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One of the first things newcomers usually took notice of when they came to Ost-in-Edhil was the fact that there was a sprawling garden in the southern half of the third ring of the city. This district was famously occupied by the scholars of biology, botany, and phytochemistry, as well as the greenhouses, gardens, and laboratories needed to accommodate them.
In the early days of Ost-in-Edhil the botanists had jumped at the prospect of having an entire part of the Third Ring to themselves and had immediately taken to making it their own. The district had undergone a quite thorough make-over, including but not limited to creating the sprawling high-garden and the hanging gardens, adjusting the entire water supply system to support the artificial streams winding their way through meadows and the green-golden shade of the trees, and erecting countless little greenhouses with adjustable shading to enable the botanists to grow plants native to any climate zone they pleased.
Of all the guild-quarters, the botany district was by far the easiest one to find and the big glass tower of the main greenhouse doubled as a landmark for those who tended to get lost in the big bustle of Ost-in-Edhil during their first few weeks there.
However, the gardens were not only valued for their scientific purposes. Scholars, apprentices, and masters of all trades alike valued it as a place of calm and quiet in an otherwise restless city. Ost-in-Edhil was the centre of learning in Eregion and as a result had colloquies, lectures, demonstrations, and debate circles going on at every corner and at every hour of the day.
The gardens, on the other hand, provided a sanctuary for those who had had enough of heated arguments and feverish field experiments and wanted a quiet moment to themselves where they could let their thoughts idle and wander as they pleased. Some liked to amble along the white-paved paths, lost in thought and their hands clasped behind their backs, while others preferred to sit in one of the gazebos hidden in the remote corners of the garden with only birds and butterflies or fireflies and crickets as their company, depending on the time of day. Late at night visitors were rare, barring the odd couple of lovebirds.
Tonight was no different: the gardens lay empty, excepting the lonely figure stretched out on the lawn. Currently, Celebrimbor, Lord of Eregion, was lying on his back on the grass, stretched out under a strange-looking tripod contraption, on which he was working by the light of a brightly glowing lantern. Mounted on top of the tripod was a telescope, and a great number of lenses were lying in two wooden boxes next to him.
At the moment, Celebrimbor was sliding one lens out of a brass bracket in the telescope, which he subsequently dropped in one box, then reached into the second box without turning his head and fitted a convex lens into the bracket, before sliding the bracket into the tube of the telescope.
He brought his eye up to the eyepiece of the telescope. The sight that greeted him was an image of the night sky that was at once greatly magnified and – less pleasantly – greatly blurred. He sighed and slid the lens out again to exchange it with another one that was concave. Again he brought his eye up to the telescope and reached up to turn a few adjusting screws. The image slid a bit further into focus, but it was still far from ideal. With a frown of discontent Celebrimbor blindly felt for the box that held the lenses he had not yet tried with his left hand, while turning another adjusting screw with his right.
All of a sudden, the sky went black.
Celebrimbor blinked and pulled back a few inches. He was almost sure no mechanism in the telescope should be able to cause a complete blanking out of the stars. Curious, he brought his eye up to the telescope again, only to be greeted with a fringe of coloured light that put the chromatic aberration of his worst-fitting lenses to shame. It was like a burst of sunlight split up into every single spectral colour and put into a kaleidoscope, dancing and shifting in response to the slightest movement of his head.
He stared at the phenomenon for a few moments, running through possible explanations in his head and coming up short. He thought a bit longer, then comprehension suddenly dawned on him. He fought to keep the amusement out of his voice as he spoke.
“Now that is unlike any other star I have seen before. Usually they are content to stay in the sky next to each other and wait until it is their turn to be regarded. Until now I have not met one which demands attention so vigorously it feels the need to blot out all the others by placing itself immediately in front of my objective.”
He pulled back and craned his head aside, looking up and past the tripod and the tube of the telescope to its opposite end, where a white-robed figure was standing. The halo of refracted light surrounding it dimmed and settled around the figure like a blanket, merging with the soft silver glow of moonlight on white robes and now pale-golden hair.
Celebrimbor drew himself up into a sitting position. “I am trying to come up with an even more dramatic way you could have made your presence known, but I can think of none.”
Annatar merely raised an eyebrow. “Seeing how I waited for about ten minutes standing next to you, watching you star-gazing and tinkering and utterly failing to notice me, I assumed the most effective way to get your attention was to get between you and your object of interest.”
Celebrimbor snorted quietly. “Oh please, we both know that a tap on the shoulder would have achieved the same. I think we can both agree that you simply cannot stand being ignored any more than that ungodly cat you dragged into my study – only that the cat would not deny it.”
“If I recall correctly, I have yet to climb on your lap and bite you for not paying attention to me,” Annatar replied slowly.
“I have no doubt that you would have no qualms about doing just that if you didn't value your dignity over your need to get your way,” Celebrimbor said.
“If you preferred I left—” Annatar said, looking a bit miffed.
“No!” Celebrimbor said, laughing. “I'd much prefer you stayed! You have not even told me why you have come here.”
“Your fellow jewel-smiths and that loud-mouthed bard you are so inexplicably fond of missed you at dinner and the colloquy afterwards,” Annatar replied. “They were beginning to worry that you had either locked yourself in your workshop again and forgotten that you needed to eat, or that you had ridden off to Khazad-Dûm in a start of fancy without bothering to tell anyone.”
“Well, that was once—” Celebrimbor started, then interrupted himself, his brow creased in a quizzical frown. “But surely you are not running around looking for me on their behalf?” While Annatar was friendly with nearly all of the Mírdain and did not put himself above doing favours, this friendliness surely did not extend so far that he would allow the masters to send him searching for one of their own like an errand boy.
Annatar did not answer the question. Instead, he rounded the telescope until he was standing next to Celebrimbor. He looked down at the two boxes of lenses and the telescope. “I was not aware that you had developed a professional interest in astronomy.”
Celebrimbor gently pushed the tube aside, so its end was no longer so precariously close to where he could accidentally bump his head against it, and leaned back on his forearms.
“This is less about my interest in astronomy than about my knowledge of optics,” he said. “Gildiriel approached me because she was having problems getting clear images of faraway objects like stars with her telescopes. She said she tried switching around lenses in all imaginable combinations, but it still did not work to her liking. There is always either a chromatic or a spherical aberration due to lens curvature and different refractive indices, and the images turn out to be either blurred or with colour fringes or both. I'm trying to find a solution to the problem.”1
Annatar bent down and picked up a nearly spherical lens. He rolled it between his fingers and held it up against the night sky, watching the distortions of the stars slide over its surface. “You could always suggest using a bigger telescope,” he said, a faint trace of amusement in his voice.
“I think she is looking for a practical solution.” Celebrimbor climbed to his feet and held out his hand. Annatar carefully placed the lens on his palm. “Besides, a longer focal length is not exactly something we have not tried before in order to compensate for aberrations and—” He trailed off, his gaze losing itself in the lens, which was sitting on his palm like a black marble.
“You want to find a better, original solution,” Annatar finished for him. Celebrimbor was not even surprised that his friend had guessed the exact nature of his thoughts before he himself had finished them in his head.
“Well, yes. What sense is there in forsaking progress just because we have a method that half-works for some tasks? There are no such thing as half-solutions. Something either works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, this should be an incentive to find a better way – not relying on a workaround of doubtful quality.”
“No half-measures, I see,” Annatar said. It was hard to tell whether he was amused or serious.
“No. We have enough twelve-foot-long telescopes. I want to try something new and I was thinking of implementing mirrors; although those typically gather less light and I would have to find a way to circumvent the spherical aberrations there—” Celebrimbor absent-mindedly tossed the lens back and forth between his hands, his gaze drifting over the ground.
“And it is this desire for novelty and grandeur that has you sprawled in the grass after midnight and fumbling with the telescope?” Now there definitely was a touch of amusement in Annatar's voice.
“There is less ambient light in the gardens, which makes it easier to observe dimmer stars. Besides, I only delved into the subject matter a week ago and I like to get familiar with the tools at my disposal in order to get a grasp on how they actually work outside of textbooks. This is what I am doing right now.”
