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It begins with fair face and golden light spilling from the forge, and ends with the light of Three shearing through desolation and darkness. One day Annatar is simply there, with no heritage or commendations save the goodness of Eru and the inspiration of Návatar, and Celebrimbor welcomes him with the joy of an artist finding an equal enthusiast. He instructs and is himself taught new and wondrous things, spinning mithril into chainmail and gold into starlit circlets, and such masterpieces of light and beauty are shared with Middle Earth until Celebrimbor can almost compare himself to his grandfather.
He cannot yet capture the light of the Silmarilli, however, and he knows deep in his fëa that it is not enough.
Annatar’s hand is warm on his shoulder and his smile is pleased as he proposes, “Let us try a new thing.”
They begin with rings, for though Annatar would have a crown the similarity is too alike to Morgoth’s conquest and Celebrimbor fears that path above all else. Annatar speaks of Návatar’s gift — of imparting the spirit of the artist into the craftsmanship — and Celebrimbor laughs at the proposal, shaking off a distant feeling of unease. A circlet may be dazzling to behold, but would not the spirit within tamper with the thoughts of its bearer?
“It is nothing,” Annatar says softly, huffing with the disappointment of an apprentice turned down on the cusp of innovation, and Celebrimbor almost changes his mind.
If not for starlight splintering the shadows he would have capitulated eventually (he denies nothing when the High King probes him later, when Eregion is as good as lost and the Deceiver has fled), but the choice is taken away from Celebrimbor when his young cousin rides up to the gate and loathing taints Annatar’s benevolent smile.
Grey eyes clash with kindly blue and two wills lock blades. Though Celebrimbor does not recognize it then, he has witnessed the first skirmish of a terrible war that will shed no blood and destroy everything in his charge.
Elrond riddles him for weeks, distracting him whenever they leave the forge and the golden messenger of the Valar behind them. Celebrimbor begs him to speak of more pleasant things, such as the spring flowers carpeting Lindon, and has king reconsidered his petition for a small chest of Valinor gold, and how fares Galadriel and that spritely lass who inherited both her father’s elegance and her mother’s boldness? Elrond is as stubborn as any politician, however, and he wheedles every conversation back to Annatar, asking questions which make Celebrimbor’s head spin with doubt as he realizes he has never wondered about such things himself.
Where is Annatar from?
Has he no family to trace back to the first Age?
Where did he learn his craftsmanship?
What does he seek in Eregion?
Celebrimbor has answers — easy half-truths and ambiguous musings that have satisfied his council — but Elrond will not be settled. He stares down Annatar as he hovers in the forge and grips Celebrimbor’s hand when they take time for tea, imploring him to see within for the external is too good to be believed, and Celebrimbor finds himself avoiding these moments alone for they are plagued with doubt and he dreads the possibility of a stained past more than losing Elrond’s friendship. (Later he will hang his head in shame and acknowledge that in blinding himself to the obvious lie, he embraced both outcomes.)
For the first time Celebrimbor finds himself looking forward to the day when Elrond will return to Lindon with his report. All is well, he manages his city with perfect balance, and at last he may go about his day without interrogations. He bids Elrond farewell as the lad lingers by his horse, clasping his hand warmly, and in that breath of touch he falls into the foresight of Melian’s line.
He sees Eregion’s towers crumple, blackened and stained with corruption, while foul creatures of Morgoth paw through the city’s treasures. A shadow springs from the ruins, cascading over Middle Earth like a pyroclastic flow, and in the midst of the carnage stands one who would be lord over all that is good, a black crown set with three unparalleled gems binding his foes in darkness.
Celebrimbor staggers when Elrond does, and he breaks away to catch his young cousin as the vision continues to assail him in both fëa and hröa. He falls to his knees, cradling Elrond as light spills from his sightless eyes and his lithe frame spasms, and when Celebrimbor looks up he recognizes the darkness spilling from fair form.
“Þauron!”
