Fellowship of the King Chapter Twelve: The Silence That Devours

[masterghandalf]

This is a repost from Das_sporking2. Previous installments of this sporking may be found here.

Warning: This chapter contains a battle scene containing violence and death, as well as cruelty to animals.



MG: Well, everyone, it’s time to continue our journey through Demetrious Polychron’s Fellowship of the King! Last time, our heroes escaped from Bree, chased off Estel the Edgelord, and then talked, talked and talked some more, about a variety of topics that somehow mostly circled back around to Eldarion being wonderful. Today, it’s time for us to officially wrap up Book I of this increasingly strange and uncomfortable fic… with a climax that will involve a whole lot of infodumping and a confrontation with minions of a villain we haven’t even heard of before now! *beat* What? Seriously, what? In any case, joining us today will be Shade and Sonam!

Sonam: …and that description has already filled me with a mix of dread and fascination. I suppose the only way to see what’s coming is to head onward, then!

Chapter 12: The Silence That Devours

The trees of the Chetwood forest grew too close for the Oliphaunts to get through.

Shade: What, and they’re not just going to plow through heedlessly, destroying everything in their path? I’m surprised, and I’m sure Kasanari will be happy to learn that!

They were forced to skirt the edges. Outside the woods there lay barren fields. Sloping up and down in the far distance rose the Weather Hills.

As they progressed, it got harder to find game or good pasture and water for their Oliphaunts.

Sonam: …I suppose there are things one could say about bringing these animals into an environment where they’re not native without also providing sufficient supplies for them?

But Eldarion seemed to know these lands as if born here. They had never gone too far before he led them to green fields and running streams.

Shade: *rolling her eyes* Oh, but Eldarion knows the way, of course! Has he even been here before? His father spent many years in these lands, as I recall, but even if Eldarion has heard his stories all his life, that’s not the same as firsthand experience!

In the middle of their third day from Bree, one of the lookouts shouted. “Vultures!”

Everyone went to the front of their basket.

Sam was driving Dzombor. “Which of our enemies use vultures?”

Shade: And why are you assuming the vultures were sent by someone and aren’t just normal vultures, doing what vultures normally do? Personally, I’d be more likely to wonder who, or what, just died, to attract so many carrion eaters…

“They’re not your enemies,” Manus told him. “They’re mine!”

“Yours?” Eldarion queried.

Sonam: *mildly* Something that we monks are required to come to understand early in our training is that we are not, in fact, the center of the universe. I think Prince Eldarion should possibly attempt to learn the same lesson.

Manus collapsed in his seat at the front beside Sam. “I knew I shouldn’t have gotten out of my gomondwane this morning.”

Shade: …so your enemies could just catch you sleeping instead? Sorry, friend, but hiding in your bed won’t save you from the troubles of the world. Feigning sleep to lure your enemies in close, on the other hand, with a knife under your pillow… that has potential.

From deep in the forest came the sounds of stampeding feet and breaking wood. Like a wave moving towards them, the trees were being flattened and crashing to the ground. As the leaves and branches gave way, the high arched backs of marauding monsters rose above the tops.

The creatures broke into a clearing. Catching sight of their caravan, they charged. About the same size of their Oliphaunts, that’s where all similarities ended. The monsters moved like lumbering battering rams, equipped with stout conical bodies and short powerful legs. Their bowed backs were hairy and ridged. They had small angry eyes with bone white pupils, like dead fish. The strangest parts came from the center of their large noses: two thick, hairy horns rose higher and sharper than any lance or pike.

“What are they?” Elanor asked.

MG: Well, based on their description, they appear to be rhinoceroses… or at least, creatures that are to real-life rhinos as mumakil are to real-life elephants. As for what they actually are in-universe… read on, because it’s a doozy.

Traveling at the Speed of Plot: 30 (just how did the giant monster rhinos make it all the way to Eriador from Harad to catch up with the caravan, without anyone seeming to notice them?)

“They look like drawings of the beasts Sauron’s lieutenant Gothmog used to pull the battering ram Grond, during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields,” Eldarion told her.

MG: Some nitpicks here. First off, the “great beasts” that drew Grond are never described in the book; in the Jackson movies, they’re vaguely saurian creatures that do also have some rhino-like features, while the Rankin-Bass RotK just had the ram drawn by more mumakil. But there’s no reason it couldn’t have been drawn by giant monster rhinos, I suppose, so no points. Gothmog, though, was the Witch-King’s lieutenant, not Sauron’s, and he didn’t command the ram himself, the Witch-King did personally. The book only gives a couple of brief mentions of Gothmog and never describes his appearance or whether he’s human, orc, one of the lesser Ringwraiths, or something else. The Jackson movies make Gothmog an especially hideous orc; interestingly, this fic will later introduce a hideously deformed orc named Gothmog, but it’s not clear if it’s meant to be the same guy or not (from context, I’d guess “probably not,” since fic!Gothmog is an orc of the Misty Mountains, not Mordor). Just for clarification Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, from the First Age is in any case a completely different character from any of the above.