“Revolutionising astronomy from the ground up in the truest sense of the word, I see. And what did you learn from your testing?” Annatar walked over to Celebrimbor's other side and tilted the tube of the telescope up, but did not take a look through it.
Celebrimbor watched him. “For now? A few things: lenses do work, but not in the way that's most conducive to observing stars, at least in the way they're used now. I am reasonably sure mirrors might be an alternative, but I would have to calculate a proper cut for the glass and test various alloys before I create the mirror and do another round of testing. Although – ” He bent down to place the lens back in its box and then stood, cracking his aching spine. “I do think I should continue this in a place with a desk and a proper chair.”
“That may well be the wisest conclusion you have come to today. Although considering that you thought the best way to approach to this problem was to spend the night crawling around in the grass and fiddling with lenses, that isn't saying much,” Annatar said while watching Celebrimbor stack the boxes with the lenses.
“If that's what you choose to believe, so be it,” he replied and straightened up with a lopsided smile. “And I believe you can give me a hand in carrying these back to the tower.” He pushed the boxes into Annatar's arms, who raised an eyebrow at him, and turned to dismantle the telescope from the tripod.
They took the walk back to the tower side by side, past the now-empty terraces and the abandoned loungers and chairs, where most of the Mírdain's scholars came with the intention to enjoy a quiet evening – which then invariably spiralled into a discussion on metaphysics or other, similar topics.
Their steps echoed off the vaulted ceilings of the still hallways and the floors. They passed the classrooms and smaller workshops on the ground level. Most of the doors were ajar and the rooms behind them were dark, but some doors were still firmly shut in order to provide whoever was inside with the silence and privacy needed to think. Light was spilling out from beneath the cracks of those doors and the glass windows let into the wood. As a rule, the tower of the Mírdain never slept. Certainly, there were hours when nearly most of the masters would be present, like the morning and early afternoon, but none of them adhered to a fixed schedule. Somewhere someone was always staying up late, giving the finishing touches to a piece of metalwork, spruing wax models, or calculating a difficult series of stress constants for new raw materials that the sailors of Númenor had brought from distant lands at the very edges of the known world.
At the round hall at the end of the hallway, they climbed the steps winding up in spirals along the inner walls of the tower until they reached Celebrimbor's workshop at the very top.
“You can put the boxes on the desk; I will have a look at them later,” Celebrimbor said. He deposited the telescope in a corner where it hopefully wouldn't be in the way, and turned back around. He was greeted by the sheen of the candles on his desk flaring to life.
Annatar – who almost certainly had not used matches to light them – was standing in front of his desk and scrutinising the papers that were scattered all over its surface. “You have certainly put a lot of thought into this already,” he said quietly, as he lifted a piece of paper to examine the drawing upon it. “Using interferometry as a means of gaining a higher resolution on faraway objects is an unusual idea, but an elegant way of circumventing the size limitations of your lenses.”
Celebrimbor briefly allowed himself to enjoy the rush of joy and pride that came with Annatar's rare praise, but his matter-of-fact nature quickly took over again. While he knew the praise was sincere, he also knew it was undeserved.
“Elegant – and ultimately infeasible. It was just an idea I have been toying with.” Celebrimbor walked over to Annatar and looked at the drawing of the telescope array over his friend's shoulder. “We would need at least two telescopes, which would have to connected in a way that they're able to create a single image by overlaying the two images the receptors receive. There is no mirror contraption I could build within reasonable limits of effort in order to achieve this.”2
“Not yet,” Annatar admitted, but he said it with a brief smile directed at Celebrimbor, who found himself smiling back without consciously deciding to do so. “There is no telling what heights of progress we might yet achieve, if the past two hundred years are any indication.”
“Something like this would require nothing short of magic.” Celebrimbor frowned.
“By today's standards maybe.” Annatar turned around and leaned against the desk. “But you have hundreds of years of progress ahead of you. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Both enact the doer's will upon the world, both operate according to mostly hidden rules, and at the point you understand those rules you can use them to change and manipulate the world around you as you please.”
“You make it sound as if anyone with sufficient knowledge of science could become like the Powers themselves.” Celebrimbor laughed. The notion that a mortal might hold the unfathomable power of distant gods who had sung the universe itself into being, and watched Arda being formed while stars flared up and died around them, was so absurd it was ridiculous. He turned to look at Annatar, certain that his friend had to be joking, but when he noticed Annatar's face was completely serious, he fell silent.
Celebrimbor felt himself shudder internally. It should have been revulsion that prompted his reaction, but – it wasn't. It was the pleasant shiver of a new, heretofore unknown opportunity – a new plan, still in the hazy early stages of being born. He had already latched onto the idea, and he was already unable to discard it as impossible. His mind had already shifted into gear, rapidly running through possibilities and examining them in his head—
Annatar had of course noticed Celebrimbor's half-hearted attempt and subsequent failure to dismiss the idea as a jest as curiosity and eagerness won out over doubtful incredulity. Annatar gave him a wry smile. “Not anyone, surely, not as easily as the Powers and not on their level of magnitude,” he said. “It would require someone with extensive knowledge of the workings of the world – the laws of physics, if you will – not to mention an amount of power not available to any mortal race – yet. But you would be surprised how many seemingly insurmountable obstacles you can bypass if you know how to exploit the rulebook in your favour. Learn the rules, learn to truly understand them, and the question of power can be addressed in due time.”
“We would need a lot of time,” Celebrimbor said hesitantly, not quite allowing himself to embrace the impossible, outrageous idea that it sounded like his friend was proposing.
“We have all the time in the world,” Annatar replied. “And I will aid you every step along the way. It will not be easy and it will not be quick, but it can be done.”
“I believe you give me too much credit,” Celebrimbor said. “I am not a—I am not my grandfather. Stars, I doubt even he would have been able to achieve what you are talking about when he was creating during the Noontide of Valinor. I am flattered that you believe me capable of those things, but – Annatar – I am not you.”
Annatar looked at him for the longest time, his arms crossed and his eyes tinted golden in the light of the candles. “I am well aware of who you are,” he said at last. “But I would not have come to you if I believed that there was a limit to what I could ask of you.”
Celebrimbor opened his mouth to respond, and found himself utterly at a loss for words when he realised just what Annatar had said. He searched for an appropriate reply – but what reply could be appropriate to the reveal that his dearest friend, who happened to be one of the world-shaping powers himself, regarded him as someone who could one day become his equal?
Did Annatar have serious hopes that Celebrimbor might be able to keep up with him?
No, Celebrimbor amended, Annatar did not deal in hypotheticals. He did not hope. He expected Celebrimbor to live up to his expectations.
The idea was impossible, of course. And yet, Celebrimbor could not bring himself to admit it aloud that there might be something that Annatar could ask of him and Celebrimbor could not do. He almost physically recoiled at the notion that he might be a disappointment to his friend, the very same friend who had placed such high hopes in him.
“And what would you have us become?” Celebrimbor asked. “Gods?”
Annatar pushed himself away from the desk. “I do not know. What we have done during the past two centuries surpassed even my expectations, and at this point I am as curious as to where our path will lead us as you are. But you know I have not come here to teach you magic tricks to show off at garden parties.” His voice, usually measured, rhythmic and flowing as if he was reciting a poem, had become louder and attained a wild edge Celebrimbor was not used to hearing. A ripple went through him, at the very edge of what Celebrimbor could perceive with his senses, something around his edges seemed to flare, as if Annatar was just barely reining in a wild, violent fire threatening to take over his current form. The room itself seemed brighter all of a sudden and the candles were burning higher.
Annatar seemed to notice it at the same time Celebrimbor did, and within a fraction of a moment he had himself back under control. The candle flames shrunk to their natural size and the room returned to its former dimness. When he continued, his voice was back to his usual quiet tone and measured pace. “We have already achieved remarkable things, things many of your kinsmen could never dream of achieving. But as of yet we have stayed meekly within the boundaries set for us by masters we have not chosen.”
