with a quick motion the elf pulled Fundin into a firm embrace. Now that wasn't proper protocol at all, and naturally Celebrimbor didn't care. “It is good to see you again, Fundin,” the elf said.

Fundin mentally gathered himself. This is fine. We are very old friends, after all. And – as he suddenly discovered – nothing more. His chest wasn't aching, his heart wasn't skipping a beat like it had done all those years ago whenever Celebrimbor had caught him off guard with a nudge, a jostle, an embrace. He felt a familiar fond warmth when he looked at the elf, but nothing more than that. Not anymore. And – Fundin realized – it was fine.

“And you, Kurfi.” He laughed and clapped his hands on Celebrimbor's back, then pushed him back at arm's length, his eyes searching the elf's face. “Would you look at yourself,” he said. “The sun and the wind have done you good. You look well.”

And he did. It reminded Fundin of the change that had gone through the elf after he had left Khazad-Dûm. He had looked healthier and happier then, and today, it was much the same in a manner Fundin couldn't pinpoint. There seemed to be a radiance to the elf that hadn't been there before. It was beyond a visible change, but seemed to be on another plane of existence, as if there was an aura to Celebrimbor that Fundin was entirely unfamiliar with.

“I do hope so,” Celebrimbor said, “Living in peaceful times and surrounded by friends must be good for something, after all.”

“Indeed.” Fundi stepped back, his eyes wandering past Celebrimbor's shoulder and coming to rest on the second newcomer, who was standing a few steps behind the Noldo. He was likewise tall, but otherwise looked very different from Celebrimbor. He was leaner, fair-haired, and wore simple white robes that, although finely-made, were quite nondescript in appearance. Their cut couldn't be attributed to a particular fashion of either Men or Quendi, and they bore no coats or ornaments that would allow a guess at the stranger's provenance or family.

“And I see you have brought one such friend with you today.” Fundin stepped around Celebrimbor and bowed to the stranger. “Fundin, Son of Finli, at your service.”

“And at yours, Master Fundin,” Celebrimbor's friend replied and inclined his head.

“And who might you be, Lord Stranger?” Fundin asked after the four younger Dwarves had introduced themselves in turn. “Our mutual friend has been very secretive about your person when he announced that there would be someone coming with him. As such he has not informed us of your name, or your titles and ancestry.” Fundin paused briefly. “I would call you 'Master Elf', but I see that it would be amiss, because upon a closer look it seems you're missing their pointy ears.”

The stranger laughed softly. “Not too far amiss – and no offence would have been taken. I am sure our mutual friend can remedy the missing introductions very quickly.” His gaze flicked over to Celebrimbor, a strange glint in them, then back at Fundin and for a heartbeat his amber eyes flashed golden. For an instant it felt as if a veil had been pulled back from the stranger and Fundin nearly floundered when he saw – no, felt – the true nature of Celebrimbor's friend, who had briefly revealed themselves.

And even before Celebrimbor spoke again, Fundin suddenly knew just who he was looking at and his insides froze.

His head whipped around to the elf. He wouldn't, he thought. He couldn't. Of all his friends whom Kurfi could have brought – not him.

But his last shreds of hope died when he saw the stricken look on Celebrimbor's face, like a child who had known all along that he would be caught in the act of doing something forbidden, and now saw with resigned fear that the moment of discovery – and of reckoning – had come.

“This is Annatar Aulëndil, a dear friend and colleague of mine.” The elf turned towards the four younger Dwarves, who as of yet still did not understand the nature of their second guest. “He came to Middle-earth as an emissary of the Lords of the West, and has since wandered its farthest and most remote corners, offering up his knowledge and his skill at all ends of the world, before he came upon my doorstep one hundred and fifty years ago. He has stayed with us in Ost-in-Edhil ever since. I took him with me since he expressed his desire to see the marvels of Khazad-Dûm for himself.”

“Aulëndil?” Ari repeated, his brows raised. “And an emissary of the Valar?” He looked at Annatar, more closely this time.

There was a strangling sensation welling up in Fundin's chest. His joy at the reunion was gone, evaporated in a fire of feelings that he didn't care to evaluate and dismantle right now. For centuries in his position as a steward he had kept a calm and courteous facade in the face of demanding and difficult guests, his true feelings never once shining through. Today, he didn't succeed. This was simply too much.

When he was sure that his voice wouldn't crack on the first word, Fundin turned on Celebrimbor.

“What were you thinking? You might as well have sent us into a dragon cave without warning by not announcing the nature of your friend! Had we known that you would bring a Maia to our gates, the king himself would have come to deal with you!”

The elf actually shrank back, and a grim satisfaction welled up in Fundin's chest when he saw it. Good. Let him know that he has done wrong. By Mahal, I thought he knew enough about us to know that this was simply not done, but I was mistaken. He is not one of us, he has no idea what he has done by bringing this creature here.

The four younger Dwarves looked on with shock on their faces, still not grasping the magnitude of the insolence that the elf had committed.

I must explain it to them later, he thought with gritted teeth. For now, he had to go through the motions, no matter how angry he might be.

And so Fundin turned to the Maia.

The creature was regarding him with an expression of detached interest that might almost have seemed arrogant. As if an argument between an elf and a few Dwarves would usually be far beyond its notice, but it couldn't help but being interested in their petty squawking and squabbling nonetheless.

Although everything in Fundin balked at the idea, he bowed deeply. It wouldn't do to offend one of their guests, especially not if said guest was powerful enough to level the entire kingdom with nothing more than the blink of an eye. He felt ill averting his eyes from the Maia, though, even when just to bow. It felt wrong, similar to presenting his neck to a dragon. Still, it wouldn't do to anger a dragon, much less an emissary of the West.

“Forgive us our ignorance, Lord Aulëndil,” he said, as calmly as he could. “Had we known who you were, we would have greeted you differently, in a manner befitting your rank and nature.”

Fundin's heart nearly stopped when the Maia stepped forward and placed a hand upon his shoulder.

“No need for such formalities,” the creature said, and if he had not known already what it truly was, then Fundin could never have guessed its nature from its voice alone. “Mahal himself wished for children, not servants, when he gave you life at the Dawn of Days ere the first sunrise. No father would demand that his children bow to him, and neither would I, calling myself only 'of Aulë', and not Aulë himself. Rise, Fundin, Son of Finli, so we might look upon each other as equals and – if you will – friends.”

Fundin righted himself quickly and took a small step backwards, out of the Maia's reach.

The Maia still fixed him with his golden eyes, his gaze following Fundin's every movement, much like a cat might stare down a mouse.

Do not let it see fear, Fundin told himself, willing his body to calm. And do not anger it. It might already be offended enough by how we reacted.

“If there is any way I can be of aid to you, you need only speak,” Fundin said, carefully neutral. “Finli's House is at your service. I am afraid there is no fixed protocol for such an event, because there is no known instance of any of Aulë's people ever coming to a kingdom under the mountains.”

The creature smiled, baring its white teeth at him. “In this case, I feel honoured to be the first of my kin to be allowed into your halls.”

Fundin did not smile back, but bowed again.

“I am sorry, I should have warned you,” Celebrimbor said quietly.

“You should have,” Fundin said curtly. “And yet you didn't.” The elf flinched. Fundin's eyes flicked back to the Maia. “But there is no changing the past. What has been done has been done.”

“Fundin, I – I am sorry,” Celebrimbor said. “He wanted to be received like any other traveller. It was his wish to remain unnamed until such a time as introductions were inevitable. I apologize if I forced you into a quandary.”

“That you did indeed,” said Fundin. “I understand that you were bound to respect your friend's wishes, but your obligations are not only to your friend. You should have told us!” He couldn't hide the bitterness in his tone. You do not only have duties to that Maia, Kurfi. We are your friends as well.

But he didn't say this out loud, of course. “You of all Elves must know that it is no light matter to bring one of Aulë's people to our doorstep. You have forced the hand of the king himself tonight, Celebrimbor, and you will have to answer for that.”

“I know,” Celebrimbor said quietly. “Believe me when I say that neither he nor I meant any harm by coming here. Annatar is an admirer of the arts and crafts, and a master of both. I told him much about my time here, and he wanted to see the halls of Khazad-Dûm and the Dwarven Kingdom for himself. To be honest, he told me that he would have preferred not to be introduced at all if his nature should rouse trouble or suspicion, but I explained to him that you cannot go nameless among Dwarves if you ever want them to trust you.”

“In this case you also should not surprise them with a Maia,” Fundin replied.

“He did not come here as a messenger of Aulë,” Celebrimbor said quickly. “He has not acted in that role for a long time. He came here as my friend. I had hoped you would receive him as the person he is today, no matter who or what he might once have been – just like you have done with me, all those years ago.”

Fundin sighed and closed his eyes briefly. Those were reasons, but they weren't Fundin's – or his people's. “Well, it is as good an explanation as one could hope to receive in such a situation. In any case, it will be Durin you'll have to answer to, not me.”

Speaking of which, the king needed to be informed of this new development, and quickly. Fundin lifted his gaze and looked over at his younger cousins, who were speaking quietly to Durin's nephews. “Ho, Ari, Nali! Come here when you are done! We must inform the king of Celebrimbor's arrival – and tell him of the friend that he has brought with him!”

The two younger Dwarves walked over to where Celebrimbor and Fundin were standing, and Fundin gave them quick instructions to go ahead and inform the king of the arrival of Celebrimbor and an unannounced Maia. As his younger cousins quickly took their leave, Celebrimbor stepped forward a little.

“Do you think I could show Annatar the closed doors while your cousins tell the king we are here?” Celebrimbor asked, some of his eagerness of old shining through, despite their preceding conversation.

Fundin frowned. “You are asking a lot of me tonight, Celebrimbor,” he said in a tone that should leave no doubt that his patience was coming to an end. “You will always have a right to these doors, since you are the one who built them, but you gifted them to the King of Khazad-Dûm, and he alone can decide whether or not your friend can be allowed to learn their secrets. Be that as it may, we should not let the king wait – come now, and when you talk to him you can bring before him all the strange requests that you have brought with you.”

When they entered Khazad-Dûm together, Fundin's joy at his reunion with Celebrimbor had turned entirely to bitterness.

19 days ago – 7 days ago (6^th of October - 18^th of October, 1558 S.A.)

Fundin rubbed briefly at his eyes as the last Dwarves filtered out of the council chamber, muttering quietly among themselves, a few of them throwing dark glowers over their shoulders in his direction.

Fundin was too exhausted to care. His eyes were burning and his shoulders and back were aching from another endless night spent sitting in an uncomfortable chair and having barely-veiled insults and accusations thrown at him. He couldn’t have said when he had last slept properly. For what must be every night in the last two-and-a-half weeks, Durin and Fundin had spent conferring with the heads of the noble houses of Khazad-Dum, discussing and arguing, both making too many promises and too many assurances for Fundin's liking. And still, for all their efforts, they had made little to no headway to show for it.

Most of Khazad-Dûm's noble houses had accepted Durin's decision to allow Celebrimbor and the Maia in under the mountains, but a few of the more conservative families (mostly those who had also opposed the decision to open the Dwarven Kingdom to the outside world) had taken grievous offence. The Bristlebeards first and foremost had risen up in outrage at those meetings, with Harko Bristlebeard going as far as questioning Durin's sanity for allowing an elf and a Maia into their realm, both of whom had apparently little to no respect for Dwarven customs and culture.

Fundin had risen from his seat and sharply reprimanded the Bristlebeard patriarch to mind his tongue, but if he was honest, he couldn't entirely disagree with Harko. He knew Durin's reasoning, of course. The king had explained himself at length to his steward and council – something Fundin knew not every ruler was willing to do, and he was thankful for Durin’s actions on this count. And yet, when Fundin looked around at the dark faces glaring at him, some of them his old friends and good acquaintances, he couldn't help but wonder if Durin had made the right decision this time.

After the last of the other Dwarves had left the room, Fundin slowly packed his notes together. As usually, they had not even gotten around to breaching many of the important day-to-day topics, like taxation, funding, and external relations. Lately, everything seemed to revolve solely around Celebrimbor and his impertinence in bringing a Maia to Khazad-Dûm, leaving no room for anything else.

Durin watched him silently, then they left the room side by side. For a while they backtracked their way through the long, straight corridors back to the central complex of the palace in silence.

“What do you make of this all, Fundin?” the king asked with a side glance.

Fundin was silent for a while. “They are angry,” he said.

“Yes, I know. But what do you make of it?”

Again, Fundin thought long and hard about what to say. “I understand them,” he said at last. “But I also understand you, my king. There was a noble intent in inviting Celebrimbor of Eregion and Aulëndil to stay with us. And yet – I fear that for some of us, this intent might not be enough.”

“Some of us?” Durin asked with a shrewd glance sideways. Before Fundin could answer, though, the king turned his head to look forward once more. “But yes, I understand you. As it is, I understand the elders as well. How could I not? We are Khazad, and we share the same past that binds us all to our Maker. And yet, I have often thought that our kin is focused too strongly on the past, forsaking what might yet be in favour of clinging to what has been. The past is a sharp knife that cuts deeply if you let it.” Durin's gaze was hard. “I intend to take the edge off this knife.”

Fundin threw his king a side glance. “Then I would advise you to take care not to cut yourselves on those edges as you do, Your Highness,” he said at last.

*

Fundin himself continued observing from afar, horribly tense inside, watching the Maia, waiting with apprehension for something, anything, to happen… but it never did.

His gaze wandered from the young Dwarves to Celebrimbor. Fundin had been watching his old friend often over the past few days and the more he saw, the more he felt like he couldn't understand the Noldo, whom he had thought he knew so well, any longer.

It was incredible how comfortable Celebrimbor appeared to be around the Maia. He didn't even seem to give a second thought to the fact that he was dealing with a creature that could destroy him with a flick of its finger. Celebrimbor showed no fear of contact, no discomfort: quite the contrary, in fact. They seemed so … familiar. He walked and sat close to the Maia, he talked to it and teased it without a sign of worry and concern. Once the Noldo even made a very pointed jest at the Maia’s expense and then laughed – a moment that had Fundin's stomach turning to ice. The creature, however, had only regarded Celebrimbor with a side glance, then smiled its slow, languid smile that revealed its white teeth one by one. Even watching from afar, it made Fundin's skin crawl.

And Celebrimbor? He showed not a sign of worry, not a sign of fear. He appeared to trust this creature unconditionally. There was no discomfort in his demeanour, no sign of an understandable respect or distance that one of the Lesser God's should, by all means, command. Did Celebrimbor not feel the power that radiated from this being, palpable enough that it made shivers run down Fundin's neck even from a distance? How did he even get so close to it? Does he know no fear?

Apparently not, because for all how Celebrimbor was acting around the creature, it was as if he was just dealing with a friend like any other, equal and approachable and not something to shy away from.

And the Maia? It did nothing. It appeared calm, and to a strange degree even approachable. It appeared to relish its interactions with the Khazad. Baldur had even told Fundin that Aulëndil and Celebrimbor were spending a great amount of time in the Great Library, which, after some thought, was to be expected. God-like and powerful though Aulëndil might be, Fundin couldn't imagine Celebrimbor growing so close to a creature that showed no interest in knowledge and books.

In all its time in Khazad-Dûm thus far, the Maia was nothing if not friendly and polite, and yet every time Fundin walked by it, he had a feeling of passing by a dragon.

In fact, the creature's presence reminded Fundin almost eerily of the tale of Malraug the dragon.¹

Fundin couldn't guess at the Maia's true intentions, but not for a single moment did he give himself over to the illusion that the Maia's friendliness was nothing more than a choice it was making over and over again every single moment, and every time the outcome of its decision was ultimately unpredictable. What if it ever chose to change its mind? The question was moot, though, because if it ever did, then all the Dwarves in Khazad-Dûm combined had even less chance of stopping the Maia than they did of stopping an earthquake.

6 days ago (19^th of October, 1558 S.A.)

King Durin had invited Celebrimbor to partake in the Wake on Durin's Day. Fundin felt like he should have seen this coming and he was angry at himself that he hadn’t. He tried to hide the resentment that he felt at his king for inviting the elf to partake in the rite. He knew that Durin only meant well: he allowed it only because Celebrimbor and Narvi had been very close, and because the Noldo had never had the chance to say his farewells before Narvi had passed away.

Still, it felt like yet another personal insult. Fundin knew that it was not his right, but he still felt that he as Narvi's brother should have been given a say in this. Lately it seemed to Fundin as if everyone was out to undermine him despite his dutifulness, whilst evening the path for Celebrimbor despite his impudence. It was not fair.

The meeting had ended a while ago, and Fundin was standing in a familiar hallway before a familiar door, his tired eyes burning, his shoulders and back aching from yet another meeting with the enraged Dwarven nobles, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, feeling utterly unhappy.

Why couldn't it ever just be easy? he wondered. Everything could have gone so smoothly if only Celebrimbor hadn't brought the Maia here.

Judging from past experience, the Maia seemed to tag along everywhere Celebrimbor went, and that probably also meant that the Noldo would be dragging him along to watch the sacred rites in the Halls of Waiting. Rites that only Dwarves were allowed to attend. Even bringing an elf down there was an exception that was unheard of, however long that elf might have spent in a Dwarven society.

But to allow a Maia into the Halls? And one of Aulë's flock at that? An immortal in a place of death and remembrance, from the fellowship of a god who had the most personal ties possible to the fate of the Khazad?

It was too much.

Fundin had spoken to King Durin about this, who had agreed that the Maia must not enter the necropolis. Fundin knew he needed to talk to Celebrimbor about this. But, he wondered, will he still listen to me? Prior to this visit, Fundin would never have called it into question. Celebrimbor had come to him for help in the past, and he had always cherished Fundin's advice and opinion.

But times had changed. Celebrimbor had gone from a lonely, angry outcast to a powerful, influential leader of the Noldor. He no longer desperately needed someone to stop him from falling and drowning in his own anger, guilt, and resentment, and after centuries of ruling, he no longer required Fundin's advice to govern his city either. These things didn't change that the Noldo would always remain a dear friend to Fundin. But, the Dwarf thought, I don't know him as well as I once did. And there is, of course, Aulëndil.

The Maia seemed to have changed something in Fundin's old friend. Celebrimbor appeared to be fixated on the creature, valuing its views above those of everyone else. Every decision he made Celebrimbor seemed to be weighing against his own and the creature's opinions, just like he had done in coming here to Khazad-Dûm, while no longer taking other people’s perspectives into consideration. There was no malevolent disregard in Celebrimbor, but … it was as if the Maia was outshining everything else around Celebrimbor with its brightness, entrapping both of them in its halo and making everything else, everyone else, fade into the background of unimportance.

Fundin didn't know whether he had simply faded away along with the rest of the world. Truth be told, he did not want to find out.

But he had to. He had already announced himself to Celebrimbor in the morning, telling him that he needed to have a word with him in private tonight.

And yet, now that Fundin stood before the door of Celebrimbor's rooms, he found that his feet wouldn't budge and his hand would not rise to knock on the door. There was a deep-seated dread unfurling inside his chest, fearing for what might happen if he told the elf that he just couldn't go on like this, that he couldn't bring this creature he cherished so much with him to the Wake –

Until this moment, Fundin had never truly realized how afraid he was of losing Celebrimbor as a friend. This conversation might well be what would lead to a permanent falling out between them, if Celebrimbor liked and defended that creature of his only half as much as Fundin expected him to.

If Fundin brought it up, he feared a discussion or even an argument was likely. However, if he kept his silence and Celebrimbor brought that Maia down into the Halls of Waiting, their friendship would break for certain. And not only that: Fundin only needed to think of the brewing resentment and the boiling tempers in the council rooms, of the barely veiled accusations and the deep divides that the Maia’s mere arrival had caused to open in the realm, to know that allowing it to enter their holiest halls might mean the sundering of the entire Dwarven kingdom.

At last, it was once again duty that pushed him past his fears. Fundin took a deep breath, then stepped forward and knocked on the door.

He only had to wait for a short time before the door was yanked open all of a sudden and Fundin found himself face to face with Aulëndil, the Maia’s golden eyes blazing with cold anger.

Fundin staggered back, but before he could do or say anything, the Maia had given him a sharp, almost dismissive nod and stormed off down the hallway.

Fundin stared after him, feeling like he had only barely avoided a brush with a roaring fire. Then he gathered himself and turned to look at Celebrimbor, who was standing in the doorframe, his face strangely drawn and his eyes wide, looking nearly as rattled as Fundin felt.

“I – ,” Celebrimbor said, then interrupted himself. “I'm sorry, we just had a … discussion of sorts.”

“Yes, that's what it looked like,” Fundin said quietly. “I'm sorry.”

“No need. Annatar can become somewhat... passionate about certain things at times, and if we don't agree on the matter at hand, our arguments tend to become a bit, well, heated.” Celebrimbor blew a lock of dark hair out of his face, seemingly lost in thought. Then his eyes cleared and they focused on Fundin. “Anyway. You told me that you would be visiting me tonight because you wanted to speak to me?”

“I did.” Fundin looked up at him.

“I'm glad you could finally make time. I had almost begun to fear that I wouldn't be seeing you at all as long as I was here, so I am glad we finally managed to fit it in. Though you certainly sounded like it was urgent.”

Fundin didn't reply to that.

Celebrimbor must have seen something in Fundin's face, because his own expression turned solemn, almost worried. “Is something the matter?”

“Yes,” Fundin said. “We need to talk.”

***

And talk they did.

Fundin couldn't remember when they had last spoken for so long without interruption.

Fundin was not usually one to get carried away in his own speeches, but tonight it was as if a dam had finally broken, and everything that he had been holding back ever since Celebrimbor had come to Khazad-Dûm – nay, even before that – finally came spilling forth. And Celebrimbor listened.

Fundin told Celebrimbor about his worries and the difficulties that the arrival of the Maia had caused, at which Celebrimbor blanched and apologized ten times before Fundin finally threatened to leave if he didn't stop.

Celebrimbor didn't even try to argue when Fundin said that Aulëndil could not attend the Wake. Fundin had prepared a long, winding explanation involving the history of the Khazad with Aulë, the implications of allowing the Maia into the Halls of Waiting, the breach it would mean, everything he could think of to make Celebrimbor see, to make him understand of his own accord – but it turned out he didn't need any of it.

He had barely finished the first sentence when Celebrimbor just kind of folded in on himself and buried his face in his hands. “Of course not,” he said quietly, his voice raw and hoarse. “Of course not. Oh Fundin, I am so sorry.”

A hard, aching knot that had been throbbing in Fundin's chest finally came loose at this. He felt a great warmth flooding his limbs and suddenly, it seemed as if all the walls, all the arguments that he had thrown up about himself in order to defend himself, started to crumble. He felt open and vulnerable and soft, but it was a good sort of openness, because he could at last believe that he didn't need his defences anymore around his friend and could let them go in good conscience.

And perhaps it was because of this openness that, although he had not planned to do so tonight, perhaps not ever, Fundin finally also opened his heart to Celebrimbor concerning his worries and fears regarding Aulëndil. When the realization finally bloomed on the elf's face as to why his Dwarven friend had been so distant, Fundin felt a huge burden drop off his shoulders.

Celebrimbor didn't get angry or defensive. It was just as if a veil of great confusion had finally been pulled off his face. He stared at Fundin, desperation and pain etched on his face. “But – why didn't you say anything?” he asked, his voice so full of disbelief that it hurt Fundin almost physically to hear it.

Fundin looked at his hands. “What was I supposed to say? That I mistrusted and feared a friend of yours, whom you respect and hold dear above everyone else? And due to what? Aulëndil had given me no reason I could name, safe for my own unease. Would you have understood?”

“I don't need to understand your reasons in order to respect them,” Celebrimbor said quietly. “They are your reasons, not mine. Who am I to judge the validity of them in your stead?”

Fundin closed his eyes. He felt like he was crumbling inside. He didn't say anything in response. He didn't think he could. He had not felt so raw and open ever since Narvi had died.

“I would never have –” Celebrimbor interrupted himself. “Nobody in Ost-in-Edhil seemed to take any issue with him. I saw awe, surprise, curiosity, sometimes apprehension when new students met him for the first time. But fear? No, there was none.” He brushed his hands over his eyes. “In retrospect, I feel it should have been obvious, because now that you have told me I can see clearly how you might be unsettled by him. He is powerful … but I think I forget about it most of the time, because to me he is just … Annatar. A friend, a colleague, one of my brothers. Nothing more, nothing less.” Celebrimbor looked down at his own hands thoughtfully. “I admit I didn't even consider the possibility that anybody could be afraid of Annatar.” He paused.” Maybe I am too close to him to see him for what he really is.”

There was a long, deep silence that followed in the wake of Celebrimbor's words.

“Tell me about him,” Fundin said suddenly, surprising himself with the words.

Celebrimbor looked up. “What?”

Fundin floundered, trying to put his idea into words that would not come easily. “Perhaps,” he began hesitantly, “perhaps if I knew more about him, if I saw him through your eyes for once … then maybe – maybe I could understand him a bit better.”

Celebrimbor stared at him for a few moments, blinked. “I – if you want to, certainly,” he said slowly.

And he started to tell Fundin about the Maia – about Annatar, as he tended to call him. It was nothing like the enthusiastic tales that he had filled his letters from Ost-in-Edhil with; there was no admiration, no adoration in his tone as he spoke this time. Celebrimbor simply painted a detailed but surprisingly distant picture of this strange being that had been holding his attention and friendship for over a century now. He spoke calmly and didn't dismiss any of Fundin's questions or concerns. He also didn't jump to the Maia's defence at every turn or hold him above reprimand in every aspect, as Fundin had feared he would. Indeed, Celebrimbor seemed to be well aware of the failings and temper of his immortal friend. He didn't make excuses for Aulëndil, and while he admitted that he held the Maia very dear, he was not blind to his faults and moods either.

Celebrimbor also told him of the fire, the ideas, the possibilities that the Maia had brought to Ost-in-Edhil, driven by the same relentless desire for more and higher and better that pushed Celebrimbor in all things he did and thought. And, of course, the desire for healing. For making reparations. Creating great and good things from what had once been ashes and broken things.

In the end Fundin felt indeed as if he understood this strange creature better, how and why he had come to stay in Ost-in-Edhil, and why Celebrimbor might value Aulëndil as much as he did.

The Maia was, at last, someone who could match Celebrimbor's own fire.

Fundin had once hoped that this role might fall to him, but he had never let himself truly believe it. He had been too tied down, too fettered by his own duties and loyalties in ways that left no room for others, let alone the white-hot fire that burned inside Celebrimbor. Celebrimbor had always been someone who wanted nothing more than to cast off his roots and past – and soar. And now that Celebrimbor had finally found someone else who could understand him, who would not collapse under the burden that someone was expecting the impossible of them… Fundin couldn’t find it in himself to begrudge him for it.

“Thank you,” Fundin said in the end, long after the clock in Celebrimbor's room had signalled the coming and passing of midnight.

“You are welcome,” Celebrimbor said. “I hope I could help you, no matter how small the help might be. It is the least I could do after all the damage that I have caused. I only wish you would have told me sooner!”

“That's all it comes down to, isn't it?” Fundin said quietly. “Talking to each other, and sooner rather than later at that.”

“Yes, it seems that way. And it looks like I still have much to learn on that front. As do you,” Celebrimbor added with a slight smile.

Fundin couldn't argue that point and just smiled wryly back at the elf.

For a while they sat in companionable silence, until the tiredness in Fundin's bones told him that it was time to bring the evening to a close. He rose and they wished each other good night.

It was only at the doorstep that Fundin turned around once more. “Promise me you will not bring him with you into the Halls of Waiting,” he said.

Celebrimbor's face was solemn. Too late Fundin recalled that Celebrimbor did not swear any oaths, and that he even shied away from the comparably weak, forgiving binds of promises that didn't tie the soul itself. Fundin meant to add that he did not want to ask it of his friend this way, but then –

“You have my word,” Celebrimbor said.

***

And Celebrimbor kept his promise. Aulendil walked with them to the gates of the Halls of Waiting, and then he waited there as the procession continued on past.

It was as if the weight of a mountain had dropped from Fundin's shoulders after that. They mourned Narvi together, side by side once more, and this was, Fundin thought, as it should be. There was something inherently right in having Celebrimbor there beside him, his best friend who had been just as much a brother to Narvi as Fundin had been – and if not by blood, then in every other aspect that counted. It felt as if a wound that had been left raw and open far too long was finally, finally beginning to close and heal.

