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“If none can release us,” says Maglor, “then indeed the Everlasting Darkness shall be our lot, whether we keep our Oath or break it; but less evil shall we do in the breaking.”
Maedhros looks at him searchingly, and Maglor holds his breath. At last his brother says, “You are right.”
“And?” Maglor asks, not yet daring to smile.
Maedhros steps forward and rests his forehead against the top of Maglor’s head. “Very well,” he says quietly. “Let us surrender to Eönwë. We will go home.”
“Thank you,” Maglor breathes, tears of relief beginning to sting at his eyes, “thank you, thank you—” And he knows what he is asking of Maedhros, knows that it is selfish, knows that his brother is so, so tired: but still he is willing to do this, for Maglor’s sake, and that means everything—
He wakes up.
“Wait,” says Maglor, when they spy the guards outside the tent where the Silmarils are kept, “we can’t—”
“We have to,” Maedhros says, tonelessly. His sword is already drawn.
“Not like this,” Maglor says, “no more slaughter, Nelyo, please—”
But Maedhros cannot listen to him, he cannot see another path out, and so Maglor summons up all the power left to him and starts to sing a lullaby: and Maedhros, who is so tired, after all, drops to the ground in a dead sleep.
He does not wake until Maglor has dragged him far away from where the host of the Valar are camped; and he is furious, but by then it is too late for them to try again, and Maglor cannot bring himself to regret it—
He wakes up.
They are surrounded, the startled dismayed faces of Elves who knew them long ago encircling them, and Maedhros and Maglor’s swords are wet and bloody but they will not avail them against so many.
“Halt!” comes a clear voice, and the crowd parts before the Herald of Manwë. His shining, terrible face is hard to look at directly.
Maglor sees his chance.
He drops his sword, drops the box that holds the Silmarils, flings himself at the Maia’s feet. “We surrender!” he cries, in a voice that is yet strong and supple, although all his other blessings are long fled. “We surrender to the justice of the Valar – we will answer for our crimes – only spare us now—”
He does not raise his head to see Eönwë’s expression, nor the contemptuous ones of the rest of the host, nor even Maedhros’ own: but despite the reckoning that is to come, something in his heart is easy now, for he has put himself, defenceless, at the Maia’s mercy, and hence bound Maedhros too, for Maedhros will not leave him—
He wakes up.
“I suppose,” says Maedhros, “we might at least look upon them now.”
They have run some distance from the camp; there will be nobody to chase them down when the light betrays them. Maglor opens the box.
It is empty.
Maedhros makes a choked sound.
“How strange,” Maglor says mildly, “there must have been a mix-up in all the confusion.”
“You!” says Maedhros, outraged: but he is laughing a little as he speaks. “I thought you collided with Elrond by mistake!”
“He’ll give them to Tyelpë,” says Maglor. “Elrond understands, Nelyo. And if Tyelpë holds them—”
“We’re free,” says Maedhros, and he does not sound as though he knows what to do with that. But he is here, and starting to smile, and his grey eyes are clearing as he looks out at ravaged Beleriand, his gaze skimming over the rents of fire in the earth—
He wakes up.
His hand is burning, burning, and he can barely think, and Maedhros is standing at the edge of the chasm, the unforgiving light of the Silmaril making clear the terrible despair on his face, and for once in his life Maglor cannot summon up the words—
“So!” he says at last, and just in time. “So Varda Elentári marks us unworthy! But even if she hallowed the jewels she did not make them, Nelyo, they are our father’s work, and the right to them will always be ours.”
“Do you really believe that, Káno?” Maedhros asks, dreadfully soft.
Maglor doesn’t. He knows what he is. But he was a mighty wordsmith once, and the son of Tirion's foremost loremaster besides, and he knows how to turn any argument to his own end.
“We crossed the world to get away from their false idea of judgement,” he says firmly. “Why listen to it now? And – and – come away from the edge, Nelyo.”
“Yes,” says Maedhros, and then with more certainty, “yes—”
He wakes up.
Maedhros is wavering at the edge of the chasm, the Silmaril blazing in his hand, the fire licking up behind him. He is always blazing, this brilliant brother of his, and surely – surely – nothing could ever snuff him out.
“Nelyo,” says Maglor. “Nelyo, drop it. Please.”
His own Silmaril is lying on the ground at his feet. He has given up everything he is for it, accursed thing, and it will not take the last person he has left; it will not take Maedhros, he will not let it.
“They burned him too,” says Maedhros, voice dusty and desolate. “Morgoth. I saw his hands. They were black and withered.”
His own hand is crumbling, now. Still he will not let the Silmaril go.
Maglor’s face is wet with tears. “You are not he,” he says; “you are not as evil as Morgoth, Nelyo.”
“I cannot have dealt out much less death than he,” Maedhros counters.
“But you are loved,” says Maglor, through his tears, “even now – if you would only step away from the edge – I love you, Nelyo, please—”
Maedhros stares at him. Stands very still. Opens his charred and ruined fingers, at last, letting the Silmaril fall into the fire. Looks down as if there is nothing stopping him from following it.
“Nelyo,” says Maglor, and Maedhros looks back at him and takes a step forward and away from the fire and then another and another until he is crashing into Maglor’s waiting arms—
He wakes up.
His hand is burning and his soul is burning and Maedhros, standing at the edge of the chasm, is burning too; or perhaps he was always burning, the eldest son of the Spirit of Fire. It was never going to end any other way, Maglor has long known, and yet – because he is selfish, because a part of him still believes he can cheat his own narrative – he cannot quite accept it.
There is nothing left to him, now, no clever arguments or impassioned sincerity or cunning tricks; and his throat, like the rest of him, is burning, too much so to beg anymore. Is he already screaming? But why? Maedhros is still standing there, his form wavering like a mirage in the heat from the fire. There – there – gone.
Maglor is screaming now, unquestionably.
Perhaps, he tells himself, perhaps it is just a dream, like those he had, repeatedly, after Maedhros was rescued alive from Thangorodrim: and he digs his nails into the terrible burn on his hand, for surely the pain will ground him, and now he will wake up, he must wake up—
He never does.