Annatar looked at him more intently than Celebrimbor could ever recall him doing, and he suddenly felt almost suffocated by the unbearable weight of the attention of one who was greater and older than this world – as if Celebrimbor was a particle burning up in the focal point of Annatar's gaze.
“We must set our sights higher than that, my friend. Why observe the stars when you could reach for them?” Annatar gave a quick nod towards the telescope standing in the corner. “And if this means raising yourselves up to the level of those who made this world – why not?”
The question harshly brought him back on the ground. Memories resurfaced: swords and voices raised, ships burning, a continent flooded by the sea and pulled under the foaming waves, and the terrible groan of the bones of the world itself being broken as mountains sundered and toppled.
“Why not indeed?” Celebrimbor sank into his chair and ran his hands down his face. He stilled, then pulled his hands away and stared at them, watching the tendons working under the skin of the back of his hand every time he flexed his fingers. “This sounds exactly like the kind of undertaking that would call the wrath of the West down upon us.”
Annatar made a sound of disapproval. “The West. The West. Why do you care about the West? The Powers abandoned these shores long ago. You should not be looking out over the sea with longing and fear, you should keep your eyes on what is right under your nose and bend all your thoughts on how to shape it to your liking!” He walked over to where Celebrimbor was sitting and took the second chair, sitting down across from him. He took Celebrimbor's hand in his own and the touch sent a line of white fire up the nerves of his arm.
Briefly, Celebrimbor felt the urge to flinch from it like he had involuntarily done the first few times Annatar had touched him. But it was a fire that had by now become as familiar to him as the flames in his father's forge he remembered from his childhood, and had learned long ago that neither fire would burn him: suppressing the urge to pull back was just a matter of self-control, something Curufin had taken great pains to hammer into his head.
“Mind over matter,” his father would always say. “You are not some animal subjected to instincts without self-control. Master your instincts. Fire is not going to hurt you, but fear and hasty reactions will lead you to make mistakes, and then you are going to get hurt. The will must lead, and your body must follow – not the other way around.”
Curufin may have been unrelenting, stern, and impatient, but for all his numerous faults, he had been a good teacher. And Celebrimbor had learned his lessons well, to the point where suppressing his reflexes had become a reflex of its own.
When his friend took his hand felt the fire, but he did not fear it; and so he held still, allowing Annatar to turn his hand so that its palm was facing upwards.
“Who knows the works these hands might yet do, the wonders they will create.” Celebrimbor watched Annatar tracing invisible lines over his palm with his finger, leaving the skin in its wake tingling. “Works that will shine so bright that the splendour of Middle-earth will be visible as a silver band on the eastern horizon from Aman – and the Lords of the West themselves will stand at the shores and they will look at us in envy and they will say, Would that we had not left this land to perish, would that we had seen the worth of what seemed like a piece of ashes at the time, maybe then we could have had a part in its glory that outshines the stars of Varda themselves.”
As he spoke, images rose in Celebrimbor's mind without his conscious doing. Pale, white cities glowing like the moon in a purple twilight under the stars, bridges and spires of silver and star-light, the light of sun and moon themselves caught in glittering stones and shedding their lights on echoing vaulted halls where ethereal voices interwove in a choir of reverence, at once enraptured and emboldened, as if they could barely believe the wonders they were working, even as they were lifting up towers with a word and levelling mountains with barely more than a thought…
Celebrimbor pulled himself out of his – Annatar's reverie with an effort of will. His heart was thumping in his chest and his mouth was dry. He would have preferred to keep watching, but there was danger lurking in this ethereal vision of the future, and he could not ignore it. He pulled his hand back, out of Annatar's grasp.
“Some would call such a move ill-advised – conceited, even.” Celebrimbor shook his head as the implications really sank in. “As if we of Middle-earth thought we could challenge the Powers. As if this were a game, and we were rivals, playing for this world as small stakes!”
Annatar missed his point completely (and, Celebrimbor suspected, entirely on purpose). “Beating the Powers at their own game?” He mimicked an appalled look. “This would mean that you would content yourself to merely imitate their ways. I sincerely hope that you're not so easily satisfied.”
Celebrimbor made a shooing gesture and laughed, but his heart was not in it. “Come now, you know that this is not what I'm talking about.” His smile faded. “My line is known to answer with hubris when humility would have been called for. This habit has not done us any favours. I would rather not continue the family tradition of falling out with powers that are beyond our strength to fight. I feel I need to prove that at least one of our line has learned from our history.”
Annatar watched him silently, then reached out once more and put his hand on Celebrimbor's shoulder. “Peace, brother. I did not mean to make light of your past, nor would I want you to seek quarrel with anyone. Just don't let fear of them stay your hand from greater works.” Annatar's grip on his shoulder tightened briefly before he pulled away and leaned back.
Celebrimbor sighed and tipped his head back to look up at the skylight above where the constellations of late summer were visible through the glass dome. He reached up with one hand, squinting so that for a moment it looked like he might grasp those distant silver suns in his fist. “You needn’t worry on that account. Ever since you arrived here, we have climbed to heights of knowledge and splendour unknown, achieving more and greater things faster and faster. It should by all rights be an upward climb, slow and exhausting, but this here? It looks like a climb, but it happens so quickly, it feels more like a downhill race. The momentum of events – at this point, I doubt I could stop it, even if I wanted.”
The look Annatar gave him at those words was entirely too smug.
Celebrimbor frowned. “You know, if the Valar themselves knock down my door tomorrow and demand that I answer for overstepping my boundaries in the natural order of things, I will blame you for everything.”
Annatar raised an eyebrow. “Now, don't get ahead of yourself. The Powers have a reputation of reacting only to great insult or great danger. I do not mean to belittle your scientific progress, but they are very unlikely to feel threatened by telescope-building and your forays into hyperbolic geometry.”
This time Celebrimbor's laugh was genuine. “Probably not. Although my students might ardently claim otherwise, mathematics really are not that scary. Then again, we are not going to stop there, are we?” He was not even sure whether he was still talking about mathematics at this point.
Annatar gave him an amused look, but there was a challenging glitter in his eyes, and Celebrimbor saw his own response reflected back to him in them. “What do you think?”
“But what you said about raising ourselves up to the level of the Powers themselves—”
“—was entirely serious, and is a discussion for another time,” Annatar deflected, his tone friendly but firm. “Enough for tonight. I think you still have some refractive indices to calculate.” He pointed at the lenses in the boxes stacked on Celebrimbor’s desk.
Celebrimbor grimaced. “Spoken truly like the Master Annatar I keep hearing about from the students’ rumours. I must disappoint you, though; I am not an apprentice to be assigned a task in order to keep me from asking questions when you no longer feel like talking.”
“What a pity. And here I was thinking it was worth a try.” Annatar smirked.
“I applaud your attempt, but I am not taking orders from you, no matter how many thousands of years older you are than me.” Celebrimbor made a playful swatting gesture in his friend’s direction, but then froze. “Wait, how old are you exactly?”
“Does this have anything to do with you making a point about my non-existent authority over you or is this – ”
“ – just another one of my sudden ‘starts of fancy’ as you all apparently like to call them.” Celebrimbor righted himself in his seat. “I just realised that although we have spent two hundred years working side by side day in, day out, I have never thought of asking you this. I find now that I would really like to know how old you are in years.”
“If you consider it interesting to fit my age into an arbitrary measurement of time that derives from the revolution of celestial bodies around each other...” Annatar trailed off.
“Firstly, yes, I am interested. I am always interested. Secondly, units are arbitrary by design, but they nonetheless are logical and work just fine in giving us a sense of scale and proportion, which is all they are supposed to do. Again, you have to do better if you want me to change topic.” Celebrimbor winked.
“The fact remains that your question is unanswerable to begin with. I was already there before most celestial bodies came into existence, including Arda and the sun by which you measure your years.”
“What about Valian years?” Celebrimbor inclined his head to one side.