Afterwards, they returned to Khazad-Dûm and it seemed as if any barrier that had stood between them during the last several weeks had fallen at last. It was almost like in earlier times – Celebrimbor would be there, and like before, he would come to Fundin to talk and exchange ideas. He was also alone quite often now. He didn't appear to keep the Maia around as much anymore, and something appeared to have changed between those two as well. Fundin guessed it was because of Celebrimbor's refusal to let him attend the Wake, though whether the reason lay in Celebrimbor's rejection of his company, or the fact that the Maia felt unfairly shut out from something, Fundin couldn't tell. He didn't inquire further, though: it didn’t seem like his place to ask.

Celebrimbor came to visit him more often now – be it during meals or in the evenings, and he would not merely drop by for a short obligatory visit, but instead he’d stay for hours on end, telling Fundin of all the marvels that he had found or rediscovered in the Dwarven city of Khazad-Dûm, while Fundin asked about the goings-on in Ost-in-Edhil.

Fundin felt more content than he had in a long time. The few days after the Wake were probably the happiest he could remember, and suddenly he allowed himself to dream again about how it would be if things just stayed this way forever.

The notion was pleasant while it lasted, but like so many other dreams it came to an abrupt end after their excursion to the Deep Paths.

***

Fundin had felt a strange unease that morning when he walked to their agreed meeting place by the lifts, although at the time he hadn't been able to tell why.

Then Celebrimbor and Aulëndil joined them and Fundin's disquiet suddenly ramped up twofold. Celebrimbor seemed to be excited about their impending descent down to the lowest mining levels, but other than that he appeared as genial as ever. The Maia, however, was a different story.

He walked slightly behind Celebrimbor, with a distance between them that was slightly too wide for two people who used to be seen walking together so often.

And so, as soon as he saw Aulëndil, Fundin's stomach twisted uneasily. He knew more about the Maia now, and Fundin had believed that it would help him if he ever had to face the creature again. However, when Fundin had pictured this, he had imagined dealing with Aulëndil as he had come to know him until now: still unimaginably powerful, but with a calm attitude and a quiet, polite demeanour.

Today, though, the Maia was different. He was quiet and outwardly polite when he greeted them, but for all his forced countenance, Aulëndil's aura resembled a brewing storm. His posture was rigid, his gaze piercing and cold, and the very air about him seemed to crackle with barely restrained power.

All at once Fundin found that something as feeble as a few rationalizations and a handful of reasonable explanations were blown away as hopelessly as leaves in a storm when confronted with a force as powerful and primal as fear. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to run away. The thought of spending the long descent and their stay on the deepest and most dangerous levels of Habbad-Dûm in such proximity to this creature made him feel light-headed.

Once again, though, nobody else seemed to feel this unease, and when Fundin saw their beaming faces and heard their excited chatter about their imminent excursion, he lowered his head and kept quiet.

He continued to hold his silence while the elevator descended, and as they exited it and wandered the deepest, most ancient levels of the kingdom of Khazad-Dûm. He kept quiet when Aulëndil's mood grew ever more sinister, his gait more stalking, his gaze more restless and predatory. Fundin was aware that these were the outermost fringes of their kingdom, where the ends of Durin's realm flowed seamlessly into uncharted, primordial territory beneath the mountains that had never known light. No matter what the miners might say, they were far from home and Fundin felt it in every bone in his body. One glance at the Maia told him that Aulëndil knew it as well.

Fundin kept watching and waiting. He watched while the other Dwarves and Celebrimbor talked and exchanged news and waited with joyful excitement for the breakthrough, but all the while a cold, numb terror that he could not name began to creep into him. He kept watching Aulëndil, who was stalking the drilling chamber like a predator on the prowl, looking left and right, apparently waiting for something. But for what? What was he planning to do? The possibilities that came to Fundin’s mind made him feel ill.

It was only when the darkness and the flame erupted from the drilling hole that Fundin realized that he had been looking in the wrong direction all along. His fear of Aulëndil had blinded him to the true threat and by the time realization came, it was far too late.

Afterwards, there was only fire and then – darkness.

Now

Fundin sat in the throne room, his face in his hands.

This was the worst time after every catastrophe – the time after everything too urgent to postpone had been taken care of: after the survivors had been brought to the healers, after the corpses had been taken away and the families informed, after those who could still talk had been questioned, after the immediately necessary procedures had been agreed upon. It was a time when nothing more was left to do, and all that one could do was wait for something more to happen.

It was also the worst time of all because it left everyone with enough time to think and process what had happened.

The last of the heads of Khazad-Dûm's noble houses had left the throne room at least an hour ago, and ever since then, the great hall had been filled with gloom and silence. Even the fire in the bronze braziers seemed to burn lower, casting long shadows in every corner of the hall.

To the left of Fundin's seat, one step above him, sat King Durin. He had not spoken after he had all but thrown Harko Bristlebeard out on his ear. For a while, Fundin could almost imagine that his king had turned to stone, like the long row of his predecessors' likenesses down in the Halls of Waiting. Then King Durin shifted and turned to face Fundin. His eyes were dark, and yet somehow his gaze was burning right through Fundin as the king regarded him.

“Tell me, Steward,” the king spoke, and his tone was hard and cold as stone, “and don't lie to me about this, for I must know the truth. Did Celebrimbor or the Maia do this?”

Fundin was silent for a while, then he slowly shook his head. “No.” He breathed in, breathed out, forced himself to relive the moment in the drill chamber while simultaneously trying to blend out the details that would shatter his mind if he thought of them. “The … Aulëndil appeared to be angry and tense on the way down the elevator, and it got worse when we reached the drill. I … I myself feared that something had angered him, but … but looking back – ”

Fire. Darkness. A hulking, monstrous figure stepping forward from the billowing smoke, a whip of fire in its hand. Then a gust of wind, and Fundin had found himself thrown back more than a hundred meters and out of the drill's vault, alongside the other Dwarves and Kurfinni. Two leaves of a great door, closing slowly, inexorably.

“ – I think he might have felt it before it came.” Fundin looked up at King Durin. “He saved us and shut himself in with the darkness. Had he not closed the doors, we wouldn't be alive now.”

Durin nodded. “I see.” He brushed one hand over his forehead. “It will be hard enough to convince Harko, Velech, and Duma that this is what happened, even if the truth is on our side.”

“They will blame it on Aulëndil and Kurfinni,” Fundin said dully.

“Of course they will, because it fits their narrative and because the alternative is too terrible to consider.” Durin rested his chin on the back of his hand.

“What are you going to do, my king?”

Durin hummed, a joyless, deep sound. “Watch. Wait. It has always served me well in my long life not to rush head over heels into a battle. I will wait for them to make the first move, and then consider my counter.”

Fundin opened his mouth to say something more, then closed it again. He turned away from the king and looked down the length of the great, empty hall, suddenly aware that they might well be witnessing the last hours of the kingdom of Khazad-Dûm.

“I need you to close the gates,” Durin said after a long while.

Fundin's head jerked around. “The gates of – ”

“The outer gates of Khazad-Dûm.” The fire of the braziers was reflected in Durin's eyes as he turned to look at Fundin. “The Doors of Durin. The East Gate. Both.”

“Ever since the opening of Khazad-Dûm, those doors have never been closed,” Fundin said quietly.

“They have been open as long as there has been peace. Now we are at war – inside our own kingdom.” Durin gave him a hard look. “Give the order to close the gates. No one is to enter or to leave Khazad-Dûm before this matter is resolved – one way or another.”

Fundin's throat was dry, but he nodded stiffly and then walked out of the hall.

***

As quickly as he could, Fundin found two messengers, both of whom he sent to run to the entrances of Khazad-Dûm as quickly as possible to relay the king's orders to close the gates. What kind of message will this send? he wondered, and then forced himself not to dwell on it, because every alternative seemed to end in bad outcomes.

As soon as this had been done Fundin turned and hurried back to the throne room. He did so, he told himself, because he had to be there in case Durin needed him, more than for the actual immediate necessity for action. He couldn't go somewhere quiet and dark and sit down to think, Fundin knew, because if he did, then he might never get up again.

He was on the last intersection of hallways before the throne room when he all but ran into Celebrimbor. Both of them had been walking quickly, and both of them had been lost in thought, so they only narrowly avoided crashing into each other.

“Kurfi!” Fundin exclaimed. “What are you doing here – and by Mahal, what happened to you? Where have you been?”

Celebrimbor just shook his head impatiently. “I need to see the king, Fundin. Now.” His face was ashen-pale under smears of ink on his forehead and cheeks, his eyes had a feverish glint to them, and his voice trembled with urgency.

Fundin hesitated, then nodded. “Come with me.”

Together they walked down the long corridors, then turned a corner, and found themselves on the last stretch of hallway that led straight to the throne room. The doors were closed, and before them stood three great groups of dwarves, clad in blue-and-red, black-and-purple, and green-and-bronze. Their coats of arms showed the insignia of the Houses Bristlebeard, Blackhammer, and Deepdelver. The dwarves carried arms, including spears and long warhammers, and they had moved into position, guarding the doors to the throne room. Durin's own guards were nowhere to be seen.

Fundin and Celebrimbor froze in their steps for a moment, but then Fundin hurried forward as fast as he could without breaking into a run.

“What is going on here?” Fundin shouted as he approached, looking for a familiar face among the group of conspirators. His heart plummeted when he recognized his old friend Branka Deepdelver among them. He and Branka had attended Naugrin's apprentice class together before different callings had divided them: Fundin had become the king's steward, while Branka had become part of her house’s elite guard.

“Branka, what is the meaning of all of this?” He tried to fight down the desperation and fear that threatened to leak into his voice.

Branka stepped forward. “Our heads of house are having an urgent word with the king.”

“And they need you blockading the doors and guarding it with weapons in order to do that?” Fundin asked.

“They're not to be disturbed,” another dwarf with a wiry red beard said, and Fundin recognized him as Brento Bristlebeard, a nephew of Harko Bristlebeard.

“By whose orders?” Fundin said.

“Harko's. Duma's. Velech's,” Brento said. “Take your pick.”

Fundin walked up to him until their faces were very close. “Last time I looked, it was still King Durin giving orders in his halls, not Harko Bristlebeard, Duma Deepdelver, or Velech Blackhammer.” In his chest, his heart was beating erratically. It's happening, he thought. But so fast!

“Last time you looked, you might not have had the newest information,” Brento said. “Old Durin has taken leave of his senses. We've been fearing it for some time now, but tonight's events seem to have sealed it. Now our elders are trying to talk some sense back into him. I suggest you turn around and leave, steward. And take that elf with you. You're not needed here.”

“That's not yours to decide,” Fundin said. “Step aside, Brento, or be guilty of treason.”

Brento just gave him an ugly grin. “Is it treason to care for one's home and house? If so, I'll gladly take that guilt upon me. Begone, Fundin, the time for soothing and delaying, for trading pretty words and empty promises is over. Tonight, we'll set Khazad-Dûm on the right path again, and I won't have you ruin it with your whispering and secret-mongering. Perhaps if you're not there, the king will finally listen to reason when it is presented to him.”

Fundin stepped back as if he had been slapped. The sheer audacity and wrongness of these accusations made his head swim. What has happened? Why do they think that I am working against them? Gods, what have I overlooked that I didn't see this happening? What have they heard and seen that they came to these conclusions?

“Those accusations are entirely unfounded. Everything I ever did was in my duty as a steward and advisor, and for the good of the realm,” Fundin said, but it sounded feeble even to his own ears.

“Certainly,” Brento replied. “And I might even give it to you that you believe everything you’ve just said – but the fact that you have this damned elf tagging at your heels even now belies everything that you could say to convince me.” His gaze was hard and unforgiving, his teeth bared in an ugly snarl.

Fundin felt more than saw the movement by his side, and he quickly held his hand up. “No,” he hissed, his hand pushing Celebrimbor back slightly. This was going nowhere, he could see that now. No matter what he might have said, Brento would never believe him. He couldn't waste any more time arguing. He needed to get into the throne room, and he needed to get in there now.

Fundin turned back towards Branka. “Branka, for the youth and friendship we shared – you know that this is not true. Let me in, and I will not hold it against you that you have refused me. But you have to let me to the king – I need to go to him.”

Branka hesitated, made to speak, but then didn't say anything. More than anything that Brento had said, the doubt in Branka's eyes hurt Fundin like nothing else. Her eyes flickered to Celebrimbor, then back to Fundin. She doesn't believe me. She believes that what she is doing is the right thing.

“We have orders not to let anyone in,” she said slowly, looking uncomfortable. “I am sorry, Fundin.”

“I – ” Fundin stopped, closed his eyes, and came to a decision. “Let us go, Kurfi.”

“What?” Celebrimbor said.

“You heard me,” Fundin said, turned around, and began to walk away.

“You can't – ” Celebrimbor started again.

“Come with me. Now.”

Mirthless laughter burst from Brento's lips. “You heard your master, elf! Go – or we will make you.”

Fundin prayed that Celebrimbor wouldn't do anything stupid, and he only released the breath that he had been holding when the Noldo fell into step beside him.

“How could you just let that go?” the elf hissed and the echo sprang back loudly from the stone walls around them. “These accusations, the laughter! They think that they can keep you out of the throne room of your king!”

“Yes,” Fundin said calmly. “And more fool them.”

Celebrimbor's pace hitched slightly, then evened out again. “You have a plan?”

“Of course I have a plan.” Fundin threw him a sideglance. “You didn't think that a few guards posted at the main entrance would be enough to keep the steward of Khazad-Dûm out of the throne room, did you? I pride myself on the fact that I know the hallways and corridors of this palace a bit better than any sword-swinging rascal who just happens to come running up and tell me I can't go where I please.”

Fundin could almost feel Celebrimbor's baffled gazed on his back as they turned a corner and walked down the length of a hallway that was running parallel to the length of the throne room. The lampstones threw a warm orange glow upon the tapestries hanging on the wall. Fundin stopped before a tapestry embroidered with a golden dragon on a black field, then touched the four lampstones in its immediate vicinity in a quick sequence of thirteen steps. He had never needed them before tonight, but he had had the steps memorized since the first day after his appointment as a steward.

There was a slight sound of stone sliding on stone from behind the tapestry. Fundin pulled it aside, revealing the hidden passage behind it, and then turned around.

Celebrimbor was watching him with wide-eyed astonishment. “I didn't know you could do that,” he finally said.

Fundin allowed himself a wry, humourless smirk. “You aren't the only one who had a few centuries to get very good at what you're doing. Come, we don't have much time.”

They both hurried down the short, dark tunnel, Celebrimbor close behind Fundin. The secret hallway was only two metres long, corresponding to the thickness of the walls surrounding the throne room. At the other end of a tunnel there was another small lampstone, which Fundin only touched once before a stone slab in front of them slid soundlessly aside.

Fundin pulled another tapestry aside. It was the great house banner that bore the emblem of House Bristlebeard, and considering the situation, this filled Fundin with grim satisfaction. He and Celebrimbor stepped out from the tunnel, about halfway up the length of the throne room.

Fundin immediately looked towards the throne. Durin sat upon it, and crowding in before him, feet already upon the steps that were leading up to the throne and the steward's chair, stood the leaders of the three noble houses whose guards were assembled outside: Harko Bristlebeard, Duma Deepdelver, and Velech Blackhammer. All three of them were clad in battle armour.

Fundin gritted his teeth, then waved Celebrimbor to follow him. They both passed by the great stone pillars like ghosts, flitting between light and shadows, then stepped upon the long carpet that led up to the throne and marched up to the four Dwarves assembled there.

When Durin spotted them over the heads of the three Dwarven nobles, he sat up a bit straighter. “Ah, Fundin. I was wondering when you would come. What has been keeping you?”

The looks upon the faces of the three nobles as they whirled around would have made Fundin laugh were the situation any less dire.

“The well-intentioned but misled enthusiasm of a few house members of the noble lords and lady in here, who are currently guarding the doors behind me,” Fundin said dryly, pointing backwards over his shoulder. “I apologize, taking the roundabout route has cost me some time.”

Harko's eyes were bulging so hard that they appeared to be in danger of popping from his skull. “What – how did you get in – I gave orders!” he sputtered.

“I am sure you did, and I am sure your guards followed them diligently,” Durin said calmly. “It just so happens that my steward seems to have taken another route that they didn't guard.”

Harko's face went a dark shade of purple when he spotted Celebrimbor walking by Fundin's side. “And he brought the elf!” He whirled around to face Durin. “After all of this, you are still in league with this thrice-damned Noldo and bring him here into your throne room? I can't believe this!”

Durin frowned. “I must say, I am quite surprised by Celebrimbor's presence here as well. I am sure that he will explain his reasons for coming here shortly.”

Duma Deepdelver, a serious-faced Dwarven woman with short, white-blonde hair and beard, looked at Celebrimbor, then at Durin. “We do not have time for this, Durin. The realm is in upheaval, and your persistent refusal to take action is worsening the situation even further, as we've told you countless times tonight. Khazad-Dûm needs a leader in these dire times. We need someone who acts on behalf of those who died and were wounded today, and steps forward to bring those to justice who are responsible. I would go so far and say that it is a stroke of good luck that has brought the elf here – this means that we can resolve this now, Durin. Do it.”

Durin slowly stood from his seat. “And as I have told you countless times, Duma, I believe Celebrimbor to be innocent. Statements of witnesses can corroborate this. For all it matters, the casualties were due to an unforeseeable calamity, caused by a dark entity that dwelt in Habbad-Dûm, unbeknownst to any of us. Tell me, are you so eager to draw blood in vengeance that you do no longer care whether it is the blood of an innocent?”

“Innocent? Innocent?” Harko shouted. “He threw our realm into disarray when he came here! Every step, every breath, that he has taken in our kingdom, has tainted and defiled our realm, our culture, our history! He has shown nothing but disrespect and disregard for us ever since he and his damned Maia came here! Then they visit the Deep Paths, and after we've been mining them for centuries without incident, a demon of the Old World suddenly awakes and kills over fifty Dwarves, not counting those who might still be trapped down there, and you want to tell me that this is coincidence?” Harko's voice was nearly cracking at the end.

Durin scoffed. “Surely you don't believe that Celebrimbor could not have caused a Balrog to awaken.”

“Not him, maybe,” Velech Blackhammer growled. “But what about that pet Maia of his?”

“Why should Aulëndil have done this?” Durin asked. “He has been naught but friendly and respectful of our ways. I see no reason for him to have done this dark deed.”

“How would you know what is going on inside the heads of these creatures?” Velech snarled. “He is of Aulë, who himself lifted his hand against us once. Who's to say that one of his flock hasn't come to finish what Mahal didn't end back then?”

“This is blasphemy!” Duma Deepdelver snapped. “Don't tie this to the Maker! For all we know, this creature has gone renegade. Why else would it have left the West? Who can tell what its true agency is? Mahal has cared for us, but this one could have renounced its old master and come to destroy us out of spite!”

“Whatever!” Harko barked. “I told you, I don't care about your theological squabbling! The facts of the matter are that we let a strange Maia into our midst, allowed it to roam the realm, and all of a sudden a Balrog awakes in our mines and starts killing our people! I want the ones who are to blame to be held responsible. I want justice!”

“Enough!” Durin said loudly, and surprisingly enough, the other Dwarves fell silent. “I know you want to see this matter resolved, but pointing fingers and not caring where it lands is not the way we will do this. We cannot run headfirst into this, Harko, we must wait and see how – ”

“My son was down there!” Harko roared. “And you keep talking to me about patience? You want us to keep our feet still and wait, while a demon is rampaging down there and it is only a matter of time before it might decide to climb up the elevator shafts and destroy us all?”

Durin rose from his seat. No doubt his patience had run out and he was about to give an angry response, but then a voice that had not yet been heard suddenly rang through the hall.

“Lord Bristlebeard is right.”

All of a sudden, there was complete and utter silence in the throne room. Durin, Duma, Harko, and Velech alike all turned to look at Celebrimbor, who had as of yet been silent, but had stepped forward now.

“He is right, Your Majesty,” Celebrimbor repeated.

Durin raised one eyebrow. Harko was opening and closing his mouth repeatedly, as if not quite able to believe that the elf had spoken – and spoken in agreement with him at that. Duma was watching with an expectant, yet distrustful expression. Velech just glowered.

“If there is anything that we don't have, it is time,” Celebrimbor continued. “If we want to control the damage that has been done, we must act, and we must do it quickly before the demon decides to attack the city or the lower levels collapse.”

“And why, pray tell, do you think it is your place to speak up on this matter?” Velech snarled.

“Because – because I am to blame,” Celebrimbor said hesitantly in the same moment that Fundin and Harko both said, “What?”

Durin's eyebrows rose even higher. “How would you be to blame for what has happened in the Deep Paths, Celebrimbor?”

“I am not,” Celebrimbor said. “And neither is Annatar.” At that, he shot a quick look at Harko, who immediately set his mouth in a grim expression. Celebrimbor took a deep breath and continued. “But I don't deny that I am to blame for everything else that Lord Bristlebeard has held against me. I was mindless of your perspective and disrespectful in my demeanour. I should have consulted with all of you before bringing a Maia of Aulë here. It was wrong, but it is done. I can't change what has happened.”

Celebrimbor raised his gaze to Durin. “But I might still be able to help you in this. If I cannot make amends for my disrespect, let me aid you in the aftermath of this catastrophe. I cannot change the past, but I think I have a plan to rescue those who might still be saved.” He looked at Harko Bristlebeard. “I didn't know your son, my lord, but I am sure that he was as valiant in protecting his home and his comrades as you are. I don't know where he is or what happened to him, but I can assure you that if you give me your aid and permission, I will do everything in my power to retrieve him from Habbad-Dûm, be he alive or dead.”

Harko Bristlebeard was staring at Celebrimbor. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “You want to – save – my son?” he sputtered.

Celebrimbor nodded. “If I can. And as many others as I can find.”

“This is ridiculous,” Velech snarled, but Duma held up her hand.

“You spoke of a plan, elf. Does that mean that you have a way to stop the Balrog and save those who might have survived down in Habbad-Dûm?”

“I can't fight a Balrog any more than I can fight a thunderstorm,” Celebrimbor said. “Annatar has stayed behind and –” Celebrimbor's voice wavered. He paused briefly, closed his eyes, then went on, his voice firm once more. “Annatar has sacrificed himself in order to save me and many others. I must trust that he has taken care of the Balrog. There is no one else here with the power to stand against it. But I can try to find the survivors and bring them back to Khazad-Dûm.”

“How would you even go about finding them?” Duma asked skeptically.

“I cannot do it alone,” Celebrimbor said. “I would need your help for that.”

Velech scoffed and averted his face with a muttered “Of course.”

“How?” This time it was Durin who spoke.

“I would need something particular to find them by,” Celebrimbor said slowly. “Then I could create an artefact that was imbued with this Dwarven trait and could respond to it at the same time. Through that artefact, I could search for identical traces of this trait, and I could look for the whereabouts of the Dwarves that way.”

“So – like an item that carries a personal meaning for each dwarf?” Duma said.

“No,” Celebrimbor said. “Not something that means anything to them – but something that is part of them. Every single one of them. A tie that they all share, a bond that they all have.”

The Dwarves shared long, confused glances. Durin frowned.

“I need something of Aulë the Maker,” Celebrimbor said. “It is the one tie that all Dwarves share, a bond as old as time and as strong as stone. If you can give me anything of Aulë, I will imbue the artefact with it, and I will make it into a searching device that finds all those who share the same bond to Aulë.”

“We have nothing of Aulë here, not on this side of the sea,” Duma said hesitantly.

Durin's frown deepened. “No …” he said slowly. “That is not right.” He looked at Celebrimbor and Celebrimbor looked back at him. The elf nodded almost imperceptibly. Durin's face slackened ever so minutely with the realization.

Fundin looked between them, trying to discern what was going on, but Celebrimbor didn't leave him much time to guess.

“If I am to help you, I must do it quickly. I have no time to lose,” Celebrimbor said. “I must go to the Light under the Mountain.”

The three Dwarven nobles traded long glances.

Fundin stared up at Celebrimbor: his pale face, the hard set of his jaw, the darkness in his eyes. Then he looked back up at Durin. The king of Khazad-Dûm seemed to consider this, then – at last – he slowly nodded.

“I will bring you there.”

***

Durin and Fundin as well as the three nobles accompanied Celebrimbor to the Shimmering Caves. Then, after the elf had gotten splinters of the diamonds from the two lamps, they followed him into the forges.

“You don't have to stay here and watch me work,” Celebrimbor said when they reached the quiet, otherwise abandoned forge. His voice told Fundin that the elf would very much prefer to work alone, unwatched

“We don't mind waiting, elf,” Velech said with a mirthless smile. “I daresay seeing your … Ring-magic for myself will be quite worth my while.”

They want to keep an eye on him, Fundin thought. And no matter how much Celebrimbor might have wanted to, he knew that they couldn't send the nobles away – not if Celebrimbor wanted them to trust him. He had to play his hand open now, however little he might like to do so.

“If you wish,” Celebrimbor said, his voice brittle. “But it will take a while.”

“I am a patient man,” Velech said evenly.

For a moment, Celebrimbor looked like he would give a cutting answer in response. A shadow passed over his features, briefly casting them into a semblance of a younger version of his own face – a short-tempered, angry Noldo with no patience for anything besides his own work.

Then the shadow passed and Celebrimbor shrugged. “Fine. Just stand over there on the side and don't get in my way.” Then he walked away over to his workdesk, the crystal splinters clutched in his hand.

“How dare he talk to me like that?” Velech hissed, but King Durin held up his hand.

“Lord Velech,” he said, and that was enough. Durin turned towards Duma and Harko. “You must understand that what Celebrimbor is about to create is a piece of craft and magic of supreme difficulty. It is of the utmost importance for the success of his endeavour that we do not disturb him in any way.”

Harko nodded grimly. “Fine by me. If he only manages to conjure some damned ring to find my son, I'll be standing here still as a statue for however many days he needs me to.”

Duma nodded her assent as well.

The five Dwarves retreated into a corner of the workshop and watched as Celebrimbor began his work.

True to the elf's word, it took a long time.

First came the long and arduous task of sanding the diamond splinters broken from Aulë's lamps into a form that was fitting for the artefact that Celebrimbor wanted to create. He spent hours upon hours sanding and cutting the diamonds, then comparing what Fundin guessed were their refractive indices, before returning to the work table and continuing to sand and polish them.

At one point, Celebrimbor walked over to a huge blackboard that took up almost the entire left-hand wall of the room, which Fundin now saw was all covered with formulae, diagrams and complex coordinate systems. Celebrimbor unceremoniously dragged the heel of his left hand over the second half of a formula that was meant to execute a Furir transform of an oscillation curve that he had described above, wiping it out. With a piece of chalk he changed a few numbers and then returned to his work desk. He picked up the diamond shards again, held them up to a lampstone, marked where the focused beam of light landed on another coordinate system that he had drawn to the wall in front of him in chalk, then scribbled something on a scrap of paper.

All the while the elf ignored them completely.

“What kind of sorcery is he doing there?” Velech muttered.

“I don't know, but for sorcery it seems to involve an awful amount of mathematics,” Duma commented.

Fundin nodded absent-mindedly.

“Do you understand any of it?” Duma asked all of a sudden.

Fundin perked up and blinked. “I – er,” he squinted at the blackboard. “Parts of it,” he said truthfully.

While Fundin and Celebrimbor had both been working in the forges, Fundin had been able to keep up with the elf fairly well, even for a few years after Fundin had been made steward. But these formulae and calculations – they were something else entirely. Fundin could wrap his head around the basic function and intent for the formulae, but beyond that, his knowledge deserted him.

For the first time ever Fundin became acutely aware of how far Celebrimbor had come to surpass him since they had both worked alongside Narvi. The heights of knowledge that the elf had risen to in the centuries that he had been studying alone were incredible. Fundin had no illusions that he would ever be able to catch up even to a halfway point, even if he spent the rest of his life studying nothing else. The calculations were impossibly complex, and everything on the blackboard seemed to interlock and depend on each other – if one variable was changed, the change continued in almost a circular fashion into every other part of the equation. One part seemed to be the radius of a hypothetical lens in the formula for its curvature – and the same radius reappeared in the Furir transform for the oscillation of what could only be the waves of light that had to pass through the diamonds. Variables kept appearing and reappearing, the strangest and most complex relationships between them, but Fundin knew that he could only guess at the most basic connections and he was probably overlooking the deeper ones entirely.

Celebrimbor, however, moved through his workspace as if in a trance. The blackboard didn't even seem to give him pause. Whenever the elf consulted it, he found the part that he was looking for with an almost dream-like surety and precision. He changed the variables and formulae on the board more times than Fundin could count, and still he didn't show any signs of confusion or getting lost in his own work. If anything, the elf only seemed to become more grimly determined as the evening progressed into the late night.

