Summary:
The
elf-smith Celebrimbor
completes a gem called the Elessar using what mortals call Magic and Desire, and
the reader enters the Second Age of Middle-Earth.
Story
Warnings:
Practices Considered Pagan, Nudity.
Characters: Celebrimbor alone.
Disclaimer: These characters and Middle-Earth are the copyright of the Tolkien estate and this fan fiction is not meant to infringe on that copyright in any way.
Thanks to beta readers Aayesha and Suzana. Feedback is welcome to Tyellas@hotmail.com
This story is the Prologue to the series One Ring to Bind Them.
In
the hours before dawn, Celebrimbor climbed to one of the highest points in
Eregion, grappling up cliffs of broken granite and schist. Even his strong smith's muscles ached by the time he kicked
himself up onto the ledge where he wanted to stand. After the climb, he stood
and breathed to calm his racing blood, placing one hand over the burden in his
tunic-vest's pocket. Then he laid down the metal tools that had helped drag
him to the height, and the small pack he carried.
Eagerly,
he turned to the work he had come there to complete. So that his own name might
exceed the smiths of legend, he had decided to recreate a lost jewel, fairer and
more powerful than before. He had honed a green stone into a gem. This he would
now imbue with power, using the secrets of the elven-smiths, won by long
meditation and craft. He unbuttoned his vest, then stripped off the rest of his
clothes, letting the winds before dawn sweep him.
The
sky lit up like pearl-shell from the approaching sun, the dawn of the longest
day of summer. He had some time yet before the sun rose. Celebrimbor glanced at
the cliffs about him as their layers of rock grew clearer, reading the stones
that he loved as keenly as a loremaster read a scroll. Even with no thought for
his bearing, he seemed a statue of pride and desire, tall, strong, and
shameless on the height. It was whispered that his sharp-cut, wide face was the
very image of lost Fëanor. He ran both hands through his dark, tangled hair,
streaked with a silver-white lock to the left of his forehead, and cast his
hazel-eyed glance afar.
To
the west, a few stars lingered in the sky. They would be shining still over the
firth of Lune and the other great elf-realm of Lindon, a hundred leagues
away. Beyond the mountain-pass to the south he could see that mist cloaked the
valley of Lorinánd and the vales where wood-elves and tribes of Men wandered.
Celebrimbor pitied Men when he thought on them, but that was not often. To the
east, the triple mountains that capped Khazad-dûm were dark against the dawn,
shielding their mighty host of Dwarves, the elven-smiths' friends and rivals.
Perhaps the dwarves had the mithril-mines, but the Elves had something they
craved in turn; gemstones.
Celebrimbor
unfolded a leather wallet from his clothes, and shook from it the wide, flat
green gem, transparent, cut so that bars of light overlapped inside it. The
large tourmaline had come from the lowland caves of Eregion. In the higher
country, garnets could be pried from the granite cliffs, and sapphires and gold
gleaned from the mountain-streams.
These
varied treasures had drawn the crafters and smiths. Other High Elves had
followed, those who would stay and have the pleasures of Middle-Earth without
the torment of the sea-call. They had built their city, Ost-in-Edhil, and other
dwellings. Beneath the city's spire its rulers dwelled, and many said that
there was no greater realm standing yet in all Middle-Earth. Celebrimbor was
pleased that his own voice weighed for more as time passed and the increasing wealth of Eregion flowed through the order of the jewel-smiths, the Mírdain. He
looked down to the Mírdain's hall. When the sun was high, it would reflect
from the hall's metal-panelled doors, and light them like a star of gold.
Celebrimbor
looked east. The sun would soon rise over the edge of the mountains. His skin
was cooled and his pulse balanced again after his exertions, and he turned his
mind to his work again. It was time to begin. Celebrimbor stood steady, then held the gem secure
between both hands and closed his eyes. He chanted words of calling and binding, and his voice rang
harsh down the cliffs.
Thinking
on the beloved land before him, Celebrimbor summoned the stones' slow, hot
life through his feet. Tilting his head back to the brightening sky, he called
down the fast shimmer of light. Breathing more deeply, he drew in the green
breath of the trees, the cool hints of the snowmelt from the mountain heights.
He centered all the fire of Anor he brought to him through word and call on the
gem cupped between his hands.
