Chapter Text
Shadow and flame ravaged the stars. Galadriel’s perch high above Ost-in-Edhil, mounted upon the towering peaks that dwarfed the burning city, afforded her a pinnacle view by which to observe the very jewel of Elvendom razed into the dirt. Even so high as she lingered with the three-score-and-ten refugees she shepherded from the city, the heat upon her face recalled to her the eruption of the fire-mountain in the Southlands. Fire, burning the trees. Hollowing souls. Blood on the breeze.
Her gaze cast towards the white tower wherein Celebrimbor and the soldiers of Eregion returned to confront Sauron. What accomplishment, if any, might they have discovered within its walls? Her heart twisted within her breast as she remembered once more the clotting blood marring the elven-smith’s face, his ruined artists’ hand, the clarity with which he beseeched her to recall the light.
Light endures, and is mightier than strength. For in its presence, all darkness must flee.
Galadriel shut her eyes to the desolation below. Willing to herself the strength of the Valar, she then sought a young captain who accompanied the refugees through the tunnels leading out of the city. Untested, hazy-eyed, as most of the soldiers of Eregion seemed to be, yet more equipped still than the dozens of women and children in Galadriel’s current charge.
“Captain,” she summoned. The lady-captain rose, and approached. “Make safe the evacuees,” Galadriel instructed. “This is your greatest command. Sequester this spot until such time that I return to you. Pile up the stones, gather the branches, use what tools you may find close by that will provide obstruction to any who may seek to harm you.”
“You would leave us now, Commander?” a woman questioned, her despair welling. The inquiry caught like the flames below, and the refugees implored Galadriel with concern and fear—for their lives, and that of their children.
Though in her heart she was loath to abandon them upon the cliffs, Galadriel’s spirit urged her to return to Celebrimbor’s side. She had done as he asked and seen the rings safely from within Ost-in-Edhil. No orc had yet scaled the peaks, and they would do no such thing while still their lord-father bade them hunt for the Deceiver within Eregion’s walls. For a time, the rings would be safe within the mountains.
And thus she passed the innocuous pouch from her hand into the young captain’s, bade her bury it where she alone might recall the spot until Galadriel’s return, and passed once more into the tunnels, descending into the mountain’s throat so as to emerge prepared to face the coiling snake that awaited her on the other side.
*
The matter of slaughtering her way back through Ost-in-Edhil—leaving in her wake a grisly trail of Uruks—was a straightforward one. Galadriel’s pulse neither quavered nor quickened, and her blade drank deeply of the invaders’ black blood on her path of vengeance. Wayward elves, artisans, citizens, and soldiers alike, she directed back into the tunnels, that they might join with those already preserved. Dwarves, Galadriel was most grateful to see, now flooded Eregion for reinforcement, and their stout hearts and axes began to turn the tide in favor of the light. Now must the darkness be wrestled with … She stood in the central courtyard below the smiths’ tower, her face smudged with soot, her hair tangled with smoke, and her sword firmly grasped within her fist. Galadriel passed the broken and desecrated statue of Feanor, the courtyard aflame and abandoned, and she began the lengthy, winding ascent to the apex of Celebrimbor’s tower.
Therein she found no Uruks, nor soldiers of Eregion—only an unending silence that followed her footsteps from the first stair to the last. Galadriel listened, for sound both of friend or foe, yet encountered no sign that the dark lord prowled within the dying city. She dared not trust to hope that he was subdued by Celebrimbor and six untested soldiers. Indeed, the mere thought may have brought a twinkle to her eye were the circumstances changed—yet tonight was not an evening of laughter. Galadriel could only pray, as she ascended every smooth, newly laid step, that the peoples of Eregion would know joy someday again.
Her progress halted nearly halfway up the tower’s spiraling stairs. A sound—a shifting of fabric, movement of a fearful creature shuffling backwards to cloak themselves from danger. Galadriel scanned the adjacent room next to which her booted foot lingered. Her examination revealed a manner of storage chamber—spare chisels, hammers, tongs, and the like. Yes, she could hear the faint scrapings of such tools, likely caused by whomever hid within. No Uruk would remain so silent, nor retreat upon her approach. Her blade at the ready, Galadriel crept into the room.
“I hear your presence,” she spoke into the pent quiet. “I do not wish harm upon you. Reveal yourself to me, and I will ensure your safety, away from this place.”
A voice—that of a woman—answered her. “Who are you to assure me such? Our captains have fallen. Our city is ruined. And Lord Celebrimbor has abandoned us.”
Galadriel lowered her blade; the woman’s question rang out with dread, with sorrow, and a brokenness she remembered all too well, for oft had it lingered within her own breast in the Age past. A defeat—a yielding to the darkness that rose up across the land and speared her heart with a mighty launch from its black hand.