The Dwarven nobles and even Durin himself left at various points to get some rest and a bit of drink, quietly slinking out of the workshop only to return an hour or so later. Fundin stayed. His eyes were fixed on Celebrimbor's hands at first, then his gaze wandered up to the frown on his face, and he couldn't stop asking himself what was going through the elf's head now. Is everything going according to plan? Does he feel the weight of the expectation of the nobles that he has burdened himself with? Is he calm or nervous, satisfied or despairing?

The elf's face gave no clue. It was as expressionless as a mask of stone and utterly focused.

After what Fundin felt must have been close to ten hours, Celebrimbor finally let out a nondescript huff, laid the splinters aside and moved to the kiln, which he had been heating up for the past four hours. In the midst of the coals, he had set an iron bowl, in which small ingots of gold, zinc, and silver had slowly dissolved into an alloy of a thick liquid state.

The elf looked exhausted and there were dark circles under his eyes, but if his body was tiring, then it seemed that his mind didn't notice it.

After a brief check Celebrimbor appeared content with the melting of the alloy and went over to another worktable.

As his next step, Celebrimbor created a wax model of a simple, unadorned ring. He did it very quickly, seemingly without even one wrong move and he quickly got the rough shape of the ring. Afterwards, though, the elf went back and forth between the blackboard and his worktable, adding in a bit of material there, taking a way a bit here, and rubbing out imperfections that weren't even there, as far as Fundin could tell.

After what seemed to be another two hours at least, Celebrimbor was finally content with his wax model and the way the polished diamonds would be set in the ring, and started to apply sprues to the wax model. When the process was complete he fixed the model to a base and put a metal cylinder on top of it, creating a metal flask that surrounded the wax model on all sides and was open on the top. At last, he filled the investment into the cylinder. The plaster would surround the wax models and harden there. Later, after the wax had been burnt out in the kiln, the hardened investment would provide the negative matrix of the ring into which Celebrimbor would cast the metal by way of the spruing channels.

Fundin must have fallen asleep at some point in time while he was waiting for the plaster to harden. He vaguely remembered hearing the spinning sound of the centrifuge at some point, but the next time he opened his eyes, the workshop was dark and abandoned. The coals on the kiln had burnt down to a glow of embers and the dark shadows were crowding in on them. Only a few candles were burning in odd corners of the room and on some of the worktables. No machines were whirring, no fire was roaring. Harko was leaning in a corner next to Fundin, snoring softly. Velech had left at some point and not returned, but Duma Deepdelver and Durin stood straight next to Fundin, their eyes fixated on something in the right-hand corner of the workshop.

Fundin followed their gaze and startled when he saw that the forge wasn't abandoned after all.

Celebrimbor was still here, but he was standing stiffly in front of one of the worktables, hunched over something that his back was shielding from the eyes of the Dwarves. A soft hum seemed to come from him and when Fundin strained his ears, he could hear that Celebrimbor was, in fact, talking. Not to them, nor anyone else in the room, but soft words, almost inaudible, streamed from his lips in ceaseless succession.

Suddenly, there was a rush of air and a flare in the room, and the candles burned brighter with a whoosh.

Fundin flinched and Harko woke, startled, looking around wildly for the sound that had woken him.

“What in – ”

Durin silenced him with a look, then turned back to look at the elf.

Celebrimbor was standing straighter now and his words were louder, though still not discernible. He was stepping back from the table, clutching something to his chest. His words were coming faster now, more urgent.

Again, the candles flared brighter. The shadows jumped; they fled into the darkest corners and hid between crevices and under tables. The room was suddenly bathed in a gold-and-red sheen. An invisible pressure was building, forcing the Dwarves back against the wall. Celebrimbor either didn't notice it or resisted it – the mounting force didn't even seem to affect him.

Fundin's heart was in his throat. He had no idea what was going to happen. He had seen Celebrimbor working in the forges before, but that had been raw work that demanded more strength than skill. It had been the simple, down-to-earth daily bread and butter of any smith, with nothing out of the ordinary about it.

Now he realized that he had never before seen Celebrimbor truly at work. The difference between what Fundin had seen other smiths do and what he saw Celebrimbor doing now was earth-shattering. This had nothing to do with the hard work between hammer and anvil, grime and soot, heat and iron that Fundin knew.

This was different. This was fire given life and power given form.

This was creation.

Celebrimbor spoke louder and now Fundin noticed that while the elf seemed to be speaking Quenya, he couldn't understand the words. Something in the air seemed to twist and blur the sound just enough to render the words incomprehensible – and yet Fundin thought that if he just listened a bit more closely, he would be able to understand them.

The candle flames were roaring fires now, consuming the wax by centimetres in mere minutes. The air itself felt heavy and laden, as if the energy of a building storm was mounting inside the room. Fundin found it hard to breathe.

“What is going on here?” Harko tried to shout, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was a strangled whisper.

He was drowned out by the roar of flame. Streams of fire were rising from the candles, circling under the ceiling of the room, and then spiralling in towards Celebrimbor, faster and faster. Currents of heated air rushed towards the flames, leaving the rest of the room almost devoid of oxygen. Everything was hot air and fire.

Fundin pressed as close to the wall as he could. Even the stone was turning hot beneath his palms. Harko's mouth had fallen open, and even King Durin's eyes were wide as he stared at the elf.

Celebrimbor was speaking louder now, but even his voice was drowned out by the roar of the fire. The fire was spinning closer to him, he had to be burning up by now, it almost touched him – then he yanked his right arm up and held aloft a golden ring, and with a blaze of light and a final churning roar, the streams of flames plunged towards the elf's hand, where they collided with the ring. For a moment everything was white hot heat, pain, hot air in Fundin's lungs –

– and then all of a sudden: darkness.

The candles had burnt out, and only their wicks were still glowing red. Wisps of smoke were rising into the air. The air was cold again, and the Dwarves drew long, gulping breaths, steadying themselves against the wall.

“… and in the darkness, find them.” Celebrimbor finished the incantation, and then lowered his arm. He didn't appear to be harmed and all signs of exhaustion seemed to have vanished from his form. Fundin suddenly realized that, although the room was dark, he could see Celebrimbor clearly. The elf was facing slightly away from them. He appeared different than he had before: taller, unbent, and there seemed to be a light around him that had no source, except perhaps the glowing golden ring lying in the palm of his right hand. Celebrimbor was looking down at it.

“And?” Harko asked suddenly, breaking the silence. “Did it work?”

Celebrimbor didn't appear to have heard him. He just looked down at the ring in his hand, then slowly, as if he was dreaming, he picked it up between two fingers and held it up to examine it. Fundin saw that an engraving of fine red-glowing script was running around the ring where before there had been none. For the span of a breath Celebrimbor just stood there, not moving, and there was a strange tension in his body that had not been there before.

Fundin took a tentative step forward, his heart still in his throat. Had the elf always been so still, always stood so tall? “Kurfi? Is everything alright? Did it work? Are you unhurt?”

Again, a strangely long time seemed to pass before Celebrimbor reacted. He slowly slid the ring onto the fourth finger of his right hand, utterly disregarding how hot it should have been for a thing newly-forged, and when he turned around to face the Dwarves fully, his eyes – just for a moment – flashed the same molten gold as those of Aulëndil.

Fundin stumbled back and Harko Bristlebeard flattened himself against the wall in shock, but Celebrimbor didn't even seem to notice. Power was coiling around the elf like thick tongues of light and flame, and his aura pushed outward with a radiance and strength that was a near-palpable force in the physical world. On his right hand, the Ring gleamed like a band of fire.

“Bring me to the Abyss,” Celebrimbor said.

1 It was a famous story that the Khazad of the Green Plains, the only tribe of Dwarves who used to live under the open sky in the old country of Ossiriand before the Old World was broken, used to tell their children.

Malraug is said to have lived in the mountains to the east of Ossiriand during the dawn of times, and contrary to everything that was to be expected of dragons, one day it took an interest in a farmer's herd of sheep that grazed on the plains near the slopes of its mountain range. It walked among the sheep and sniffed curiously at them, watching their daily business of grazing with strange interest. The sheep were afraid of the dragon in the beginning, but got used to it quickly and eventually even laid down to sleep beside it. The farmers had initially been afraid of the dragon as well, but later on they believed themselves blessed by it, thinking it a strange and godly protector of their herds. In the end, of course, Malraug lost interest in simply watching the sheep and devoured them all instead, before torching the farmers and their homesteads. The lesson to be learned from this story is, of course, that no one can hide their true nature forever – and, more prosaically, that a wild beast will remain feral and unpredictable, no matter how tame it might at first appear.

Chapter End Notes

Did anyone see this coming? I'm curious, hehe.
Anyway.
If anyone was put off by the techno-babble during the smithing scene, here's a video of the so-called "lost wax technique", which should give you an idea how Celebrimbor made his ring. The only thing he did differently than the guy in the video is to use a centrifuge instead of a vacuum to cast the metal into the negative, but other than that the video illustrates the casting process very well!
What's more to say? A few things, perhaps.

This chapter finishes Act IV. We are back in the present, we know how we got here - and I guess a few of you already have an idea where we are going from here.

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V.

“You don't have to do this,” Fundin said quietly.

Celebrimbor stopped rummaging through his pack for a moment. “But I do, and you know that,” he said softly.

Fundin looked at him. It was a strange way of looking, though – ever since Celebrimbor had left the forges, he had noticed that the Dwarves were eyeing him like a creature that had sprouted a second head. He was sure that it had to do with the ring, but Celebrimbor fervently hoped that the Khazad didn't all take him for a madman as well.

Celebrimbor sighed. “I made a promise, or as good as one. I said that I would try to save anyone who might have survived down in Habbad-Dûm, and I meant it. I don't intend to back out now, simply because …” Celebrimbor looked over his shoulder, down the endless black elevator shaft. “Simply because discussing the details of the plan made me realize that this won't be as simple as rappelling down and picking up survivors at every corner,” he finished.

Truth be told, he had never thought that rescuing the Dwarves would be easy. But while the king, the nobles, and the surviving miners had hashed out the minutiae of the undertaking, Celebrimbor had been forced to admit that indeed he might not have thought his plan through well enough. After listening to them talk about risks and feasibility it dawned on him that he had disregarded some very blatant and obvious problems that came with his plan.

Like the disabled elevators, for one. Immediately after the survivors had come up from the deep, wounded and terrified and burnt, the elevator cages had been lifted out from the shaft, the steel cable pulled up, and two heavy mithril-steel plates had been placed over the shafts to prevent the Balrog from climbing up and into the city. Only now had the plates been removed and a few Dwarven workers were hooking the elevators back onto the steel cable by which they could descend on the winch.

And even if the descent itself hadn't been a problem, Celebrimbor would certainly have lost his way down there, as a patient miner explained to him. Celebrimbor had initially been hell-bent on not enlisting the help of others during his venture. However, after the miners had told him of the expansive maze of tunnels down there and reminded him of the iron safety doors that had slammed shut after the Balrog had attacked – well, at this point Celebrimbor had to admit that he would have been lost going down into the abyss alone. Maybe he could have gotten a hold of a map for Habbad-Dûm by himself, but even then he would have been left stranded as soon as he encountered the first of the shut doors that served to lock down the mining sector into which the Balrog had emerged. Not to mention that he wouldn't be able to rescue more than one dwarf, unless by some miracle all survivors were able to walk by themselves.

Thus it had been decided that a group of highly capable Dwarves would accompany Celebrimbor on his mission. The miners would be able to gauge the security of the tunnels and avoid collapses, while the engineers knew how to disable the complex mechanism of the closed security doors – if the tunnels still were intact enough to allow the reopening of the doors. If they found any survivors, they had strong Dwarves who could support or carry them, recruited from the guards of various houses. They could rescue the survivors and make it out alive to tell the tale…

If the Balrog wasn't still alive, that was. And if it didn't find them first.

After a thorough reconsideration, Celebrimbor had to admit that the plan contained an awful lot of ifs.

Judging by his expression, Fundin was thinking much the same. The dwarf sighed. “But the ring does work?” he asked at last.

Celebrimbor looked at the thin band of gold on his right hand, the shards of two diamonds glinting up at him in the faint light. If he just focused on it, he could feel the bond stretching from the ring right into Fundin's chest like an arc of light leaping from the ring to the dwarf: the Bond of Aulë, so strong and radiant that it had to be nearly visible on a physical plane. Together with the bonds of the other dwarves, the cavern was practically blazing like a minor star on another plane of existence.

Celebrimbor nodded. “It works as intended.”

“Good. Then at least that part of the plan will work.” Fundin ran his hand over his forehead. “You have the map? You remember the escape routes?”

“I do.” Celebrimbor patted his pack.

“Promise me you will stick to the main hallways. No crawling into collapsed tunnels, no leaping over cracks and crevasses – in short, no heroic idiocy.”

“Have you ever known me to engage in heroic idiocy?” Celebrimbor asked.

Fundin just looked at him with an utterly flat expression.

Celebrimbor tried to smile. “Don't look at me like that. We won't take any unreasonable risks, and we will stick to the main tunnels as far as we can. Though it might be that some of the wounded will not be able to make their way through them, even if they are still accessible after the earthquake.”

Fundin looked at the disabled machinery, where five Dwarven workers were currently trying to cinch a second elevator cage to the steel cable of another crane with a massive carabiner. “We will try to get all elevators working again as quickly as possible.”

Celebrimbor nodded, but both of them knew that these were empty assurances. If they did indeed manage to find survivors, chances were that they wouldn't be able to wait for the elevators to work again. It had been nearly two days after the cataclysm, and any survivor down there was likely to die soon, no matter what happened. Habbad-Dûm was lying at a depth that made it impossible for someone to climb back to the level of Khazad-Dûm, even if they were strong and healthy and didn't die of injury or thirst on the way.

And yet – there was no other chance for them. Without help, they would die for certain.

Celebrimbor looked around at the group of Dwarves who would accompany him. He didn't know most of them, but he knew that all of them were seasoned engineers, guards, and miners who had volunteered to brave the deep with him. Floki had insisted on coming along as well. The dwarf looked harrowed and there were dark bags under his eyes. Thinking back, Celebrimbor couldn't remember when he had last seen Floki without a big grin on his face, but today his brows were furrowed, his mouth downturned, and his eyes dark.

Also, there was the Dwarven woman whom Fundin had called Branka. She was of the House Deepdelver and obviously ordered to come along to be Duma Deepdelver's eyes and ears down in Habbad-Dûm. Celebrimbor didn't doubt that Branka would be watching every step he made. She would be on the lookout for anything that might have indicated foul play on his part on behalf of Duma. He would have to be careful around her. He was blameless as far as the Balrog was concerned, but he had no influence over what Branka would see in the abyss and what conclusions she would draw from it.

Fundin followed his gaze and his brow furrowed. “I knew her well, once,” he said quietly. “We were friends.”

Celebrimbor looked the Dwarven woman over. Her posture was stiff and she seemed nervous. She was standing close to Duma, who was speaking with King Durin some way off from the elevators. “Can I trust her?”

Fundin didn't answer immediately. “No,” he said at last. “She is loyal to her house above everything else.”

“I understand.” Celebrimbor looked away. It was far from an ideal group with which to embark on a mission that was dangerous at best and fatal at worst. But it wasn't as if he had been given any choice in the matter.

Fundin eyed the shaft with trepidation. “Are you sure about the Balrog?” he asked at last, quiet enough that the Dwarven nobles who were standing at some distance wouldn't hear them.

Celebrimbor followed his gaze down the dark open hole that would swallow them soon on their descent, then shook his head almost imperceptibly. “I really hope it is dead,” he said. “If it isn't … well, my uncle Celegorm always told me I was good at thinking on my feet. I'll find a way to deal with it. Make it run in circles if I have to. If anything, I can always squeeze myself into a crevice that's too small for it and distract it while the others run.” He grinned without really meaning it.

Fundin exhaled sharply, but didn't say anything else.

Celebrimbor bent down to check his provisions and equipment one last time. He dug through the various pockets of his pack, but it appeared that he had everything he needed: maps, torches with light-stones, water, some non-perishable food, a length of rope, and pieces of chalk to mark which passages they had already searched. The only piece of weaponry he took with him was a shortsword that he had strapped to his back. Anything else would be too heavy – and not much help against a Balrog either way, since the only remotely good way to fight those things was with a heavy ballista, preferably from a mile away. Celebrimbor knew that some of the miners would also be taking along explosives to clear paths that had been blockaded by the earthquake, while a few guards were carrying heavier weapons to defend the group if needed.

It would not be enough, but at the same time. . . It had to be enough.

Celebrimbor took a deep breath before turning back to the waiting party of Dwarves, chief among them King Durin and the other nobles. This seemed to be the signal the other members of the rescue team had been waiting for. A ripple went through the other Dwarves who would be coming down with Celebrimbor. Slowly, each of them straightened their posture, picked up their backpacks, and slowly approached the elevators, finally coalescing from waiting individuals into a single group with a shared purpose.

King Durin noticed the change too and broke off whatever he had been saying to Velech Blackhammer. The king stepped forward and looked at the group that was about to descend to Habbad-Dûm. “Are you ready? Do you have your provisions, your weapons, your light sources?”

The Dwarves silently nodded, one by one, except for Floki, who bared his teeth and growled, “Aye.” When Durin's gaze landed on Celebrimbor he nodded as well, even though his palms were slightly clammy and his heart was pounding against the inside of his ribcage. He hadn't been nervous before, but now he could feel the cool, prickling sensation of anxiety and tension creeping up his spine and into the tips of his fingers and toes.

The preparations and the planning had taken too long. He didn't like lingering on the precipice of something like this. He couldn't stand waiting if he knew something had to happen, and the longer he waited the more likely he became to shoot caution to the wind and just plunge into whatever lay ahead. But Celebrimbor knew that they couldn't afford to be anything less than absolutely diligent about this. Thus he had forced himself to wait: for the others to plan, draw up maps, gather volunteers, collect information. By now his heart was beating wildly and he felt both hot and cold all at once, wishing for nothing more than to simply be able to start.

The Dwarves didn't appear to notice his nervousness – save for Fundin, that is. His old friend was giving him a side-glance that told Celebrimbor that Fundin knew everything that was going on inside him. Fundin had always been more perceptive of the invisible, hidden things than most people. Thankfully, though, he didn't mention it.

“Good luck then,” Durin said. His brows were furrowed and his face grey. He seemed to have aged fifty years overnight. “Remember to stick to the main passages – they have more structural support and should be safe even after the earthquake. You may go down to Habbad-Dûm and try to rescue whoever might still be alive, but I will not allow this to become a suicide mission. If you consider your own lives to be in danger, turn around and come back. Three blows into Hardin's horn, and we will lower down the elevator to pull you up. No one will think less of you for returning.”

The dwarf named Hardin, who was clutching a great bronze horn, nodded with a sombre expression. The rest of the group exchanged grim glances and then signalled their agreement with more nods and quiet grunts.

“Good.” Durin turned towards the Dwarven workers still working on the mechanisms. “Does the crane hold?”

“Aye,” one of them said. “No damage to it, and the winch will hold the weight of the cage easily.”

Durin nodded, then turned back to the group. “In that case… be well.” He looked from Dwarf to Dwarf solemnly. “Know that the realm owes you its everlasting gratitude for your incomparable bravery. We are in your debt – I am in your debt.” Then Durin's eyes landed on Celebrimbor. “Bring home as many of our brothers and sisters as you can find… but know that you must turn around if it becomes clear that there are no survivors or that it is too dangerous to carry on.”

Celebrimbor looked to Durin's left and his eyes met those of Harko Bristlebeard; for a moment everything and everyone else faded into the background, and it was as if he and Celebrimbor were alone in the cavern. The Dwarven patriarch's eyes were dark and hard as steel. Come back with my son or not at all, they said.

And then there was nothing more to say.

At a sign from Durin, three Dwarven workers rotated the arm of the crane with the elevator cage out over the yawning empty shaft. The long steel cable had been fed into the winch and secured once more; this would let down the cage. One after another, the Dwarves of the mission filed into the cage. Then at last Celebrimbor stepped forward, the toes of his boots poking out of the smooth edge of the shaft, over the small gap between the elevator cage and the point where the ground beneath his feet dropped away into nothingness. Only here and there a few lampstones were shining with a faint greenish light, giving a bit of brightness to the endless darkness down the shaft. A cold breeze wafted up from the shaft and hit his face, grazing over Celebrimbor's cheeks like ghostly hands. His heart was pounding and he felt slightly light-headed for a moment.

“Kurfi,” Fundin said directly behind him, his voice quiet.

Celebrimbor looked back over his shoulder, not taking his hands off the wire cable.

“Promise me you won't do anything stupid,” Fundin said. “Promise me that if something happens – you run.”

A few moments of silence ticked by. The two friends looked at each other, both knowing that it might well be the last time they saw each other.

“Goodbye, Fundin,” Celebrimbor said at last, trying to smile. Fundin didn’t return it. The promise ungiven hung heavily in the air between them.

I am sorry, my friend, Celebrimbor thought. But this is a promise I cannot give you.

Then Celebrimbor stepped into the elevator cage. Slowly, the latticed doors slid shut with a clanging of metal. One of the Dwarves signalled the workers at the elevator crane and with a slight lurch, the cage started to descend.

Celebrimbor thought he could almost feel the empty air on the other side of the thin bottom panel of the cage. The cold air slithered up into the elevator, brushing his cheeks and his bare forearms. The opening above, a circle of warm lantern light and the crane silhouette above, quickly shrank to the size of a ball, then a fist, then a pinprick. The lampstones that had been built into the walls of the shaft drifted by like fairy lights, like bioluminescent fish rushing upwards to the surface of the ocean, seemingly fleeing whatever was chasing them from the black depths of the sea.

*

Celebrimbor could not have said how long they descended. He hadn't been able to gauge it either the last time he had come down here, and he was faring only marginally better now. He leaned against the grid of the cage and regarded his fellow travellers on this desperate mission, most of whom were not even looking at him. All of them were standing at a slight distance from another, which was easy enough when the cage allowed space for fifty Dwarves, and they were only thirteen of them.

Are they truly all here of their own free will? Or did duty or orders from their matriarch or patriarch drag them into it? He hoped not, but feared that it was more than likely.

Are they afraid to go down? he wondered, and almost immediately he heard Alfin's voice in his head and saw his wry smile.

Is a fish afraid to dive to the bottom of the ocean?

Maybe not, but what if the fish knew that a monster was possibly down there, waiting to devour it? Celebrimbor closed his eyes and tried to force his thoughts away from circling around darkness and fire.

At some point, he started to hear the Song of the Mountain again, though it sounded less welcoming this time. It sounded like a warning, if not downright hostile.

Turn back, it seemed to say. Flee, while you still can.

The air grew warmer as they descended, much as it had done the first time that he had come down here. It couldn't be much further now, Celebrimbor thought. He tried to look up, tried to imagine how far above Khazad-Dûm must lie – and then tried not to imagine how they were supposed to get any of the probably heavily wounded survivors back up this immeasurable distance, back into Khazad-Dûm.

Take it slow. One step after another. Deal with those problems when they arise. Celebrimbor took a deep breath and then closed his eyes for a while. They were burning with fatigue. How long had it been since he last slept? It was hard to tell. Two days, maybe three. Celebrimbor kept an irregular sleep schedule at the best of times, but the last few days had been hardly that. He didn't feel tired at all, and yet he knew that beyond his fear, his excitement, and relentless willpower, his body longed to sleep, to rest, if only a bit. Still, closing his eyes only led him to see darkness and flames, closing doors, and – something he had not seen in a long time – shadows fleeing over a muddy battlefield, the cries of panicked voices, the shade of his father by his side. Curufin's mouth was moving, but no sound came out. Still, Celebrimbor could read from his lips what he was saying: Run, Tyelperinquar. Run, run! And then there came more shadow, and more flame.

Celebrimbor opened his eyes again just as the elevator came to a slightly shuddering halt.

For a few moments, everyone just looked at each other, not sure what they should do now, almost unwilling to leave the relative safety of the elevator and step out into this maze of tunnels that held almost certainly worse things than mere darkness.

At last, one dwarf reached out to push a button and the doors of the elevator slid open.

“Well then,” Floki said grimly, hefting a big warhammer in his hands. “After me. Let's go find some of the poor sods who are still down here. The sooner we start, the sooner we can go back up.”

Surely Floki was not the most high-ranking dwarf here, and no one had officially been entrusted with leading the mission. Still, no one raised any objections and one by one, the rescue team filtered out of the elevator until they were all standing in the great cavern.

Only a few lampstones were still burning and almost all of them were giving off a dull red glow, casting the cavern in small islands of dim light and an ocean of stark, black shadows.

At the opposite side of the cavern there were the two massive mithril double doors that guarded the entrance of Habbad-Dûm. They stood as tall and proud as ever, engraved all over with runes of protection and warding that seemed to still be in place. The doors themselves were unharmed, but where they had been standing open when Celebrimbor had come here before, they were now firmly closed.

All of a sudden Celebrimbor noticed that everyone was looking at him. Naturally, since he had the ring that could lead them to the surviving dwarves.

He cleared his throat. “Ah, yes.” He focused on the ring and thought of the spell that he had imbued it with. … in the darkness find them.

Celebrimbor's heartbeat quickened when he saw faint glimmers of silver thread stretching away from the ring, into the depths of Habbad-Dûm – so weak that they were almost invisible, but nevertheless there.

“Does that ring of yours tell you anything?” Floki asked.

Celebrimbor nodded. “Yes. There are still survivors down here, but they are further in. Let us go.”

They ventured forward, halting before the great mithril doors. The engineers hesitated a moment before opening it. What was waiting beyond? The door itself looked undamaged, but for all they knew, the Balrog could be lying in wait for them right on the other side of it. If it was still alive, their only hope was that they could sense it before it sensed them, now that the evil creature no longer lay dormant, but had to be oozing its dark aura down every tunnel it stalked.

Again, the group looked to Celebrimbor for instruction. It felt so wrong to stand in a mine and tell Dwarves what to do, but Celebrimbor realized that he had to. This was his idea, his expedition, his responsibility. He might not be the most fitting to lead, but he still had to do it.

“Go ahead. I don't sense anything dark.” He nodded encouragingly at the engineers, who then got to work. There was a small bronze slab engraved with runes embedded in the wall next to the door. The engineers huddled around it, so Celebrimbor couldn’t see what they were doing, but he noticed them fiddling with strange tools unknown to him and whispering among themselves in Khuzdul, quiet enough that Celebrimbor couldn’t make out the words. After only a short while he heard a soft metallic clicking that told him that the engineers had, through some hidden process, managed to reverse the locking mechanisms.

With a grinding sound of metal on stone, the doors rumbled open. Beyond them lay the common cavern, and from it seven tunnels stretched away into darkness.

Celebrimbor felt his heart beating quickly, but his thoughts were strangely calm. Without a moment's hesitation, he stepped over the threshold. Floki grunted under his breath and then hurried forward to walk by his side.

“You know what you're doing, Kurfi?”

“Yes,” Celebrimbor said, somewhat surprising himself because it was the truth. He knew what he was doing. He knew where they had to go and he was certain that he could lead the others there.

They proceeded in careful silence, not exchanging words save for quietly announcing that the way was clear. And yet, after each opened door that greeted them yet with another empty, silent corridor, the tension ramped up higher. It was too quiet. The silence this deep under the mountain felt unnatural, and yet it felt even more violating that they should disturb this eternal quiet with the sounds of their steps, their hushed whispers, and their bated breath. The dwarves were disquieted and restless, their eyes wandering up the walls and the ceilings, as if the Balrog could cling there, waiting like a spider to drop down on them. But they saw no other creatures and heard nothing, even after they had walked for what must have been half an hour. However, Celebrimbor noticed Branka keeping a close eye on him every time he moved or spoke, her hands always on the hilt of her sword.

The engineers disabled yet another door and Celebrimbor entered another of the vaulted nexuses where many tunnels branched off. Seven tunnels in total led away from it, not counting the one that they had come from.

“Where to now?” Floki asked.

Celebrimbor focused on the ring, and then pointed to a tunnel to their left. According to Alfin, it led to the old parts of the mines. It had been barred by a sturdy wooden door before that had been engraved with runes of protection, but the door stood open now. A skein of silver threads extended down the tunnel, a weak echo of the Dwarven souls that were answering to the call of the ring. The tunnel that he was pointing down was not lit by any light stones at all. “Down there.”