Loremaster’s Headache: 199 (a minor example, but giving a point for mixing up Mordor’s chain of command at the Pelennor fields)

“They’re known by many names,” Manus explained. “Elasmotherons, chipekwe and asekamoks. They’re the wickedest and powerfulest servants of the greatest evil our world has ever known! In Harad we call them rikedons.”

MG: So… yeah. For one, based on some of those other names, we can indeed confirm these are supposed to be a species of rhino-like creatures, if not exactly real-world rhinoceroses. They’re also the same thing as the mysterious “rikedons” that got mentioned last chapter (no idea where the word “rikedon” comes from; it seems to be a surname IRL, among other things, so *shrugs*). And apparently monster rhinos are the most evil creatures in all existence. Wow. I know real rhinos have a reputation for mindless aggression (afaik, not baseless, but definitely exaggerated), but this feels a little excessive, doesn’t it? And when it comes to incredibly lethal African megafauna, I think the hippos are feeling left out!

Bigger, Louder, More!: 56

He opened a low compartment. Withdrawing a silver horn, he blew three powerful blasts.

Taking the reins from Sam, he turned Dzombor around and the other Oliphaunts followed.

“You have turned us back towards Bree!” Eldarion said.

“Of course I have!” Manus cried.

Shade: …I’m not one for head-on assaults (a knife in the dark is more my style…) but at the moment, the enemy is right here, and I don’t think turning around is going to let you outrun them, the way they’re described as charging! This is a point where standing and fighting might be your best, and only, option.

“Are they servants of Melkor?” Alatar asked.

“There are other evils in the world, older than Melkor,” he answered. “Rikedons serve the Great Evil, bringer of the Silence That Devours. The only one who has ever successfully opposed the Great Evil is Incánus the Gold, a Wizard of Aman. Incánus wanders the lands of the South, helping the people of Northern, Greater and South Harad.”

MG: Okay. And here, we’ve come to yet another moment where this fic gets wild. There’s an evil force in Harad that’s older and more powerful than Melkor, Arda’s original evil, counterpart to Satan, first and strongest Dark Lord, and so on, and so forth (also, why was Melkor Alatar’s first thought? He’s Arda’s oldest and greatest evil, sure, but he hasn’t been directly relevant for millennia, what with being banished to the Void and all, so wouldn’t the rikedons be more likely to be currently working for someone else?). And it’s just… casually tossed out at us like that. And, sure, we had the Nameless Things in canon (which are only said to be “older” even than Sauron, and not really described otherwise) but this isn’t related to them (Polychron does something else with the Nameless Things later on, as I’ve alluded to already). And sure, despite the fact that Arda’s cosmology is mostly built from a mix of real-world Christian and Norse/Germanic inspirations, it does have these weird Lovecraftian elements – Nameless Things, Ungoliant and her spawn, and so on – skulking around the edges that are never really explained and don’t really fit with anything else and are all the more frightening for it. Polychron, though, just decides to throw subtlety to the wind. “Nope, there’s an eldritch abomination in Harad that’s older, stronger, and more evil than Melkor, that’s a thing, deal with it.” And we’ll find out more about it here in a minute, but it all feels to me at least remarkably out of place.

And Incanus, need I remind you, is canonically another name for Gandalf, not a separate person. Bad Polychron!

Bigger, Louder, More!: 58

Expansion-Pack World: 14

Loremaster’s Headache: 201

“I know Incánus,” Alatar said. “He’s of my Order. We sailed to Middle-earth together.”

“Incánus has helped the Pygmies, Black Elves and Men of Harad resist the Great Evil for centuries,” Manus told him. “It’s deadlier than Melkor!”

Bigger, Louder, More!: 59

Expansion-Pack World: 15

“How can that be?” Elanor asked. “I thought Melkor was the source of all evil.”

MG: Thank you, Elanor, for raising that appropriate point. Alas that you’ve just inspired Manus to start monologuing, at length, while we’re in the middle of trying to escape an army of vultures and demon rhinos. Say, I think we’ve had something a bit like this a few chapters ago…

Plot-Induced Stupidity: 103

“Tell us what you know of this Great Evil and the Silence That Devours,” Alatar said. “It may help us find a way to defeat their servants.”