Annatar shrugged. “They do not measure exact lengths of time. The Beginning was chaotic in respect to space and time. Both can be dilated and compressed; as a result Valian years do not make sense to use in any kind of equation.”
Celebrimbor opened his mouth to ask him to elaborate further, but then realised just in time that this question would lead him down a rabbit hole whose ends could only be guessed at, and with no possible way to return to the topic at hand. Reining in his burning curiosity firmly, he said, “So there is no way to tell your age in years?”
“No definite way, no.” Annatar reached behind him into the box of lenses and ponderously tossed it between his hands.
“Can you make a rough estimate?” Celebrimbor expected a no, given how disinclined Annatar seemed to be to speak about himself, so he was surprised when his friend actually weighed the question for a while.
“The estimate would be very rough,” he said at last.
“I do not need exact thousands.” Celebrimbor smiled lopsidedly.
Annatar returned the smile, but with a shade of unabashed, sly glee. “Good, because you will have to settle for rough billions.”
“Rough – what?”
Annatar smirked. “Surprised?”
“I – well. Yes, you could say that.” Celebrimbor ran his hand over his forehead, completely baffled. “How many ... billions of years? Hypothetically speaking and conversion errors notwithstanding,” he added hurriedly, before Annatar could latch onto his wording and make another attempt to get him off track with hair-splitting.
Annatar gave him the slightly grudging, impressed look of a chess player reluctantly acknowledging a superior move of his opponent. “Twelve, maybe thirteen. However, the biggest part of my existence was not what you would call life. There was nothing corporeal and very little self-awareness involved. There was not even individuality at this point. It was more of a shared, incorporeal consciousness of all Powers. Before you ask – no, I have no memories of gazing into Varda’s or Manwë's mind. I remember next to nothing of this, because most of those memories were stripped away when we split and formed individual existences much, much later. It was at this point that I would put the beginning of my life, because this was the point when I became aware of myself as an individual and began to form thoughts that were entirely my own.”
While Celebrimbor was listening to Annatar, a strange, primordial view of an ancient universe rose in his mind. It was vague and incoherent, like the memory of a dream that was rapidly dissolving in daylight. Space and time were not fixed and definite; both were looping back on themselves, contracting and dilating, or there were sudden gaps and shifts that threw the tentatively growing order back into chaos again. He realised that Annatar was reaching out to him with his own mind, trying to translate his recollections of those ancient times to something that Celebrimbor could understand. Celebrimbor struggled to keep up, even while his brain started pounding against the inside of his skull – though no matter how much he tried, he could not. Infinity could not be mapped onto finite space, and there was a distant sense of higher dimensions Celebrimbor could catch a brief glimpse of out of the corner of his vision. Celebrimbor reached for it, tried to reach for it, to understand it and turned to face it fully – and then his mind recoiled as if it had burned itself on knowledge it simply was not equipped to grasp.
“Annatar, this is—”
“Too much. I noticed.”
The image retreated behind a fog and was lost entirely when Annatar’s mind drew back from Celebrimbor’s own. Celebrimbor rubbed his temples. He felt light-headed and his stomach felt queasy as if he had leaned out too far over an abyss and almost lost his balance.
“How long ago was it that you as you are now came into existence? And can you show me how the world was back then?” he asked after a few minutes of pensive silence.
Annatar gave him an incredulous look. “Are you still asking me this, even after you just barely managed to avoid falling unconscious in the face of what I have shown you? Will you ever learn to accept your limits?”
“Forgive me if I won't take lessons about accepting limitations from you of all people,” Celebrimbor retorted.
Annatar looked annoyed. “Now you are being purposefully insufferable. Your nature and mine are hardly comparable. Besides, I never said you should be content with your limitations. But as long as you have no way to overcome them safely, you will harm yourself. If you want to rip your mind to pieces so desperately, then be my guest – but don't expect me to lend you a hand in doing it. My helpfulness ends exactly where your foolhardiness starts and—”
Celebrimbor held up a hand. “Peace, brother,” he said, trying to keep a serious face. “I was just joking, and I could not resist the jab at the supremely subjective applicability of your wisdom. Of course you are right.”
“If you think your soundness of mind is a joking matter, perhaps I should reconsider whether it's wise to continue collaborating with you and instead look for someone else who isn't—”
“Now you are being purposefully insufferable!” Celebrimbor said laughing. “You were right when you said that I was reckless, but so was I when I said that you were a bad example for modesty. Come now, you don't have to show me, but you can at least answer the question. And before you try to sidetrack me again, I was asking you about your age – which you should be able to give me calculated in a fashion that might not give me a lasting headache. I am well used to dealing with big numbers, after all.”
Annatar looked for a moment as if he wanted to argue the point further, but then obviously decided to drop the argument for now. A good deal of his belligerence left his posture and he leaned back in his chair. “I came into existence as the individual you see now only a comparatively short time ago - roughly two hundred thousand years ago, I suppose, closely tied to our descent into Arda.” Annatar regarded the lens he was still holding in his hand, then held it up against the candlelight. He seemed to take issue with a stain that had to be invisible to mortal eyes and polished it with his sleeve.
Celebrimbor watched as Annatar held the lens up to the light again, turning it back and forth as he seemed to be considering whether it was at last adequately clean. Red and orange fractals danced on the surface of his desk. The fleeting, dancing colours reminded him of what Annatar had shown him of his memories of the early universe.
“How was it – the world, back in the beginning?” Celebrimbor asked.
“Empty. And at the same time full to the brim with possibilities.” Annatar opened his hand to reveal the lens on his palm and this time, it seemed to shine with its own light. Radiant oranges, golds, greens and purples painted the walls, the floors, Celebrimbor’s arms, and Annatar’s white robe. “No roads had been chosen yet, no paths closed off in favour of others. Only the stars were above us and infinite possibilities laid out before us. We were able to do anything with a blank world that had been given to us to shape and build and lead and impose ourselves upon. There are no words in any language of the world to describe what this felt like to beings that were made to create.” As he spoke, the dancing lights slowly faded and the lens returned to its natural transparent state. Annatar carefully set it aside.
“I think I understand,” Celebrimbor said quietly, his eyes still focused on the lens even though it had returned to its normal plain colourlessness. “We Noldor, too, were made – I believe – with the purpose of creating in mind. Even our own kin tends to forget this, given our ability to overshadow our talent at creation with our equally great skill at destruction. And yet, when we created we always did it shackled to old methods and traditions – until you came here and showed us what was actually possible, that there was so much more that we could achieve.”
Celebrimbor stood, suddenly too restless to stay seated for much longer. He wanted to say so much, but he could not think properly, let alone adequately sort and articulate his thoughts when he was forced to sit still. He headed over to the glass doors leading over to the balcony and opened them. “My own kin – Middle-earth – we had lost so much at the end of the First Age.” He turned around to see that Annatar had followed him and was standing only a few feet behind him.
By silent agreement, they both stepped outside to stand on the balcony. Ost-in-Edhil sprawled below them, a marvellous mosaic of towers and spires, gardens and bridges, shadows and glowing lights. Lamps painted colourful paths along streets and around plazas, and their light was reflected in the waters of the Sirannon and illuminated the arches of the aqueduct the stonemasons of Ost-in-Edhil had completed only fifty years ago.
“I had settled for the goal of salvaging what was left out of the ashes of the old world and rebuilding what had been lost,” Celebrimbor said. “I came to Eregion and I finished building Ost-in-Edhil when my aunt Galadriel left for Lórien. It was not a radiant or ethereal city like Tirion, but it was safe and solid. It was good. But then you came, and you showed me that there was no need to be satisfied with 'good' when achieving 'better' was possible. I had never looked at it like that before. It was as if a blindfold had been lifted from my eyes and that I truly saw just what we could do for us and for this world, if we only wanted to. If I felt that there ever was a moment when my life had become a blank slate, a real chance to start anew – not as the heir of a doomed line, but as myself, as someone who was free to decide what to do with his life – it was the day I met you.”