A cold shiver seemed to run through the group. The Dwarves knew where this tunnel led, and they did not love that place.

Briefly, all of them stood rooted to the spot, looking down the forbidding darkness of the tunnel. The blackness that came spilling forth from it was so thick that it seemed almost like a tangible thing. As he looked at the mouth of the tunnel Celebrimbor was suddenly gripped by an acute, almost insurmountable unwill to proceed. Again the mountain seemed to warn him, almost as if it wanted to chase him away for his own good. Flee, flee, while you still can.

Celebrimbor shook his head slightly and set his jaw. No, he thought. None of this now. He pulled himself together and walked toward the open door.

The group reluctantly followed him. It was a corridor that even some of the more experienced miners didn't recognize. Their hushed questions about where they were headed broke the oppressive silence, and according to their older peers, the tunnel led down to a part of the mines that had appeared promising for mining mithril two centuries ago. However, the yields of the mining had not proven worth the cost of maintaining the site, and therefore it had been closed down about fifty years ago.

“We're headed in the opposite direction of the drill chamber,” one of the miners said to Celebrimbor. “It is a part of the mines that is, to our knowledge, entirely separate from the new mining site. Perhaps that was why some Dwarves chose to hide there, though it must have seemed like a choice between two evils for them. The abandoned mines have become dark places. They must have seen no other choice at all if they decided to hide there.”

Celebrimbor nodded. “Yes. I can sense them. They are weak.”

“How do you know this?” Branka asked suspiciously.

Celebrimbor threw her a quick glance. He hadn't noticed her walking so close to him. The ring was warm on the fourth finger of his right hand, and the skein of silver that extended from it was thin and frayed. “I just know,” he told her quietly. Then he walked on.

They made their way onward. Celebrimbor was acutely aware of the open path that they left in their wake. If anything came after them, it would find its way unobstructed. Their group was becoming easy prey – the Balrog, or any monsters that had risen in its wake, simply had to follow the path that the rescue party had cleared for them.

They entered a great cavern full of abandoned walkways, scaffolding, and mining equipment. Celebrimbor couldn't see the ends of the cavern or the ceiling, but their steps had gained an echo that told of a cavern that might well be half a mile in diameter. They huddled together, taking care to stay away from yawning chasms and only walking over bridges that looked like they might carry their weight.

“What about creatures down here other than the Balrog?” Celebrimbor asked quietly. “Are we in danger?”

A miner named Algrin, who had been walking by Celebrimbor's side for a while now, frowned.

“These depths are never safe, Master Elf. We know that creatures of the dark have made their home here, but what they are and how many of them there are – who can tell? We do not have names for them, and they mostly leave us alone. However, no one wanders these pathways without someone to accompany them. This is a part of the mines that we Khazad did not delve, though we came to it later. The old paths and tunnels can be more treacherous than any creatures of the darkness. Bridges have been known to break, tunnels have been known to vanish or not to lead where you remember them. If you will have my advice, it is this: we should stay together at all costs, and not leave each other's sights. They will not attack a group that they cannot easily overwhelm.”

“What of lone survivors? What of small groups?” Celebrimbor kept his eyes firmly on the narrow stone shelf ahead of them, the only pathway that led them further through the cavern, while to their left a black chasm yawned.

Algrin only shrugged. “They should keep a light burning at all costs to keep the darkness at bay. There is not much more that they can do besides.”

But where would the survivors have found a light to take down here, and on a desperate flight at that? Celebrimbor thought, but didn't ask aloud. He didn't need to hear the answer.

They didn't talk more after that. Somewhere, water was dripping from a high distance and hitting stone with a steady blip-blip-blip. After what seemed like an eternity, they cleared the great cavern and entered another rough-hewn tunnel. Celebrimbor missed the light-stones even more acutely here. The absolute darkness under the mountain was almost unimaginable. What little of the way ahead of them their torches served to illuminate only reminded them more sharply of the even greater space that lay in the darkness beyond. Their torches guttered, and more than once the guards had to relight them. Something seemed to snuff them out time and time again, and every time they managed to relight the torches, they appeared to burn more feebly.

However, the silver thread was stronger now.

“We are getting closer,” Celebrimbor said. Even his words sounded strained, like something invisible was pressing down on his throat and the air wouldn't carry his voice.

There were no more safety doors here. They walked ahead, with the stone all around them pressing in on them. At last, they came to what must once have been an assembly hall. Old wooden tables and benches had been pushed up against the walls, strangely untouched by dust and age. Old tool racks still had some battered pickaxes and awls leaning in them. The air itself tasted like it hadn't moved, let alone been breathed by a living being in decades.

“I don't see anyone,” Floki said.

“They are here,” Celebrimbor said. “They're hiding.” Without waiting for anyone to come with him, he walked forward to a small archway, shut off with an iron-banded wooden door.

Celebrimbor pushed it open – and immediately had to step back and duck out of the way to avoid the handaxe that had come flying for his head. Celebrimbor reeled and ducked, feeling the hiss of air on his cheek when the weapon flew past him, missing his temple by mere inches.

“Back! Back!” someone from inside the door shouted. “Begone, foul creature of Marghâz!”

“What in Varda's name – ” Celebrimbor grunted out, nearly stumbling to one knee.

“Has the darkness made your heads go soft?” Floki roared from somewhere behind Celebrimbor. “Which creature of the Dark One would carry a torch down here, let alone come to rescue your ungrateful heads? Out with you! Out into the light where we can see you!”

When Celebrimbor raised his head, he saw three dwarves standing blinking in the doorway, the foremost of whom had obviously attempted to behead anyone who might come for their hideout. They were pale and wide-eyed, and had obviously been scared just as badly by Celebrimbor opening the door as he had been surprised by them. When he thought about it, he really should have been smarter than to just barge into the room unannounced, when a few dwarves who had been trapped and scared out of their minds had been waiting on the other side.

“Floki – it's fine,” Celebrimbor said and grabbed his friend by the arm. “They didn't mean it – they thought we were someone else.”

“We did, and I apologize for our mistake” the foremost of the dwarves said, a blond woman with a drawn face and dark circles under her eyes. Her braids fell limply around her face as she gave a short, tired bow. “Elva Stonegrinder, at your service. I am sorry for ordering the attack, but we were fearful and tired and we didn’t think there would be a friendly face on the other side of the door.” She looked back over her shoulder at the open chamber. “We have been waiting in there since the alarm went off – nobody knew what was going on, we just heard someone screaming of fire and darkness, and that we had to run. The doors trapped us in here and we have been hiding in the tool chamber ever since. We have heard creatures passing outside and expected that they would come for us sooner or later. They already got Galfi, because he was too slow to cross the Great Cavern. He must have misstepped in the dark and fallen. We knew that it only was a matter of time before they got us as well. In truth, we thought that the next thing we'd hear or feel would be their teeth tearing into us.” She looked their group over, then her eyes remained on Celebrimbor. “But then I see you. Who are you? Are you here to rescue us?”

Celebrimbor nodded. “We are. As for who I am – it shouldn't matter. I am a friend of Durin, Fundin, and Narvi. We came down here to search for those who might have survived the emergence of the – ” He broke off, not sure what to tell the woman, lest he scare her even more.

“The emergence of the Balrog,” Branka said.

Elva's eyes snapped towards her. “A Balrog? Here?” Her face went even paler.

“Which is none of your concern,” Floki said quickly, with a scathing glare at Branka. “It's likely dead by now – or gone. We have seen no trace of it on our way here.”

“I – I see.” Elva looked to Celebrimbor. “Thank you, then. For coming for us. We thought – we didn't believe – ” Her voice wavered briefly. “We didn't think we would see any light ever again.” She looked at her own boots. “Do you have water?” she asked quietly. “We don't know how long it has been, but we must have gone days without food or drink.”

“Of course!” Floki hurriedly slung his backpack from his shoulders and started to unpack it. Celebrimbor and a few other Dwarves did the same.

The three Dwarves gratefully accepted the offered water and bread. After the blonde woman had drunk, she took another waterskin. “If you can spare more, I will bring it to Sigrún, Burin, and Nóri.”

“There are more of you?” Branka asked, handing out loaves of bread and chunks of cheese to the woman's two companions.

The blonde woman nodded. “Yes. Three more. They are still in the tool chamber. They are in bad shape. The darkness seems to have gotten to them, and I haven't succeeded in getting them to tell tales or count, or to move around and stretch. They haven't talked in a long time, and they have gone cold and unresponsive.”

Branka packed up her rucksack and hurried immediately into the chamber, taking her torch with her. A few other dwarves followed on her heels.

Celebrimbor looked after her, then turned towards the blonde woman once more. “Do you think your friends will be able to walk once they have eaten and drunk?”

“Perhaps,” she said. “But there is a chance that they won't be able to.”

“Then we will bring you back to the elevators,” Celebrimbor said. “We have enough people here to lead you there and carry your colleagues.”

As it turned out, the three sick Dwarves were able to walk by themselves in the end. Celebrimbor could only guess what had brought about the change in them, be it food or water or fire, but within an hour of their rescuers’ arrival, the Dwarves were able to walk and talk again.

They backtracked quickly through the great cavern, taking the survivors in the middle of their group when they tended to sway strangely, and their steps seemed to draw them again and again close to the edge of the abyss. “Touched by darkness” Elva Stonegrinder had called it, “and now susceptible to its call.” It got easier, however, when they left that part of the old mines and were back on the main road that led to the elevators.

When they reached the elevators, the dwarf named Hardin blew thrice into his horn, and after only a short amount of time, one of the elevator cages came into view. The dwarves above must not have pulled them up completely, so that they wouldn't take as long to lower, which would enable them to get the survivors in faster. The six dwarves got into the cage, and at another call of Hardin's horn, the cage was pulled up.

Some of the remaining dwarves around Celebrimbor looked after it with an almost wistful expression. Celebrimbor couldn't fault them for it. Apparently there were even more insidious dangers down here in the mines than even a Balrog, and judging by their expressions, even most of the guards and engineers hadn't known about them.

But their mission led them into the mines yet, not out of it – many times, if Celebrimbor thought about the answering calls to the ring. They went into the old mines two more times and managed to retrieve eighteen more Dwarves. After that, the old part of the mines rang hollow and quiet to the ring's inquiring calls.

“There are no more survivors in there,” Celebrimbor said. “We must go into the new mines.”

The only answer to his statement was silence. In the new part of mines lay the drill chamber – and with it, the place where the Balrog had emerged. If it was still anywhere in the mines, it would be there.

Celebrimbor tried not to think of this. What it meant if the Balrog was still alive. Do not think of it.

There were still a few souls answering to the ring's call. He could feel them. Maybe, just maybe –

He didn't let his thoughts wander any further than that.

They took the roads into the new mines, and Celebrimbor recognized the route that they had taken the first time he had come down here. The further they went, the more carefully they proceeded. The tunnels were damaged here. Boulders and shelves of rock had fallen from the ceiling due to the earthquake, and they had to pick their way around chunks of debris blocking their path. The closer they got to the drill chamber, the more severe the damage became. They were visibly nearing the epicenter of the catastrophe… and with it, the place where the Balrog had appeared. The air was hot and stuffy. Every time the engineers disabled the locking mechanism of a door and it slid open, they all stood stiff and rigid, as if waiting for something from beyond to descend upon them. But nothing happened – not until they happened upon another vaulted cavern with seven tunnels that led away from it.

Celebrimbor stopped dead as soon as he saw the fires. They were burning, but their flames were discoloured, with a smouldering red that was almost brown and a horrible, depthless black. They formed a trail like blood dripping from a wound, burning on the bare stone floor without any visible means of sustaining themselves, flickering and crackling.

“Rogue fires,” Celebrimbor breathed.

At his side, Floki looked up. “What's that you said?”

“Those are rogue fires,” Celebrimbor said, his gaze fixed on the sickly, evil fire. The past was trying to sink its teeth into him, but he willed himself not to let it. “They are unnatural flames, burning without air or wood, and I know of no means by which they can be doused other than letting them burn out on their own.”

The unspoken question hung in the air, and Celebrimbor forced himself to answer it. “Balrogs leave them,” he added.

“That – that means it is still alive?” a dwarf asked, voice choked. “What do we do now?”

Celebrimbor didn't answer immediately.

He remembered another time, long ago. A day that had never grown bright beyond murky dusk, sunless skies shrouded in ashen clouds. A dark wood, with poisonous leaves and treacherous vines. He remembered a desperate chase alongside his uncle and his father, trying to hunt down a wounded Balrog that had escaped the battlefield. He remembered the stuffy air, his heart beating in his throat, following the trail of destruction that the demon had left in its wake.

Too dangerous to be left alive, his uncle had called it. We must find it and kill it, lest it recuperate and turn around to hunt us instead.

What about reinforcements? What about help? Celebrimbor had asked.

No time. The more hours pass, the more time for its wounds to close and its fire to strengthen again. Don't wait for yourself to become prey, Tyelperinquar. Press the advantage. Stay the hunter – at all costs.

Celebrimbor shook the memories loose and focused on the rogue fires burning before them here and now. They formed a trail that came from the passage leading to the drill chamber. In this cavern, the trail then made a sharp turn to the right and continued down another side tunnel.

“We have to follow it,” Celebrimbor said.

“What?” Branka and Floki hissed, then stared at each other as if horrified that they had had the same thought.

“There are still survivors where it went,” Celebrimbor said with a glance at his ring.

“The Underground Sky chamber is down that tunnel!” Floki exclaimed. “It is a safe space, of course someone would be hiding in there!”

Celebrimbor nodded.

“If we want to save them, we have to go down there – and fast. The fires might have trapped them. The Balrog is wounded at the very least; perhaps it is already dead. We might be able to circumvent it – or perhaps even kill it, if it is weak enough. However, if we don't go there, those Dwarves will die for certain.” He looked to the miners to see if they agreed.

“We could perhaps bypass it,” one of the miners said reluctantly. “It depends on where in the tunnels it is. However, I would advise against going forward. The king himself told us not to put ourselves in unnecessary danger and not to do anything foolhardy. Following the trail of a Balrog is exactly what I would call foolhardy.”

“As is leaving our backs open to a possibly still living Balrog,” Celebrimbor said sharply. “If we leave it alone, it might return and kill us from behind. On the other hand, if it is dead, then we might still have a chance of rescuing those it has trapped in there. In any case we cannot go forward in any direction so long as we don't know where it is or what state it is in. We put ourselves in mortal danger no matter what we do.”

“Then we must turn around and abandon our mission,” one dwarf said.

The words echoed in Celebrimbor's ears for far too long. No, he thought. He knew that everyone else had probably been thinking the same, but allowing such a thing to be uttered aloud would break morale entirely. Celebrimbor had seen it happen too often, on far too many battlefields of his life. If a soldier was truly allowed to think of his impending doom, then he would falter and fall.

Likewise, if he allowed them to think that the only thing they could possibly do was retreat…

Celebrimbor looked around. He could feel the change in the air, the desperation and resignation taking hold. He wanted to say something, but he could not give these dwarves any orders. Nobody could tell them what to do, for they were here of their own free will – but they hadn't truly known what they had agreed to until they came here, and no one of them had volunteered to go toe to toe with a Balrog.

In the end, help came from the most unexpected of sides.

“If we give up here, then we condemn whatever Dwarves remain down here to die,” Branka said all of a sudden.

Celebrimbor looked at her in surprise.

“What help is it to anyone if all of us die in the doomed attempt to sneak up on that demon?” a miner replied.

Branka gave him a hard look. “The elf said that it might be heavily wounded, or mayhaps already dead. Do you really want to forsake the lives of our brothers and sisters without even trying to determine whether there is a chance that we might still save them?”

Uncomfortable silence followed in the wake of her statement. About half of the Dwarves were shifting their weight and avoiding Branka's glare. The other half looked as if her words had encouraged them again.

Celebrimbor didn't know whether it would do any good if he stepped in now, but he couldn't stay silent any longer. With every moment that passed, the chances of survival for any of the Dwarves in the mines grew smaller.

“I know I cannot order you to do anything that you do not want, and I would never presume to do so,” Celebrimbor said. “I have come here to rescue as many survivors as possible, but I would never force anyone to go further than they are willing to. Turn around if you want. I will go forward, and I will take only whoever is willing with me. But I will not leave these Dwarves to deaths of either fire or starvation, so long as there is anything I can do to prevent such a fate for them.”

His seemingly innocuous words had the exact effect he had hoped for.

“The Dwarves turn around while the elf will go on?” one of the engineers said in a low growl. “You do not really believe that this would happen, Elf, do you? Not in a thousand years! You might have had the idea for this mad undertaking, but these are our brothers and sisters trapped down here. We will not be outdone by you and turn tail now, just because just because an elf graciously gave us his leave to do so, while claiming the show of chivalry for himself.”

And with that, the matter was decided. Even if nothing else might have pushed some of these Dwarves further onward, the outrage about being outdone by an elf in courage underground was enough to make even the most hesitant of the group forget about their fear. Celebrimbor could see the steel return to their eyes, and even though it was mixed with enmity towards him, he would bear that burden gladly if only it meant that there was still a chance that they could save …

That they could save as many as were still alive down here.

“Fine,” said Branka, who had apparently decided to take the lead from now on. “The elf, me, and one of the miners will proceed and try to find out where the Balrog has gone. The rest of you stay here. Hide in one of the tool chambers, just in case we rouse the demon and it comes looking for you. We will return as soon as possible. If you deem that you have waited long enough and we still haven't come back, leave the mines and report to the king.”

The other Dwarves nodded.

“That plan is fine by me,” Floki said. “There is just one small thing we’re going to change about it: I am coming with you as well.”

“The more we are, the more likely it is for the demon to notice us,” Branka replied curtly.

“Branka Deepdelver, this Balrog has killed two of my cousins. You do not know me well if you think that there is anything that could keep me from hunting it down and crush its skull with my hammer.” Floki stared her down.

Branka stared back, but at last she relented. “Fine. But do try to be quiet.”

“I can be as quiet as death itself, my friend.”

With that, the two groups parted ways quickly. While the greater part of the group took shelter in one of the tool rooms where Celebrimbor had gotten his helmet two days ago, the group around Branka took off in the direction of the Underground Sky.

“We must be careful,” Algrin said. The seasoned miner had chosen to come with them. “There are side passages branching off from the main tunnel, but as long as we do not know which way the Balrog has taken, we cannot circumvent it with any certainty.”

“If its trail is as clear further down the tunnel as it is now, that should hardly be an issue,” Floki said, pointing down at the flickering dark flames of the rogue fires.

“Probably not,” Celebrimbor said, “but we cannot rely on it entirely. Balrogs can hide surprisingly well and even dampen their fires if they so wish.” Again he thought back at the desperate hunt alongside his father and uncle, and the moment when the ruined beast had dropped down nearly upon them from a rocky outcropping that had been hidden by the thick foliage of the trees. Even Huan hadn't been able to smell it.

Floki grunted. “Well, that's encouraging.”

They made their way carefully forward. Algrin had thrown a rag over his lantern-stone to diminish its light in order to prevent the Balrog from spotting them, but the downside was that they had to feel their way forward in near complete darkness. The lampstones here cast only an eerily dim light, as if something was suffocating their sheen, and the air in the tunnel was thick and smoky, a stark difference from the fresh, slightly damp air that Celebrimbor had noticed the last time he’d been here.

His heart was racing and his hands were sweating, but Celebrimbor hardly felt it. It was as if a veil had been drawn between his mind and his body, and any sensation of fear or exhaustion that he should have experienced was far more dulled than it should have been. The ring on his right hand glowed golden.

“Do you have any experience in fighting Balrogs, Elf?” Branka asked quietly. “You seemed to know these rogue fires at least.”

“More experience than I would normally care for, but far less than I wish I had right now,” Celebrimbor said.

“Tell me the truth: could we even kill it, if it came down to that?” She threw him a side glance, her left hand always hovering near the hilt of her weapon.

She's afraid, Celebrimbor realized. And she wants to hide it at all costs.

“They can be killed,” he replied. “Same as any other creature: they die if you stab them enough times. The trouble is getting close enough to do so, and not dying to their claws, their fire, or their whips beforehand.”

“They carry whips?” Branka asked, aghast.

For a moment Celebrimvor was taken aback by the realization that she truly didn't know - that there were entire generations of Dwarves and Men who had lived and died without seeing a Balrog, without fighting on the battlefields of the First Age. Entire generations who had never lived under Morgoth's Shadow. All of a sudden he felt very old.

“Most of them do – or did,” Celebrimbor replied at Branka’s inquiring glance. "Some of them preferred flaming swords, but the majority seemed to enjoy the whips more.” Celebrimbor's gaze darkened. “They used to keep watch over the slave mines of Angband and Utumno, and they enjoyed beating and lashing those prisoners who could work no longer. Often enough the burn of one of their whips was the last thing those slaves experienced. The Valaraukar favoured the cruelty of the wounds inflicted by the whips over the clean death of a sword. On the battlefield it was the same. They took pleasure in hunting down their opponents, crippling them with repeated lashes until they could no longer run. In the end the Balrogs would strangle them with their whips wrapped around their throats. They would never give you a quick death if they could afford to torture you instead. To this day, many believe that Morgoth has never created anything more terrifying and cruel than those demons.” Celebrimbor broke off.

“As if it wasn't enough that they are demons of fire and flame,” Branka said. “They carry weapons as well!”

“Yes, that does seem terribly unfair, doesn't it?” Celebrimbor gave her a humourless smile.

“It does. And yet fate has never cared about fairness, and whoever allows himself to be deterred by unjust odds will never achieve anything meaningful.” Branka's face was hard and determined in the dim sheen of Algrin's lantern.

Celebrimbor looked at her for a moment. “That is true,” he said at last.

After that, they fell silent, very much aware that every sound they made was a gamble with fate. They crept forward as softly as they could through the murky twilight. On three occasions they had to backtrack and take a way around a side tunnel because patches of demonic fires were blocking their way. The further they traveled, the more Celebrimbor noticed a change in the air that had nothing to do with the burnt taste of smoke that grew stronger the further they progressed. There was terror itself in the air, caused by the very presence of something dark and terrible and unnatural.

It is not dead, Celebrimbor thought and he distantly noted the knot of dread that was forming in its stomach. A look around at the faces of Algrin, Floki, and Branka told him that they were feeling it too, and instinctively knew what it meant.

The tunnel curved and twisted, never allowing them to see what lay around the next bend even though each one was only ever just about twenty feet ahead.

Their breathing grew more and more shallow, and their pace slowed almost to a crawl. Every corner was another possible trap, and they all knew it.

The silver skein that signalled the presence of survivors grew stronger and thicker until Celebrimbor could see the multiple threads it was made out of.

So many of them. We must get them out at all costs.

Even if nothing else had pushed them onward, the fact that so many people were still there, living, maybe waiting, caught in a state of utter terror, because a Balrog was lying in wait for them like a cat in front of a mouse-hole…

Turning around wasn't an option. It had never been, but seeing the possible ends of his choices laid out so clearly before him, Celebrimbor’s determination to free the survivors hardened into something beyond a mere decision: it had become a fact that had simply not yet come to pass. Celebrimbor was glad that the faces of his companions showed the same grim determination that he felt. There is still a chance, he told himself. We cannot give it away.

They turned another corner and the line of lampstones that had been embedded in the walls at regular intervals stopped. Ahead lay darkness. Then something in the air shifted – and a feeling of terror washed down the corridor like a surge of water.

Algrin stopped immediately and shoved them back around the corner. He positioned himself so that his back was toward the dark part of the tunnel, his chest shielding the light of the lantern, and lifted his hand to make a few quick gestures.

At first, Celebrimbor didn't know what he meant by them, but then he recognized the sign language that Dwarves used both in very loud working environments like the steel works and while among their deaf brothers and sisters.

Algrin noted his confusion, then repeated the signs for him, slower this time. Not far now, Algrin signed. Only around that corner, and there will be a chamber, in which is the door that leads to the Chamber of Stars.

Branka made another quick series of gestures, too fast for Celebrimbor to catch.

No, Algrin answered, slow enough that Celebrimbor could follow. There is only the main tunnel that leads there. It is a dead end otherwise. If the – there was a sign that he didn't catch, and Celebrimbor supposed it had to be the sign for 'Balrog' – is anywhere, it must be there.

For a few moments neither of them moved or signed anything. Distantly, Celebrimbor felt his own heartbeat pounding in his chest. His head was swimming in the stale and smoky air. Perhaps it would even turn poisonous if they went any further. Or perhaps it already was, and he was only now noticing the effects.

What I would give for a mining bird right now…

Then again, even if the bird would have warned them, they couldn't just turn around. Not now that they were so close.

Is there any cover for us when we exit the tunnel? Floki signed.

Algrin shook his head.

They fell silent again, mulling over their options until it became clear that there were only two. Either they turned back, or they went forward – and risked that the Balrog would see them as soon as they exited the tunnel.

Celebrimbor closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

I go, he signed clumsily. If there is no danger, I call, you come?

Stupid plan, Branka and Floki signed simultaneously.

Do you have a better idea? Celebrimbor signed back.

No answer came.

I go, Celebrimbor signed again. He drew his short sword and turned around, edging forward inch by inch. The corridor was almost entirely dark, lit only by the faint glow of the lampstones down by the tunnel nexus at the end of their side tunnel.

By now the air was so thick that breathing itself felt more like drowning. Each time Celebrimbor inhaled it felt as if he was drawing in water. Celebrimbor could feel the smoke sinking down heavily in his lungs, but it burned less than he would have expected. He pressed himself up against the wall, trying to make himself as small a target as possible.

At least Balrogs couldn't breathe fire. If it had been a dragon waiting for him down there, it could have simply breathed fire down the tunnel and turned the entire passage into a furnace so hot that not even cinders would have been left of their little group.

Celebrimbor crept forward until the faint glow of the lampstones became suffused with something else – another light, this one dark red, like dying embers glowing in a hearth.

It is here.

Another pulse of terror shot down the tunnel from the direction of the Chamber.

And it is alive.

Celebrimbor made his way to the mouth of the tunnel, still pressed up against the stone, his sword gripped firmly in hand. There was a slight outcropping of rock that hid the vaulted cavern from view. Celebrimbor held his breath as he leaned forward and looked around the outcropping.

At first he saw nothing save for the cavern and the tunnels that led into it. Across from his own position, he could see the closed door of the Chamber of Stars. The ring on his hand was now almost vibrating with power. Its glow had become so bright that Celebrimbor ran a very real risk of being seen in the dark, and the metal band had become so hot that it was nearly burning his skin.

And then, all of a sudden, a great shadow at the other end of the cavern moved. It was as if someone had blown into the ashes of a dying fire, rousing the flames to life once more. Red and orange fire lit up in shimmering veins running down the length of the shadowed form and billowing smoke rose off its bulk. There was something that sounded eerily like a rattling intake of breath, and then the Balrog detached itself from the deeper darkness around it and moved, slinking toward where Celebrimbor had hidden himself.

Celebrimbor pulled his head back.

Stars and suns. He pressed himself up against the cold stone. It is alive, and still moving. And it is guarding the Chamber of Stars like a cat guarding a mouse-hole. We have to kill it or lure it away.

The notion seemed ridiculous. How am I supposed to deal with a demon that even Annatar wasn't able to defeat? he thought, but immediately pulled back from the thought of his friend, as quick and instinctive as if his mind had been burned. The idea redirected itself around that painful place.

It is impossible.

At this thought, the shade of his father seemed to materialize next to him. Impossible? Curufin sneered. No, Tyelperinquar, nothing is impossible. 'Impossible' is just an excuse that we tell ourselves so that we might stop trying in good conscience. There is never a reason not to try your best at any given endeavour – or not to try at all.

So… it might not be quite impossible if he really considered it. But it would still be very, very dangerous.

Celebrimbor let out a slow, measured breath. Ah well.

He slowly moved forward again, taking care to keep to the cover of the rocky outcropping.

He immediately realized his error. The Balrog was so close that Celebrimbor nearly tripped over his own feet in his instinctive attempt to scramble backwards. He suppressed the impulse and stayed still, his fingers clutching the sword at this side so tightly that he felt the hilt pressing the band of the ring into the flesh of his fourth finger.

The Balrog wasn't looking at him. It had its back to him, shifting slowly and ever so slightly. The fiery veins along its body were glowing weakly, and it was crouched on all fours, quite out of keeping with the usual bipedal stance of their kind.

Celebrimbor forced himself to watch it closely. It is wounded, he realized. Heavily wounded.

The demon shifted again, as if it couldn't lie still in any position without feeling great pain. It dragged itself away from the walls and towards the middle of the cavern.