MG: And here we go… (this’ll be Manus speaking for the next section, not Alatar, though it’s not really well marked)

* * * * *

Though a citizen of Harad, I was born outside our borders on the caravan trail atop an Oliphaunt.

Sonam: Wait, Manus was born atop an Oliphaunt? I’m not an expert, but that doesn’t really seem like a good place to give birth to me?

I am the son and heir of Oduduwa and Tihisis, daughter of Oromiyia of Tarqus. I learned from them our family business, and many other things, including the events which began before any others. These things would come to define my life.

Shade: *rolls her eyes* Ah yes, the mysterious “many other things” and “events which began before any others,” how very vague. Do you charge extra for specifics, or are you just being mysterious?

Growing up with Oduduwa, the greatest merchant trader in the history of Harad, was a glorious adventure. But life on the caravan was often dangerous. Whenever we traveled, he took with us his armed guards and they tutored me since infancy in the warrior arts.

MG: Get used to this phrase “warrior arts;” Polychron seems to like it.

Journeying across the world, I’ve witnessed things most people have never dreamed. As travelers bringing riches and tales from distant lands, my family was welcomed in every land by every King and Queen.

Shade: Well, almost every land. There was an… incident in Dale involving far too much wine and one of King Brand’s favorite doublets that everyone involved thought best to never speak of again, for dignity’s sake.

I was a child when the beautiful Princess Akamai Merkaba ascended the throne of Greater Harad and became our Queen. Much later, she married King Dacoron, a vassal and ruler of her tributary kingdom of East Vazimba. It was a happy union and she bore the Crown Princess Malvia. But not soon after, the tragic death of Dacoron marred their happiness and Akamai was forced to raise Malvia alone.

MG: So, basically, as we’ve been over before, Tolkien doesn’t give us much on the internal political structure of Harad, so I’m going to let a lot of the details slide. “Greater Harad” still isn’t a thing, though. There’s what the Gondorians call Near Harad, Haradwaith, or just Harad, and then there’s Far Harad which is much farther south and seems to be a separate region with separate peoples… but no “Greater Harad.”

Expansion-Pack World: 16

My father became a trusted servant of the Queen and sent me trading with my uncle Kekorum to experience The Great Journey. It’s a rite of passage in our family. All worldly traders are expected to do it.

Sonam: …so does that mean if you just want to spend all day sitting in a counting house working on the account books, you don’t have to do it? Asking for a friend!

Together, we traveled from the bottom of South Harad to the edges of the untraversable ice in the Northern Wastes. Above Dor Daidelos and the ice mountains of the Region of Everlasting Cold, not only there are the stars strange, the Sun and Moon are strangers!

MG: “Dor Daidelos” is probably a misspelling of “Dor Daedeloth,” the region around the Gates of Angband in the First Age. Which is indeed in the north, but after the War of Wrath ended up on the bottom of the sea with the rest of Angband and Beleriand and thus would be rather difficult for Manus’s uncle to have taken him to.

Loremaster’s Headache: 202

It was on that journey I learned the maps in the north are mistaken. The lands of Harad are much larger than your charts show.

MG: Well, if you’re talking about the maps we have in the books (ie, based on the ones Christopher Tolkien redrew off his father’s sketches) then the reason they don’t show the far south is that they cut off shortly past Umbar (speaking of, Umbar only gets a couple of cursory mentions in this fic, which may or may not be a relief when you compare it to TLR and Yeskov’s endless Umbaran side-trip), not that they actually get the size and shape of the continent wrong. Going by Tolkien’s rough maps of the whole Middle-earth supercontinent, though, “Far Harad” is indeed quite large and makes up a significant chunk of the total landmass. Is Manus saying it’s supposed to be even bigger?

Loremaster’s Headache: 203

Take That, Tolkien!: 28 (for the implication that Tolkien’s own maps are wrong)

Five North Kingdoms could fit in Harad and we’d still have room for more. But even our lands are small compared to those in the Far East: Rhûn, Hildória, Kalórmë and Dor Daedeloth, ruled by the Warlord Thû, stretch from the frozen shores of the Cape of Forochel in the west, through the Wild Woods and Orocarni Mountains, to the beaches of Ekkaia and the East Sea, even to the Hither and Dark Lands in the south.