The Deceiver does not shudder to be made known. He snaps his fingers three times and the guards which guarded Celebrimbor’s forge step forth and tear Elrond away from him. Celebrimbor shouts as he is wrestled to his feet, betrayed by a power that has sunk into his mind as surely as the barbed prongs of a crown, and Annatar’s blue eyes turn nearly black with triumph.
“Now we will create a new thing.”
He leaves Celebrimbor his mind, an act crueler than many blows, for if his hands were not his own then he could have excused what they wrought. But captured the artist’s work he has, for Elrond is shuttered away and Celebrimbor is not permitted to see him for weeks while he bargains and wheedles and is left in solitude to imagine his cousin’s fate.
At the end of this time he is chained and brought to his own council chambers, where Sauron has claimed his chair as a throne and adorned his brow with gold and gemstones as richly hued as fresh blood, and Celebrimbor is given the first glimpse into Elrond’s future.
Dread lashes through jaded grey eyes and fair skin pales to the hue of clouds following a storm, yet it is fear for himself that Celebrimbor sees and not for the cruelty meted upon one who was raised to speak affirmation and sing healing over wounded souls. Elrond’s dear, soft voice is quenched by that evil which Men use to stifle their horses — bridle and bit cut down to bruise his cheeks and batten his tongue. He is chained to the throne in the velvet robes of a true Fëanorian and Sauron holds the lead tied off behind his head. He yanks on it to prove his mastery, exposing Elrond’s throat, and Celebrimbor falls to his knees without hesitation.
“Spare him, I beg you, and I will craft whatever you wish.”
The Dark Lord smiles and all is lost.
Time ceases to hold meaning, for day and night Celebrimbor toils for the mere reassurance that his cousin will see another sunrise. He is watched by his own guards and they report back to their master if he is slack in his work.
He dallies only once, and screams when Elrond cannot as agony steals his voice and he crumples like a wilting spider. Sauron merely speaks and it begins; torment which need not be inflicted with blade or brand that twists the young face and makes tears course down Celebrimbor’s cheeks. In the end he is hoarse from begging, to no avail. They remove him without the mercy of comforting his cousin and he is chained to his forge, the heirlooms from his father’s heritage cast into the crucible for him to begin anew.
Rings and circlets and artifacts he crafts at the Dark Lord’s whim, for what purpose he knows not, and the only mark of approval is the silence when he is allowed to eat and sleep without disturbance. Often he is taken to the council chamber which is now nothing less than a throne room, whether to hone his resolve or merely because Sauron delights in his helpless entreaties he knows not. He is made to watch but never touch as Elrond writhes in tears, the Black Speech contorting his limbs with unseen fire, and he weeps long after his cousin’s once sterling eyes are dulled from disassociation.
It is no secret that Elrond has found a way to hide from his infliction, and Sauron’s visage turns black with displeasure whenever he fails to draw forth screams. At such times he shuns Celebrimbor’s pleading and seizes the lad himself, breaking bone and swelling flesh and razing one mind against the other until Elrond is dragged back to himself and is healed for the torment to begin anew.
The missives from Lindon are frequent and frantic, and Sauron takes great pleasure in watching Celebrimbor’s hands shake and his shoulders crumple as he is forced to reply.
‘He is not here. We sent him on his way at the height of spring. Please send word when he is found. All is well in Eregion.’
The hand that grips Celebrimbor’s shoulder when the reply is tugged from his grasp is both benevolent and gentle, and he buries his face in his arms to weep.
“I will do as you wish. Only let him go free!”
Freedom in life or death no longer frightens Celebrimbor, for silvery eyes have faded to river stones and Elrond only sighs when he sees him now, knowing what is to come and helpless to save either himself or his cousin. He would sooner draw a blade against Elrond’s throat himself than let him suffer, for there is no mercy to come whether Celebrimbor completes his task or not. Sauron well and truly owns him now, as surely as if he himself wore the lead, and there will be no rest for him in this world or the next.
