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The Dark Vala does not make a habit of comforting his guests. Mairon feels this like a blow to his chest the moment he first beholds his domain, standing together before an inhospitable darkness. Almaren lies far behind him in the dusk. Before him stretches Melkor’s kingdom. It is a wasteland of ash and rock: miles upon miles of blackened ground, cracked and rent from horizon to horizon by some awful force as though a giant hammer had come down upon it. Glimmering red spews from these cracks and oozes in rivulets through the rocky landscape, molding into a great river of fire across the valley floor. It is as though the land itself were a brazier, burning with coals, that some great hand had upended; ashen pits pockmark the land. They remind Mairon of nothing so much as scabs, raw and weeping under the shadow of black clouds.
He thinks of the gardens of Yavanna, lush and deep, interlaced throughout Almaren like a fine web of greenery to bring their haven to life. He thinks of the variety of living things there, from silvering willows to delicate lotus blooms, from a hundred shades of grass to the tough ivy clinging to the pillars of Aule’s hall. None of those comforts grace his sight now, here on the barren plains. Here, everything is black and bare and ugly, and nothing lives.
Nothing lives, and Mairon, wrapped in the silken garments of a gentler land, is struck deep with worry. He can’t help it; he shivers and draws his cloak tighter. It’s a learned reaction. Deep inside him a voice rises, snakelike, and whispers who in Arda could be proud of such a place as this?
The thought comes quick as a flash, and just as quickly Mairon tries to bury it. He can still feel his lord’s shadow looming at his back, quietly aware of him: aware of his hesitation, of the spike in his nerves. Fear grips his spine. To question the work of a Vala’s hands is simply not done. He straightens his shoulders, preparing to explain himself, to apologize for his lapse of faith—
But the Lord of Chaos only looks down at him, with eyes the color of deep ice, and smiles.
Mairon follows that smile into the darkness and resolves not to question again.
~*~
They cross the Dark Vala’s lands under a shroud of fog. Mairon’s tension is instinctive. He dislikes the way the atmosphere clouds his corporeal sight, the way the horizon dims and blurs before his seeking eyes. He dislikes the way the ground changes its consistency beneath his feet, leaping from smooth stone to sliding gravel without so much as a by-your-leave. But most of all, he dislikes the strange outcroppings of rock and stone that seem to ambush him, looming without warning through the veil of smoke and steam. He clings to Melkor’s shadow as they travel, uncertain of his steps, lamenting for the clear precision of the Lamp-light he’s left behind in Almaren.
Mairon.
He almost misses the gentle prodding at the back of his mind. It is so subtle that he wonders briefly if he imagined it. But it comes again, stronger, and this time he recognizes the dark timbre of Melkor’s voice. Amusement colors its tone.
You are nervous.
Nervous, and now annoyed with himself for being so obvious about it. “Only cautious, Lord Melkor,” he says demurely. “This is, after all, quite new to me. I cannot claim the comfort born from familiarity as you can.”
Really? I have never known Aulë’s most promising inventor to be so hesitant over new experiences.
The same words, coming from Aulë, would have been understood as a rebuke. But Melkor is not Aulë by any stretch of the imagination, and there is something in the keen way Melkor looks at him that loosens Mairon’s tongue. “May I speak freely, my lord?” he asks, emboldened by the Vala’s good humor.
I did not bring you here for your silence, certainly.
Mairon hesitates only a moment before turning his gaze to the scarred landscape. “I do not understand the purpose of this design,” he admits, giving voice to the thoughts that have gnawed at him since his arrival. “You proclaim that your machinations improve the whole of creation, yet it is unclear to me how they are meant to fit within that larger whole. I do not question your power, my lord, or presume myself entitled to your knowledge. I only—“ He stops himself, clamping down on his own voice.
Only what?
Mairon bites the inside of his lip. Already he regrets his line of query. “I…I dislike leaving questions unsolved, my lord. It is my own flaw, and not one I should be plying you with. I apologize.”
The Dark Vala looks down at him with a furrowed brow.
You seek knowledge, he says. You are a creator, desiring to understand the forces of earth which define your craft. Why do you think I would condemn you for this?
Hearing it put so, Mairon hesitates. “I…do not have a good answer to that, my lord,” he says. It’s not entirely a lie. Mairon tries to imagine how Aulë would have reacted had Mairon posed such a bold line of questioning to him, and the thought brings a cringe to his blood. At best, he would be ignored or chastised for presuming to demand such an explanation from a Vala. At worst, he would be laughed at. But Mairon doubts the wisdom of comparing Lord Melkor to his brother in any way, let alone to explain that he had been using Aulë’s behavior as the basis for his expectations of Melkor, and so he bites his tongue.