Almost
all; he felt all his body come alive as if the mountain winds were the hands of
a teasing lover, not cold at this time of year. The flame of Anor formed three
points in his body; the roof of his mouth, the meeting palms of his hands, and
his loins. He felt no shame at the desire that enlivened him. Was it not life
itself he called, to live in the heart of the green gem? And was desire not the
quickening of life? He opened his hands and ran the living stone down his body,
from the hollow of his throat to the base of his belly, then raised it in both
hands to meet the Sun, brushing his erection only in passing.
Celebrimbor
widened his stance, feeling the Sun rather than seeing it. All his mind burned
on his goal for the gem; that it might give its bearer a power to keep things
ever-living, deathless as Aman, pure as at the height of summer, to succor the
hearts of Elves in the fading, changing world. It would not halt Time any more
than the stones of the river could stop its running, but it would renew the
virtues of life. He thought on the twin fires of the morning, the Sun's light
and the light of passion, the gift of the Valar and the gift of Illúvatar, and
bade them both to bide with joy inside the stone. Lastly, he brought the stone
down to the center of his body. He willed a spark of his own spirit into the
maze of light at the gem's heart, linking it to the immortality of the Elves,
and cried out words to seal the work.
When
his arms felt drained, he opened his eyes. Reeling, he stepped back to the
safest part of the ledge, carefully clutching the gem. Perhaps it was only that
he looked on it in the full light of day, that its green was brighter and more
bars of light stood guard in its center. The gem was hot to his hand, as if
filled with the sun of noon. "You are the Elessar remade!" he said, raising
the gem to his lips and misting it with his breath. "You shall be for our
Lady. For Galadriel."
Celebrimbor
looked down to the tall spire of Ost-in-Edhil again. Even before she had chosen
Celeborn of Doriath as her husband, she had turned him away; kindly, as a woman
does to a fellow she does not despise, but away nonetheless. The pain of seeing
her choice close to hand had faded, as had the longing to see her every day, but
he had not loved again. He looked up into the heart of the sun for a moment. He
would aid her as he might, with the arts of the Mírdain and with the Elessar, a
tool to make the ceaseless change of Middle-Earth easier to endure. Surely she
would not spurn a gift that was all her heart's desire.
Before
his face as he stood on the mountain-ledge, an eagle flew shockingly close. He
took a step back as the eagle spiralled close about, crying out. Celebrimbor
raised his free hand to salute the bird of Manwe and a sudden vision came to
him. He would place the jewel in an eagle-wrought setting, a fitting gift for a
noble lady. For a moment, he doubted. Even without the wide, bright setting he
imagined, the stone was already a troublingly rich gift. Then he decided that it
was all or nothing, and when faced with that choice, he always took all.
Celebrimbor
set the gem in its safe place and began to dress again. In the morning's
breeze, his erection had subsided, but he still felt his loins weighted with
desire. To relieve himself at that hour would reduce the virtue of his work. He
had been celibate for a month before that morning, and he mulled over breaking
his body's fast that night with one of the Mírdain. Even unloved, he might be
consoled, and the Mírdain had arts of other hardnesses besides metal and stone.
As
he drank a draught from a water-skin, he looked up. The eagle was still circling
and crying. He looked around to see if, in that vision-swept hour, it augured
anything else. Something caught his eye; a spark in the landscape, like a rider
in bright hauberk, coming on the west-road from Lindon. It was the same gold as
the light that now starred the doors of the Mírdain, moving to Eregion as if
like was drawn to like. The eagle called once, and then rode the wind silently,
still looping above.
He
could not see much of the approaching one, but if it was an elf, someone had
great craft, to make armour or weave a cloak that shone so far and bright. He
would go to meet them, he decided. Was it possible that another Elf could be a
greater craftsman than he? If so, he would learn all the art they had to give,
as he had from the Dwarves. With the gem back in its leather wallet, he began
the descent, sending scree tumbling from his swiftness.
The
eagle circled a few more minutes, and then uttered a last scream as it flew
westwards.
Click here to read Part 1: Fellowship of the Jewel-Smiths, but note that it has warnings for BDSM and graphic slash sex.
Date =
Second Age 1252.
A hundred
leagues = 300
miles. Not close, three to four weeks' riding if nothing goes wrong.
The fire of Anor = "I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor..." This cryptic reference of Gandalf's in The Fellowship of the Ring has been expanded here.
Illúvatar
= The elves' name for The Supreme Being, above the Valar.