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“No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure.” – Cicero.
The hall was still when Lord Melkor came back to his senses. To his chagrin, he found himself sprawled at the foot of the throne, lying face down with his crown a few feet away. He got up slowly, straightening his filthy robes. There was a horrible weight in his chest, for some reason he couldn’t remember. How did he get to be in this situation? What happened? He breathed in deep and the smell of decay hit him. He then noticed the state of the hall: everywhere he looked there were rotting remains of corpses, lying amid puddles of dried blood and vomit.
One of his rage fits, then.
He picked up his crown, seeing immediately its lessened glow. Yes, of course. That must explain the pain in his heart. The loss of the Jewel is what caused all this. Speaking of which…
Melkor sent out a Summoning and sat back on his throne, waiting for the Maia to pick it up. Long minutes had passed in which he became more and more irritated: where was the damned creature? Where was everyone? If the cowards were still hiding while he was up and calling… thinking about it, how long has he been out?
The great iron doors creaked and his attention turned in that direction. But to his surprise, the Maia coming in was not the one he expected. Gothmog crossed the hall tentatively and knelt at his feet, his gaze averted. Strange. He never saw the Lord of Balrogs that frightened.
“What is the meaning of this, Gothmog? Where is Mairon?”
The massive Balrog cowered even lower. He fidgeted, clearly racking his brains trying to phrase his answer to avoid punishment. But the Balrog was never known for his diplomacy. “He’s gone, my Lord.”
“Gone? What do you mean, gone? Did he escape the dungeons?”
“No, he…” the Balrog seemed mortified. Melkor lost his patience and stung him with a small exertion of Will, a barb sharp enough to get the spirit talking again.
“You Disowned him, Master!” he blurted, shivering. With that finally out, Gothmog risked to lift his eyes to the Vala’s. Just like he thought – this was not good.
Memory came crushing down on Melkor and with that the pain in his chest intensified almost unbearably. He suddenly remembered his vengeful glee when he spoke the words, when he snapped the Soul Bond between him and the Maia. He remembered Mairon dropping on all four, eyes rolling in his head and foam at his lips. He was shuddering violently, pawing at his heart and his throat, screaming like nothing he ever heard before.
Yes, he remembered the screaming.
But that vision was lopsided, like he was looking at Mairon entirely from the outside. He could not see into him anymore, could not feel his presence even though he was right beside him. The memory made his stomach lurch in sickness. He understood now why Gothmog was so frightened: the Maia thought that he was next. Melkor grabbed him by the throat.
“When was that?”
“A week ago,” the Balrog managed. “As our Enemy counts.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know, my Lord.” Gothmog spluttered when the hand on his neck tightened. “You drove him out! You told him to never show his face here again!”
“Well, find him! Find him and bring him back here. I’m not through with him just yet.”
“Yes, my Lord.” The Lord of Balrogs all but fled the from the throne room. Melkor leaned back in his throne and shut his eyes. He clenched his fists over the armrests, relishing the sharp bolts of pain in his hands. That distracted him from the howl growing and unfolding in his mind:
“He is gone!”
Months passed under the dark shadow of Thangorodrim, seasons came and went and were ignored entirely by the folk within. In cloud-shrouded Beleriand, now blissfully subdued, turmoil started again. It appeared that the Noldorin princes and their accomplices – wretched, damned fools! – decided one devastating defeat just wasn’t enough for them. Well, let them assemble! Let them sound their horns and attack whatever scattered bands of his expendable foot soldiers they could find. The King of Arda had other thoughts and plans, other resources at his command they knew naught about. The only problem he could see was that planning and arrangement came to lie mostly on his shoulders now that his chief tactician was gone. But that could always be remedied – other, lesser, Maiar were deployed to undertake Mairon’s various obligations. One or two of them were even quite good. Angband was still functioning, the war machine still rolling on despite the Maia’s absence. The Vala Melkor did not depend on anyone from the moment he defied his Creator. And if he didn’t need Him, he much less needed a single lowly Maia, however useful. And as for the tightness in his chest, that could always be pushed to the back of his mind with the aid of his more entertaining servants and captives. For a while, at least, until…
(“I love you!” Mairon shrieked at the top of his lungs, as if trying to pierce the wall that grew suddenly between them. “I would always be yours! Master, please!” but he, who should have closed his fist around the Maia and never let go, only laughed at him. Damned, damned, thrice damned fool that he was! He banished him from his hall but could still hear him screaming in the Gasping Dust, and the sound reverberated inside his skull until suddenly the world twisted horizontally and there was just blackness – )
But that screaming was long gone and must not be dwelt upon. The sound he was hearing now was the wind wailing in misery around his tower, no more. It came through some chink in the thick stone wall of his council room with a sharp gasp, sweeping maps and charts off the stone table and causing the hanging oil lamps to swing wildly. Their light glanced off the beautifully carved, polished copper. For a second it outshined even the mad Light of his dented crown. His eyes were drawn there, lingering for a moment on that reddish glow,
(stop it)
and then returned to the gray forms of his generals and advisors who struggled to rearrange the plans on the table. He sighed soundlessly. Looking down, he noticed that his hand was moving on his lap, as if sifting long, red hair between his fingers. It happened to him sometimes, in moments like this, when his mind strayed to regions where it should not go. His hand was empty and hurt when his fingers rubbed against each other like that. He turned his attention back to the issue discussed and opened his mouth to speak, when the scout he sent out finally came back.