When Orc legions gather in the ashlands of a forsaken mountain Celebrimbor has no knowledge, though he supposes later that he should have realized as much when Sauron begins to haunt him in the forge, sometimes working alongside him and sometimes sitting on the anvil with Elrond chained at his feet. He caresses dulled curls as one would soothe a hunting dog and reminds Celebrimbor with silent and savage triumph that he no longer has a choice.
Rings they make. Rings which Sauron breathes over with unholy blessing and sends out to Dwarves and Men. Rings which make the mountain roots tremble and ships wage war and the unworthy usurp sovereigns beyond the sea. Eagerness claims Sauron’s vision and he steps in more often than not to tweak Celebrimbor’s work, greed and warmongering pouring from his spirit into twisted spirals of silver and gold. Soon courtiers from distant lands come to make trade, bearing gifts from lords of Men who are eager for more power. The demand becomes too great, captivating Sauron’s mind by this new world shaping under his hands, and his attention begins to waver.
Slowly, Celebrimbor dares to resist.
It begins with little things: nudging Elrond’s mind with a thread of ósanwë and cradling that spark of relief as he falls into the first brush of care offered in uncountable months; slipping a bit of nickel into the gold to weaken its grasp on the soul of the wearer; dripping his own blood into the crucible with a prayer that the phantom of his screams will overlap the whispers of false promises.
With each subtle act Celebrimbor endangers Elrond, courting the torments of old which Sauron has neglected in his new obsession, yet he knows that the day will come when his efforts are no longer needed and the outcome is unbearable to consider. For Elrond is Lúthien’s child as much as Eärendil’s and Sauron takes great delight in seeing that likeness contort in anguish. He will not allow Elrond to fade, not for many centuries after Eregion is but the bones of a forgotten city, and Celebrimbor is determined that an iron crown shall not be his final work.
By Ilúvatar’s mercy his message is heard, for Galadriel’s search for Elrond has carried her far beyond friendly coastlines and she hears the ring that weeps on Elendil’s finger, saving both bearer and forger as she seizes it and listens to the anguish Celebrimbor could not pen with ink. A small war party from Númenor returns her to Middle Earth and months still are lost as the Elves gather their people against the Shadow.
In such time the Orcs also put aside their clan differences and march as one, led by one who calls himself Father, with the sole desire to crush every stone seeped in Sauron’s taint. Two armies meet in the mud of the Bruinen and Sauron’s attention is diverted entirely as he pits Celebrimbor’s soldiers against one side and then another for his own amusement. When he tires of this he lashes the king’s herald to the poles of a banner and hangs him above the wall, where the Orcs may cast their arrows and the Elves dismayed curses until confusion nearly upturns both armies without the need for drawn swords.
Left to himself in the forge, Celebrimbor begins a new work and pours into it every prayer and penitence that his dragging fëa can spare. Fëanor’s hammer is the only artifact left of his heritage — an act of mocking benevolence from the one who had melted all else — and this he casts willingly into the crucible with all that is left of his hope. Three gems he has saved, crimson and sapphire and the clear gleam of starlight, and he knows who must bear these with clarity as keen as Elrond’s foresight.
How Galadriel manages such a feat is beyond the understanding of Elves or mortals, but when Celebrimbor looks behind him and sees two guards of Lindon wearing ill-fitting uniforms in the colors of his house he knows that it is time. He closes the forge doors, quenching the flames, and begs the soldiers to carry the rings to their commanders.
“Not without you,” hums the taller of the twain, whose face and name is cursed from Mithlond to Valinor and whose voice has never been more welcomed.
“I will bear your message to Commander Galadriel,” his comrade promises. His somber visage and reddish hair is not familiar to Celebrimbor, but his voice carries no lie of the enemy.
Eagerly Celebrimbor cups the cloth pouch into his hands, sighing when the manacles clink. “I cannot follow you like this, yet I will not be left here as a slave for evil. Cut them off.”