MG: …so, are Dor Daedeloth and Dor Daidelos supposed to be different, then? Or has Manus mentioned the same place twice, by slightly different names? And this is the second time “the Warlord Thu” has been mentioned (the first time way back in Chapter Three), and Thu is still an early name for Sauron, not a separate person (and from that description it sounds like he rules most of the continent, if his territory stretches literally from coast to coast, and from Forochel in the north to the Dark Lands – does Manus mean Mordor or the mysterious continent called the “Dark Land” that shows up on some of Tolkien’s sketch maps – in the south?). He’s not a huge player in the fic, but we’ve not heard the last of him, either. Rhun is obviously the canonical name for the large region east of the Sea of Rhun, and we’ve already discussed Hildoria. The Wild Woods and the Orocarni Mountains existed in the First Age; not sure if they’d still be there by the early Fourth when the shape of the world has changed considerably since then, but I’ll let it slide. Kalorme, though, only shows up in the early versions of the Legendarium and IIRC is never mentioned after the Book of Lost Tales; but it’s not a country, it’s a mountain, the second highest mountain in Arda and a sort of eastern counterpart to Taniquetil in Aman. However, it’s not in Middle-earth but in the Land of the Sun, the continent east of Middle-earth that Tokien’s writings mention but never really explore. So… did Manus’s trip take him across the ocean, then? Wow!

Expansion-Pack World: 18

Loremaster’s Headache: 205

It was there my uncle died defending our caravan. His responsibilities became my own. Since he was the best teacher, I did all right. Ever since then from one end of the world to the other, I have traveled the width and length and breadth of all those lands, and many more you haven’t heard. You’ll never meet a man who’s journeyed farther than Manus Tarqus!

Shade: *muttering* But clearly humility isn’t among the traits of the noble Manus Tarqus… this seems to be a trend among Polychron’s characters, isn’t it?

During my expeditions I’ve met kings and queens, emperors and empresses, wizards, witches and warlords, pygmies, dwarves, giants, trolls, collocoll, elves both light and dark, and dragons good and bad; and many other creatures besides.

MG: “Dragons good and bad” is interesting, considering that in Arda, dragons were first bred by Morgoth for war, and I don’t believe we’ve ever had an instance of one even considering a change of heart, though I suppose it’s not impossible (though it might count as foreshadowing for some developments later in the fic…). On the other hand… collocoll. Those are not from the Legendarium, but stick a pin in it, because we’ll be coming back to them later, and it’s going to be wild.

Expansion-Pack World: 19

I even wrote a song about my journeys:

Shade: Ugh, for the Kraken’s sake, more poetry. Best be on with it, then.

The Sun had risen casting its glow
Across the land and upon the sea
I fled both Khand and Mordor’s realms
Where I had wandered fearfully

Led by its light to the Encircling Seas
I heard the Ocean echoing
The whispered yearnings that in my dream
I’d heard a demon lover sing

To the edge of the world my footsteps led
Where I glimpsed within each cresting wave
A pool of shadow free from light
Like visions of an icy cave

Within these shadows something lived
That light and open space deny
The dark confines of secret realms
In which imaginations fly

MG: …eh. Not great, but not really terrible, either. Mostly just kind of forgettable, IMO.

When at I returned I was full grown, bearing many treasures and great wealth. Joyous for our family was my homecoming. Just before my return, Greater Harad had narrowly avoided a ruinous war with Swahillogûz, the White Elf Abomination and Regent of Northern Harad.

Sonam: *muttering* Oh, by the West Wind, not another dark lord!

MG: Needless to say, Swahilloguz isn’t a Tolkien character, though his albinism makes me wonder if Polychron wasn’t intending him at least partially as a shout-out to Elric of Melnibone (ironic, considering Elric’s creator’s much-publicized criticism of Tolkien; of course, Middle-earth already has a fairly close counterpart to Elric in the form of its own angsty anti-hero cursed with a tragic destiny and a creepy black sword by which he ultimately dies, Turin. Not because either character was based on the other, but because both Tolkien and Moorcock seem to have been influenced by the same source – namely, Finnish mythology and the character Kullervo in particular). In any case, let’s see what his deal is, shall we?

Expansion-Pack World: 20

Though white, Swahillogûz was born from normal parents among the Black Elves. He grew up on a mountain more full of gems than the Silvertine, twice as high as the Lonely Mountain, and ten times hotter than Orodruin: Orajkilim. Some say, the glittering white on the mountain slopes crept into his mother.

Shade: …I thought that Polychron had previously established that Orodruin’s fires were the hottest not just in Middle-earth, but in all existence? I guess he forgot that part, did he?

Bigger, Louder, More!: 63 (do I even need to explain?)