And that was the truth. Even when Celebrimbor combed through his memories in search of a moment of a new beginning, none – not even the day he renounced his father at Nargothrond or the Sinking of Beleriand – were as remarkable as the moment when he turned around to find one of the Ainur on his own doorstep, offering him a hand extended in friendship and the promise of a world that might yet be mended.
Annatar gave him a look that was at the same time pleased and curious. “I did not know that this is what this day meant to you.”
“It meant more to me than you probably can guess,” Celebrimbor replied. “The feeling you described – I don't know if it is the same that I felt back then, but …” He trailed off.
“Do you want to show me?” Annatar asked softly.
Celebrimbor felt a brief brush of something else against his own mind. He was used to this kind of communication and thus, he made no move to conceal his thoughts from Annatar. They had not bothered to close their minds off from each other for a long time, and Celebrimbor saw no reason to hide away the memory of his moment of epiphany either. There might not be a word to describe the feeling that had filled him all those years ago, which he was only now beginning to understand, but maybe his own memory was an adequate approximation.
He opened his mind to his friend and allowed him to see the day of their first meeting through Celebrimbor's eyes. He waited patiently while Annatar turned the memories over and regarded them, examining the differences in their points of view and the impressions that had remained with Celebrimbor.
When Annatar was finished, he gave Celebrimbor a look that was at the same time pleased and curious. “This is indeed adequate. More than adequate, in fact. I had not known that this is what this day meant to you.”
“It meant more to me than you probably know even now,” Celebrimbor said. “Your arrival changed everything. The way we approach things – the very things we dare approach now! We have learned so much, and we have achieved such greatness in such a short span of time. And everything was indeed better. Better than it had been before; rebuilt, a world more beautiful and no less worthy for the trials it has faced. If anything, Aman is less for its perfection, because its beauty has never been tried in the way my home has been tried.”
“Our home,” Annatar amended softly.
Celebrimbor looked at him for a few moments, then he nodded. “Our home,” he repeated and the words echoed pleasantly in his mind. And after a pause—
“I am glad you chose these shores.”
“So am I,” Annatar replied.
Silence returned and they both stood next to each other. Side by side, they looked out over the city and Celebrimbor could feel Annatar’s presence at his side like the warmth of a steadily burning fire.
Our city.
He threw Annatar a sideways glance. His friend was looking out over the city, resting his weight on his elbows, and looking utterly at ease with being here – with Celebrimbor, on this balcony, in this tower, in this city, despite being the only one of his kind among Elves, Men and Dwarves here in Ost-in-Edhil. There were times – rare, but nevertheless existent – when Celebrimbor marvelled at how easily Annatar moved among them and adapted to their customs, and how he never gave the impression of missing his own kind or finding the company of mere mortals lacking.
This prompted Celebrimbor to think back to his own time spent among Dwarves in Khazad-Dûm: they certainly had been as friendly and welcoming towards him as Dwarves could be expected to be, and Celebrimbor had done his best to adapt to their foreign customs – for example their clipped, concise way of speaking (and learning, after a time, that not all curtness equalled gruffness and that speaking in the elaborate, flowery style of the Eldar was generally considered ruder than just getting to the point). He discovered that there were many things that the Noldor and the Khazad had in common, like their love for crafts and invention and their reverence for their elders.
Nevertheless, he also learned that there were gaps between their races that were too great to overcome, even after Celebrimbor had already been living in Dwarrowdelf for decades. They started at physiological differences owed to the the subterranean homes of the Dwarves, which made the Khazad well equipped to function on irregular, non-circadian sleep rhythms Celebrimbor was simply unable to keep up with – and they ended at the vast discrepancy in their attitude toward nature: Dwarves saw it as something that was supposed to serve and sustain civilization and be used accordingly, whereas Celebrimbor's Eldarin upbringing had introduced nature as a pantheistic, almost sentient being that was to be revered, respected and met with humility.
And while Celebrimbor had never been treated as less by Durin or any other dwarf and although they had never shut him out from anything but their most secret rites and holiest sanctuaries, which no stranger was allowed to see, there had come a time when the longing to be among his own kin once more had become too strong to ignore, and he had returned to the surface world.
Annatar, on the other hand, did not give any impression of missing either Aman or the company of other Ainur. He moved and behaved as if Ost-in-Edhil had always been his home and while he could frequently be found wandering or working alone, he never seemed lonely. Maybe, Celebrimbor mused, Maiar were solitary territorial beings and didn't tolerate each other in close confines. Melian came to his mind as an example: she had established her own realm in Doriath and guarded it against outsiders, but then again, he supposed, this could perhaps be attributed to the need to defend her home from Morgoth rather than to an open dislike of other Maiar.
The fact remained that Celebrimbor had never heard of any Maiar in Middle-earth or Beleriand who lived or wandered the world together, so maybe they really preferred to stay out of each other’s way. Although his in turn begged the question how they had managed to peacefully coexist under their masters for so long…
His train of thought on the territorial behaviour of the Ainur was interrupted by Annatar turning his head and looking straight at him.
“Speak, Tyelperinquar,” he said. “You have been staring at me for the past ten minutes, therefore I must conclude you have another inappropriately personal question you must be dying to ask me. Speak before it burns your tongue off!”
“Was it hard?” Celebrimbor asked, too curious to be sheepish about being caught staring. “Leaving your master, your home, and leaving everything you knew behind?” He knew the ways and the implications of the Eldar of binding themselves to another, as well as the merits and the dangers of such a close bond. Every Noldor old enough to witness it had seen how the loss of his wife had hollowed Celebrimbor's great-grandfather Finwë out from the inside, or the empty shell that remained of his uncle Amras after seeing his twin burn to death at Losgar. Celebrimbor was not sure he could imagine what it meant for one of the Holy Ones to sever the ties to his old master.
“No. I went gladly.” Annatar's voice sounded calm on the surface, but there was a sudden underlying sharp edge, which took both of them by surprise. Annatar's glance told Celebrimbor immediately that his friend had inadvertently disclosed more than he had intended to do – and was fully aware that Celebrimbor had noticed it as well. Annatar pressed his lips shut.
Celebrimbor looked at him pensively. He had guessed for some time now that there were things his friend was not telling him about the circumstances that had brought him to Middle-earth. Celebrimbor had also suspected that Annatar's old master Aulë might have had something to do with it, and that he and Annatar might not have parted on the best of terms. Whenever religion became the topic of discussion, Annatar persistently refrained from taking a standpoint, and while he usually spoke in neutral tones about the Lords and Ladies of the West, there were rare instances when his tone of distant respect would slip to briefly reveal something ironic, vaguely condescending – like one might speak of an unreasonable child or an acknowledged, but little-loved relative.
“There was a disagreement, wasn't there?” Celebrimbor asked carefully.
Annatar was gripping the banister and he looked like he was just one step away from cutting the discussion short. Celebrimbor reached out with his mind and briefly brushed it against his friend’s. Go on. You are telling me nothing I did not already suspect. I am listening as your friend, not as your judge.
Annatar threw him a quick glance out of the corner of his eye, then looked away again. It took him an unusually long time to answer, but at last he spoke. “Sometimes the price of freedom is cutting off the limb by which you are shackled,” he said carefully. “In a way, I had been as fettered as you had described yourself before, but in a very different way. The thing holding you back was a lack of guidance not of initiative, which can be easily mended. My ties on the other hand were to an aggravatingly backward mindset and a master who almost stumbled over his own feet trying to avoid making an actual difference.” There was a tight line around Annatar's mouth that could hardly be read as anything other than contempt.
“Serving perfection is an end unto itself in Aman. But since the general consensus among the Valar is that Aman was created perfect, the resulting corollary is that any change would accordingly and inevitably lead to imperfection. As a result, Aman is now a land of stagnation, where change and innovation are neither sought nor desired. The duty of the Ainur, as the Valar see it, is no longer to strive for improvement, but rather prevent any change for the worse. Thus the only things that are still to be done are the guarding and preservation of the great works of past ages. But I did not bind myself to this world to be the guard dog and admirer of someone else's works. I wanted to do something, I wanted to continue creating, but this was met with disapproval. So I left Aman in favour of other shores, where I would be free to do as I pleased.”