Perhaps it is not even guarding the Chamber of Stars, Celebrimbor thought. Perhaps it just … tried to get away from the drill chamber. Maybe it has fled, just like the Dwarves… like a wounded animal, seeking a dark, quiet place to die.

The longer Celebrimbor watched, the more certain he was that he had guessed correctly. The Balrog prowled the cavern with slow, pained movements: crouching, curling up, uncurling, and snorting ragged breaths. Once its eyes roved over the cavern and Celebrimbor could see that its right eye had been destroyed. So it was at least half-blind, then. One of its horns had been cleanly cut off, as if severed from the rest of its body with an incredibly sharp sword. The surface of the cut was so smooth it looked almost as if it had been polished. As it moved, it was dragging one of its hind legs, and barely seemed to be able to support its own weight.

The creature was dying, that much was clear. Give it another day and it would be dead. However, whether intentionally or not, it was still blocking the way to the Chamber of Stars where the rest of the Dwarven survivors were hiding. For them, another day of waiting might mean death too, and therefore, the demon had to be removed.

Celebrimbor hesitated, but only for a moment, before stepping out from his cover and into the cavern. He held his blade loosely at his side as he approached the Balrog on its blinded side. The demon didn't react until Celebrimbor stepped directly in front of it. As it caught sight of Celebrimbor, its head whipped up and its remaining eye flickered. There was a brief moment of absolute stillness and silence on both of their parts – then all of a sudden the demon reared up and lunged for Celebrimbor with a terrible shriek.

Celebrimbor had expected the attack. He stepped back, slashing his sword right over the snout of the demon and with a gurgling cry of pain it flinched back, landing heavily on its side. Its claws scrabbled over the ground, but they left only small scratches where it would have dug gouges out of the stone at the peak of its strength. When it tried to rise again, it's legs gave out under its weight. It screeched again, high and horrible, like nails on a chalkboard, and then it fell back.

Celebrimbor looked at it without sympathy, then he turned around and walked back down the tunnel. Branka, Floki, and Algrin perked up when he rounded the corner to where they had been waiting. Algrin started to sign something, but Celebrimbor just shook his head.

“No need for that. The Balrog is done for.”

Branka's eyes went wide.

“What did –” Floki started, then his gaze dropped to the sword in Celebrimbor’s right hand. “Hells, Kurfi, did you kill it?” Floki asked, incredulous.

“No,” Celebrimbor said. “I thought I might leave that particular honour to you.”

The Balrog didn't even make a sound when Floki crushed its head with his hammer. It just twitched once, then the tension left its massive body and it crumpled bonelessly to the ground. The veins of fire on its back and legs faded, until it looked like nothing more than a great heap of coal.

Even after all the deaths it had caused, killing the Balrog was a joyless endeavour. There was no feeling of justice or vindication, just one more inevitable, necessary conclusion in this horrifying, violent series of events.

“That's that taken care of,” Floki said, but his face showed no sign of satisfaction or triumph. Above all else, he simply sounded tired.

Celebrimbor could sympathize. Revenge, no matter how justified, only ever tasted like ashes. It could not right any wrongs or restore any lives.

“Let us free the others,” Branka said. Her shoulders were sloping as well, as if all strength in her had fallen away together with the fear and the tension. She shuffled over toward the door of the Chamber of Stars and knocked. “Brothers! Sisters!” she called. “Come out! The fiend is vanquished, and we have come to bring you home! Open the door!”

It took some time for the Dwarves inside to follow their call, though. Perhaps they couldn't believe that they were really hearing a friendly voice; perhaps they suspected an enemy was playing tricks on their minds. Or perhaps they were just too tired and gravely wounded to react any faster.

A few minutes passed, then there came the sound of a key being turned in a lock, and the door swung open. One dwarf was standing there, a dirty, wounded, emaciated creature. His beard was tangled and singed, and his eyes were huge and bright and in his ash-smeared face. The dwarf stared at them for a long minute, taking in Branka and Algrin and Celebrimbor, then he turned to watch Fundin wipe his hammer clean of the Balrog's skull. His mouth opened, closed, opened again, wavered. Then he fell to his knees and began to weep.

Branka stepped forward to embrace him, briefly but not without feeling, then stepped past him and went inside to fetch the other dwarves. One by one, the survivors trickled out – ten, twenty, thirty, thirty-eight. Whether due to instinct or coincidence, it appeared as if every surviving dwarf in the newer part of the mines who hadn't been able to evacuate had found their way here.

They stepped outside into the light now, clinging to each other for stability, their eyes wide as they flocked together like scared birds, casting disbelieving looks at the smitten husk of the Balrog. Branka and Algrin carried out six more dwarves who were too injured or too weak to walk by themselves, bringing the count of survivors in the Chamber of Stars up to forty-four.

Celebrimbor just stood there, watching the rest of the rescue party taking care of the survivors without really seeing it. He felt strangely detached from his own body, as if he could slip out of his skin at any moment. Everything felt unreal, as if this was all a dream, and when he walked forward, it was slow going, as if he was walking through water.

He looked around, his gaze sliding off the Dwarves, the walls, the carcass of the slain Balrog. There was something missing, something was not right –

He kept watching, kept waiting, kept looking for another figure to emerge from the Chamber… but it didn't come.

Slowly, Celebrimbor walked forward and into the Chamber of Stars, where within, stars of mithril doused everything in the faintest of silver light. Clean air greeted him, and that familiar aura of peace, but they couldn't quite touch his soul. He felt removed from it all, hollowed out, empty. And even as he looked around, he knew for a fact what he had already felt long before he had entered the Chamber.

The Underground Sky chamber was empty.

Something was stirring in Celebrimbor’s mind, rising from a dark place in the outermost reaches of his consciousness – something that he had shut firmly away in the deepest, most remote recesses of his mind. He had been suppressing it with all his willpower, because he knew that he needed to keep functioning, that there were lives depending on him. It had worked so long as there had been the promise of danger, the urgency of walking forward, the need to plan and act and fight. But now that Celebrimbor had stopped running, the dark thoughts that he had had locked away had caught up with him. A realization that he had been shielding even from himself was rising from the depths of Celebrimbor’s mind. It slithered up his spine, relentless, inexorable, wrapping itself around his throat like cold, clammy hands, ready to choke his breath from his body. Until now he had not allowed himself to think of it; until now he had been holding out hope. Even though the Balrog had been alive, it had been so badly wounded, and there were other survivors, so maybe … maybe …

And then Celebrimbor glanced down at his right hand. The ring on his finger had gone cool and dull. It shone no longer.

No. No. No no no no no.

He turned around wildly then, looking everywhere around himself as he cast his spirit into the ring, calling out into the endless darkness beneath the mountain.

Where are you? Where are you? Answer me, please, please, tell me where you are! You have to be here! Tell me, oh please, answer me! Where are you?

But no matter how often he called, or how he pleaded, there was no answer.

It cannot be – you are of Aulë, I know you are. I know you can hear this. Answer me! Please, please, please… where are you, where are you, tell me, just tell me, please…

But no answer ever came.

Celebrimbor didn't know how long he stood there, his spirit wandering the darkened, empty corridors of the destroyed mine, searching for that one missing silver thread – until someone touched his shoulder. Celebrimbor flinched, his entire being rapidly compressing itself back into the confines of his body. For a moment, everything felt too small, too cramped: he could hear the blood rushing in his ears, the gurgling of his intestines, the small shocks shooting along his nerves –

He staggered, his knees buckling beneath the sudden weight of his body. He would have fallen, had two hands not grasped his upper arms and steadied him.

“Kurfi?”

Celebrimbor blinked and looked down. His head was spinning, but he still managed to recognize Floki, who was looking up at him with a worried expression.

“Are you alright? You didn't look too well right there.”

“I –” Celebrimbor said hoarsely, and for a moment he was no longer sure how to speak. His entire body suddenly seemed foreign to him, and he had no idea how to steer this clunky apparatus. “I am fine, I was just – I was looking – I was hoping –”

Floki's face fell. “I … I see. Don't you – I mean, can your ring sense him anywhere?”

Celebrimbor shook his head. “No – no. No more survivors left. Can't feel anyone else.” He stared at his ring, the metal dark and cold.

Floki squeezed his arms lightly. “I'm sorry, Kurfi.” His voice sounded soft, sympathetic. “But this room is empty – as are all the others, if your ring is right. We've saved all those who have survived. There's no use in staying here any longer.” He took Celebrimbor's hands. “Come on,” he said, tugging lightly. Celebrimbor let himself be pulled along, almost stumbling over his own feet. “Let's go home.”

Let's go home.

The words echoed in his head, again and again and again. He thought of Annatar, and how good a mood he had been in when they had travelled to Khazad-Dûm together, just a few weeks ago. How both of them had been looking forward to seeing the Dwarven city under the mountain, so excited to see its wonders.

I never would have thought that I would leave without him.

Even now, the thought was bizarre, unreal.

The mere prospect seemed like a nightmarish dream and a betrayal all at once. Like throwing a still-living comrade into a grave and starting to fill in the hole around them while they still pleaded for air.

As if from a great distance, Celebrimbor noticed that everyone around him was packing up, readying themselves to leave. He saw Floki and Branka talking to some of the other Dwarves as they helped them stand, but he could barely understand what they were saying; could hardly make out even simple words. His head was full of white noise, drowning out everything else into unintelligible babble.

He didn't speak a single word the entire way back. Floki had to watch out for him and pull him along, gently talking to him and coaxing him to walk on, step for step.

When the elevators came into sight, Celebrimbor stopped in his tracks. He could only stare, unseeing, as Hardin blew his horn thrice, and two cages were quickly lowered down.

The other Dwarves were too busy helping the wounded and infirm into the elevators that would take them to safety to notice when Celebrimbor slowly turned around again, facing the darkness of the tunnels once more.

I am going to leave without him.

“Kurfi? Kurfi, are you ready to go?”

Celebrimbor slowly turned around to find Floki, who was standing by the elevator doors gesturing at him. Or, at least, that’s what he thought Floki was doing – Celebrimbor’s vision was wavering, distant, and he couldn’t really see the Dwarf anymore.

“Kurfi, come, we cannot dawdle here any longer. We have sick people here, and some with heavy burns, all of whom need treatment. Come, you don't look well yourself – you need to eat, drink, rest. We need to go up!”

Up. And leave everyone else down here. Those they couldn't help. Those for whom they had come too late. Those who had been lost to either the fire or the darkness.

The other half of his soul.

If he walked away now, it would forever remain down here, trapped in eternal darkness and under miles of cold stone.

Celebrimbor’s heart beat painfully, as if it had been torn right in the middle.

“Kurfi?” Floki repeated.

Celebrimbor just stared at him, uncomprehending. He blinked once.

“Kurfi – come on!” Floki waved once more. Something must have passed over Celebrimbor's face then, because even before he turned away, Floki's eyes were widening. “Kurfi – no, no! Come back!”

But Celebrimbor didn't even hear him anymore. He was running, running as fast as his legs would carry him, back to the tunnels and the darkness. He thought he heard someone shouting behind him, but the sound was unimportant.

He couldn’t leave yet. Even though there was no one answering his calls. Even though the ring on his right hand was cold and lifeless. He couldn’t walk away from this, knowing that there was something more that he could have done, someplace else that he could have searched, something else that he could have tried.

Cold air rushed about him – it was suddenly freezing down here – but he didn't stop.

He ran, taking the turns with utmost certainty, as if he had been walking them for years. Of course he hadn't, but it didn’t matter now. He might not know how to navigate most of this maze of tunnels down here, but the route he was racing down now was clear in his head. It would be forever burned into his brain.

Into the common hall, down one tunnel, another cavern, down another tunnel, bypassing the cavern from which they had reached the Chamber of Stars. He leapt over the dying rogue fires, burning his shins, but he hardly noticed the pain.The further he ran, the hotter the air became again, because of course the forces and the heat that had reigned here only two days ago wouldn't have allowed the stone to cool again. The soles of his boots began to melt and stick to the ground, but still he didn't stop.

The next wall of rogue fire was too high to leap over, so Celebrimbor simply ran straight through the flames instead. He didn't feel the burns, neither on his shins nor on his ring-finger, where the band of metal had grown hot enough to glow.

All his mind and all his spirit were focused on a single place, a single task, and it didn't leave any room for him to truly register anything else: neither the heat that was quickly becoming unbearable, nor the charred husks of what had once been miners and engineers littering his way at every step, nor how the number of corpses grew the closer he came to his destination.

He clung to but a single thought: there was one place where he had not looked for Annatar, and he would never forgive himself if he left without going there.

There is never a reason not to try.

The great doors to the drill chamber had melted completely. They now existed as a single, shimmering puddle on the floor of the ante-cavern, shining like quicksilver and smooth as glass. It looked like a lake had formed right at the entrance of the drill chamber.

Celebrimbor sprinted along the edge of the pool, trying to avoid the molten mithril and the stone walls alike, as both were still radiating almost unbearable heat. He only slowed when he reached the threshold of the drill chamber.

It must have been so hot inside: he knew that from the pool of molten metal, the rogue fires, the shimmers in the air he could still see ahead. But Celebrimbor felt nothing of this, and slowly, he walked inside.

The chamber within was barely recognizable. Great parts of the ceiling had caved in and chunks of stone and debris were strewn everywhere. The drill was a puddle of molten metal around the hole that it had been digging. The pool of liquid mithril and adamantium was still glowing red-hot, dousing the cavern in a dull orange light despite the fact that every lampstone had shattered or melted down. The ground itself was broken and splintered into a treacherous, craggy hellscape. The heat and the elements that had been raging here had left every hard edge molten and rounded, every surface smooth and glazed over.

Slowly and carefully, Celebrimbor picked his way forward between the steaming stone and the smoking walls. He focused on the ring once more, desperately casting his spirit into it and from there out into the darkness, expanding himself until he filled the cavern, trying, trying, trying to find that one last bond to Aulë that he was looking for…

In the end, it was not the ring that allowed Celebrimbor to find Annatar.

He had walked into the middle of the room, turning around his body with what parts of his spirit still remained within it – the other part had flung itself out into the non-corporeal void, calling without ever getting an answer.

Celebrimbor turned, his eyes roving over debris and chunks of stone, over patterns of darkness and dull light – until they snagged on something white that appeared to be wedged in between two boulders and almost covered by smaller scatterings of debris.

Celebrimbor stopped in his tracks as his focus broke, and the entirety of his soul collapsed back into his body with a force that almost made his legs give out beneath him. He just saw a few small patches of stained, dulled white, almost invisible in the gloom of the cavern, giving off no light of its own.

As he walked closer, more contours and sharper lines appeared out of the darkness, elevating what had at first been a near unrecognizable image from merciful obscurity into awful clarity.

Celebrimbor's steps shuddered, halted, then grew faster and faster until he was running. When he reached the still form, he stood frozen for a moment, staring at it, looking, but not allowing himself to truly understand what he was seeing – and then he began pulling chunks of rock off the lifeless body with a strength that he shouldn’t have possessed, flinging them aside almost as an afterthought. The ring of Aulë's bond was burning on his finger like a small sun.

When he had cleared away the debris around it, the figure appeared almost as if it was resting – as if it had only been sitting down, and not slammed into the wall of the cavern with great enough force to make the stone at its back crack. But what ruined the image were its arms, which hung limp at the figure’s side – and its head, which lolled and drooped as it never would have in life.

Celebrimbor dropped to his knees beside the figure. His hands hovered over its shoulders, inches above the torn and tattered fabric. He looked at the still ruin of a face, the ashen-coloured locks sticking to its bloodied cheeks and forehead, the few dirty strands hanging limply over closed eyes.

“Oh, Annatar.”

Celebrimbor could barely feel his own body as he wrapped his arms around Annatar's shoulders, pulling his friend's still form against him. Celebrimbor didn't feel anything as he did. Something inside of him had collapsed and retreated to a place very, very far away, too deep to reach right now.

Celebrimbor sat back on his heels, cradling the still form against his chest. He felt the rough bristle of Annatar's burnt hair brush his cheeks, Annatar's own skin lifeless and cold where it touched Celebrimbor's. There was no more warmth around him now. It was as if a flame that had gone out. No, more than that – Annatar felt like a star that had collapsed from fiery radiance into a bottomless well of emptiness and cold. When Celebrimbor reached for the searing halo of power that had always radiated around his friend, the only thing that answered him was a cold, empty void that swallowed even the sweltering heat around them.

He didn't know how long he sat like that, and he didn't know when he noticed. Perhaps too late, because everything was so numb and Celebrimbor was dimly aware that he wasn't functioning properly anymore.

As it was, he didn't notice the movement until two arms came to rest around his back, their touch slow and feather-light. There was a brush of matted, tangled hair and rough skin against his cheeks, and then – a voice. Raw and low, almost too quiet to be heard, but it didn't matter, because the words were spoken directly into his ear and they were meant only for him to hear:

“I knew you would come back.”

Chapter End Notes

Reunited at last.

In case you were wondering, Marghâz is the Khuzdul name of Morgoth, and solely my own invention. I wanted to put in a footnote first, but upon further thinking I decided (for understandable reasons) not to link from the middle of the chapter to the end, where a keen eye might take note of the last few lines.

That being said I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Let me know what you liked (or didn't like) in particular, which line stood out to you the most, which scene you enjoyed most - I'm here for all of it, and more. Comments are the cherry on top of my cream, and I delight in each and every one of them. 

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*

Celebrimbor was so surprised that he almost fell over backwards and dropped Annatar. His breath hitched and he held his friend at arms length, not sure whether he had heard right or if his brain had finally started to break down after going nearly three days without sleep, leading a rescue expedition through destroyed mines, and facing down a Balrog.

“You are alive,” Celebrimbor breathed, and his grip around Annatar's chest tightened. He was afraid that if he let go of his friend, he would slip from his grasp and vanish again – for good this time.

Annatar looked back at him. At first his expression was tired and pained, but then a change went through him. Something disjointed about him seemed to pull itself together with great effort, mending some of the invisible cracks that could be felt everywhere about him, and slowly a wry smile worked itself over Annatar's face.

“Why of course I am,” he said. “And you are back down here, despite my efforts to make it possible for you to get out of the mines in the first place.”

Annatar's expression was a mixture of amusement and annoyance – like Celebrimbor had done something that was impossibly stupid in Annatar's opinion, but everything had worked out exactly in Celebrimbor's favour, and thus the Maia was unable to fault the elf for it.

Celebrimbor was so relieved to see him, to hear him talk – his voice slightly rough, but still with that familiar sardonic, nonchalant tone of his, as if nothing of note had happened, as if everything would be fine. He felt like his bones and joints had turned soft and he was unable to hold himself up for much longer.

“Why of course I am here,” he said, imitating Annatar's tone, and he couldn't help but smile, his mouth stretching so wide it was almost painful. “You didn't think I would leave you here, did you?”

“To be honest, I had hoped that you would be sensible enough not to come down here again, though I didn't really believe it,” Annatar said, letting go of Celebrimbor's shoulders. “As I said, I knew you would come back, no doubt against the counsel of many smart Dwarves who told you it would be suicide.”

Celebrimbor shrugged. “Actually, the Dwarves were in favour of doing it as well. I proposed that we would perhaps still save some of their sisters and brothers if we went back, and they agreed immediately. So a group of miners, warriors, and engineers came back down here with me, evacuated the survivors, killed the Balrog, and returned the survivors to the surface.”

Annatar looked at Celebrimbor, his mouth hanging slightly open, as if he wasn't sure whether the elf was taking him for a fool or not. “You did what?”

“Found the survivors, finished off the Balrog, and brought them to the elevators. The others wanted to leave then, because we couldn't find anyone else, but then I thought of you and although the ring wasn't able to find you I turned around and – ”

“Wait,” Annatar interrupted. “Which ring?”

Smiling, Celebrimbor held his hand up for Annatar to see. Aulë's Ring was gleaming on his fingers. Annatar stared at it incredulously. “I might have thrown together a concept for the prototype of a ring that was able to find the survivors down here in the mines, based on our most recent research back at home.”

Annatar looked as if he had momentarily forgotten how to form coherent sentences. “You – what.” He stared at the ring, then his eyes flickered back at Celebrimbor. “Are you – telling me you are wearing a prototype of a Ring of Power, even though –”

“It was quick work,” Celebrimbor said hastily. “Not at all as thorough and accurate as I might have liked, and given more time, I would probably have been able to work out more kinks, but … in the end it did what it was supposed to do.”

“I don't care about the ring!” Annatar said and suddenly he was sitting up straighter, grabbing Celebrimbor by the shoulders again. “Are you quite insane to try something like this without at least a dozen trial runs – and before working out the issues of the exponential demand of energy of self-enhancing powers, which come with any circular creation? As far as I know we were still working on solving that particular issue!”

“I didn't quite have time for that. I was on something of a time limit,” Celebrimbor replied evenly.

“You were – of course you were.” Annatar gave him an exasperated look, then gazed intently into Celebrimbor's eyes, as if he might see some damage behind them, if he only looked close enough. “But you are alright?” Annatar's eyes flicked to the ring as if it might go up in flames any moment and scorch both Celebrimbor and him from existence.

Celebrimbor grinned sheepishly. “I think it was feeding on me, but otherwise I'm fine.”

“It was doing what.”

“I wasn't able to figure out how to keep the demand for power chained to the source inside the ring while opening a channel for the information to feed back into me, so I think the ring might have been drawing from my own strength in order to work. The two-way transfer of power is something we'll have to keep in mind when we work on this in the future; it might become a problem if the rings are drawing their power from external sources – Annatar, is everything alright?”

“You are even more insane than I thought,” Annatar said, staring at him. “If recent events have made one thing abundantly clear, it is that you have no sense of self-preservation. At all.”

“It wasn't that hard,” Celebrimbor replied with a shrug.

“'It wasn't that –'” Annatar repeated, but then he interrupted himself. He ran one hand down his face, obviously struggling for some countenance. “Obviously it wasn't that hard. What could possibly be difficult or even dangerous about creating a ring that feeds off of your own strength, subsequently entering an inferno on the slim chance you might save a few Dwarves, as well as, oh, let me think, confronting a Balrog?” He rubbed at his temples, then looked up at Celebrimbor. “Remind me to never let you out of my sight ever again if there is even the slightest chance that you might encounter even moderate danger, Tyelperinquar.”

“Hey, it wasn't me who almost got himself killed here,” Celebrimbor retorted.

“I didn't almost get myself killed,” Annatar said with a snort. “You didn't think that one puny Valarauka would be enough to destroy me, did you?”

The grin dropped off Celebrimbor's face instantly. “I wasn't sure,” he said quietly. “I mean, I knew you were powerful, but that Balrog was one of Morgoth's own corrupted creatures, and –” Celebrimbor interrupted himself, then looked up and down Annatar's well and truly battered form. “Just look at yourself, ” he said quietly.

Annatar shifted where he was leaning against the stone. “I was only … resting.” He struggled to sit up a bit straighter, grimacing when he tried to push himself off a rock to his left. “I will admit that the beast gave nearly as good as it got, but there was never a danger of me dying, Tyelperinquar. I am fine.”

Celebrimbor could tell that Annatar was lying through his teeth, but this was not the moment to call him out on it. So instead of arguing when his friend tried to get to his feet, Celebrimbor grasped his arms and helped him stand.

To his surprise, Annatar accepted his help without complaint and let himself be pulled up. When both of them were standing, Celebrimbor looked his friend over. Annatar might have fooled any other observer with his deliberate show of nonchalance, but Celebrimbor knew his friend better than that. The differences were so minute that they were almost unnoticeable, but in the dim gloom of the glowing puddle of what had once been the drill Celebrimbor saw how Annatar moved infinitesimally slower than usual, how he carefully shifted his weight onto his left leg, how his features briefly wanted to twist into something before the Maia schooled them back into a blank expression of carefully crafted equanimity.

“Can you walk?” Celebrimbor asked, his hands hovering near Annatar's shoulders just in case.

Annatar snorted and straightened up to his full height. “By now you should know that the operative word for me is not 'can', but 'want'. The latter necessarily induces the former, so they are all but equivalents to me. As for your question, though …” He threw a distasteful glare at his destroyed surroundings. “Yes, I very much want to get out of here and back into civilized society, if you don't mind.”

Celebrimbor nodded. “Yes. Let's get out of here.”

***

Slowly, they made their way back to the elevators. The mines were silent, and they felt entirely empty now. As they picked their way between fallen boulders and rogue fires, Annatar let his eyes wander over the charred remains of Dwarves that littered their way.

Celebrimbor followed his gaze, and for the first time took in the sheer number of corpses around him – forever destined to lie here in their final resting place, until their bodies turned to dust.

“So many,” Celebrimbor said and stopped. “So many that we couldn't save.”

Annatar's expression was strange. “Yes,” he said. Then he looked at Celebrimbor. “But don't you dare blame yourself for this, Tyelperinquar. It was too late for them the moment the Balrog appeared. You had already gone above and beyond the call of duty when you decided to come back down here – against all common sense, I might add – and try to rescue those who had survived.”

“Yes,” Celebrimbor said. “But still.”

Annatar didn't reply to this. He didn't agree, but he also didn't argue the point, and for that Celebrimbor was grateful.

“Maybe we can get them out as well,” Celebrimbor said quietly. “When the survivors have been cared for. They deserve a proper burial.”

Annatar nodded slowly. “That they do.” He gave Celebrimbor a few more moments before reaching out and giving his sleeve a gentle tug. “First of all, though, we have to get out of here. Come on.”

When they made it back to the elevator cages, the Dwarves were gone. However, they found Hardin's horn leaning against the wall: someone must have left it here in case Celebrimbor came back.

Celebrimbor took the horn in his hands and blew it three times. It took a while for the elevator cage to come rattling down, and even longer until the winch had pulled it up, but Celebrimbor was just glad that there was someone still operating it all in the first place. He couldn't have faulted the Dwarves if they had just left the elevators unattended after Celebrimbor had run off like a madman, barreling towards what might well have been his death by a misstep in the dark, or an encounter with one of the dark creatures that haunted the mines.

Someone seemed to have believed, or at least hoped, that he would return, and Celebrimbor was grateful for that.

It took a long time until the elevator reached the ground level of Khazad-Dûm and they emerged out of the dim shaft into the glare of hundreds of lantern stones. After so long in the darkness of Habbad-Dûm, Celebrimbor had to shield his eyes at first.

When Celebrimbor and Annatar stepped from the cage together, the eyes of the Dwarves operating the elevators bulged with shock and surprise. However, this was in no way equal to the reaction that they got when Celebrimbor and Annatar entered into the throne room side by side, walking in on what must have been a crisis meeting of the assembled nobles of Khazad-Dûm, together with their staff and servants and scribes. The room was chock-full of Dwarves and echoing with the sound of them shouting orders over each other, each one trying to make themselves heard.

The moment the great doors opened, however, every head in the room turned in their direction, and all at once, every eye was on them. The room was so silent one could have heard a pin drop. Celebrimbor could see Fundin, who was standing next to the throne at the far end of the hall, looking over to where he and Annatar stood, and the moment he saw them Fundin froze. His hand fell open in his shock, dropping his pen to the ground.

Celebrimbor scratched his head. “Well, ah. We're a bit late, it seems.” He let his eyes wander over the tapestries on the walls to try and avoid the hundreds of stares directed at the two of them. “But we're back.”

***

It took several more hours before Celebrimbor and Annatar were allowed to leave. Apparently, the aftermath of a catastrophe brought a lot more work with it than the incident itself. Celebrimbor was brought to a table covered in maps and lists of names, and asked to corroborate the statements made by those Dwarves who had returned earlier. He was also required to describe the incidents in the mines once more, then the rescue mission itself, including the number of survivors and those they had identified as dead.

Celebrimbor watched Branka, who was also standing by the table to the right of Harko Bristlebeard, as he recounted all this. However, the Dwarven woman didn't challenge any of his points, which seemed to confirm to both Harko and Durin that his accounts were sound and lined up with the statements of the other members of the rescue team. Harko Bristlebeard was silent as well. He eyed Celebrimbor for a long time, but mentioned neither the Balrog nor the rescue mission with even a single word. Suddenly Celebrimbor remembered Harko's son, who had apparently been down in the mines as well. Had they found him? Had he been among the identified corpses or would he forever be lost, burnt to the point of being unrecognizable or fallen into darkness? Celebrimbor had no idea. At the time he hadn't even given it a single thought, and he dared not ask now.