He materialized beside his chair and bowed quickly, his many eyes darting around to take in the sights of the room, long fingers clicking as if counting. The Vala usually didn’t allow any of his servants to disturb him so, but this particular spirit got a special leave.
“Yes, Orosh?”
“I’ve had rumors, my Lord. Splendid rumors! Rumors like I haven’t had in years, and years, and years. Not big rumors, mind you!” the spirit cackled madly, waving his crooked talons around with a flourish. “Just small, minute ones. And still! You would be very surprised when you hear them, O glorious Master. I was so surprised myself I nearly swallowed the stupid Orc whole! Ha! Ha! But they would please you, Great Spirit, yes they would, and wonderfully so, even if – “
For a Chief of Spies, this Maia was the worst babbling idiot Melkor ever encountered, and that included his brother. Melkor wondered how Mairon managed to tolerate him for so many years without disemboweling him at least once. His own nerves were getting very close to snap. He gathered whatever remained of his patience and cut in, colder and harsher than the Outside. “Get to the point.”
The Maia seemed taken aback by the looming violence in his voice. A few dozens of his eyes blinked in confusion, and then he sunk into a low obeisance. “Yes, yes, forgive me, my Lord and Master. I am utterly, dreadfully sorry. Yes! As I was saying, my spies found something. They are telling of a ghost pestering the enemy, ha! Ha! It is something small, capable only of trivialities like spilling milk and extinguishing camp fires, no more.”
“And what does that have to do with the task I gave you, to find Mairon?”
“Ah, my task, my quest which you so generously bestowed upon me! Indeed. Maybe nothing. But it is a thing of rage and malevolence, a feisty little bug, as it were! How it bites the mighty princes! How they squeal! You would love it, Master, you would laugh so much, laugh and laugh and laugh…”
All the occupants of the room jumped as the Vala’s iron-clad fist landed on the stone table, shaking it. The prattling Maia fell silent. His tongue moved in his still open beak, but no sound came out. His many eyes shut tight, fearing the complete blackness the Master’s eyes became when he was enraged.
“Where is this ghost?”
“In the plains north of Himring.”
“When was it last seen?”
“A fortnight ago.”
“I see.”
So. A little ghost was harassing the Noldorin forces. Melkor sat back in his chair, contemplating. It was probably nothing, but… it’s the closest they got in years. Can such a small thing truly be his former Lieutenant?
Cut off from his source of power for years and losing strength quickly? Yes, it might be him. Melkor was filled both with wistfulness and a sense of pride. Even cast off and forgotten, Mairon was still doing his job.
“Tell the servants to prepare my armor,” he announced. “I’m going after him.”
“I shall arrange a cavalry to escort you, my Lord.” said Gothmog, half arising from his seat.
“No.” he smirked when he saw the amazement in the Maia’s bovine eyes. “I will go alone.”
“But, my Lord, these hills and plains are well-guarded. Only last week we lost a whole company to the swift arrows of those usurping bastards.”
“Do I look like an Orc to you, Gothmog?”
“No, my Lord! But – “
“No ‘buts’. Assume command while I’m gone. I will see you when I come back.”
All animals fled before the shadow that stalked the night. Leagues away, Men felt the wake of his passing and shuttered their windows with a sudden, inexplicable fear, stoking up their hearth fires and holding their children close. The shadow crept up near the camp of his enemies, and then sat down in utter silence. He would come to him now.
Hours passed. The stars circled overhead, waxing and then waning again. When the Eastern sky begun to mellow, he felt it: a light ting, a tiny spirit that was drawn in by his massive soul. He turned to regard the spirit and it sighed softly in loneliness. Yes, it must indeed be Mairon, although there wasn’t much left of him.