“And what did the Valar have say to that?” Celebrimbor asked.
“I did not stop to ask. I no longer see a reason to believe in gods, and could not care less for their opinion.” Annatar paused briefly. “I chose to put my faith in the Eldar instead.”
Celebrimbor looked at him, surprised. Then he laughed. “That has to be the strangest flattery our kin must have ever received. I think a ‘Thank you’ is in order, seeing how you give us preference over the Valar. But how can you not believe in gods? You walked among them, you know that they exist.”
“Semantics,” Annatar replied with a dry smile. “I don’t believe in love either, but that does not mean it does not exist. It is, however, not something I would put my faith in.”
“That sounds very cynical.”
“I am, as we have already established, certainly old enough to be a cynic.”
“I don’t think I could ever describe myself as a cynic, no matter how old I am,” Celebrimbor said.
“Of course you couldn’t,” Annatar said. “You are perhaps the most hopeless romantic I have ever seen. I have never met another elf who is so obstinately optimistic despite having goals that are so high they might as well be set among the stars. Rebuilding Middle-earth, better than before, fairer than Aman.” He made a sweeping gesture that encompassed the illuminated city below them.
Celebrimbor raised an eyebrow. “I’d like to remind you that it was in no small part you who proposed those goals. Did you not tell me earlier that we must set our sights higher?”
“I did.”
“So what does that make you?” Celebrimbor prodded.
Annatar glanced at him sideways, his eyes narrowed. “Ambitious.” He smirked.
“Oh, come now! Slipping the noose by changing the rules of the game is not considered good form at all!”
“Does form truly matter, so long as I am succeeding?” Annatar retorted.
“I’ll take it as a compliment that you cannot win against me by playing fair,” Celebrimbor said and grinned. He turned around and leaned his back against the bannister. “If my hopes and dreams make me a romantic, the same goes for you.”
“If that’s what you want to believe, who am I to tell you no?” Annatar shook his head and leaned down on his elbows, staring out over the nightly forests of Eregion and east to where the white-capped peaks of Barazinbar, Zirakzigil, and Bundushathûr3 glittered like pale flame under the starlight.
“I suppose...” Annatar hesitated, and it was this more than anything that drew every last bit of Celebrimbor’s attention immediately away from the mountains and back to his friend. Annatar usually spoke surely, measuredly, as if he was reciting a poem he knew by heart, so to hear him talk like that, slowly and haltingly, was unexpected and striking at once, in a very disconcerting way.
Celebrimbor waited for his friend to go on. He had never before seen Annatar so hesitant and so cautious, and although Celebrimbor instinctively wanted to reach out toward him and encourage him to go on, he suppressed the notion and kept his distance. Knowing his proud friend, an overly overt display of sympathy or reassurance would only make him withdraw and Celebrimbor would never know just what it was that was troubling Annatar enough to make it difficult even for him to put into words.
If Annatar noticed Celebrimbor's discreet scrutiny – which he undoubtedly did – he chose to ignore it. Instead of meeting Celebrimbor's eyes, he kept his gaze fixed firmly ahead. “Maybe I am like you. Like you, I would see this marred world shine. Like you, I would have a true new beginning, a second chance to do better – for everything and everyone even if they have been touched by the Shadow.”
“And there is nothing wrong with that,” Celebrimbor said.
“There is,” Annatar said flatly. “Not least the fact that reality rarely works out like the idealised vision a romantic might have planned out for it. I wonder, could you really take those under your wing who have blood on their hands?”
Celebrimbor frowned. “I doubt there is anyone in this city who lived through the First Age without getting blood on their hands. We took them in nonetheless. Why do you suddenly have so little faith in your own vision?”
“I do not doubt our vision. I only want to know whether you realise the extent of your proud claim of universal acceptance and forgiveness.” Annatar still wasn't looking at him, but talking out into the empty air above the city. “Who will you welcome? The innocent and the guilty, you said as much. But where will you draw the line? At those who partook in the wars willingly? Or at those who provoked them? Opportunists, murderers, betrayers - will you welcome them all into your home? What about those tainted by Morgoth himself? If they come to your door on their knees and beg your forgiveness, will you give it to them, Curufinwë?”
As he finished speaking, Annatar looked up and directly at Celebrimbor. The look was strange and intense and burning, forcing its way through Celebrimbor's eyes and straight to his heart and brain, and suddenly – as if a lens had been adjusted – Celebrimbor was no longer seeing the friend he knew, but the force of nature that the Maia really was. It was like looking at the sun up close, and have the sun stare back at him in turn. Instinctively, he wanted to take a step backwards, but he caught himself.
“Mind over matter,” Curufin's voice echoed in his head. “Master your instincts. The will must lead, and the body follows.”
So Celebrimbor held his ground. “If we rejected everyone who has ever been touched by the Darkness, Ost-in-Edhil would be an empty place indeed,” he replied. “My line especially gives me no right to sit in judgement over the iniquity of all those others who bear the scars of Tirion, Alqualondë and Beleriand.”
Celebrimbor did not break eye contact. He had the distinct feeling that he was being tested, although it was impossible to tell from Annatar's expression whether he was failing or passing said test.
When Annatar did look away at last, Celebrimbor felt some of the tension, which had built up between them unnoticed, leave his body. He took one step closer and rested his lower arms on the banister, directly next to his friend, their shoulders almost touching. They both looked to the east, where the Misty Mountains formed a jagged, dark barrier before the starry sky.
“I choose to believe that just because things have come from evil doesn’t mean they can’t be brought to a better purpose in the end. Once tainted does not mean something is corrupted forever.” He raised his hand to point in the direction of the mountain range. “The Mountains of Moria were raised up by none other than Morgoth himself. And yet today they house the proud line of Durin and his sons, the mithril mines, and the splendour of Khazad-Dûm. I don't know if you have heard this from others already, but on the western side of the mountains, there is a secret door guarding the entrance, which my friend Narvi and I made together.”
Annatar nodded. “I have heard about it.”
“Morgoth raised those mountains aeons ago, but the dwarves took them for themselves, and today the Fëanorian star is etched into the stone of the Doors of Durin. Whatever those mountains were before, they're ours now,” Celebrimbor said. “Besides – Annatar, have you ever seen the city under the mountain?”
“No. I have never been there. The Dwarves are a suspicious folk and they guard their treasures jealously from those they consider outsiders. I never had a chance to befriend them.” Annatar expression had not changed, but his voice sounded a little less guarded.
Celebrimbor straightened a bit, encouraged because Annatar was indeed listening. “It is beautiful. No one who walks the halls of Khazad-Dûm today would ever think that it was built on the foundations of the Enemy's work. We did not reject what Morgoth made – we incorporated it into our own dominion and we are the stronger for it. I will not give up for lost what is marred when I could change it into something better instead.”
“Bold words, Celebrimbor Curufinwion,” Annatar said. His face was strangely blank, and his tone betrayed nothing of how he intended the patronymic to be read; it was neither mocking nor challenging. He still was not looking at Celebrimbor. “And bolder yet to utter them aloud, for they will be remembered, and there will come a day when they will be put to the test.”
“I will not fall short of them.”
At those words, Annatar looked up at last. “Is that an oath?”
Celebrimbor smiled wryly. “It certainly does sound like one, doesn't it?” He shook his head. “No. I do not take oaths. It is something else. A hope, a promise, a dream, or all three of them.”
“I always envied your kin the ability to dream,” Annatar said slowly.
“The Ainur don't dream?” Celebrimbor asked, looking surprised.
“No. We are, we act, and we make. There are no might-have-beens in our nature.” He straightened up and pushed himself off the banister. “When we bound ourselves to this world, we did it in a way that was so complete and thorough our nature no longer allowed us to venture into hypothetical realms like dreams. Think of it as a higher extra dimension that only you Incarnates can perceive and are able to move in freely.” He frowned, obviously dissatisfied with his own explanation. “Be that as it may – I will leave the dreaming to you, but I will remember your words, brother. When the time of your trials arrives, I would that your convictions are strong enough so they will only be hardened by blows, like steel between hammer and anvil, and not break.”