Following Celebrimbor, Annatar was asked to describe the emergence of the Balrog and his own battle with it. No one ordered him to do anything, though. Quite the contrary: every Dwarf kept a respectful, almost awestruck distance from the Maia, even while crowding around him to hear everything he had to say. Even his battered appearance did nothing to detract from his awe-inspiring aura – quite the contrary, this seemed to enhance it even further. Even Velech Blackhammer did nothing more than glower at Annatar.

Annatar tried his best to answer the Dwarves’ many inquiries, but Celebrimbor could tell that his patience was running out. His answers were short and grew ever more clipped the longer the questioning went on. Annatar confirmed that he had felt the Balrog coming, even if he had recognized the threat for what it was too late. Despite the lords and ladies repeatedly asking for it, he could not be moved to describe the fight itself in any detail – suffice it to say, Annatar said curtly, that he had managed to wound it severely enough that Floki had been able to deal the killing blow later on.

After that, the talk was mostly of logistics. Whether the miners deemed Habbad-Dûm worth salvaging, or whether the lowest level should just be closed up so as not to disturb the peace of the Dwarves who had died there. At this point Floki, Harko, and Duma all spoke up and suggested moving the corpses back up and into the Halls of Waiting, so that the dead might find a proper resting place among their own kin.

Celebrimbor was leaning back in a chair that someone had thankfully provided him with, glad that he was relegated to a mere spectator and didn't have to talk for once. Stars, he was tired. He hadn't noticed it before, but now that the mad venture was over, now that everything was done, the exhaustion that he had put off again and again and again crashed down on him with a vengeance. He closed his eyes and let the sound of voices around him turn to a muddled din, comforting in the background.

After a while, he opened his eyes again. Annatar was standing next to his chair, one hand lying on the backrest next to Celebrimbor's head. His attention was on the group of Dwarves gathered around the table in front of them, who were currently discussing whether the Doors of Durin could be reopened and when.

Celebrimbor looked him up and down.

Annatar was standing ramrod-straight, his attention was fixed on the Dwarves. And yet, for all that he was acting like he was well, Celebrimbor had never seen his Maiarin friend look so – so wrong. He hadn't noticed it as strongly in the dimness of the tunnels and he hadn't paid attention to it as long as there had been more urgent things on his mind – he had found Annatar, wounded but alive, and that was all that had mattered. Now however, in the bright lights of the lamps of the throne room and with the time to regard his friend properly for the first time ever since they had been separated from each other, Celebrimbor noticed for the first time just how battered Annatar really looked.

Usually, Annatar kept an impeccable appearance that could not be tainted by water or ashes, dirt or rain. His surroundings only ever seemed to touch him as far as he allowed them to. As a result, his appearance was always radiant and clean, his white robes always pristine and stainless. Right now, though, the damage Annatar that had taken became glaringly obvious. His golden hair had been turned ash-blond by dirt, soot, and fire, the locks tangled and singed in places. His face was covered with burn marks, cuts, and bruises. The skin over his left eyebrow had been split, as if a claw had slashed him there, and his cheeks were grey. His robes were burnt and torn in places, the white fabric turned black by ashes and singes. His knuckles were skinned and red, as if he had hit his fists very hard against something.

Celebrimbor knew that what he was seeing, the body that his mind told him he was seeing, was nothing more than raiment for Annatar to wear – and yet.

How badly is he hurt, Celebrimbor wondered, if the wounds of his spirit are bleeding into his physical form?

But he knew that Annatar wouldn't appreciate it if Celebrimbor called attention to his state in front of the assembled Dwarves, so he decided to keep his silence for now.

Much later, after they had finally been dismissed, they were walking the hallways of the palace side by side. The hallways were empty, and the echoes of their footfalls echoed strangely in the abandoned corridors. Durin had sent them off to rest, but Annatar had been taken by a growing restlessness the longer the meeting had dragged on.

After he and Celebrimbor had left the throne room, Annatar had insisted on visiting the workshop where Celebrimbor had forged the ring, and to review the process that he had used to create it.

“Why now?” Celebrimbor had asked. “Can't this wait? Surely this has time until after we've had a night's rest.”

“I don't think it has,” Annatar had said. He appeared calmer after Celebrimbor had pulled off the ring earlier, but he still kept throwing suspicious glances at the pocket of Celebrimbor's waistcoat, in which he was carrying the little trinket. “I don't have the slightest idea what you created here, and I don't think you fully grasp it, either. I don't want to indulge in leisure while we still have that unknown quantity around.”

Celebrimbor had felt incredibly tired ever since he had pulled off his ring, but he realized that there would be no point in arguing with Annatar about this. In the end, he had agreed to come along. Half of him wanted to be there when Annatar reviewed the formulae, because deep down Celebrimbor knew that he had made some kind of breakthrough that they hadn't been able to achieve before now. He just wanted to see Annatar's reaction when he read the calculations, imagined the process in his head, and realized this as well.

The other half of him – just wanted to stay by Annatar's side. Celebrimbor still barely dared to believe that he had done it: that Annatar was back, that it was really over. A small, insistent part of him was certain that if he allowed Annatar to so much as vanish around a corner in the hallway, the dream would burst: the rescue would never have happened and his friend would be gone forever.

I'll just go with him, Celebrimbor thought. That way I can stay by his side, answer his questions, and afterwards I can collapse into my bed and not rise again for five days straight.

He knew that he had overtaxed himself down in Habbad-Dûm, and he knew that he'd probably pay dearly for it. However, that wasn't what worried him most right now.

He threw a side glance at Annatar who was walking beside him.

Annatar looked strange. His eyes were too bright, his back was too straight. Something about his posture and his mood reminded Celebrimbor of too many fatally-wounded soldiers he had seen in the ditches and trenches across Beleriand in an age now past, who refused to show weakness in the face of enemies and comrades alike. You never saw them buckle, you never saw them stumble, and then all of a sudden they were dead and you didn't even know when or where they had gone down.

Celebrimbor touched Annatar's elbow gingerly. “Are you sure you do not want to rest first? You don't look well.”

Annatar laughed, his teeth too white in his ashen face. “Nonsense,” he said, brisk and dismissive. “As if I would allow a brief encounter with one of the Urulóki to keep me from going about my business! No, I feel fine. Let us go and see what great idea this crisis has brought forth in your mind, Tyelperinquar. To be entirely honest: rash and reckless though it might have been made, I cannot wait to learn the details of your ring, seeing how it obviously worked far better in some ways than any prototype we have made until now,” he added lightly.

Celebrimbor wanted to argue that any prototype, no matter how fascinating or extraordinary, could surely wait until tomorrow to be examined, but in the end, he didn't.

They walked together, their pace fast and their steps evenly matched. Then, just as they were about to exit the palace – out of the corner of his eye, Celebrimbor saw a break in Annatar's even step, just the slightest stumble.

And this time, Celebrimbor caught him when he fell.

***

“Now this is just embarrassing,” Annatar said. The annoyance of his tone was blunted somewhat by the fact that he looked like he would collapse again at any moment, and the fact that he was sitting in Celebrimbor's bed, his back propped up by three cushions.

“I don't know, I would call it 'worrying',” Celebrimbor rebutted and let himself fall down into the armchair that he had pulled up to the side of the bed. “I'll never again believe you when you say 'I am fine'.”

Annatar snorted. “That makes two of us then.”

Celebrimbor sighed. “Honestly now, how bad is it?”

Annatar looked down at his bruised hands, down his tattered robes. “It is suboptimal,” he admitted at last.

“How suboptimal?”

Annatar didn't answer immediately. He turned his hands over in the warm glow of the lampstone on Celebrimbor's nightstand, which was the only source of light in the darkened room. Annatar examined the burns, the bruises, the tears that were everywhere on his form, then leaned back against the cushions again.

“Usually, I would leave my body behind at this point,” he said bluntly. “Discard it like a worn-through cloth. Leave it to die.” He smirked at Celebrimbor's shocked expression. “But, as you should know, my body is just another raiment to me. Leaving it behind usually hurts me as little as it would hurt you taking off a jacket.”

“Yes,” Celebrimbor said, trying to will his heartbeat to calm from where it had spiked painfully during Annatar's little speech. “It is just … I associate it with you. For me, it actually is you. To think that any part of you, no matter how insignificant, would … ah, but there is my incarnate perspective speaking again, isn't it?”

“Quite. My body is not me.” Annatar waved his hand, but then stilled and seemed to reconsider something. “As it is, there are still certain drawbacks and limitations to reincarnation,” he admitted. “If I were to let go of this body in my current state, I would not have the energy in the foreseeable future to recreate a form that is even marginally as powerful as the one I am wearing now.”

Celebrimbor watched him, noting the indefinable feeling of thinness about him, the grey tint to his face, his tattered robes, the faded gold of his hair. “And so you are going to hold on to this one.”

Annatar nodded. “Yes. It will be … difficult, I expect. It is beyond what I would usually count as worth salvaging, and I do not have a great deal of strength at the moment.”

“Can I – ” he started, but Annatar interrupted him almost immediately.

“No, Tyelperinquar, however honourable your intentions may be, you may not lend me your strength to replenish myself, seeing how, were I to really draw on you, you would not only die on the spot, but immediately be consumed and wiped from existence,” Annatar said sharply. He seemed to become aware of how harshly he had spoken, because he sighed and massaged his temples as if fighting off a headache. “Thank you, Tyelperinquar,” he said, more softly now. “But you have poured enough of yourself into that ring of yours already. Take your own advice and get some sleep.” He smiled thinly, obviously attempting to take the edge off the sharpness of his earlier words.

There was a brief pause.

“Is there anything I can do?” Celebrimbor asked at last.

Annatar shook his head. “No, you have done enough. I just need a bit of time. There is much I will have to do in order to save this form. I need to rest.”

“How do you mean to do that? You told me the Ainur didn't sleep.”

Annatar threw him a brief glance before looking down at his own form again as if he didn't quite recognize it any longer. “We do not. But right now I am expending my strength to remain in contact and communication with the world beyond myself. If I am attempting to heal this form, this energy could be better spent elsewhere, which is why I shall … retreat, for a time.”

Celebrimbor nodded, trying to hide the cold feeling of fear rising up his spine. Everything inside of him was urging to beg Annatar to stay awake, to stay conscious, as if he might slip away and fade otherwise. But he understood that retreating from the world was Annatar's best chance to survive at this point.

“Do you want me to take you to the healers?” Celebrimbor asked with forced nonchalance. “I brought you here because my room was closest to where we were when you … fell. And since your own bedroom does no longer have a bed, because you don't sleep and rather wanted to have the second and third bookshelves fit in there, instead, I thought...” He trailed off, not even knowing where he was going with this sentence anymore. “I mean, the healers could help you better than I can, perhaps.”

“No.” Annatar shook his head. “No healer can help me with what I need to do. It will be best if I can take my time somewhere where no one can disturb me.” He paused. “Besides, I would feel more at ease if I knew that I had left my fana here with you, rather than with anyone else here in Khazad-Dûm.” Annatar looked down, and seemed to become aware that he was currently occupying Celebrimbor’s only bed. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

“Of course not.” Celebrimbor forced himself to smile. “If you want to stay here, then stay.”

“Where will you go?” Annatar asked.

“I will stay with you,” Celebrimbor said without the slightest bit of hesitation.

Annatar looked surprised at first, but then he smiled. “I expected no different from you,” he replied.

***

About a week after their return from their desperate rescue mission, Fundin visited Celebrimbor in his chambers. Annatar had not woken yet, and Celebrimbor hadn't left his rooms in all the intervening time.

“I thought I should look in on you,” Fundin told him. “No one's seen in you in the halls or the city ever since you returned, and I told myself I better make sure that you don't forget about eating or drinking.”

“Thank you,” Celebrimbor said, accepting a sizeable package of food and sweets, already knowing that he wouldn't be able to eat it. He just didn't have the stomach for food lately.

“How's your friend?” Fundin asked.

“Unchanged,” Celebrimbor replied, trying to appear nonchalant about it. “But he doesn't … work like we Incarnates do. I cannot tell whether he's improving or not. His unchanged state might not mean anything. Perhaps he is just taking his time.” He shoved away the possibility that Annatar's stalled recuperation might be owed to other, worse reasons.

“Ah, well. I wish him the best, then.” Fundin put down another package of food on Celebrimbor's desk – how in the world was he supposed to eat all of this? Celebrimbor wondered – then laid a few books and journals down next to it. “I thought you might appreciate a bit of reading material to take your mind off the waiting. You know, to make the time pass a bit faster.”

As it was, Celebrimbor hadn't been able to read either. He had tried, of course, but after sitting down with a short Rhûnian novella, he had eventually realized that he had been staring at the same page for the last two hours but retained nothing of it. After that he had given up on reading.

“Thank you, I might try to read it later,” Celebrimbor said evasively. Then he sat down on the sofa in front of the crackling fireplace, indicating for Fundin to do the same. “But do tell, what news from the realm? Have things calmed down somewhat?”

Fundin barked out a sharp laugh, but sat down nonetheless. “I wish. Have you ever noticed how smoothly and effectively things work during an crisis situation, only for events to get confused rapidly and become ever more tangled up afterwards?”

Celebrimbor nodded. He resisted the morbid urge to reply that he had seen enough wars to know that particular problem very well.

“Well, that's just how things are now. We have come out of the immediate thick of events, but there are still many things that must be resolved, none of which could be addressed until now.”

“What will happen now?” Celebrimbor asked.

Fundin sighed heavily. “Many things. The kingdom isn't the same as it was two weeks ago. The fallout of the catastrophe must be dealt with, but there are social, medical, and political elements to it as well. Most pressingly, Duma, Velech, and Harko might have meant well, but they still planned nothing short of a coup against their king on the night you made the ring. Durin cannot let that stand, not if he is to remain our ruler. He is currently considering the measures he will take against them.”

Celebrimbor stared at Fundin. “But they were only thinking of the good of the realm, however twisted the execution might have been.”

“Perhaps. But you must not forget that it began with a slight to their cultural sensibilities, and that this is what drove them to their later, greater measures. You acted rashly and without regard to our customs and traditions, and thus you offended us. Nothing less – but also nothing more. A misstep happened and apologies were made. More importantly, no lasting harm came from it. The Balrog especially had nothing to do with you, and the most that they could reasonably hold against you was an unintended insult, and one made in good faith at that. They cannot simply resort to violence and a coup in retribution.” Fundin sighed. “I know we tend to act viciously when we are wounded, and lash out when we feel threatened… but we cannot let vengeful impulses dictate how we rise to problems; and meet harm that is done to us with harm that we do ourselves. We have to be better than that. Our leaders especially.”

Celebrimvor nodded thoughtfully. “About half of Khazad-Dûm was probably siding with them, though. How would Durin ever justify this to his people without losing the support of the greater part of the realm?”

Fundin shrugged. “I don't know.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “I honestly do not know.” A few seconds passed in silence. “But we must find a way, and therefore we will.”

“No one ever said it would be easy, right?” Celebrimbor laughed hollowly.

“No. In fact, when he offered me my post Durin made it abundantly clear that I would live my life trying to live up to impossible expectations of everyone around me.” Fundin shrugged. “Of all the things I could complain about in my work, No one told me is not one of them.”

“But isn't that just the point?” Celebrimbor could feel himself growing agitated. “No one did tell you what could happen, mainly because they themselves couldn't have imagined what degree of upheaval one idiot of a Noldo and his stupid ideas could cause.”

Fundin sat a bit more upright. “Kurfi –”

“I'm sorry I brought this upon you, Fundin,” Celebrimbor said quietly, and all of a sudden, on the last word, his voice broke. “Ever since I've set foot into Khazad-Dûm, I have caused nothing but trouble with my wilful short-sightedness. I was so consumed by what I wanted to happen that I disregarded every single Dwarf in the realm in favour of it. Most of all I disregarded you, and I am – I am so sorry.” He buried his face in his hands, because he couldn't bear to look at Fundin any longer.

He heard Fundin rise from his seat in the armchair and sit down next to him on the sofa. Carefully, Fundin laid an arm around his shoulders. “It is alright, Kurfi. We have talked about this already. You apologized, and I forgave you.”

“But that's not even important, is it?” Celebrimbor looked up, meeting Fundin’s gaze. “What you might say and do matters only a little – because the ripples of my actions have had an effect that reaches far further than the two of us. I pulled the entire realm of Khazad-Dûm into this. And it doesn't stop simply because I apologized. I thought that maybe after we went down into the mines and rescued as many survivors as we can – perhaps then it would be over, everyone would be good, everyone would be fine, but – that's not the way life works.”

Celebrimbor shook his head and stared straight into the flames dancing in the fireplace. His vision of the tongues of fire kept blurring and blazing oddly. “An apology solves nothing. A gesture doesn't end anything. Nothing is over yet. I did everything I could to make things right again, but your realm is still falling apart, and all those Dwarves are still dead, Annatar is still dying, Harko and Duma are still being taken to trial –”

“Kurfi, you need to stop talking,” Fundin said calmly, but bluntly. “Contrary to what you might think, it is very important to me that you apologized. As for the other things you said – yes, your actions have had consequences that no one could have foreseen. But you can't undo those things. We are where we are, and we have what we have, and we must work with that.”

Fundin turned a bit in his seat so that he was facing Celebrimbor straight-on. “Besides, just as much as you bringing Aulëndil into Khazad-Dûm has not gone unnoticed, neither has your descent into the mines. You have done as much as you could to make amends, Kurfi, and no one can reasonably demand any more of you. You made a grave mistake, but you also made great amends. Your anger does not help anyone now, and it is only hurting you. Let it go.”

Fundin reached out and squeezed Celebrimbor's clenched fist, which was digging into the fabric of the sofa so violently that his knuckles were turning white.

“One would think that someone with my history would have known that actions have consequences,” Celebrimbor said tonelessly.

“One should think so, yes.” Fundin hummed. “So isn't it good that once in a while, a forgetful, headstrong elf gets another chance to be reminded of it? Besides, it is not only our mistakes and errors that come with consequences. An honest good deed will make its ripples all the same. One good turn may bring about another, and honest remorse will not fall on deaf ears.”

Celebrimbor looked up, taken aback at this. When Fundin gave him an encouraging smile, though, he couldn't help smiling back. He laughed quietly and wiped his sleeve over his eyes. “I guess so.”

“Don't worry too much,” Fundin said. “You might not believe it, but we have recovered from greater disasters in the past. We are not crumbling, and your friend isn't dying. At the moment everything might look uncoordinated and broken, but … you know, even a damaged kingdom is stronger than it looks, and so is your friend. Just give it time.” Fundin gave Celebrimbor's hand another squeeze. “You will be amazed what every single one of us can come back from. It will be fine, you will see.”

*

Later the same evening, just after Fundin had left, Celebrimbor sat by Annatar's side, not touching him or talking to him, just watching his friend's still form. The Maia had been lying like this for a week now: devoid of any signs of life and with no indication of breathing. Celebrimbor felt strange sitting next to his friend, who had at all times appeared untouchable by the world, if not entirely invincible. This image had been shattered to pieces after Annatar had clashed with a foe just as powerful as himself, leaving him broken and wounded to a degree that terrified Celebrimbor like few other things he had known.

What could he still be sure of, if even the friend he had considered invulnerable could suddenly die on him?

For Annatar was now lying in Celebrimbor's bed, motionless and grey-faced, and Celebrimbor was keeping watch over the nearly destroyed husk of his friend, who had retreated to a place deep within himself, working and restoring and repairing a thousand little lacerations, tears, and damages in places too deep for any healer to reach.

At last, Celebrimbor couldn't hold himself back any longer. He reached out and took Annatar's right hand in his own. The Maia’s skin was cold to the touch.

“Promise me that you'll come back to me,” Celebrimbor said quietly. “Or else …” He laughed brokenly, realising how laughable any threat that he could make must seem. “Or else I will hold it against you forever. I climbed down into that horrible place for you, so the least you can do in return is to come back to me, do you hear?”

He paused. “Please come back to me,” he repeated quietly.

***

Annatar woke and the first thing he felt was pain.

It blazed through him, white-hot and ice-cold all at once, like a frozen lake hit by lightning. He immediately retreated again, curling up into a small, unfeeling node at the very centre of the body, far removed from most of the nerves or muscles that could ache.

When he tried to shift his sluggish vessel of a body into a different position from there, he noticed the weakness in the limbs. His hold over them was tenuous, like a hand continually losing its grip on something slippery.

It wasn't as bad as a full disembodiment and subsequent reincarnation, but it came annoyingly close. He felt compressed, like liquid fire being poured into far too small a vessel that was air-tight on top of everything, stifling his strength by depriving the fire of oxygen. He was estranged from his own body, like a hand that had been shoved into a glove that no longer fit; almost overwhelmed by the multitude of muscles, sinews, veins, and nerves. For a moment, he felt acutely unable to steer such a needlessly overcomplicated and aggravatingly fragile vessel.

The urge to let go of this form and leave its needless ballast behind was momentarily overwhelming, but Annatar fought it down and waited. His control over his body was threatening to break with every moment. It only allowed for rough, imprecise movement so long as he wasn't allowing himself to inhabit the body fully, but instead steering it with rough commands from a remote location. This was the exact reason why controlling a vessel via mind alone worked so badly compared to possessing it. In order to steer a body, a certain degree of … investment was indispensable, and anything else would only ever amount to unsatisfying solutions. It was a trade that came with incomparable control over something corporeal that could never be reached by remote command. The drawback was vulnerability. At some point in time, every Ainu had had to learn this lesson, however unwillingly. In the end, every single one of them had made the trade regardless – to varying degrees of investment and success both. The main difference was that some of the Endless Ones had been more aware of what they had been getting themselves into than others.

He briefly considered retreating once more and giving himself a bit more time to repair himself, but in the end, he decided against it. He could bear pain very well – as a Maia he had never had such an intimate and immediate relationship with it as Incarnates did. He could mostly ignore it, if he chose to. What he couldn't ignore, however, was the acute boredom he faced while locked up inside his vessel with no possibility for interaction with the outside world. No, that wouldn't do. He wanted to wake up, he just had to take care not to get overwhelmed by doing it too fast like he had the first time.

When he was more certain of himself, he slowly extended himself into his body again, slowly building his awareness into its more remote corners and gradually adjusting to the pain that came with the physical capability to feel.

When he had gotten used to it, he opened his eyes. He saw a chiselled stone ceiling, its reliefs doused into stark grey shadows and warm highlights by the glow of something to his right. Slowly, other impressions surfaced through the background noise of general feeling, like small bulbs of light surfacing from a dark pond, before vanishing again.

Warm air. Fabric beneath his hands. The weight of a light blanket.

Ah yes, the bedroom.

But there was another feeling, somehow more distinct and more poignant than the rest. Something warm was curled around his right hand, and from it a surge of warmth and strength was seeping upwards to his shoulder and from there, right to where his heart was.

Annatar turned his head and saw that Celebrimbor was sitting in a chair next to his bed, collapsed against the headrest and armrest of his seat. His eyes were closed and his breathing was slow and even. Annatar's eyes wandered further down to find Celebrimbor's left hand, which was stretched out over toward the bed, resting lightly on Annatar's own. It didn't take much to guess that he had been lending Annatar his own strength, no matter how strongly Annatar had warned him against it.

Annatar snorted, but there was no real anger behind the sound. “You impossible, obstinate creature,” he said softly and slowly extricated his hand from Celebrimbor's grip. The surge of warmth subsided.

Annatar ignored the distinct feeling of loss, and instead turned onto his side so that he might better regard the elf’s sleeping form. Celebrimbor appeared at ease in his sleep, but his face was marked with the tell-tale signs of deep exhaustion. Small wonder, after everything that he had done. If Annatar judged him even remotely correctly, Celebrimbor had pushed himself far beyond the boundaries of his physical limitations in the aftermath of the Balrog attack. What with the rescue mission Celebrimbor had led, his creation of a magical ring, and then, of course, lending Annatar his strength, despite the fact that he must have been entirely drained himself…

“What does it take for you not to take these risks and potentially destroy yourself for the sake of others?” Annatar asked with a weary sigh.

Indeed, he couldn’t even allow himself to think about how close, and how often, Celebrimbor had come to dying – and only over the course of the last few days? Weeks? He had lost all sense of time while he had been busy repairing his fana. In the end, though, it didn’t matter.

Every single instance was one time too many.

Annatar thought back to the conversation that they had had after Celebrimbor had returned from his wake for Narvi. Celebrimbor might have acquiesced in the possibility of his own death with a horrifying casualness and fatalism, but Annatar wouldn’t accept it. Not now. Not ever. Even if Celebrimbor regarded his own demise as some inevitable consequence of being incarnate, Annatar would not allow it to come to pass.

Annatar thought back to the moment when the Balrog had emerged, when his thoughts had actually gone blank with terror for a split second, as he had, for a terrifying, dreadful moment, been certain that this was the moment when he lost Celebrimbor – the moment when his vision of Celebrimbor in the Halls of Waiting became reality, and he would be forced to watch as the thing that was most precious to him in the world was taken from him.

He wasn’t able to suppress the tremor that shook his form. The memory alone sufficed to make him feel physically ill.

What then, if Celebrimbor really were to be taken from him – by a malicious turn of fate, by an accident, or even by the elf’s own unwillingness to fight his mortal nature?

The moment I lose him, I will fall apart myself.

The realization was less shocking than he had expected it to be. Annatar guessed that he had known it for a long time. There had been a time when he would have balked at this knowledge – of being so deeply tied to another and depending on them. At some point, however, he had simply stopped thinking of Celebrimbor and himself as two separable entities. They had spent so much time together, so many hours drifting through their shared thoughts and ideas, that – to imagine a world where Annatar was suddenly alone again, thrown back onto merely his own self, and feeling only emptiness where that radiant mind had once rested against his own –

I will not allow it, Annatar thought. I will not allow you to come to harm, Tyelperinquar. And if I must stop the stars in their course, if I must push the world off its axis, if I must destroy death itself – then I will do it. I will do anything it takes to keep you at my side. Safe, and here with me.

Annatar regarded the elf for a moment longer, then pushed himself up on his elbows. He hesitated for a moment, torn between two conflicting desires, then he reached out and gently brushed a dark lock of hair from Celebrimbor's tired face.

Celebrimbor made a small noise, shifted, and – woke.

Annatar quickly pulled his hand back.

Celebrimbor's body tensed as he righted himself from his slumped position. He rubbed his eyes, then blinked. It took a few moments for his gaze to come into focus, but then his eyes landed on Annatar and they widened. “What – you're awake!”

The transformation that went through the elf was nothing short of amazing. All of a sudden every trace of sleepiness was gone; in an instant, Celebrimbor was wide awake. His gaze found Annatar looking back at him and – by the stars and the darkness between them... A fire lit up in Celebrimbor’s eyes, so bright and strong that Annatar didn't even dare to allow himself to consider the reasons for it, let alone try and put a name to what might have caused it. The implications –

Celebrimbor immediately leaned forward, interrupting that perilous train of thought. His hands reached out to touch Annatar but then stopped, obviously wanting but not quite daring to when reason caught up with his impulse. “How long have you been awake? How are you?”

“I am well. Perhaps not fine, but far better than I have been before.” Annatar pushed himself up into a sitting position and leaned against the headrest of the bed.

“So you will be able to…”

“Keep my current body, yes.” Annatar’s lips quirked up in a small smile.

Celebrimbor returned the smile, relieved. “That's … good. I'm glad.”

“As for your other question, I haven't been awake for long, but long enough to notice that you have been reckless once again.” Annatar pointedly looked at Celebrimbor's left hand.

Celebrimbor's smile turned into a wry grin. “And you are going to reprimand me for it, first thing after you've woken up.”

“Truth be told, I might as well give it up as a lost cause at this point,” Annatar said, rolling his eyes. “If you are so intent on destroying yourself, I might as well just stand aside and let you have your way.”

“But there's the catch, isn't it?” Celebrimbor said, and his tone was unlike anything Annatar had ever heard before. It sounded teasing, almost sly, like a cat closing in on a prey. “You could never do that, couldn't you?”

Annatar gave him an unimpressed look. “Don't underestimate my ability to enjoy watching an incorrigible self-destructionist like you get what's coming for him.”

“You're one to talk,” Celebrimbor retorted. “You stood in the way of a Balrog for me.”

“And I'm beginning to regret it.”

Celebrimbor laughed. “As if. You know, Annatar, when it comes down to it, you're not a good liar after all.”

Annatar wanted to protest, but then thought differently of it. He bit his lip, then just let himself smile. His body really seemed to want to do so. “No, maybe I don't care about some pretences as much as I used to.”

Celebrimbor chuckled, then fell silent. For a while he just looked at Annatar, with absolute focus and a slight, soft smile on his lips, as if nothing else in the world mattered.

