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I would never admit it to my captors, the self-righteous crowd crooning in mock concern and brother, say but a word, and mercifully I would accept your repentance and rejoice to hear your note entwined in the Music again – but the imprisonment actually felt like relief.
Seven years of siege does not drive out a general by superior military powers. A siege brings only one weapon, and it is hunger. Once it put a stop to our hunting expeditions to the Southern grasslands, I supervised the building of greenhouses to protect our few plants from the blizzards, while Mairon attempted to raise every furry, feathery or scaly creature the Orcs were able to catch, and even a few chitinous ones. For seven years my armies held the fortress by sheer willpower and burning whips of the Valaraukar, but in the end, soldiers can hardly be punished for being distracted by the thought of their next meal moving increasingly further into the future.
We needed to forge steel, feed our growing armies and protect them from freezing to death in the fortress. Mairon noted that it would reduce the food expenses, but would be of limited help against the siege, since there is only so much damage that can be caused by tossing frozen Orcs on their heads. Unfortunately, windmills and dams could not run on his sarcasm, and less so while winter gales were tearing the wings off windmills and freezing the rivers solid.
We fought the famine like a cunning enemy, with strategy and tactics. And we lost.
So I opened the gates of Utumno and walked out to surrender, buying time for my Lieutenant to manage an orderly retreat and spare what was left of our armies. But before I was bound in chains, dragged to the court of Manwë and condemned without permission to defend myself, I made a promise. In the mad rush of these last hours I vowed to bring back the light of Valinor itself if it was the only way we could rebuild our kingdom.
Being a high-ranking prisoner turned out to be much like holding a siege, except that now I was the one waiting for the rest of the Valar to yield. Fighting against the creeping paralysis of mind imprisoned in a body wrapped in chains, still I could not allow myself to attack Tulkas in a reckless fight, or fade to a shadow in the halls of Mandos, or rejoin Manwë in abject humiliation. Not since I took Arda as my dominion and it became my responsibility. Not since I invited a broken, blazing fire Maia to be my second in command, and now endured his absence as punishment beyond all torture and humiliation that Manwë could inflict. Not since I made him a promise to return.
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I got myself dragged to Valinor in a desperate effort to steal us some light, and now I could not hide from it blazing from the skies. The Two Trees, whose lights streamed through Calacirya splitting into thousands of rivulets, an estuary of flames flooding the streets. Though if the Valar had their say, Utumno would see naught of its fairness, and neither would the rest of Arda.
And the brightest flame of all burned in the eyes of the one who managed to capture that light, break and compress it, and in a hidden forge create the masterpieces that rivaled not only the Trees of Varda, but the stars themselves that she has claimed.
“It is rare for one of the Valar to come here just to pay his respects.”
Did he not see I was a prisoner with chains of metal replaced by those of feigned obedience? “I find that difficult to believe,” I responded.
“Usually they arrive with requests, exquisitely polite and nearly impossible to achieve, hidden under a pile of silver and gold.”
Truly, I planned to pay a visit of courtesy alone. But seeing Fëanor’s face light up with pride transported me to another forge, where I was looking for Aulë on a similarly mundane errand, cursed the heat, heard a sarcastic snicker behind my back, turned around to reprimand some insolent Maia - and in a single moment understood what Eru should have meant by the Flame Imperishable. Here was its twin in the eyes of this Elven prince, whom I was entertaining in conversation, while Mairon was holding our scattered armies together in the darkness.
“What is gold but a bauble against machinery that could break the very bones of Arda?” I asked.
“Somehow, I doubt you would be satisfied by breaking them even if you had the means, in spite of all the darkness they claim to be in you.”
“My darkness is no different from the one that lies beyond the Sea. Would that there were a way to pluck a fruit from each Tree and toss them over! The light that would flood the land, the empires that would rise…”
“A single fruit would never be sufficient. But what you wish for is not impossible… to reinvent the light, to focus it, split, rejoin, concentrate and turn into liquid fire. Silima, I would call it.”
“Powerful enough for a fortress? For a city?”
“For a kingdom.”
He was so sure.
“You have done it already.” I whispered, my voice as wary as the look on his face. This was not a trinket to be machined out of sheer joy of creativity, not even a sword to be forged in deadly precision.
I think a glimpse of my fear was what convinced Fëanor to continue. It may have been the first time someone reacted to his invention in understanding instead of blind praise.
I hope that was the case. I hope I could give him this gift, if only to be cherished for a moment.
“I will show you.”
Hidden under thick layers of lead, in an Elf-made lake, deep in the caverns under Tirion, the Silmarils lay waiting.
“Would you not let me touch them?”
“They would burn your body to the marrow. Though I do not know what it means to a Vala: if immortality is inescapable, would the pain last forever?”
“And yet they would bring a kingdom to life.” Then I followed my statement with words that so far had stayed unspoken between us. “Or destroy it so thoroughly even stones themselves would melt.”
Fëanor paled, but held my gaze. “I took an oath. By Arda and Valinor and the Void, by all that I love and all I create, and may Mandos judge and punish me if I would break it. Not to use the Silmarils in battle, even though certain defeat and death faced me and everything I fought for.” “You have been the only one to realize this, and I would have you join in my oath. Or I swear you will not leave...”