Claiming the tiny spirit proved much, much more difficult than he’d assumed. He remembered how easy it was for him, all those eons ago, to engulf the mighty spirit that was Mairon and take him for himself. Now his power was dispersed in the very fabric of Arda, his soul bound in chains of flesh so tight that taking even this speck of a soul was exhausting. Panic flooded him: what if he won’t succeed? But then, just as the first hateful rays of the Sun shot through the sky, he managed to latch onto it and Bind.
There.
Melkor got up and hurried back to his fortress, towing the little ghost after him. The pain in his chest finally lessened. Now all would be well.
The spirit didn’t do much in the first few days, simply followed him around silently, as close as it could. It would not leave his side. Melkor turned his attention to it as often as he could spare it, gently blowing onto the spark to brighten it. It grew slowly, drawing upon the power emitted by the Vala, and when a week had passed, Melkor heard it utter a Note.
“Forge-spirit…” the spark sighed. The pattern of his soul, badly diminished by his severing from his Vala, was re-growing and regaining volume and consistency. Melkor stopped with his hand on the doors to his suite and turned to him fully, listening. After a few moments, more Notes followed.
“Forge-spirit fashion-Matter orderly.”
“Yes,” Melkor said, softly. “That is who you are.”
Encouraged, the spark sang louder. “Forge-spirit fashion-Matter orderly!”
“Yes, yes.”
A wave of happiness flowed from the spark. He grew in magnitude, repeating his pattern again and again. The Maia understood himself.
“Forge-spirit fashion-Matter orderly serve?” the last Note was discordant, twisting the purity of Mairon’s initial Music. Good – now he found the part of his essence that required that he served a Vala, and it was corrupted enough to accept only him. In return, the Vala sang to him his own discordant pattern, one of might and changeful creation. This stopped the Maia for a second, as if the little spirit were gaping in awe. Melkor sang again. The Maia drifted closer, fawning over him and purring like a cat. Satisfied with the introduction, Melkor shifted his soul and sang another string: both their patterns, tied together by an Owning.
“Melkor owns Mairon.”
This declaration earned him an amazed, blissed out reaction. The Maia was rippling with delight and singing wildly. He seemed stronger now, as if emboldened by his joy. His spirit even cast a shadow of his former self in the light of Melkor’s drawing room’s hearth. Perhaps he was strong enough to take form now? Melkor prodded him, reminding him of the shape and feel of his fána. Slowly, excruciatingly, Mairon began to rebuild himself. Melkor helped him, lending him power when his faltered. He supported the fragile bones as flesh began to creep over them and combed back the Maia’s hair to keep it from falling into his still-forming, soft eyes. At last Mairon stood there, fully embodied and trembling from the effort it took. Melkor caught him as he staggered and carried him to sit beside him on a divan by the fire. He rang a bell and a servant came running.
“Food and clothing for the Lieutenant.”
The little servant retuned with a tray stacked with meats, bread, and mushrooms, and a small pitcher of honey liqueur. She spread an array of black-and-red, neatly pressed robes on a stool nearby and watched intently as Mairon attacked his food like a starved wolf, tearing into it with fang and claw and ignoring the cutlery she provided. Melkor soon became annoyed with the servant’s continuous presence.
“Well?”
When the doors closed behind her, there were no more distractions. Nothing kept him from feasting his eyes on the Maia’s form and feeling his warmth beside him, where there was only coldness for too long: it was their only encounter in a decade that didn’t end catastrophically. Had it really been a decade, though? On the one hand, hours stretched like hot wax falling off a candle, drop after sluggardly drop, to mount on his desk as an ever-growing stalagmite of anger and boredom. But on the other hand… It seemed that the flow of Time accelerated ever since he returned to Middle-Earth, and it just kept on going. The Sun, cursed offspring that should have died with its parent, kept spinning faster and faster in the sky, carrying the entire Arda in its frantic wake. He, who loved speed and violence, should have laughed, but –
Melkor had a dreadful feeling that it would all come to a screeching halt soon enough.
But enough of that for now. Right now, the important thing was that Mairon has finished his food and leaned back onto Melkor’s shoulder, gasping with exhaustion and licking his fingers clean. Melkor caressed his skin, feeling it warm up beneath his gauntlet-less fingers. He could touch him as much as he wanted – for some reason, Mairon’s smoothness never hurt his burnt hands. After a few moments the Maia stirred.
“Would you like me to get dressed, Master?” his voice was new and coarse, not the musical, silky thing it used to be. It would take time until he re-learned to control it. Right now Melkor was simply pleased that he could speak again.
“Not yet.”