“It is good to have you back,” Celebrimbor said at last.

Annatar wanted to answer, but for everything that he could have said in reply, there were a thousand things that he wanted to say, but couldn't, still couldn't… At least not at this point.

“It's good to be back,” he said instead.

It had to be enough. For now.

Everything else would have to wait just a bit longer. Until the last pretences were gone.

***

“Show me that ring of yours,” Annatar demanded one day.

Celebrimbor looked up from the Rhûnian novella which he was (finally) close to finishing. “The ring? Is that what you have been brooding on all that time?” he asked.

“I have given it some thought”, Annatar replied.

Even though the Maia still wasn't back to what could – in a figurative sense – be considered full health, he had categorically refused to let himself be kept out of commission any longer after he had woken up. He had spent the very next day intently listening to Celebrimbor's descriptions of how he had made the ring, then going over the calculations involved and trying to reconstruct the process and the maths behind it in his mind.

“I think I know now which things I have to look for in it,” Annatar continued. “Can I see it?”

Celebrimbor closed the book. He walked into the bedroom and fetched the ring from the locked drawer in the nightstand where Annatar had insisted that Celebrimbor keep it for the time being. Celebrimbor turned the unassuming gold band over in his hands and regarded it for a few moments, then left the bedroom and walked over to where the Maia was sitting in one of the armchairs by the fireside (at a closeness that would have been uncomfortable to say the least for any mortal being).

Annatar extended his hand and Celebrimbor handed the ring over to him.

Annatar turned it over in his hands, running his fingers over the smooth surface and the crystal shards embedded in the ring, examining it. His face betrayed nothing of his thoughts as he did. At last, he looked up at Celebrimbor.

“How does it work?”

Celebrimbor sat down on the armrest of Annatar's chair and explained it to him.

When he had finished, Annatar was regarding him with an absolutely flat expression.

“You just couldn't resist, could you?” he asked. “I should have known that after I told you about that in-between state of physicality and spirituality you would try something like this sooner or later. Casting your own soul out of your body based on nothing more than one conversation and good faith that it won't immediately destroy you is so very you, Tyelperinquar.”

Celebrimbor smiled. “Yes, our conversation when we came here was one of the minor inspirations for the purposes of the ring. But while it determined the How, I considered the What far more important.”

“And that would be?”

Celebrimbor regarded him evenly. “Finding all of you. Protecting you. Bringing you home.”

Annatar smiled briefly before his expression turned pensive and he looked down at the ring once more. “The ring's protection not only extends to others, I should think,” he said slowly.

Celebrimbor frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that by all rights, you shouldn't have survived your helter-skelter suicide dash into the drill chamber when you came looking for me. Did you at no point notice that the temperature in the chamber was high enough to keep mithril in a liquid state?”

Celebrimbor blinked and stared. Truth be told, that hadn't occurred to him until now. Not really.

“Oh,” he said.

“Oh?” Annatar repeated. “Is that all you have to say after barging head first into an inferno, obviously without a second thought as to whether you'd make it out alive in the first place?”

“I didn't really think of myself back then,” Celebrimbor admitted.

Annatar let his head drop back against the headrest of the armchair. “That's just the problem, isn't it? You never think of yourself.”

Celebrimbor shrugged. “It didn’t seem important at the time. But now that you mention it, the ring was created from something that Aulë himself had made … so it would not be far off to assume that it holds some powers over Fire and Earth, as well as the ability to shield someone from those elements. Like all the other Great Rings that we've tried to create before, there seems to be two aspects to all of its traits. It also seems to have a two-way connection with its bearer, drawing on their strength in exchange for protecting them and showing them what they seek...” Celebrimbor trailed off for a moment, then perked up again as something else occurred to him.

“By the way, there was something that I have been wanting to ask you for a while now,” Celebrimbor said. “When I was down in the mines, I used the Ring's bond to Aulë to try and search for you as well, but it didn't find you. Obviously you were alive, though, but I still couldn't see you anywhere. Do you know why that might have happened?”

Annatar was quiet for a long time. The silence in the room built up to something almost solid, shot through with tension, like a thundercloud that was carrying lightning just under its surface.

“It –” Annatar started, then broke off again.

It was painfully obvious what he wanted to say, but couldn't for whatever reason, so Celebrimbor decided to just say it for him.

“Your bond doesn't exist any more, does it?” he asked softly.

Annatar's gaze shot to him, his strange amber eyes locking onto Celebrimbor's own. His shoulders were tense, as if he was readying himself to bolt from the room.

Celebrimbor sighed, then averted his eyes. “I almost guessed as much,” he said. “But it doesn't matter.” He picked at the fabric of his sleeve, noticing the tension in the room being replaced by sudden bafflement.

“How do you mean that?” Annatar asked carefully.

Celebrimbor still wasn't looking at him. He knew that his friend needed the illusion of not being seen right now, of not being scrutinized.

“I've had a similar inkling in the past, once or twice,” Celebrimbor said. “You didn't really speak of Aulë a lot, and all of your reasons for travelling Middle-earth seemed to lie in your own person, rather than in being an ambassador of the Smith. If you ever spoke of him, it struck me that you didn't really seem to … revere him, let alone like him. So I just guessed that you had gone your separate way at some point in the past.”

Annatar was silent.

Celebrimbor turned back to him. “It doesn't matter in the end, does it? You are who you are, I am who I am. We have both chosen to cut some ties in our past, and we have both forged new bonds since. It shouldn't make us deficient that we chose to … walk different paths than those that had been foreseen for us.”

Annatar inclined his head to one side, his eyes searching Celebrimbor's face intently. “No, I guess not,” he said at last.

There was another silence, but this time it was less loaded and more pensive than before.

Annatar looked down at the ring lying on his palm again. “In any case, you have done remarkable work on this, on the fly and under time pressure at that,” he said. “The aspect of protection, though – ”

“We should incorporate this into our design for the Greater Rings,” Celebrimbor finished.

Annatar blinked. “Yes.”

Celebrimbor smiled. “I think the library here might have some useful books for our research in that regard.”

“On Ring-smithing?”

“In a broader sense. On mathematical topology, to be exact. While I made the new prototype, I was thinking about our basis for our torus definitions … and I believe we might need to review our definition of the configuration space of our rings to include complex manifolds.”

“It would enable us to use holomorphic functions for the mapping,” Annatar mused. “Which in turn would make the entire basis of the calculations a lot smoother… yes, the idea has some merit.”

Celebrimbor tapped his chin pensively. “I have an inkling that I found a treatise on the topic in a book that I read here a few centuries ago. I was considering finding it again before we leave.” He looked at Annatar with a challenging grin. “Do you think you're up for some research?”

Annatar gave him a lopsided smirk in return. “Tyelperinquar, by now you should know that I am always up for anything that brings us further in this endeavour.”

***

The library was abuzz with the low, soothing noises of muffled steps, whispers, and soft voices. Coloured light bathed the uppermost level in a soft purple sheen.

Annatar had left his seat some time ago to look for a referential work on hyperbolic geometry. If Celebrimbor paid attention, he could hear his friend rifling through a shelf to his right, about two aisles over.

Fundin was sitting in the third chair of the group of seats that were clustered around a small table next to the huge glass-wall at the backside of the library. When he noticed Celebrimbor listening for the soft rustling noises coming from between the aisles, the dwarf put a bookmark between the pages he had been reading and set the book aside.

“Your friend is recovering quickly,” he said.

“Yes, he is,” Celebrimbor said. “Unfortunately, his recovery goes hand in hand with a lot of impatience and restlessness on his part. I needed to get him out of the rooms and give him something to occupy himself with.”

“Understandable. He doesn't seem like a creature that could remain still for very long.”

“Quite,” Celebrimbor agreed with a laugh. “It took a Balrog to keep him down for a few days, but even then he was out and about again as soon as he had woken up.”

“Heh, he's much like you in that regard, I should say,” Fundin chuckled. “I distinctly remember that one time when you broke your right arm, and then showed up the next day with your arm in a sling and demanded we let you keep working, because you didn’t know how to busy yourself otherwise.”

Celebrimbor laughed. “What can I say? I get bored quickly when I’m all by myself and haven’t got anything to do.”

“Much like your friend Aulëndil, I wager.”

Fundin, Celebrimbor noticed, spoke more easily of Annatar now. Perhaps it was because Annatar had unequivocally proven himself an ally of the Dwarves down in the mines when the Balrog had attacked – or perhaps it was because Annatar had been wounded so direly in the process, demonstrating that no matter the differences between him and the Dwarves, he was also like them in some ways. In the end, it didn't matter. It was the first time ever that Celebrimbor was accompanied by his two best friends at the same time, and to his great surprise and joy, Annatar and Fundin seemed to get along reasonably well.

The first few minutes had been awkward as both Fundin and Annatar tried to work around the fact that they hadn't actually talked before and the most that they knew of each other was their mutual Elven friend – not to mention that they had gotten off on anything but the right foot. After a while, though, both of them had lost some of their initial stiffness and soon afterwards they had tentatively started to talk about mundane things. To Celebrimbor it had been hilarious to watch his two most eloquent friends trying their hands at smalltalk, but in the end he was simply happy that Fundin and Annatar got along now.

Celebrimbor looked down the rows of bookshelves when Annatar exited the aisle. The Maia glanced over and threw him a brief smile before continuing to browse the shelves along the outer aisle, his back to the wall of stained glass.

Celebrimbor just watched Annatar for a while as he moved down the shelves, scanning the rows of books intently for the title that he was seeking. Celebrimbor was familiar with that particular look on his friend's face. He knew that expression so very well by now: the focus, the intent, the single-minded purpose. He knew Annatar's efficient, graceful movements when he pulled a book from the shelf, and his quiet determination to find what he was looking for. Everything about him was achingly, wonderfully familiar. Well – almost everything.

For a moment, Celebrimbor's gaze caught on the sharp scar that slashed through the left eyebrow down to Annatar's eye. The scar would remain, Annatar had told him, likely even after – if ever – Annatar assumed a new form. Some scars did not heal, the Maia had said, especially if they went deeper than a mere physical wound. And yet, it seemed not too high a price to pay in exchange for a life, for a future, and Celebrimbor had told Annatar so. When his friend had only frowned at his reflection in the mirror, Celebrimbor had added that many people considered scars to be a very attractive trait, and Annatar's student Alane would certainly find them positively dashing. Celebrimbor had to duck out of the room after that, because otherwise a viciously well-aimed Complete Guide to the Grammar of Western Khuzdul might have come flying at his head.

Celebrimbor took great care not to mention it again and took great pains to keep a straight face whenever Annatar threw him a challenging glare, daring him to breach the topic again. However, when Floki came to visit, only to stare at the Maia and comment that Aulëndil looked like he'd lost a particularly bad pub fight, Celebrimbor's resolution to stay serious evaporated on the spot and he broke into a gale of laughter. Annatar, naturally, had just glared in the beginning, but eventually even he hadn't been able to hide the smile tugging at his lips. “Not quite,” he had said. “I won the fight.”

The memory faded and Celebrimbor became aware that he had been smiling to himself.

“There never was any question of whether you would return to Habbad-Dûm to save him, was there?” Fundin asked all of a sudden.

Celebrimbor blinked out of his – reverie? – and turned to face his Dwarven friend. “What?”

“It didn't matter that Harko, Duma, and Velech had cornered Durin that evening, did it? No matter whether Durin would have allowed it or not, no matter whether it would have helped Khazad-Dûm or not – you would have returned to Habbad-Dûm to save him,” Fundin said. It wasn't a question.

Celebrimbor didn't have it in him to deny it. “No, it wouldn't have mattered,” he admitted. “I mean – of course it made things easier that the nobles agreed to the plan, and I am glad that it could help the realm in some way, but…” He gave a helpless shrug. “In the end, all of that wasn't even a consideration. There was just too much on the line. My friends were down there. Annatar was down there. I mean, what would you do if there was someone you loved and they were in danger? Wouldn't you think: I am not going to lose you, I will not allow you to come to harm, I will protect you, come what may? That is what friends do for each other, isn't it?”

Strangely, Fundin looked for a moment like he might disagree, but then he merely said, “It certainly is what you would do for your friends.”

“Yes,” Celebrimbor said. “Of course.” He paused, then started again. “When I was younger … it took me a horribly long time to determine what I wanted, and an even longer time to realize what I needed. All this time I had been seeking something to give me purpose after I realized that the fate of my father didn't have to be my own. I just wanted to have something – or someone, I could dedicate myself to, without reservation, and with my entire strength, wisdom, and power. Something that, even if I died doing or knowing or experiencing it, it would have been worth it. That was, of course, a very fatalistic and needlessly complicated way of looking at life in general, when all I truly needed were some friends.”

Celebrimbor shifted in his seat. “So I started looking – I started making an effort to reach out to people for the first time in a long while. And the results were overwhelming. I got to know Narvi, you, Floki, and all the others here in Khazad-Dûm. I started to get to know my estranged aunt Galadriel once more, and after she left, I really made an effort to connect with all those who stayed behind – who had chosen me over her, for some reason. It – it was so rewarding, I cannot even put it into words. And then of course there came Annatar.” Celebrimbor paused. “I was used to being alone and fending for myself, but now that I have gotten to know all of you – now I can't imagine living without you.”

“So you finally found it, then.” Fundin smiled sadly. “Something worth dying for.”

Celebrimbor closed his eyes, humming softly. “Not quite. A few centuries ago, I would have agreed with you.”

“And today?”

“Today I would say that I found something worth living for, and that this is an indefinitely nicer and more lasting thing to have.”

Fundin looked at him for a long time. The soft humming of distant voices and the rustling of paper was the only sound in the great library.

“You have changed, Kurfi,” he said at last.

Celebrimbor looked up, surprised. “How do you mean that?”

“I was just thinking of what Baldur said when you came here,” Fundin said. “You came to us so many years ago, angry and lonely and drifting like a leaf on the wind. Over time, you lost the anger and you found many friends, but even after you had been ruling Ost-in-Edhil for years, your soul still appeared to be drifting, refusing to truly settle anywhere. But you are different now.” Fundin's sharp, weighty gaze searched Celebrimbor's own eyes. “Your heart has grown roots at last, hasn't it?”

Celebrimbor stole a quick glance at Annatar, who was completely absorbed in browsing the bookshelf along the length of the room, before looking back at Fundin, who had followed his glance.

“I think it has,” Celebrimbor said.

Chapter End Notes

Okay, so that was the last actual chapter of The Light Under the Mountain.
This means were done, right?
– Right.

NO.

Did you seriously think you'd be rid of me and this story after a paltry 130,000 words? Hah, no!
Ahem. That is to say, while this might have been the last proper chapter of this story, stay tuned for the inevitable epilogue!

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Epilogue

Annatar looked at the mountainside, his face as blank as the stone before him. He scrutinized it up and down, searching for some sign of an entrance, which was made harder by the fact that the night sky was heavily overcast and a great dark cloud was currently obscuring the moon.

“I must say, this isn't what I had in mind when I prepared myself to be dazzled by your secret door,” he said. “However, if your grin is anything to go by, I assume that you have another trick up your sleeve.”

“Patience,” Celebrimbor said with amusement, stepping up next to his friend. “You will see it in a moment.”

And just as he said this, the moon came forth from behind the clouds and its pale light fell across the cliff face. Where the light touched the stone, silver lines began to trace themselves upon the stone, branching off and merging together again into in thicker lines and swirls, drawing up the outlines of the door and two trees, a crown adorned with seven stars, another eight-pointed-star beneath it, and elegant writing across the arch of the entrance.

Celebrimbor glanced over at Annatar and found his friend watching the door reveal itself with rapt fascination, his eyes roving over the inscription with especial care.

“… I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Eregion drew these signs,” Annatar read slowly and then gave him an odd look. “Of course you did,” he said flatly, turning back towards the door. “This is more in keeping with your usual flourish.”

He narrowed his eyes and then stepped closer to the stone, running his fingers over the glowing lines. “A hidden door, only to be revealed by moonlight. How do you open it?”

“How do you think it opens?” Celebrimbor replied, following Annatar and stopping beside him. “Everything you need to know is there for you to see, and that should be enough in the way of hints.”

Annatar's quirked eyebrow told Celebrimbor that his friend, too, recognized the callback for what it was, but the Maia chose not to mention it.

“The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter.” Annatar read the sentence again, then looked at the other symbols and inscriptions, and then read it for a third time. He stood there for a while, pondering the riddle, when suddenly –

“Oh no, you did not,” he said incredulously, turning back to glare at Celebrimbor, who only raised his eyebrows and grinned in response.

“You know,” Annatar said slowly, his face drawn into an unreadable expression: “I honestly don't know what I expected. I can believe a lot of things, including the fact that you possessed the cheek to engrave the Star of Fëanor onto the entrance leading to another kingdom. What I absolutely cannot believe is that you elected that the best way to guard the way into a Dwarven kingdom would be to put a riddle with a pun right at the entrance.”

“Yes, no one believing that I would have enough sense of humour to do this is definitely part of its charm,” Celebrimbor replied, touching his hand to the cool stone. “Which, coincidentally, also makes it all the safer.”

Annatar harrumphed, as if he would dearly have liked to argue that point, but for logical reasons, unfortunately found himself unable to do so. They both looked at the outlines of the door, gleaming silver as if the light of the moon itself was caught in them.

“I can't believe we're finally going home,” Celebrimbor said with one last wistful glance at the gate before they both turned around and began to walk down the path along the edge of the still black lake.

“Quite,” Annatar agreed. “It was certainly a longer stay than either we or the Dwarves planned for.”

They crossed the Sirannon at an earlier point this time, using a stone bridge that the Dwarves had built. The swollen river gurgled quickly and merrily below their feet. Beyond the bridge, their path met the Great East Road, and Annatar and Celebrimbor followed it, just as they had done when they had come to the Mountains – only that this time they were walking away from Khazad-Dûm, and towards Ost-in-Edhil in the West. The road soon entered the forest. Evergreens and hollies welcomed them into their gloom, and every sound beneath the canopy of trees seemed muffled. Nightbirds called out every now and then, and once a hare broke from the underbrush and dashed over the path, a small, grey streak in front of Celebrimbor's feet, but apart from that, they encountered no one. The nighttime forest was still and peaceful.

For a while they just walked in silence, enjoying the fresh night air and their quick progress on the empty road. Celebrimbor had thoroughly lost himself in the pace of his feet and the meandering of his thoughts, so he was startled when Annatar suddenly spoke.

“Do you think your friend – Fundin – will be all right? He still appeared very busy, even when we left.”

Celebrimbor hadn't really expected Annatar to ask about his Dwarven friend. Fundin and Annatar had gotten along well enough in the end, but for the most part, they had also kept a careful, polite distance right up until they had said their farewells at the gate a few hours before.

Still, it made Celebrimbor … happy, knowing that the Maia appeared to care about Fundin.

“He will be fine,” he told Annatar. “It might take him some time, but he has assured me that the realm will settle and then reopen its doors after everything has been sorted out. That being said, our visit did make an … er, impact, and they are still working through that.”

“You really did offend them by bringing me there, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

“Dwarves are a prickly bunch,” Annatar noted.

“To our eyes, perhaps. But it is not for us to judge them for their customs and traditions. I offended them, and thus I had to make amends.”

“But you didn't have to leave the ring with them, surely?” Annatar raised his eyebrows.

“It wasn't mine,” Celebrimbor replied. “It was their tools and materials that I borrowed, and it was them who granted me the shards of Aulë's lamps – for the time being. I had to return the ring to them.”

Annatar looked as if he would have liked to disagree, but thankfully he chose not to argue the point, simply shrugging instead. “If you say so.”

“Yes, I do say so. They have given us so much, and it was only fair that we returned the ring to them.” Celebrimbor threw Annatar a side glance. “If you want to have your own ring so badly, I'll just make you another one.”

This at last managed to elicit a smile from Annatar. “Now that is a compromise I could live with.”

Celebrimbor rolled his eyes. “Your understanding of a compromise is being offered an inch, and then being outraged when someone calls you out on taking the entire ell.”

Annatar just shrugged. “Your point being?”

Celebrimbor shook his head, laughing softly. “Remind me why we are friends again?”

“I gave you a list of reasons when we came here. Should I repeat them?”

“Please don't.” Celebrimbor chuckled.

“I could do it in alphabetical order, or in rising order of poignancy.”

“Don't. Or else I might decide that they are all worthless in the face of your more horrible traits.”

“As if you could name even one of those,” Annatar scoffed.

“Don't try me,” Celebrimbor warned. He could feel that his smile had grown across his face.

Just as it seemed Annatar would say something similarly pointed in response, a roll of distant thunder echoed over the woods of Eregion. Only moments later the first drops of rain began to fall.

Celebrimbor sighed. “It seems we're destined to both arrive and leave in the rain.” He knelt down and pulled the oilcloak from his backpack, then slung it about his shoulders.

They must have walked another two miles before Celebrimbor noticed that something was off. The canopy of trees had mostly shielded them from the initial drizzle, but the rain was becoming stronger by the minute, turning into a steady downpour that not even the leaves and boughs could hold off.

They came to a slight opening in the canopy where there was a bit more light to see, when Celebrimbor happened to glance at Annatar and stopped dead in his tracks.

“Annatar – what in the name of –”

Annatar looked at him with an expression that was eerily reminiscent of a cat that had been dunked in water. That is to say, he was in fact also nearly as wet as a cat that had been pushed into a bathtub. His hair was plastered to his skull, and his white robes hung heavy and sodden from his shoulders.

Celebrimbor was momentarily speechless. “What – what's going on?”

“Well, as you can see, I am enjoying the weather,” Annatar grumbled.

“But – I thought – ” Celebrimbor struggled for words. “I thought you could just take care of it with magic –” He interrupted himself, remembering what Annatar had told him about this meta-stable state in which rain couldn't touch him. Celebrimbor's face fell. “Oh. But you said it's taking a lot of energy to keep up that state and you – ”

Annatar sighed. “I currently don't have enough strength to spare for that particular feat, yes,” he finished the sentence.

Celebrimbor stared at him. “But why didn't you say anything?”

Annatar shrugged. “What was I supposed to say?”

“You could have asked for a cloak.” Celebrimbor still looked at him. “Don't tell me you'd rather walk in the rain, just because you were too proud to ask for my help.”

Annatar didn't answer, simply glowering instead.

Celebrimbor stared at him for a moment longer, then shook his head and shrugged off his backpack once more.

“What are you doing?” Annatar asked, as Celebrimbor rummaged through the contents of his backpack, shoving aside books, an inkpot, a lampstone – ah, there it was.

“What does it look like?” Celebrimbor asked as he righted himself and then swung the oilcloak around Annatar's shoulders, fastening the clip at his throat. “There, isn't that better?”

Annatar looked down, first at himself and then at the raindrops pearling off the unusually dark fabric that was now covering his white robes almost completely. Then he looked up at Celebrimbor. “You didn't have to.”

“I know.”

“I won't even catch a cold unless I want to. It really wasn't necessary.”

“I am aware,” Celebrimbor replied evenly. “But I'd still say it is even more unnecessary for you to get wet if I have a perfectly fine spare cloak right here and you could just as well stay dry.”

“Yes, but –” Annatar interrupted himself, looking strangely uncomfortable. “I only meant that you don't have to concern yourself with me. I am not an Incarnate, and – ”

“ – not subjected to our limitations and our vulnerabilities,” Celebrimbor finished for him. “I know. But that is beside the point.”

Annatar raised one eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

“You always speak of looking out for me,” Celebrimbor continued. “And yet you are continually surprised when I try to do the same for you. This has nothing to do with you being a Maia and me being a mortal; or indeed, with needing help or being able to fend for yourself. I don't care if you were there when the universe was made, or if you can create stars in the palm of your hand. I am your friend, and you are mine. You will step in the way of a Balrog for me, and I will pull you out of the abyss afterwards. You want to look out for me, and I want to do the same for you. It is like with the rings we are making: the connection goes both ways.”

To stress his point, he reached out and took Annatar's hands in his own. Annatar let it happen, looking first at their hands, then silently up at Celebrimbor, as if he couldn’t quite see where his friend was trying to go with this argument.

“I know you introduced yourself to me as the Lord of Gifts,” Celebrimbor said, looking down at the circle formed by their joined hands and arms. “But you are no mere lord to me any longer, as you well know. You haven't been something so mundane as that in a long time. You are my closest friend, my brother. And I hope I can be the same to you –”

“How can you doubt that?” Annatar said sharply, but Celebrimbor interrupted him by slowly pulling him closer, until they were almost chest to chest and nose to nose. Annatar's eyes widened, his shoulders tensed briefly –

“I never doubted you,” Celebrimbor said – quietly, almost inaudibly, over the slow, steady drip of the raindrops around them. “I only know that you are used to giving.” Celebrimbor looked him straight in the eye. “But, Annatar … love is not a one-way connection either. Allow me to give something back to you. Allow yourself to receive.”

It was hard to make out Annatar's expression in the dim half-light of the night, between the wild clouds that were chasing each other over the sky, the wind, the rain, the moon. He could feel the warmth of Annatar's hands in his own, the electrical crackle of nerves that coursed through both of them, a closed circuit, brimming with a strange static that seemed to build, and build, and build –

“Tyelperinquar –” Annatar said, and his voice was strangely raw, not at all like the composed tone that he usually spoke in. His fingers tightened around Celebrimbor's hands. “I can't ask that of you, to bind yourself to me when you don't know everything there is to know.”

He didn't say 'about me,' but Celebrimbor heard it nonetheless, as clearly as if Annatar had spoken it aloud. Celebrimbor would have said that he didn't care, but he knew that this conversation was not about him. Not truly.

“Do you want to tell me?” he asked instead, still holding Annatar's hands – not holding him in place or constraining him, but not breaking the connection either.

Annatar looked back at him, and for all that had happened over the past few weeks, Celebrimbor had never seen him look so open, so raw, so torn. His grip twitched, like he wanted to extricate himself one moment, then hold on tighter the next. Celebrimbor could tell that he wanted to share his secrets so badly, but there was still something that was holding him back.

Celebrimbor knew the feeling all too well. He had had it around Narvi, he had had it around Fundin, and he had had it around Annatar as well. Some things he still had not told even one of them, to this very day.

Celebrimbor closed his eyes briefly, then took a step back. The tension eased immediately.

“You can tell me whenever you are ready,” he said quietly. “Just know that I will be here. I will wait, as long as it takes. As long as you need.”

Annatar didn't meet his eyes for a moment. For just that fleeting instance, there was nothing ethereal, nothing immortal about him. He just looked miserable and conflicted, with his wet hair, the raindrops that were trailing down his face like tear-tracks and dripping from his chin, the slightly ill-fitting oilcloak, his evasive gaze –

Celebrimbor would have stepped forward to embrace him, but he knew that it wasn't the right thing to do right now. It would only push his friend further away. He wondered if there was something he should say, something he should add in order to assure Annatar of their friendship… but perhaps it would be better to leave it be for now and allow Annatar to come to Celebrimbor on his own terms.

He waited as Annatar gathered his bearings, and finally looked up at him.

“Thank you,” Annatar said, very quietly.

“It's nothing, really,” Celebrimbor said, with an easy nonchalance that he did not feel. An opportunity had been missed and was gone, and they both knew it. But it wouldn't be the last. They still had time. And if time was what it took to make Annatar open up to him, Celebrimbor would give him all the ages of the world.

Celebrimbor took another step backwards, half-turning around. “Come on,” he said with a slight smile. “Let's get out of the rain. If we travel quickly, we can make it home in two days.”

Annatar regarded him for a moment longer, then pulled the hood of the oilcloak over his head, and at last he smiled back as he stepped to Celebrimbor's side. “Yes. Let us go home.”

Chapter End Notes

Don't click away just yet. There's still something hidden after the epilogue...

For those of us who do not want to go on:

← Go back to read Part 1 of this series: Equinox

→ Go on to read Part 3 of this series: The Unread Visions of a Higher Dream

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And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

T.S. Eliot

Epilogue: In a Kinder World

Annatar looked at the mountainside, his face as blank as the stone before him. He scrutinized it up and down, searching for some sign of an entrance, which was made harder by the fact that the night sky was heavily overcast and a great dark cloud was currently obscuring the moon.

“I must say, this isn't what I had in mind when I prepared myself to be dazzled by your secret door,” he said. “However, if your grin is anything to go by, I assume that you have another trick up your sleeve.”

“Patience,” Celebrimbor said with amusement, stepping up next to his friend. “You will see it in a moment.”