Melkor sighs, a low rumble of exhalation that sends tremors through the ground beneath their feet, and moves away across the plain. Come, says his voice in Mairon’s head, and Mairon follows. Through the broken plains they travel, as the smoke from the vents braids itself into Mairon’s hair and winds itself about his shoulders like a second shawl, and he thinks he’ll never be rid of the smell. Beneath his feet the land slopes ever downward. The great river of fire he’d seen at a distance melts into view. Once it had looked like nothing more than a thread of color across a darkened vista. Now it lies before them, vast and lethargic, wide enough that he can barely make out the far shore.
Look, Mairon. Melkor moves past him and kneels at the river’s edge, dipping his hand into the fire and withdrawing it unscathed. In his palm he cups a handful of molten rock. The light of it glows red against the Vala’s dark skin. He opens his fingers and allows it to bleed through, trickling like spilled wine back into the river. Mairon draws closer, intrigued.
This is the lifeblood of all the Fields of Arda, Melkor tells him. Everything you see here, every rock and mountain, was formed from this blood in a song that took eons to complete. Not even Aulë has power over it, for it is of my own making. He stands and gestures to the ash-swept plains around them, pockmarked with chasms and pits of steam. One day the soil that comes from this land will be more fertile even than the valleys of Almaren, where Yavanna’s Music is its only nutrient.
Mairon does not understand. “But all things flourish through the Music,” he points out, frowning at the river of lava as it rolls past their feet. “You speak as though you find this unacceptable.”
Melkor shakes his head. No, I do not. Not intrinsically. But neither do I think the fields of Almaren are what they could have been, if my siblings had given any thought to the workings of the earth beyond their attempts to beautify its surface.
“I suppose they did not exactly consult you during its construction,” Mairon muses. Melkor startles him by laughing aloud. His laughter is as slow and strong as the river.
“No, they did not,” he says, in a voice deeper than the bellows of Aulë’s forges and yet softer than the finest velvet. “And therein lies their oversight. Whenever one of my elements interferes with their designs, they must renew their Songs all over again in order to repair the damage. My creations do not require such constant effort. Look.” With a subtle beckoning of his Will, he guides Mairon’s attention through the smoke and ash to an eddy across the river, where flows of lava are cooling and curling into dark layers of stone. Even as they watch, the shape of the riverbank changes. It molds itself to the new additions like a snake shedding its skin.
“You see,” he says at Mairon’s shoulder, “how even the most gaping chasm might heal itself in time? No matter how this land of mine is rent and torn, it will build itself up again. It does not need my Voice to guide its shaping any longer. It will live and breathe on its own, regenerating its hurts, crafting ever-new landscapes of its own accord. New valleys to explore, new mountains to delve. New wonders at which to marvel.”
Mairon shivers. He remembers the early days of Arda’s creation: Aulë, his master, locked in discord with some dark being as mountains were raised and destroyed and raised up again. The clamor of two clashing Voices filling the sky, blinding greater and lesser Maiar alike with the effects of a creative work interrupted; the shifting of landscapes within a matter of minutes and the laments of a forgemaster bemoaning the loss of beautiful things, while in the far distance mountains split open and hot chasms poured forth waterfalls of steam from their depths. Melkor must hear the current of his thoughts, for he smiles and draws near to Mairon once again. The heat of his fëa wraps around Mairon like a cloak.
“I know how you love the treasures of the earth,” he murmurs. “Its ores and veins, its gems and metals, its most dangerous and volatile elements. My brother shapes these things, yes, but they all had their utmost beginnings in fire. Not unlike you, I think.”
Mairon is silent, watching the river of lava with an unfathomable look in his eyes. Hesitantly he steps toward it and kneels at its edge, an echo of the posture Melkor had taken only moments ago. His image shimmers in the heavy atmosphere; the light of molten earth reflects like gold in his eyes. Hesitantly, he reaches down to it. Pauses. Curls his fingers in uncertainty, then at the sensation of the Vala’s approval, unfurls them again. Feather-light, he leans down and touches the surface of the river.
It is a heat more massive than the fires of any forge. The river engulfs his hand, and for a blinding moment he feels almost as bright and vibrant as the Vala who created it. Exultation erupts from his fëa like the light of a star. The dark presence shifts at his back, and suddenly Melkor is kneeling beside him, reaching down to touch the molten river with his own hand. His fingers find Mairon’s hand beneath the surface. His breath is warm and close upon Mairon’s ear.
“You see?” he whispers, twining their fingers together within the lifeblood of the earth. “This is how the world is born.”