I held out my hand to stop him from finishing the insult. “I would not have you threaten me. And I will rule Arda, but not at the expense of destroying it. There would be no true mastery in that. I will swear your oath.”
Bathed in an even light that easily outshined the glittering streets above, our hands clasped and our words echoed.
I do not know if our oath was heard, by Mandos or anyone else, if it bound us together as Fëanor seemed to believe. But through all the destruction that we brought upon ourselves, through threats and lies and betrayals and tortures, crushing defeats and bittersweet victories, we have kept it true, never to be mentioned, never to be broken.
Though at that time I felt only joy at discovering the means to turn the ruins of Utumno into the blazing light of Tirion. And still the Silmarils seemed a pale reflection of the determination and ambition and the sheer, blazing wonder of creativity in Fëanor’s face. If it took all my cunning, I would have Fëanor bring them to Arda of his own free will.
The Valar must have already drowned him in promises of success and glory, so I told the Elf of the freedom found in failure instead.
The freedom in designing buildings that fall apart and machines that come undone in a fireball, in towers crumbling, bridges disintegrating, armies in mutiny – and in picking up the pieces, learning from them, drawing and building and forging and leading, again, and again, from one failure to another, until one day, it works, and the end is more beautiful and terrible than anything you could conceive of in the beginning, but it is, unmistakably and wholly, yours.
I told him of standing at the top of the tower watching my armies march through the gates, feeling I could shape darkness itself to do my bidding, relishing the thought that I had the time and freedom to do so - and yet Fëanor could do a thousand times more with his Light. I spoke of the thrill of building a fortress from the first stone, and an army from the first company, of mistakes made and regretted, but not repeated, of plans laid out so daringly they would make voices falter if spoken aloud.
In the end, I told him what it had felt like to realize that I would not have to remain alone. Of working side by side with my Lieutenant sharing the boundless thirst and curiosity, triumph and despair in equal measure, of combining the power of thought and craft to creations far beyond what either of us could conceive separately. Of building our own home that we might lose in battle - or siege - but would never subject to law of another Vala, not even Eru himself.
And when I called it ours, I was no longer sure if I meant Mairon or Fëanor, or both, three fortresses towering over Arda, drowning it in flames to forge it into designs of might and glory unsurpassed by anything in Valinor.
“The Valar may claim the Light, but the Silmarils are yours alone. How long will you let the Valar treat them as art pieces, as playthings, while beyond the Sea lies the shore that has known nothing but darkness?” I finished my plea.
Mairon, silver-tongued, could have said more, but Fëanor did not deserve lies, and I had no more truth to share. As I climbed out of the cavern and walked away on the streets of Tirion, now dim and shadowy in comparison to the brightness below, I could only hope that it was enough. I knew I would return to Arda with light in my hands, but perhaps I could avoid them being covered in blood.
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The plan was in motion, going so smoothly that we became reckless, relaxed, knowing we had time to spare. We left everyone at the feast, getting ready to grab the Silmarils and take them over the broken columns of the Grinding Ice until the first trees appeared on the horizon.
Fëanor's shoulders were bowed in grief at leaving his family behind. We both knew the price of choosing a part of your life to be taken away, of giving up home in exchange for a chance at freedom.
Freedom that danced on our tongues like sparks and burned permanent stars on our brows.
Freedom that made us giddy with fire in our veins that suddenly turned to ash and coal and regret.
Because as we were getting ready to leave, Finwë stood at the threshold.
Was there a fight? Did Fëanor only defend himself, crying in shame and fury?
Blood, crimson and sticky and hot, and the smell of iron.
Whose?
Was I so easily mastered after centuries without training, Finwë’s sword at my throat?
Growls and grunts and groans of dismay and pain.
Whose?
Did Fëanor lash out in a blind fury, unseeing, unthinking, keeping to the last vestiges of hope to escape, to miss, to forget, before the inevitable reckoning would come?
Clash of steel, teeth clenched, eyes closed.
Whose?
What good are promises of freedom when the blood of your father is pooling at your feet?
I took the blame.
And the Silmarils.
As weregild.
For Fëanor, not Finwë, for the sweet intoxicating taste of daring and defiance turned to bitter iron of blood and revenge.
Since stealth was no longer possible, I sowed confusion to hide my escape, and darkened Valinor, with a passing thought, now they know what it feels like to live in eternal twilight. I ran, climbing dark crevasses and sheer walls of ice, holding the blazing light in my hands, which was burning me, killing me, the skin of my palms scorched black, sloughing off, blood lost and remade at dizzying speed, cold sweat and nausea coming in waves, pain in my guts reknitting to health and being torn apart again, the curse of immortality against the deadly fire of the Silima.
I barely registered the pain. I knew I had doomed us to ages marked by the madness of war that was to come, and hated Finwë, Fëanor and myself for it, and yet I felt I was right to do what I did, and that burned deeper still, and bitter tears fell on the shores of Arda before I called for my armies.
They came to greet me in triumph, Mairon at their head, as if he had only been waiting for my voice.