FicWad

12
Earendil's Journey Ends
The Silmarillion: P. 257: Of the Voyage of Earendil: "Now fair and marvellous was that vessel made, -- and Earendil the Mariner sat at the helm, -- and the Silmaril was bound upon his brow. Far he journeyed in that ship, even into the starless voids; but most often was he seen at morning or at evening -- as he came back to Valinor from voyages beyond the confines of the world."

~~~

While Frodo and Bilbo were enjoying the impressive and idyllic scenery of the city of Tirion and of Mt. Taniquetil, they were unaware that the Valar had gathered together for a meeting in which they were dealing with the possibility that Valinor was currently under attack. The Valar and the Maiar knew that they were the probable targets of the threatening force that had come to seek them out to exact its revenge.

As it had been feared for more than 6,000 years, Morgoth, the dark enemy of the world, had returned. He no longer possessed the ability to take physical form as any kind of person or creature of Eru's making, but he had fashioned a form for himself out of the shapes of things he had seen while he moved through the void of space. He chose to appear as black stars, empty things that craved to suck life out of the living and so extinguish it, and he wandered through the Void searching out signs of life that he could destroy. But nothing satisfied his evil lust and no amount of destruction of the objects he found in the Void was enough for him. He yearned for something more, but knew not what that was any longer. The desire was within him to return to his old home of Valinor, but he did not know how to find it, as he did not know where he was in the nothingness outside of the known universe.

He empowered himself to wander about here and there in the Void. Presently, he came upon a new form of life, or perhaps it was an unlife, that he could not extinguish. It was a massive black hole, the antithesis of a star. He felt himself drawn toward it, but it could not destroy his will, which was formed of pure, malevolent evil, and therefore stronger than the black hole's ambivalent nothingness. The power of its draw could not pull him in, and the thing was puzzled by this, so it chose to follow Morgoth about, in a way that, if it had possessed any feeling, would be a kind of admiration.

Eventually, as he wandered throughout the cosmos, Morgoth caught a glimpse of a far-off brightness that he recognized to be something familiar. In spite of the myriad of stars that existed in all of the galaxies in all of the universes, there was no light like that of the Silmarils. He had spotted the Star of Earendil.

"By all that should be mine," he thought and he craved this thing with an excitement he had not felt in a long time, "I see before me one of the Silmarils! I must have it again," he thought with determination. He understood at this instant what he had been missing throughout all of the ages that his spirit had dwelt in the Void, and he wafted toward the jewel of fire, with the black hole following behind him.

As he drew closer, he could see that the star was circling above a small world. He perceived that this was Valinor, the one world that he had wished for thousands of years to find. He immediately directed his evil thought into Manwe's mind with an exuberant lust. Manwe had been too late in removing the Star of Earendil from the night sky, and Morgoth put all of his evil energy into reaching it.

*

Some time later, the Valar sat in Manwe's great hall discussing how to handle this new threat of Morgoth that Manwe had just made known to them. As they sat in the White Hall in his palace on Mt. Taniquetil, Manwe spoke openly to his fellow Valar.

"My fellow Masters of Aman," he spoke gravely, "we are under a new threat from an old enemy. Morgoth has returned somehow from the void in new guise. He has not been able to provide himself with a physical form as such, but he has managed to cloak himself in the semblance of a cloudy apparition which is able to move in the Void, and from which exudes a terrible menace. He has sent his black thought into my mind, and with it, his threat. The cloud hangs above us. Everyone on these lands has seen it, although no one save us know what it is."

There were rumblings around the table from the other Valar. How has he threatened us?" asked Mandos.

"He has sent a wish for the demise of Aman into my mind," replied Manwe. "I know that in time we shall all be made aware of how he means to carry out this threat. However, I have a certainty of knowledge that we do have some time before he can get near enough to strike, in which we must act. Our first priority, I believe, would be to protect Earendil and Elwing from immediate harm. Since they are out there in the heavens, they are exposed, and they are in probable danger. Since Earendil holds the one remaining Silmaril, I fear that Morgoth may try to take it. We will need it, to use it as a bargaining tool, to use against his destroying of our world. Therefore, I propose that the ship Vingilot, with Earendil and Elwing aboard, should be brought down to land permanently to ensure their safety."

None of the other Valar objected to this strategy. Manwe's spouse, Varda, Maker of the Stars, had already agreed with him that Earendil should be brought back to land on Valinor when Manwe first became aware of Morgoth's return. However, rather than taking action immediately, Manwe had insisted to Varda that he wished to propose the idea first to the other Valar, and to the Maiar spirits as well.

With no opposition to the idea, Varda flew up into the heavens to Vingilot, the ship of Earendil the Mariner upon which he and Elwing his wife carried the Silmaril, and bade him guide it back down to land. She explained to them on the journey down, why it was that she had been sent to retrieve them and needed to bring them to safety.

Earendil and Elwing were most shocked to hear of the return of Morgoth, and appreciated that Manwe had thought of their safety. They were given a home near Mt. Taniquetil, within the fortress of Formenos, a stronghold which had been the home of Finwe, whose son Feanor had made the Silmarils thousands of years before. It had been kept in good repair since he had departed from it in the last Age of the Trees, but no one had lived in it since then.

The fortress was surrounded by a large moat in which the ship Vingilot could be docked. Earendil and Elwing made their new home there, and lived in uneasy comfort, while awaiting the events that were to unfold.

When they arrived at the fortress of Formenos, Earendil and Elwing were met by their son, Elrond, who had gone there to await their return. Manwe had told him that they would be staying there for a while, but did not tell him why they had come back to land. They were happily reunited, and Elrond stayed at Formenos with them to get to know them again, and he regaled them with stories about Imladris, and of all the happenings on Middle-earth since their departure. Earendil and Elwing knew that something was terribly wrong, that a great force was at work that had upset Manwe and Varda, but knew not what it was, and said nothing about it to Elrond. They dismissed their fears for the time being and all but forgot them as they rejoiced in the company of their beloved son, estranged from them no longer.