Loreláthon casts him a look of incredulity and spouts something unflattering about Celebrimbor’s forefathers, flashing in his face a set of picks which make quick work of the chains. Freed for the first time in seasons he dares not count, Celebrimbor leads them down corridors he has not seen in months and nearly buckles when sunlight touches his skin. Loreláthon steadies him while the other one — Vorohil, he will later learn — sidles through the tumult like a crafty fox and is quickly lost to the other side of the ruptured wall.
“Now we find the other pup,” Loreláthon says, and his spreading smile is as vicious as the blade that suddenly finds his hand, painted with Orc blood from tip to hilt.
It is cruelly plain that the skirmish around the walls is nothing more than a diversion, and that Eregion is well and truly lost. Carved stone is heaped where dwellings once brought peaceful reflection, and the fountain is muddied with black and scarlet. The king’s soldiers have closed off their minds to the slaughter of their comrades, for Sauron wields Celebrimbor’s people as one would drive horses into battle and there is no light to be found in glazed eyes that are quenched by Elvish blades. Celebrimbor has no tears to spare for them, for his eyes are fixed on the lowered head and pinioned limbs of his cousin, whom Sauron refuses the mercy of death even as poisoned darts steal his breath.
Loreláthon voices his dismay in the speech which only Orcs use to curse their brothers and he drags Celebrimbor away from the spectacle, bodily carting him into the shelter of ruins even while his shoulders are battered with fists that are now thin and useless without a hammer. He slings Celebrimbor into the arms of another so that he might rejoin the battle and is quickly lost to sight.
Spritely hands and compassionate dark eyes are all that Celebrimbor commits to memory before he fights this warrior as well, wrenching and stumbling as they run beyond the wall and into the thickest cluster of friendly banners. (He will learn later that this one is called Rían, and she had spent her arrows in vain, attempting first to slay the inspiration of malice and then to release his hostage from all other pain.)
While Celebrimbor is still blinded by agony beyond the scoring of flesh, the commander of this legion dismounts and his face is captured at last by fair hands that make his own seem as wrinkled and worn as an aged mortal’s. Galadriel sinks down with him as he chokes, drowning in his shame, and the shoulder which pillows his head bears no chiding for his ruination.
“Forgive me! Forgive me!” The babbled words have no meaning, for there is no forgiveness to be had for what he has done, but the message he intends is heard clearly through Nenya’s gleam as Galadriel kisses his brow.
“I will save him,” she promises, and peace stills Celebrimbor’s staggering breaths.
He is passed to another Elf and brought forcibly to the healer’s tent, where he plants his feet outside and watches for the enemy’s banner to be torn down. Save him, save him! The words pound his chest with each heartbeat and he does not realize that another stands beside him until tears strike the hands that this quiet-spoken Elf has captured. He looks down to eyes that are ravaged with despair and finds himself drawing the lad close to comfort him instead, and together they watch and pray as night gathers over the city once more.
(Later he will ask Camnir for his name, when they are both tethered as if by chains to Elrond’s bedside, and he will bear the sobs and entreaties for knowledge and refuse to answer, for such memories of cruelty cannot be allowed to wound this tender spirit.)
Celebrimbor knows when Sauron flees the devastated ruins, for something like a discordant note clangs across the battlefield and many trees are withered to the roots in despair. The spell to keep his hostage alive is suddenly spent, but so is the power holding his rescuers at bay. Arondir vaults up the arrow-studded walls in the space of seconds, finally cutting through the ropes and cradling Elrond as he slides down into the crucible of the last standing tower.
Celebrimbor runs.
He knows that Orcs are still the enemy, that a careless misstep will see him impaled on the end of a pike, that he is frail and tripping over faded velvet after months of starvation, and he is convinced that even death will not stop his spirit from reaching his cousin.
He spills into the city with the gusto and grace of a flapping goose and shoves Nuréin out of the way to pull Elrond into his arms. Paper-thin eyelids are closed in unconscious peace that wavers on the brink of death, and Celebrimbor wails as he braces that dear head and sees half-healed wounds and barbed arrows jutting from limbs and the blackened swell of broken hands. (For Elrond had fought — of course he had fought — and in the end he was used once more, this time against his commander and king; the unwilling pawn of the cruelest enemy of his time.)