A long silence stretched, broken only by the soft crackle of fire. Mairon dozed in his arms. Melkor took in the sight of the Maia’s fiery head cradled against the deep, black velvet of his robes. Then he heard the Maia whisper.
“How long was I gone?”
“About five years.”
Mairon took a deep, shuddering breath. The happiness of the reunion was fading quickly, pushed aside by returning cognition. With a better thinking capability came memory, and with it came grief. “So long?”
“What do you remember?”
“Pain,” he said, licking at his dry lips. “Cold. I was nothing and nowhere. I hungered for you, and it hurt more than anything I could ever imagine. It was worse than it was when you were… captured.” He lasted three long ages back then, alone in a crumbling fortress he managed to partially rebuild. But this was different – he was still connected to him then, could still hear the distant echoes of his soul from the Halls of hateful Mandos. This time he was truly lost.
“I searched for you.” Melkor was in no habit of explaining himself to his inferiors and was surprised when the words escaped his mouth.
“For me or for the Jewel?” Mairon said, an uncommon bitterness staining his voice. “I fuck up one time, just one time, and I’m tossed out like a worthless worm!” he became deathly pale when he understood what he said and fell into a position of absolute submission. “Please, my Lord, forgive me! I meant no offense, I swear!”
“None taken,” said Melkor, softly. “You may rise.” But Mairon couldn’t hear him, drowning in a sudden wave of panic and shaking his head violently.
“Please no, not again, not again, I’m sorry…”
“Mairon!” Melkor took Mairon’s face firmly in his hands and forced his wide, terrified eyes to look into his. “I would never leave you again.” the Maia just stared, trembling, so Melkor shook him. “Listen to me carefully: I would not leave you ever again. You have my word. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Mairon nodded slowly, not taking his eyes off of him. That would have to do for now. Melkor leaned in and kissed him, a full, long kiss that melted whatever remained of the pain in his heart. Mairon reciprocated eagerly, wrapping his arms around him. He could feel his heart flutter in his naked chest like that of a terrified bird. He picked him up from the floor and laid him on the divan, removing his own clothes in the process. Desire surged inside him when he saw Mairon pinned beneath him, immobilized yet straining to touch him: a need to control, to hold tight, to drive his predatory talons deep into body and soul and assert the ownership he deprived himself of for so long. Not caring to resist his urges, Melkor took what he wanted.
Mairon was as warm and delicious as he always been and Melkor drank greedily the sight of his face in ecstasy. And when Melkor fell over him, spent and panting, he felt the Maia’s soft lips mouth his name soundlessly against his neck again and again like a litany. What madness caused him to ever let go of such a being?
At last he rolled off of him. Mairon lie limply against him, holding a lock of his hair between his fingers. He could feel how empty and lightheaded his Maia felt (for he was his, his, the Vala’s soul whispered). He needed time to heal and to come back to himself. Again Melkor felt the unnatural rush of Time, like a terrified horse in a panic flight, heading blindly towards the edge of a cliff.
“You would have to learn how to handle being away from me. I can’t have you disembody and fade like that after just a few years.” Mairon’s mouth slammed open, but Melkor pressed his fingers to his lips to hush him. “I already told you I would not leave you. But there’s a war coming on, and it might be bigger than anything we experienced in a very long time. I need you to be my strongest servant and ally, Mairon. Can you do that?”
The Maia slowly relaxed. “Anything for you, Master.”
“Good. My power encompasses this entire Realm and is bound to it in ties stronger than the foundations upon which it stands. I will teach you how to lens your power so you could draw upon it and add it to your own when in need.” And he spoke to him for hours and hours, whispering into his ear as the fire crackled and filled the room with a golden haze. He spoke until he felt that Mairon could take no more new knowledge into his battered soul. Then he spread his cloak to cover them both, drawing Mairon closer to press their foreheads together.
“My Lord?” Mairon’s voice was soft now, the coarseness gone. “How do you know all that?”
There was silence before Melkor answered and the seconds stretched like eons. When he finally answered, his voice was not exactly bitter.
“How do you think?”
Mairon looked at him incredulously. “But I thought… I thought you’ve expelled Him from your heart?”
A whisper. “I was Disowned.” His lip curled at the look of shock and distress on Mairon’s face. “I became my own lord, Mairon. It was terrible at first, but…”
His words were cut off as Mairon’s arms suddenly wrapped around him like an iron vice, followed by his legs. The Maia held him tight, his soul whispering vehemently of love and comfort. Melkor embraced him in return and let his fingers sift through the Maia’s long, red hair.
For the first time after a long decade, Melkor’s hands were full again.