“You are not abandoned,” Galadriel returned with kindness. “For Lord Celebrimbor remains within this very tower, battling at this moment the Shadow that would seek to steal him from this world, and I—Galadriel of the Noldor, daughter of the Golden House of Finarfin, commander of the Northern Armies of High King Gil-galad—will see you through the darkness into the sunrise.”
And thus did the young smithling—golden-haired, clad in blue-green and delicate chains of gold, wearing ill-fitting armor and armed with naught but a forging hammer—emerge from the shadow. Galadriel looked upon her and smiled.
“Your name, smith.”
Her voice wavered still, though already had it grown stronger. “Mirdania,” she answered.
Galadriel produced from her belt a dagger—inferior in all ways to that which she melted down in Celebrimbor’s fire to aid the crafting of the Three. But for Mirdania, its quality would surpass the hammer she so fiercely clutched. “Take it then, Mirdania. I would have you find your courage.”
Mirdania grasped the dagger in hand with the light of hope swelling within her eyes, and she strode with Galadriel from the storage chamber. “If what you suspect is true—that Lord Celebrimbor has indeed returned to his tower—he will have no doubt climbed to the forge itself.” She cast her gaze upwards, drew in a breath of the smoke-tinged air, and began to climb. “I will guide you to him.”
Galadriel pursued her, and together they scaled the other half of the stairway. Whereupon they arrived outside the closed doors of the forge, she turned to her companion and bade her wait. “I know not what awaits us beyond the doors, Mirdania. I will not subject you to any danger or designs of the Enemy. You will remain here, a lookout, until I return to you. Should I fail to do so, there are refugees hidden at the height of the tallest peak beyond the city. Flee to them, and you will be cared for.”
The smithling voiced her agreement, though ever did her nervous eyes dart towards the silent forge. “Commander, I … I pray no harm may befall you. These weeks past, there has been some kind of devilry laid thick upon the city, and most especially inside the forge. All manner of strange occurrences have plagued us, night and day. I have never known such—unease. Such darkness.”
Galadriel laid a hand upon her companion’s face. “The sun yet shines, Mirdania. And when we go from this place, when we are out from beneath the wings of this shadow, you and I shall look upon it once more. This night is coming swiftly to its bitter end.”
And thus she came into the forge, wherein the Shadow awaited her.
*
Firelight imbued the dusty ruins of Celebrimbor’s forge with a warm, bloody glow. Heaps of fallen pillars, fragments of the forge itself, scattered paper designs ... and nine elven bodies, laid out in a ritualistic circle in a growing pool of their own blood. The stained-glass windows had been blown out, and glass littered the floor beneath them. Tendrils of smoke curled and wafted through the hazy air. A small, creamy creature nosed at a tipped and dripping container of black liquid that lay upon the smith’s worktable. Upon accidentally swabbing itself with the obsidian substance, the mouse fled. Outside the shattered windows, plainly could she yet hear the screams and great war-shouts of the clashing legions. Galadriel wavered at the top of the stairs that descended into the devastation below.
Then, when at last her gaze arrived upon Celebrimbor himself, she fell to her knees.
An elf—Sauron, she perceived—knelt before the smith’s body amid the rubble. He was much changed since last she knew him upon the banks of the Glanduin. Regal he appeared now, clothed all in black and glittering gold, and yet to his breast he cradled the other end of the wicked black spear that pierced Celebrimbor against a blood-smeared column. Arrows, a half dozen at the least, riddled the smith’s still torso, and his noble head bowed over his chest. Blood trickled from his mouth, from his hands, from his feet—Galadriel could not contain the choke that seized her throat.
The greatest of Elven-smiths. Gone now to the shores of the morning, borne hence by a wind that she could not follow. And He, whose hand wrapped around the shaft of destruction that wrought Celebrimbor’s demise, wept for him.
Had he taken notice of her intrusion, Sauron gave no sign. Galadriel crept towards the gruesome spectacle, and within her heart, she wondered what strength it was that lifted her feet and propelled her forth. Even as she drew near, near enough there could be no doubt of her presence, he neither lifted his head nor turned towards her. A tear splattered onto his pale hand, from which oozed a blood much the same hue as that which leaked from the worktable, and she marveled at it.
Only when Galadriel stood above him did Sauron at last fixate his gaze upon her. Younger now he seemed, colorless yet dewy-eyed from his lamentation, and there was a new lifelessness held within his visage that recalled to mind none of the heat and color of the Man she first encountered upon the Sundering Seas. A shadow he appeared to her now. A shadow of Morgoth.
A stain of Celebrimbor’s blood darkened his brow. Even as her tears flowed freely down her face, Galadriel lifted her hands to his.