The bridle has been cut away, fed in pieces to a heap of burning scrolls as Loreláthon eyes the sword jutting from an Orc skull with the desire to spill more blood onto sodden stones, but the damage is worse upon revelation and Celebrimbor weeps as he traces raw stripes and torn skin that leads back to a gouged tongue and cracked teeth. If only there was healing beyond Valinor’s grace to be found in Middle Earth. He cannot bear to see that glimmering spark flicker now, when there is finally hope.
Fair hands suddenly join his own, pressing against Elrond’s chest and brow, and Galadriel whispers over him with light streaming from her fervent gaze. Gold armor, scuffed as it may be from days of warfare, catches the first light of sunrise as Gil-Galad joins them, his hand glowing with blue fire as he compels evil to depart. A seafarer’s chant joins the song as Círdan ghosts his hands over Elrond’s twisted legs, restoring their proper alignment as barbed arrows drop from closing wounds.
Poison of the flesh, Gil-Galad rebukes.
Corruption of the mind is banished under Nenya’s touch.
Severance of hope is denounced by the shipwright who once cradled an abandoned twin after his brother sailed for distant shores.
Together three rings wrap around this lost and wounded wanderer, and with a croaking voice Celebrimbor joins the song. He is no healer, but he knows his cousin’s whimsies and joys and trials, and he alone understands that inmost sense of bleakness and futility which no rings can shake. With the tender affirmation of the father he cannot replace he beckons Elrond to find him one more time.
The keen against his shoulder is pitiable and defeated; the feeble cry of one who knows that sunrise will bring no hope and he has no choice but to endure. Celebrimbor gathers his cousin closer still and murmurs words of hope and restoration, coaxing him with gentle squeezes to the hands Círdan has mended, and when Elrond reluctantly opens his eyes he lets the tears of joy and sorrow flow freely.
“Please don’t go where I cannot reach. I’m here to take you home.”
Peaceful resignation eclipses tired grey and Elrond leans into him, anticipating the long road from which there is no return. When awareness finally pierces the illusion he blinks up in surprise, seeing bloodstained faces of friends and distant kin, and he is so bewildered that he bursts into tears and buries his humiliation in Celebrimbor’s robes.
“Nae, Elrond, do not weep,” Galadriel soothes, petting his arm and channeling Nenya’s energy into calming pulses that bring to Celebrimbor’s mind pattering raindrops and the first bluebells and the wonder that is yet to come with spring.
“We are here, all of us,” Camnir says, touching Elrond’s knee with all the daring of one who is afraid to crush a perfect snowflake.
“Sauron is vanquished and he will not find you again,” Gil-Galad vows. He takes Elrond from Celebrimbor with no chance for argument and tucks the matted head under his chin. When Elrond shudders Vilya promises peace and Gil-Galad sings over him an evening cadence that is older than Celebrimbor’s grandfather. A soft choke is muffled into the cloak which Círdan spreads over them both, and Elrond’s eyes close at last in true sleep, guarded from nightmares by the perfect balance of three rings.
Now, as the ruin of his city and the evil wrought by his hands clashes with the wonder that some good has come from his trial, Celebrimbor buries his face in his hands and unleashes the grief that cannot be undone. Though he deserves no such comfort he clings to Galadriel as she swoops in to cradle him, babbling his sorrow and repentance with one thought only in mind.
If it takes him the rest of his days on Middle Earth, he will destroy every artifact crafted under Sauron’s taint and somehow bring healing to Elrond’s ravaged soul. One day there will be a forest surrounded with clear springs, and hidden in its peaceful borders shall be found a city of refuge for all who spurn evil, and the circlet gracing Elrond’s brow will be but a taste of the goodness that flows from within.
Celebrimbor will see it done, even if the last ship sails from Middle Earth without him.
Even if he must reforge the Silmarilli themselves.