And just as he said this, the moon came forth from behind the clouds and its pale light fell across the cliff face. Where the light touched the stone, silver lines began to trace themselves upon the stone, branching off and merging together again into in thicker lines and swirls, drawing up the outlines of the door and two trees, a crown adorned with seven stars, another eight-pointed star beneath it, and elegant writing across the arch of the entrance.

Celebrimbor glanced over at Annatar and found his friend watching the door reveal itself with rapt fascination, his eyes roving over the inscription with especial care.

“… I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Eregion drew these signs,” Annatar read slowly and then gave him an odd look. “Of course you did,” he said flatly, turning back towards the door. “This is more in keeping with your usual flourish.”

He narrowed his eyes and then stepped closer to the stone, running his fingers over the glowing lines. “A hidden door, only to be revealed by moonlight. How do you open it?”

“How do you think it opens?” Celebrimbor replied, following Annatar and stopping beside him. “Everything you need to know is there for you to see, and that should be enough in the way of hints.”

Annatar's quirked eyebrow told Celebrimbor that his friend, too, recognised the callback for what it was, but the Maia chose not to mention it.

“The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter.” Annatar read the sentence again, then looked at the other symbols and inscriptions, and then read it for a third time. He stood there for a while, pondering the riddle, when suddenly –

“Oh no, you did not,” he said incredulously, turning back to glare at Celebrimbor, who only raised his eyebrows and grinned in response.

“You know,” Annatar said slowly, his face drawn into an unreadable expression: “I honestly don't know what I expected. I can believe a lot of things, including the fact that you possessed the cheek to engrave the Star of Fëanor onto the entrance leading to another kingdom. What I absolutely cannot believe is that you elected that the best way to guard the way into a Dwarven kingdom would be to put a riddle with a pun right at the entrance.”

“Yes, no one believing that I would have enough sense of humour to do this is definitely part of its charm,” Celebrimbor replied, touching his hand to the cool stone. “Which, coincidentally, also makes it all the safer.”

Annatar harrumphed, as if he would dearly have liked to argue that point, but for logical reasons, found himself unfortunately unable to do so. They both looked at the outlines of the door, gleaming silver as if the light of the moon itself was caught in them.

“I can't believe we're finally going home,” Celebrimbor said with one last wistful glance at the gate before they both turned around and began to walk down the path along the edge of the still black lake.

 “Quite,” Annatar agreed. “It was certainly a longer stay than either we or the Dwarves planned for.”

They crossed the Sirannon at an earlier point this time, using a stone bridge that the Dwarves had built. The swollen river gurgled quickly and merrily below their feet. Beyond the bridge, their path met the Great East Road, and Annatar and Celebrimbor followed it, just as they had done when they had come to the Mountains – only that this time they were walking away from Khazad-Dûm, and towards Ost-in-Edhil in the west. The road soon entered the forest. Evergreens and hollies welcomed them into their gloom, and every sound beneath the canopy of trees seemed muffled. Nightbirds called out every now and then, and once a hare broke from the underbrush and dashed over the path, a small, grey streak in front of Celebrimbor's feet, but apart from that, they encountered no one. The nighttime forest was still and peaceful.

For a while they just walked in silence, enjoying the fresh night air and their quick progress on the empty road. Celebrimbor had thoroughly lost himself in the pace of his feet and the meandering of his thoughts, so he was startled when Annatar suddenly spoke.

“Do you think your friend – Fundin –  will be all right? He still appeared very busy, even when we left.”

Celebrimbor hadn't really expected Annatar to ask about his Dwarven friend. Fundin and Annatar had gotten along well enough in the end, but for the most part, they had also kept a careful, polite distance right up until they had said their farewells at the gate a few hours before.

Still, it made Celebrimbor … happy, knowing that the Maia appeared to care about Fundin.

“He will be fine,” he told Annatar. “It might take him some time, but he has assured me that the realm will settle and then reopen its doors after everything has been sorted out. That being said, our visit did make an … er, impact, and they are still working through that.”

“You really did offend them by bringing me there, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

“Dwarves are a prickly bunch,” Annatar noted.

“To our eyes, perhaps. But it is not for us to judge them for their customs and traditions. I offended them, and thus I had to make amends.”

“But you didn't have to leave the ring with them, surely?” Annatar raised his eyebrows.

“It wasn't mine,” Celebrimbor replied. “It was their tools and materials that I borrowed, and it was them who granted me the shards of Aulë's lamps – for the time being. I had to return the ring to them.”

Annatar looked as if he would have liked to disagree, but thankfully he chose not to argue the point, simply shrugging instead. “If you say so.”

“Yes, I do say so. They have given us so much, and it was only fair that we returned the ring to them.” Celebrimbor threw Annatar a side glance. “If you want to have your own ring so badly, I'll just make you another one.”

This at last managed to elicit a smile from Annatar. “Now that is a compromise I could live with.”

Celebrimbor rolled his eyes. “Your understanding of a compromise is being offered an inch, and then being outraged when someone calls you out on taking the entire ell.”

Annatar just shrugged. “Your point being?”

Celebrimbor shook his head, laughing softly. “Remind me why we are friends again?”

“I gave you a list of reasons when we came here. Should I repeat them?”

“Please don't.” Celebrimbor chuckled.

“I could do it in alphabetical order, or in rising order of poignancy.”

“Don't. Or else I might decide that they are all worthless in the face of your more horrible traits.”

“As if you could name even one of those,” Annatar scoffed.

“Don't try me,” Celebrimbor warned. He could feel that his smile had grown across his face. 

Just as it seemed Annatar would say something similarly pointed in response, a roll of distant thunder echoed over the woods of Eregion. Only moments later the first drops of rain began to fall.

Celebrimbor sighed. “It seems we're destined to both arrive and leave in the rain.” He knelt down and pulled the oilcloak from his backpack, then slung it about his shoulders.

They must have walked another two miles before Celebrimbor noticed that something was off. The canopy of trees had mostly shielded them from the initial drizzle, but the rain was becoming stronger by the minute, turning into a steady downpour that not even the leaves and boughs could hold off.

They came to a slight opening in the canopy where there was a bit more light to see, when Celebrimbor happened to glance at Annatar and stopped dead in his tracks.

“Annatar – what in the name of –”

Annatar looked at him with an expression that was eerily reminiscent of a cat that had been dunked in water. That is to say, he was in fact also nearly as wet as a cat that had been pushed into a bathtub. His hair was plastered to his skull, and his white robes hung heavy and sodden from his shoulders.

Celebrimbor was momentarily speechless. “What – what's going on?”

“Well, as you can see, I am enjoying the weather,” Annatar grumbled.

“But – I thought – ” Celebrimbor struggled for words. “I thought you could just take care of it with magic –” He interrupted himself, remembering what Annatar had told him about this meta-stable state in which rain couldn't touch him. Celebrimbor's face fell. “Oh. But you said it's taking a lot of energy to keep up that state and you – ”

Annatar sighed. “I currently don't have enough strength to spare for that particular feat, yes,” he finished the sentence.

Celebrimbor stared at him. “But why didn't you say anything?”

Annatar shrugged. “What was I supposed to say?”

“You could have asked for a cloak.” Celebrimbor still looked at him. “Don't tell me you'd rather walk in the rain, just because you were too proud to ask for my help.”

Annatar didn't answer, simply glowering instead.

Celebrimbor stared at him for a moment longer, then shook his head and shrugged off his backpack once more.

“What are you doing?” Annatar asked, as Celebrimbor rummaged through the contents of his backpack, shoving aside books, an inkpot, a lampstone – ah, there it was.

“What does it look like?” Celebrimbor asked as he righted himself and then swung the oilcloak around Annatar's shoulders, fastening the clip at his throat. “There, isn't that better?”

Annatar looked down, first at himself and then at the raindrops pearling off the unusually dark fabric that was now covering his white robes almost completely. Then he looked up at Celebrimbor. “You didn't have to.”

“I know.”

“I won't even catch a cold unless I want to. It really wasn't necessary.”

“I am aware,” Celebrimbor replied evenly. “But I'd still say it is even more unnecessary for you to get wet if I have a perfectly fine spare cloak right here and you could just as well stay dry.”

“Yes, but –” Annatar interrupted himself, looking strangely uncomfortable. “I only meant that you don't have to concern yourself with me. I am not an Incarnate, and – ”

“ – not subjected to our limitations and our vulnerabilities,” Celebrimbor finished for him. “I know. But that is beside the point.”

Annatar raised one eyebrow, but didn't say anything.

“You always speak of looking out for me,” Celebrimbor continued. “And yet you are continually surprised when I try to do the same for you. This has nothing to do with you being a Maia and me being a mortal; or indeed, with needing help or being able to fend for yourself. I don't care if you were there when the universe was made, or if you can create stars in the palm of your hand. I am your friend, and you are mine. You will step in the way of a Balrog for me, and I will pull you out of the abyss afterwards. You want to look out for me, and I want to do the same for you. It is like with the rings we are making: the connection goes both ways.”

To stress his point, he reached out and took Annatar's hands in his own. Annatar let it happen, looking first at their hands, then silently up at Celebrimbor, as if he couldn’t quite see where his friend was trying to go with this argument.

“I know you introduced yourself to me as the Lord of Gifts,” Celebrimbor said, looking down at the circle formed by their joined hands and arms. “But you are no mere lord to me any longer, as you well know. You haven't been something so mundane as that in a long time. You are my closest friend, my brother. And I hope I can be the same to you –”

“How can you doubt that?” Annatar said sharply, but Celebrimbor interrupted him by slowly pulling him closer, until they were almost chest to chest and nose to nose. Annatar's eyes widened, his shoulders tensed briefly –

“I never doubted you,” Celebrimbor said – quietly, almost inaudibly, over the slow, steady drip of the raindrops around them. “I only know that you are used to giving.” Celebrimbor looked him straight in the eye. “But, Annatar … love is not a one-way connection either. Allow me to give something back to you. Allow yourself to receive.”

It was hard to make out Annatar's expression in the dim half-light of the night, between the wild clouds that were chasing each other over the sky, the wind, the rain, the moon. He could feel the warmth of Annatar's hands in his own, the electrical crackle of nerves that coursed through both of them, a closed circuit, brimming with a strange static that seemed to build, and build, and build –

“Tyelperinquar –” Annatar said, and his voice was strangely raw, not at all like the composed tone that he usually spoke in. His fingers tightened around Celebrimbor's hands. “I can't ask that of you, to bind yourself to me when you don't know everything there is to know.”

He didn't say 'about me,' but Celebrimbor heard it nonetheless, as clearly as if Annatar had spoken it aloud. Celebrimbor would have said that he didn't care, but he knew that this conversation was not about him. Not truly.

“Do you want to tell me?” he asked instead, still holding Annatar's hands – not holding him in place or constraining him, but not breaking the connection either.

Annatar looked back at him, and for all that had happened over the past few weeks, Celebrimbor had never seen him look so open, so raw, so torn. His grip twitched, like he wanted to extricate himself one moment, then hold on tighter the next. Celebrimbor could tell that he wanted to share his secrets so badly, but there was still something that was holding him back.

Celebrimbor knew the feeling all too well. He had had it around Narvi, he had had it around Fundin, and he had had it around Annatar as well. Some things he still had not told even one of them, to this very day.

Celebrimbor closed his eyes briefly, then took a step back. The tension eased immediately.

“You can tell me whenever you are ready,” he said quietly. “Just know that I will be here. I will wait, as long as it takes. As long as you need.”

Annatar didn't meet his eyes for a moment. For just that fleeting instance, there was nothing ethereal, nothing immortal about him. He just looked miserable and conflicted, with his wet hair, the raindrops that were trailing down his face like tear-tracks and dripping from his chin, the slightly ill-fitting oilcloak, his evasive gaze –

Celebrimbor would have stepped forward to embrace him, but he knew that it wasn't the right thing to do right now. It would only push his proud friend further away. But perhaps there were other ways in which he could reach out for Annatar, even when approaching him physically in such a moment of weakness would not be welcome.

“Annatar –” He paused when his friend looked up at him, his gaze shuttered and desolate. Celebrimbor hesitated for just another moment, before he continued:

“Whoever you were before, whoever I was before, in the Old World that is gone – these things will never stop being a part of us, but we don't have to define ourselves by our past deeds forever. We can choose to be different. We were given a new world. A new chance. And know that no matter who you are or who you might have been, there is no one I would rather build this new world with than you.”

Annatar just stared at him for a few moments, absolutely unmoving – before he was suddenly taking Celebrimbor’s face in his hands, and all but slammed him up against a great oak tree by the side of the path – and then Annatar was kissing him with such fierce, unguarded, unbridled emotion that it took Celebrimbor’s breath away. The impact had pushed the hood from Celebrimbor’s head and Annatar’s hands were fisted in his hair, not quite tightly enough to hurt, but unrelenting in pulling Celebrimbor’s head towards Annatar’s own.

At first Celebrimbor was petrified – whatever he had been expecting, it hadn’t been this.

Celebrimbor was aware that Annatar had almost certainly known of his feelings for him, since Celebrimbor had never taken great care to hide them. He might even have hoped for Annatar to reciprocate them at some point, but the idea had never grown into something beyond a distant dream, far removed from any actual likeliness to happen, and even further removed from the temerity of expectation.

Celebrimbor had allowed himself from time to time to indulge in imagining what it would be like if Annatar ever were to respond to his feelings, though he had never imagined it would be like this. If anything, he had pictured something indirect and ambiguous, a mercurial dance between allusions and certainties, drawn out for months and years –

But this was very different from anything he could have imagined. It was so sudden, so straightforward, so entirely lacking in the usual composure and restraint that Annatar usually kept so firmly wrapped about himself, that Celebrimbor was momentarily frozen with incomprehension and disbelief –

– but then, thankfully, his instincts took the reins from his reeling mind, and he put his arms around Annatar, drew him closer, and deepened the kiss.

Annatar let himself be pulled in, one hand gripping the fabric of his cloak at Celebrimbor’s shoulder, the fingers of his other hand burying themselves in the elf’s hair. Celebrimbor responded by tightening his embrace around Annatar, his hands finding their way under the heavy cloak, running over the fabric of Annatar’s robes and mapping the mesmerising geometry of the body beneath it. His fingers traced the arc of Annatar’s ribs, the line of his spine, the hard plane of his back, and the gentle crest of his shoulder blades. Beneath his palms Celebrimbor could feel the warmth of Annatar’s skin, and where their chests were pressed up against each other, their heartbeats thundered through both of their bodies. Annatar was simultaneously intimately familiar and fascinatingly unknown. He was like a map that Celebrimbor had believed he knew by heart, only for him to notice now that he hadn’t known half of the things displayed in it. Even now Annatar seemed to change in his arms, turning – if only for a moment – from a force of nature that could only be admired from afar, but never be bound or comprehended, into something more solid and tangible; a being who could be touched and held and understood in a way that made it possible for Celebrimbor to love him in the way of his own mortal kin.

Their kiss changed as well. At first, it had been sudden, feverish, and impulsive. After that initial rush of wild emotions, though, its nature slowly changed into a steady, yet relentless outpouring of feelings that both of them had been keeping under lock and key for far too long. The sheer force of pure, unguarded emotion was almost overwhelming: longing, desperation, joy, gratitude, hope – it was hard to separate one from another, because Celebrimbor wasn’t even sure anymore where his own feelings ended and Annatar’s began. In the end it didn’t matter. Their minds moulded around each other, just like their bodies: pushing and relenting, giving way and claiming space, like in a dance of opposing forces that knew each other’s cues perfectly, complementing each other's movements in perfect harmony.

Annatar’s spirit was flaring wildly; bursts of light and blinding fire pierced into Celebrimbor’s own mind like solar flares. Annatar’s mind was wild and wide and open, and for just a moment Celebrimbor could sense its true dizzying, mind-shattering expanse embracing and enveloping his own mind.

The boundaries between them blurred, and vanished. They were two lenses of the same doublet, and like light their feelings were sharpened and brought into absolute focus as they passed through them both. They were two rhythm lines of the same song, merging into one indivisible melody. They were two reflections of each other, only there was no longer a mirror-glass to divide them. For just the briefest of instances, their minds became one and Celebrimbor saw both Annatar and himself through Annatar’s eyes, felt himself through Annatar’s hands, and Celebrimbor’s mind buckled before the Maia seemed to regain enough of his composure and his mind quickly withdrew enough so as not to smother Celebrimbor’s.

When they finally broke apart, Celebrimbor pulled back and gave a small breathless laugh.  “Well, that was really nice, but…” He reached up and rubbed the back of his head, which – as he only noticed now – had hit the bark of the tree behind him rather hard when Annatar had pushed him backwards. “Next time do try not to split my skull, perhaps?”

Annatar just looked at him, appearing for a brief moment almost shocked by what he had just done, and at least as surprised as Celebrimbor felt. He quickly schooled his features into a more unaffected expression. “Wouldn’t you say that it is quite bold of you to assume that there is going to be such a thing as ‘next time’?” he asked, trying to sound detached and nonchalant, likely in order to make up for his loss of control and composure, but not quite succeeding.

Celebrimbor just smiled. He felt overwhelmed by the depth of his own affection, and at the same time shaken and uncertain of himself – he wanted to pull Annatar against him as tightly as he could, but at the same time he was almost afraid to touch him, as if Annatar might shatter even at the slightest contact. In the end, he settled on a compromise, raising his hand and slowly brushing his fingers over Annatar’s cheek, then upwards, where the scar slashed through his left brow. Celebrimbor traced the fine, white line with his finger. “I do hope that it will not have been the last time,” he said softly. “Though I would never demand something of you that you are not willing to give.”

Annatar’s golden eyes had been watching him intently, flicking imperceptibly to take in every angle, every motion of Celebrimbor’s face. Now they focused on Celebrimbor’s eyes.

“When I first came to you I offered you everything that you could want, Tyelperinquar,” Annatar said. He was silent for a few moments before he quietly added, “When I said ‘everything’, I meant everything.”

Celebrimbor’s heart skipped, and his fingers froze in mid-motion as they were pushing a golden curl behind Annatar’s ear. “Annatar –”

“Ask for the world, Tyelperinquar, and I will give it to you.”

“I don't want the world,” Celebrimbor said hoarsely.

Annatar let out a soft huff. “Liar.”

Celebrimbor smiled faintly, despite his pounding heart. He took a deep breath and gave a shaky laugh. “Fine. But I don't want to have it alone and I don't want to keep it. Like any other of our works, let it pass through our hands, and then return it to itself – ”

“– changed, remade, and more beautiful than before,” Annatar finished.

This time it was Celebrimbor who pulled Annatar fiercely against himself, burying his hands in the golden hair at the back of Annatar's head, and kissing him with a ferocity that he almost didn't recognise as something that had come from within himself. His spirit was reverberating with Annatar’s words, his body touched by a frequency that went right to the core of his very being and set it to vibrate so strongly that he might just shatter.

“We'll do it together,” Celebrimbor said, breathless, as he pulled back and rested their foreheads against each other.

“I will ask a lot of you.” Annatar's voice was quiet, his eyes never leaving Celebrimbor’s.

“You have done that ever since you first came to me,” Celebrimbor replied. “I am ready to have a lot asked of me.”

Annatar pulled back without stepping out of Celebrimbor's embrace, regarding him intently, as if he was seeing Celebrimbor properly for the first time. “Yes,” he said at last. “You are.”

Celebrimbor smiled back at him, when suddenly a thought struck him out of nowhere –

Let the beauty and the power of the world be returned to itself, changed and improved –

Thoughts began racing through his head, an idea dawning on him with sudden clarity – 

He thought of the ring he had made, how it had found its source of power in Celebrimbor himself – how it had drawn on something external, rather than the strength that Celebrimbor had bound within. What if it wasn't the problem, but the solution?

“Annatar, our rings –” he said. “Their strength – they were always limited by whatever powers we imbued them with. But what if they don't have to be their own sources? What if we made them transformers? Their sources of power don't have to come from themselves, they – ”

Annatar had seen his thoughts and his eyes widened. “The primal powers of Arda – harnessed and focused, and returned to her...”

Celebrimbor wasn't seeing Annatar anymore. He was looking at a different world that had nothing to do with the material one, a world in which where all the structures of Arda were laid bare, where all the courses and connections of power became apparent in their endless circular, reciprocal nature, as if a blindfold had been pulled from his eyes –

Suddenly he felt light-headed, as if he had shifted out of his own body, and was only tethered to his flesh by a fraying line, as the torrent of his thoughts, the promise of power threatened to sweep him away – 

All his life he had wondered how Fëanor had done it when he created the Silmarils during the noontide of Valinor, and now –

Was this how my grandfather felt when he realised what he could do? Celebrimbor wondered.

“Earth. Fire. Air –” he started, almost not daring to speak. Distantly, he realised that he was shaking. “If we opened the Rings, to the bearer and the world alike –”

“Yes,” Annatar said immediately, breathless. “Yes. Tyelperinquar, you found it –”

They just looked at each other, eyes wide and breath held, their thundering heartbeats the only sound that seemed to exist.

“I was right,” Annatar said almost inaudibly, his eyes never leaving Celebrimbor's face. “I was right in coming to you, right in what I saw in you…” 

This time Celebrimbor couldn't even tell who leaned forward first, who was gripping the other tighter, or how long it lasted. He only knew when it ended – when the cold, clear air rushed into the distance between their faces, when he took deep, shaking breaths to steady himself, when the awareness of the world around him returned to him… a world that was new and strange to him, and yet at the same time a world that he knew and comprehended to a degree that he had never understood it before.

He was half-leaning against Annatar, one hand braced against his chest, perhaps to steady himself or perhaps – well, he didn't know. He felt as if he could move mountains right now if he tried, and yet at the same time as if a soft breeze might blow him away.

“This is it, isn't it?” he asked slowly, with a strange calm, and lifted his gaze to look at Annatar's face.

Annatar just regarded him for a moment, his beautiful golden eyes fathomless and bright. “Yes,” he said simply.

Celebrimbor struggled for words, no, for coherent thoughts, even. It still seemed unreal that this should have happened. That this should be the keystone that had come to him so suddenly and without forewarning. The world around him hadn't changed, at least not visibly so, and yet Celebrimbor felt as if it had been torn off its axis, as if its very foundations had been shattered, with the rules by which it operated altogether changed. Nothing was certain anymore. Everything was possible.

“What happens now?” Celebrimbor asked slowly, his voice full of wonder and surprise. Distantly, he was wondering whether he truly knew what he was asking.

Annatar smiled. “Why, Tyelperinquar, now our real work begins.” He tilted his head slightly, regarding Celebrimbor. “But before that…” He reached up and pulled the hood of Celebrimbor's cloak back over his head. It was only now that Celebrimbor noticed that the rain had been dripping on him all the while, and that he was by now thoroughly soaked.

“Before that, we should get you out of the rain,” Annatar finished. “I would be very annoyed if you had an earth-shattering realisation like this, only to return home and lie bed-ridden for weeks afterwards, effectively rendering us unable to proceed with our work just because you couldn't dress according to the weather.”

“Excuse me?” Celebrimbor sputtered. “It was you who pushed me against that tree so hard that my hood slipped off! If anyone is to blame, it is you!”

“As I said: inappropriately dressed for the occasion.” Annatar stepped away with a smirk and pulled his own hood up over his head.

Celebrimbor readjusted his rumpled clothing and tried to push the strands of hair that had come loose from his braids back under the hood. “You are impossible.”

“Yes, you keep telling me so.” Annatar chuckled as he turned and took a few steps back upon the path, only to turn around and give Celebrimbor a sly smile. “And yet I keep getting the impression that you do enjoy my company.”

“I can't fathom where you got that idea from.” Celebrimbor fought to keep his expression serious and failed.

“Where from indeed,” Annatar mused as Celebrimbor stepped up to his side, watching the elf intently, his head still expectantly, almost curiously, inclined to one side. “So?”

Celebrimbor rolled his eyes and gave Annatar's hood a slight tug, pulling it a few inches further down into his friend's face. “I stand by my opinion.” He stepped away with a soft laugh. “However, you were right about one thing, and that is getting out of the rain.” He turned around and looked at his friend. “Are you coming?”

Annatar stepped up to his side. “Wherever you go, I shall follow,” he said, his eyes sparkling with mirth and affection, and despite his teasing tone Celebrimbor knew that the words had been spoken only half in jest.

“Yes, I know,” Celebrimbor said.

They looked at each other for a while, and a great understanding seemed to pass between them as a new reality asserted itself.

When they both turned to walk on, they stayed close to each other, their shoulders nearly touching, and the knuckles of their hands brushing against each other with each step. There was a strange feeling expanding in Celebrimbor’s chest, like a growing bubble of joy and gladness. His steps were quick and long, and he wouldn't have been surprised if he had been able to walk on air in this moment.

There was a sense of change in the air: of great shifts, second chances, and new beginnings.

He thought of what Annatar had said: Now our real work begins.

In this very moment, just when they both crested a hill and the trees fell back to reveal the wide plains of Eregion stretching out before them, the cover of clouds tore open and the moon bathed the world around them in silver.

A soft wind rose and seemed to gently push at his shoulders from behind. A few strands that had come free of his braid fluttered into his face and Celebrimbor brushed them aside.

What will you do now, Tyelperinquar? he thought he heard a voice on the breeze ask him. He didn’t recognize it, and yet it felt familiar, like a memory from his earliest childhood, only barely remembered. It reminded him of fire and heat, of gold and silver, of strong, sure hands that took Celebrimbor’s hands in their own and guided him through the unknown motions of a new technique.

Will you take this step? Will you take what is within your reach now? the voice asked. Do you dare?

Do I dare? Celebrimbor wondered, but deep inside he already knew the answer. He looked at Annatar who was standing beside him and looking out over the land stretching out before them, doused in silver and moonlight, and Celebrimbor knew that his friend was seeing the same thing he was seeing when he looked out there: a world that impossibly wide, incomprehensibly vast, and full of potential. And theirs.

Yes, Celebrimbor thought. This is our new beginning. Our chance to restore what has been lost. To remake and rebuild this world. And perhaps our chance to create something that has never been created before.

The prospect should have frightened him, perhaps, and yet Celebrimbor didn’t have it in him to be afraid. Not here, not now, with Annatar by his side, and both their minds leaning against each other, while shared ideas and visions blazed like comets through both of their minds.

He felt nothing but elation and a thrill of excitement, like one might before making a leap from a high cliff and into unknown waters.

The past was already falling away behind them: already paling, already half-forgotten. Ahead lay the future, wide and promising and theirs for the taking: theirs to grasp and change and create. All they had to do was to reach out.

And we will.

He reached out and Annatar’s hand found his own halfway. They looked at each other, but there was no surprise there, as if they both had always known that it would come to this. Annatar’s mouth quirked up in a smile, and Celebrimbor returned it.

“Shall we?” Annatar asked, lifting one eyebrow. There was no need to explain what he meant: they seemed to understand each other completely now and words were no longer needed between them.

“Yes,” Celebrimbor said.

And when they stepped forward together this time, they moved as one.

Not all that was dark remains bitter,

not all that was shattered is lost.

Cold ashes may hide diamond-glitter

and all hardship be yet worth its cost.

From old embers a new fire will be woken

when winter days turn into spring.

And the ones whom the old world left broken

in the new world shall rise and be king.

Chapter End Notes

This is a second, alternative epilogue that I wrote primarily for myself, because the fact that Celebrimbor and Annatar didn't even get their Big Damn Kiss after all that has happened over the course of the story was giving me near-physical pain.
As it is, I think some of you might have felt the same, so for all those of you who were hoping for romance to finally make a tangible appearance in this story- I hope this chapter could deliver.

I still think that the first epilogue accurately depicts what would realistically have happened at this point in time, and at this point in Celebrimbor's and Annatar's relationship.
However, sometimes you just want to have nice things for yourself. (And the characters, as it were.)

I'll leave it up to you to decide which one really happened. Just pick whatever ending you prefer.

And this is it.
We've reached the end of this story and all its variations and that means some thanks are in order.
I want to thank RaisingCaiin for her patience, her expertise, and her time - and all in all for being a wonderful beta reader! Also, I want to thank her for bringing a certain poem to my attention that found its way into this chapter and fit in as perfectly as if it had been its missing keystone.
I also want to thank everyone who read and commented on this story. I'm so happy I could share this story with you, as well as your excitement and your investment into my horrible favourite Second Age duo. I appreciate every click and kudos, and your comments made my day!

Thank you all so much! Take care!

← Go back to read Part 1 of this series: Equinox

→ Go on to read Part 3 of this series: The Unread Visions of a Higher Dream

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