There was something more that Annatar obviously wanted to say; his every word was laden down by subtext so heavy it was a miracle the original meaning was not lost. But he did not elaborate on what he meant and fell silent, suddenly sombre and withdrawn.
Celebrimbor watched his friend, the sharp angles of those familiar features, which he knew better than his own reflection in the mirror, and the beloved, brilliant mind that usually shone brighter than a sun caught in the centre of a diamond, which was now closed-off and dark and troubled.
“Annatar, I have known for years,” he said at last.
There was another pause, and this one was far longer than the ones that had come before.
“What do you mean by 'have known'?” Annatar asked at last, every word enunciated slowly and very deliberately.
“The true reason why you have come to Middle-earth.” Celebrimbor turned to face his friend fully. “I suspected early on that it was not Aulë who had sent you, but I appreciated hearing it from your own mouth tonight. I suppose there are still other things you are not telling me, and I guess they are not pleasant. Still,” Celebrimbor said, stressing the word, “I am not angry that you chose to withhold certain parts of your past. Eru knows, the First Age was a dark time for all of us and we all quarrelled with those we used to hold dear. Morgoth taught us well to distrust and suspect each other – so I understand why you chose to take Aulendil as your name instead of turning up on our doorstep nameless, fatherless, and fateless, while no one knew where you had come from.”
Again, Annatar did not answer immediately. Then, slowly, he straightened up and turned to face Celebrimbor as well. “You are not upset.” It was not a question, just a careful observation spoken without appraisal.
Celebrimbor shook his head. “No. Many of those who have survived the past wars have memories they would rather not talk about, and I will not force you to reveal your secrets, either. I am not a dragon to rip your thoughts from your head against your will. You came here two hundred years ago, and if you had wanted to harm us, you had plenty of opportunity to do so. Instead you threw your lot in with us and helped us achieve things we had never dreamed of achieving before you set foot into our city. You have become a friend and brother to all of us. We trust you. I trust you.” Celebrimbor paused briefly in order to think about how to best put into words what he wanted to express. “I don't know what you have done or lived through in the First Age. I just hope that there will be a day when you trust me enough to tell me the missing parts of your story.” He watched his friend and waited, although he was not sure what it was he was waiting – or hoping? – for.
A few seconds passed, and then Annatar took one step closer to him. Celebrimbor mirrored the move without even thinking about it.
“That day will come,” Annatar said softly as he took both of Celebrimbor's hands in his own. “And on that day there will be no more boundaries and no more secrets between us, and when we will at last know each other completely, our real work will begin. This is the promise I make to you tonight, brother.” Annatar's hands were warm, his grip sure and strong. “Until then, extend me a bit more of your patience and trust. Trust me to tell you when the time is right, and don't blame yourself for my silence. I do not wish to speak of those things for now, but you are not at fault in any way. Rest assured that you have turned out to be everything I could ever have hoped to find in someone I would call my brother, and more. Grant me a bit more of your patience, and in time you shall receive everything you wish to have of me.”
Celebrimbor looked down at their joined hands, and back up at Annatar's face. Annatar's amber eyes shone like liquid gold in the moonlight. For a moment Celebrimbor was acutely aware of how close they were to each other, and the firm, warm pressure of Annatar's fingers against his own. He felt as if they were both standing on a precipice, teetering on a delicate point of balance where one step further would mean passing a point of no return, and he wondered just what might happen if one of them decided to take the step and tip the scales—
But then Annatar let go of his hands and the moment had passed. “Let us go inside and see what we can do about your lenses,” he said and then he had stepped around Celebrimbor and vanished through the open doorway.
When Annatar left Celebrimbor in the early hours of the same morning, he did not return to the workshop he had claimed for himself and his own side-projects. Since he did not sleep, he usually went there to pass the time when Celebrimbor was at last forced to give in to the demands of his body and go to bed. Celebrimbor always looked rueful when his exhaustion was making itself known and he had to interrupt one of their discussions. Simultaneously, there was more than a little resentment for the mortal condition on Annatar's part, who loathed the fact that Celebrimbor should be so tightly fettered and limited by his body like any common mortal when the brilliance of his mind demanded freedom beyond what his incarnation could ever give him. He considered it a personal affront that a resentful universal force should be allowed to create someone like Celebrimbor: blessed with the mind of a divine demiurge and able to glimpse truths and worlds his peers could never understand – and yet cursed to exist within the boundaries of mortality, doomed never to overcome the base limitations that incarnation brought, which in turn denied Annatar his company for hours on end, time and time again. It was appalling.
(“Oh Annatar, you do us Incarnates an injustice,” Celebrimbor would laugh and wave it off. “It is not all shadow and no light as you make it out to be. Having a body has its advantages.” And then he would list arguments in favour of his view, some philosophical, some metaphysical, and none of them even remotely good enough to convince Annatar that he was wrong about the disadvantages of being bound to flesh and blood.)
In order to give his friend something to do, Celebrimbor had one room made free for him; there Annatar could occupy himself until Celebrimbor would come to him in the morning, refreshed and fed and spry as spring, and then they would forget about any differences in their nature until the inconvenient limitations of Celebrimbor’s body reared their sordid heads again.
Usually, Annatar made frequent use of his friend's consideration towards him. Today, however, he did not return to his workshop. Instead he walked past the door, restlessness and unease driving him on on his prowl through the abandoned corridors of the sprawling building of the Mírdain, which was well and truly deserted at this hour.
As expected, Celebrimbor had figured out a solution to the chromatic aberration within hours of first taking his telescope out into the gardens. Annatar hadn't been required to do much: a nudge here, a quiet suggestion over the elf's shoulder there and Celebrimbor's brilliant mind had drawn the remaining conclusions necessary all on its own. It was a joy to watch him work and think and run through possible solutions, all the while unable to keep his hands still.
There were few things that were more enjoyable than to watch Celebrimbor's hands move about as he talked or thought; they were speaking in their own silent yet incredibly expressive language, either underlining his spoken words by flying through the gestures like through the motions of a dance, or sketching out the fascinating geometry of his thoughts on paper.
It was exhilarating how little the elf required of Annatar in order to progress, and how Celebrimbor's subconscious mind was already connecting the dots as he worked yet unaware of the fact that he had already found the answer. Then at last there had come the moment when Celebrimbor had frozen in his movements, his mouth slightly open, his eyes wide, and he had grabbed one convex and one concave lens and fitted them together, holding the doublet at arm's lengths and staring at it.4
“This is it, isn't it?” he had asked hoarsely, turning around to look at Annatar. Annatar had nodded and the smile Celebrimbor had given him then had taken up almost all of his self-restraint to remain still and dignified, giving Celebrimbor merely a lenient smile instead of the countless other things he could have done, none of which were an option.
Not yet, he kept telling himself. Not yet.
It was not the right moment, it was not the right time. It was too early.
But Celebrimbor was too quick, too smart, too sharp – in every aspect.
And so the joy of having discovered a mind working so similar to his own had turned into a threat that was pointed directly at Annatar like an arrow homing in on its target. His companionship with the Mírdain was a delicate thing, a constant balance between befriending them and keeping enough distance from them to retain his secrets. Holding the jewel-smiths and other scholars at bay was easy enough for him, but Celebrimbor was another story entirely.
Annatar did not want to keep him away. He wanted him close, at his side, where he could watch Celebrimbor and relish their companionship, which was stronger and truer than any kinship Annatar had ever felt for his own kind. From the first moment on he and Celebrimbor had resonated with one another, like glass touched by the same low frequency, like two mirrors, like two lenses, throwing thoughts and ideas back at each other, refined and sharpened and better than any of them could have done alone. There was no satisfying way to communicate with someone like Celebrimbor on one level only, since the full scope of either of their thoughts was too great to be adequately relayed to the listener by limited devices such as spoken language (not to mention Celebrimbor's tendency to switch between Quenya, Sindarin and Khuzdul without forewarning). Thus, it had become a habit for both of them to not only watch and listen to each other, but be half-immersed in each other's mind at nearly all times; with thought and intent expressing the things that words could not and completing the kaleidoscope of their ideas in a way that mere language never could.