Sauron heaved a sigh into his lungs. “Galadriel,” he said.
“Look what you have done to yourself,” she whispered back.
At that, he offered the merest of smiles. “True creation …” Here his attention wandered back to Celebrimbor, and his eyes welled anew. “… requires sacrifice.”
“This,” Galadriel told the dark lord, “is not creation. It is destruction.”
Kneeling there before her, he took in her words, and she contemplated if they could reach him through the darkness of such deeds that had surely stained whatever remained of his heart. Yet some strange pity overtook her, and Galadriel urged him to reconsider his path lest its boundaries fall so deep within the Shadow that he could never again find his way to the light.
“Whatever designs you may ponder for this Middle-earth, I fear the cost is too dear.” On their own accord, her thumbs traced soothing circles into his dampened cheeks. “Order and healing will not come at the hand of a dark lord who slaughters those he once looked upon as friends, nor one who gazes upon all others as misguided in their own dealings of power and peace.”
He quavered as one scolded by a beloved counterpart. “I did not desire this consequence. I am but a victim of Celebrimbor’s obstinance. Had he only done as I—”
“Halbrand!” she interrupted, the name falling from her lips as easily as did her breath. Even when the strike of its inaccuracy pierced her, Galadriel did not relent. “You must stop this. Turn aside from this ruinous path! It will end only in death—ours, and yours.”
His voice roughening now to the spirit of the very name she invoked, he demanded, “And to what path shall I turn then? Which remains open to me still? Does the grace of the Valar yet shine above my blackened brow, or with these deaths have I sundered myself forever from their light? Advise me, elf, as so often you delighted in doing when we walked side by side in the realms of Men. Place your lovely hands about my throat and kill me softly now with your compassion—it will be a better fate by far than that judgment which lies across the sea. Should I spend the next Age prostrated before all the realms and rulers of Arda, still would I, and they, find my penance lacking. If I cannot find my salvation here, nor can I seek it within the Undying Lands, better to plunge ahead deeper into the dark, where at least I know I shall be welcome.”
Galadriel sank down now before him that they might look one another in the eye, as equals. Her hands caressed his face, and she rubbed away the blood that darkened his brow. “When last we spoke,” she began, her voice nearly as broken as her heart, “I behaved with wrath. In haste, and in hurt. Much of all I spoke to you, then and elsewhere, was done in ignorance. You feared I would cast you out when all was revealed, and I did so without hesitation.”
Sauron quieted at her words, though he did not look at her now. Beyond the tower, the cries and clashes of weapons raged on. Yet here, Galadriel mused, was the true battle, the outcome of which might spare all the rest.
Tears flowed afresh down her cheeks as she continued, “Now I fear I have doomed all Eregion to the Shadow. The very jewel of Elvendom, cast into the filth, fallen and devastated beneath the weight of my pride, and Adar’s fury. It was your hand that delivered the blows, but ours that set in it the weapon.”
And here the dark lord removed one hand from his cheek, and he instead set it against his breast, and he clasped his own atop it. Celebrimbor’s dried blood, and perhaps also his own, scraped against her skin, and Galadriel battled down a surge of sickness.
“Black and strong were the bonds that Morgoth laid upon you,” she said to him then. “Yet I do not believe they will hold you captive until the ending of the world. You say you do not know which way to turn your feet on the road laid before you. Darkness still shrouds your sight, and all is as shadow to your eyes.”
“It is so.”
“Perhaps then you need only stand still, and listen.” Galadriel bent her head to his, as in prayer beneath the sacrificial altar of Celebrimbor. “Listen for the voice that calls you to home. Where that home may lie, I am not yet certain. But of this, I will swear to you now—I will clasp your hand in mine, and when you stumble again towards the beckoning night, I will pull you back to the light. It is bright and clear to my eyes, a beacon to which I am drawn at all hours. One day, when your feet have grown accustomed to chasing its radiance, and your ears are ever attuned to its call, you will see it too.”
Sauron gazed upon her then, and in the half-gloom of the desecrated forge, she seemed to him as dazzling as the Two Trees in their days of glory. A memory he put aside long ago, for it hurt him to recall. Yet now, as he bathed fully in her light, he wondered if the searing pain might not be as purifying as it was agonizing.
“Galadriel.” All other words but that simple prayer fled from his lips.
She again touched his face, his hair. “By what name should I call you now?” Galadriel whispered.
“I have many names,” he said, “but here among the people of Eregion, I am Annatar.”
“Stand with me then, Annatar—” she brought him upwards with her as she spoke “—and take your first step into the sunrise.”
Annatar gazed then towards the light breaking through the fragments of stained glass and choking clouds of smoke rising from the devastation wreaked upon the streets of Eregion, and though it was yet pale and mere … it was enough.