Up until now Annatar had taken joy and pleasure in this kind of closeness – for he did not want any barriers to stand between them – but today he had allowed himself to be carried away. He had slipped, and in the process he had revealed more about himself than he had intended at this point. Certainly, there were few things than he wanted more than to share with his friend who and what he was – not out of a desire for forgiveness, but to do away with the vexatious secrets and leave his past behind at last, but—
He could not afford to allow his desires to take over his good sense. No lasting damage had been done tonight, but only barely.
Annatar doubted Celebrimbor had noticed how close he had come to dying tonight. But in that instant, that instant when he had said those piercing, cutting words – “I have known for a long time” – there had been a moment, too brief to be measured by any kind of clockwork, where reflex had almost overtaken reason in Annatar's mind and left just the one conclusion that Celebrimbor knew all about him. Annatar had already been moving, the nerve impulses to lift his hand had been there, the shocked reaction of a cornered beast (and he loathed himself for it) to lash out and destroy the one who threatened it. Then a fraction of a fraction of a moment had passed, and sound thinking had caught up with him again, allowing him to rein himself in and quench those perilous impulses as he realised that he was about to destroy what he held most dear without a second thought. But he could not endanger what they both had built without having certainty that Celebrimbor had truly discovered who he was.
Maybe the situation could still be salvaged. Killing Celebrimbor – the thought alone was enough to make him physically recoil – would be his last resort. And thankfully, Celebrimbor's response had revealed that he did not know that much about Annatar after all. More than was desirable at this point, certainly, but not enough to critically endanger their cooperation – for now.
Although Celebrimbor must have noticed that something had been amiss, he had not pressed Annatar further, as if some part of him had unconsciously sensed the danger that lay that way. Celebrimbor had allowed him to buy himself some time, but Annatar was aware that this was only a temporary solution, a workaround that would have to be replaced by something real in time.
“There are no such thing as half-solutions.” Celebrimbor's voice echoed in his mind, a strong voice, a firm voice, decisive and not bearing compromise. Despite his unexpected patience, there would come a day when Celebrimbor would demand the truth.
Rain must fall, night follows day, and truth will out. And I will be ready. I will come to him before he comes to me, and I will reveal myself on my own terms. But not now, not yet.
It was still too early for Celebrimbor to know; Annatar could not tell him the truth before he could be completely sure of him.
The question, though, as to how to ensure a bond close enough that Celebrimbor would trust him enough to accept his history, was one that was not so easily answered. Annatar had no doubt that despite his light-hearted demeanour, Celebrimbor still grieved for those he had lost during the First Age, as Incarnates were prone to do. Learning that Annatar had had a hand in the death of some of his friends and family might put a strain on their friendship, if not outright shatter it.
So in order to bind Celebrimbor to him, he had to offer him something of equal greatness, something that would make up for the losses he had suffered – a gift so great that the shadow of his grief would shatter in the light of its magnificence, and only gratitude and wonder would remain. Then their way would be cleared of vexing obstacles at last, and Annatar could truly begin to work on Celebrimbor himself.
He reached out with his mind and even through the thick walls of the tower, he could find Celebrimbor's spirit: quieter now that he was resting, the fire of his thoughts banked, the usual vortex of ideas hidden under the calm surface of sleep, shifting and turning slowly like ocean currents in the lightless depths of an outwardly calm sea. But even in sleep, he seemed to sense Annatar's presence, because his spirit surged softly, unconsciously reaching out toward him.
He registered it with a deep sense of satisfaction and briefly allowed Celebrimbor a fleeting contact, before retreating to a safe distance so he could observe his friend's mind without waking him.
Oh, and what a piece of work you will be – the greatest and most magnificent of my creations, my mirror-image, my soul-brother, my other Me. My Irreplaceable One, I found you and I will bind you to myself and then the way will be free for you to take your rightful place at my side on a throne among the stars.
Annatar sat down on a windowsill built into an alcove, looking out over the gardens and the courtyards and the streets beyond the Tower of the Jewel-smiths.
But what will this gift be? A gift so great it will do the name Annatar justice at last and thus make it true. He ponderously turned the ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. A gift so generous that any path other than forgiveness will become unthinkable. Oh, he will be wounded, he will be angry, but this can be mended like everything else, given time and the right methods. And in the end, it must be him who will want me to stay. It will be him, because –
He froze and looked down at the ring. It was a mere bauble, pretty but ultimately useless, something he had created during a lesson he had held for a class of apprentices, nothing more, but…it did not have to be just that.
A bond. Something to bind him to me.
He sat there, motionless and still as a statue, lost in the contemplation of the ring and its nature – circular, endless, closed – while the world around him grew lighter, dawn painting the eastern horizon pink and grey, and the shadows retreated to darker corners. When the first ray of sunlight broke through the fog surrounding the peak of Celebdil, Annatar had come to a decision.
When he stood, he moved slowly and consciously, like someone who was just becoming aware of his limbs and the countless muscles and sinews for the first time. He walked down the hallway at a measured pace, the agitation that came with every new plan set into motion slowly replaced by the utter calm that preceded a work of true greatness, of vast, world-changing scope, fit to shake the foundations Creation itself was resting on.
In the end, it was always this that their relationship had been coming to. Annatar had long since discarded the idea that Celebrimbor might be swayed by material worth or satisfied with shining trinkets. Celebrimbor was made for mediocrity as much as Annatar was made for mortality, and Annatar had stopped thinking of him as inferior within the first week they had spent together.
They were equal in every sense that mattered, and he had told Celebrimbor so the night before. But words were no longer enough. Silent mutual admiration would bring them no further and no closer together, as would another hundred years spent working side by side on trivialities.
Annatar could not prepare him any further for what he had in mind for him. Celebrimbor was ready.
The moment had come to take him a step further.
It was time to raise Celebrimbor's eyes higher.
Annatar would once more offer his guidance and Celebrimbor, as he knew, would follow, quick and nimble and brimming over with his own ideas. Together, they would fix this broken world, achieve deeds heretofore unimagined, and climb to heights yet unreached to build their throne among the stars at last.
1 Celebrimbor is talking about an optical phenomenon called chromatic aberration. It results from the failure of a lens to focus all colours of the light to the same point of convergence, resulting in a fringe of colour around distant objects. It is one of the distinct limitations of a Kepler-type telescope (which Celebrimbor is using here) at high orders of magnification and can be overcome by using objectives with very long focal lengths (speak: ten metres and longer), which should explain Annatar's subsequent joking suggestion to use a bigger telescope.
2 Stars are (mostly) far away, which makes it hard to recognise small details when observing them. In telescopes a bigger objective means a greater angular resolution, therefore a bigger telescope = a clearer image of the star you want to observe. So you can either build a really huge telescope or do what Celebrimbor did here and use an array of multiple telescopes all pointed at the same star, which is basically a physics-approved way to cheat your way to a bigger resolution. If done correctly, the distance x between the telescopes can function as the diameter of a bigger (imaginary) telescope objective and give you a de facto higher angular resolution of the star – just as if you'd really observed it with your giant imaginary telescope. The thing is you'd need a computer to process the multiple images created by multiple telescopes into one final image, so while Celebrimbor certainly knows his theory, he is unable to put it into practice, because he is too far ahead of his time with his thought experiment.
3 Caradhras, Celebdil, and Fanuidhol in Sindarin, respectively. Celebrimbor is habitually thinking of them by their original Dwarven names, given for how long he's been living directly under the very same mountains, among Dwarves at that.
4 What has happened here is that Celebrimbor has invented a type of achromatic lens by using a combination of a concave and a convex lens. In this so-called lens doublet, given the right cut of the glass and proper alloys, one type of lens can compensate for the aberrations caused by the other and therefore eliminate the colour fringe around observed objects.