Expansion-Pack World: 21

The Black Elves tried to be kind to Swahillogûz, but he was too strange. He became outcast among his people.

MG: …I’d like to think that Tolkien elves (the “Black Elves” are probably a branch of the Avari, all things considered) wouldn’t be so shallow and bigoted as to reject one of their own simply because of his albinism, but we certainly have plenty of examples of elves behaving badly or even being outright abusive (Eol) so, sadly, it’s probably not impossible.

Nor did he find peace among the Pygmies of the jungles or the People of the plains. Rejected by everyone, he went into the Great Desert seeking death at the hands of the Silence That Devours.

For many years, everyone thought he died. On one too bright day, Swahillogûz came back: not as an unliving thrall of the Silence, the only things that had come back, he returned as a living, breathing servant, though others call him slave.

Shade: And yet others called him things that are best not repeated in polite company, and a few just called him “oh yeah, that asshole” with obscene gestures in his general direction.

Wielding the power of the Silence, Swahillogûz possesses a gruesome weapon. He brings the power of the Silence That Devours out of the desert and into our homes.

MG: …why does that phrasing make it sound less like Swahilloguz created an evil empire and more like he created a delivery service? “This primordial force of absolute evil can be yours for only $19.99, plus shipping and handling! Sign up today!”

This is how he tamed the warring tribes of Wildmen in Northern Harad and made them his terrible armies. He has tried to conquer Greater and South Harad again and again. But through our long histories, we’ve managed to hold the line, although it hasn’t been easy.

Sonam: *looking at a map* I still thought the “Wildmen” weren’t from anywhere near Harad. Has Manus gotten the northern Haradrim and the Dunlendings mixed up? That’s kind of embarrassing, if so! And just looking at the Pelennor fields, these “tribal Wildmen” seem to have a really powerful, well-organized military…

Loremaster’s Headache: 206

Stopped by Greater Harad, Swahillogûz and his Wildmen turned to the north for conquest. In the Second Age, the allied armies of Swahillogûz and Mordor met at the River Gwathló and attacked the forces of the Northern Elves and Númenóreans.

In the ensuing battle, the armies of Mordor and Northern Harad were destroyed. The Regent of Morder known as Sauron, servant of Melkor,

MG: Morder? Really? And Sauron wasn’t a “regent,” in the traditional sense. He wasn’t ruling on behalf of someone else, he was the Lord of Mordor in his own right. This isn’t as bad as calling him a “lesser servant” of Morgoth earlier, but I’m starting to wonder what all of these people have against Sauron (aside from, you know, the obvious…).

was rescued from Gil-galad and Tar- Ciryatan by Swahillogûz and delivered safely to his concubine, the dread Thüringel of Mordor.

Shade: Who was bitterly disappointed, on account of how she’d just gotten the place the way she liked it and just knew that Sauron was going to make her rearrange everything again; unfortunately, Swahilloguz’s delivery service allowed no refunds.

This was when the first bond in the Collusion of Nations was forged between our foes.

MG: So… here we see how this ties in to everything that’s been actually going on in Middle-earth’s history. Swahilloguz is an ally of Sauron’s and implicitly seems to be the ultimate overlord of the Haradrim forces who fought for Mordor. And on the one hand, as character concepts go, that’s not really a bad one! We know Sauron is willing to bring on other evil overlords or wannabe evil overlords as allies or vassals (see exhibit a, Saruman) and “an elf warlord who rules much of Harad and is allied with Mordor” is a character I think could exist in Middle-earth (explaining why we’ve never heard of him thus far is trickier; the logical explanation is that his power base is so far south most of the Free Peoples have never heard of him or dealt with him directly, but he’s apparently the ruler of northern Harad so that doesn’t seem to make much sense…).

On the other hand, I do have issues with the execution. First off, there’s his ties to Polychron’s totally special worse-than-Morgoth evil force, the Silence That Devours (which we’ll be getting an explanation for shortly, trust me). Honestly, if I was writing this character and was going to make him a herald of an all-consuming eldritch abomination, I’d make him associated with Ungoliant. She supposedly fled to the far south of Middle-earth (before either devouring herself or being killed by Earendil on one of his voyages, depending on which source you go by), and I could by a scenario where a young, outcast Swahilloguz met her, escaped but had your acme Lovecraftian “go mad from the revelation” moment from meeting an entity so terrible even Melkor feared her and dedicated himself to feeding reality into the proverbial woodchipper (not unlike Ishamael from WoT). More concerning, IMO, is the idea that he and Sauron were more-or-less equal partners and that Swahilloguz’s forces made up a significant part of Mordor’s army that Sauron was dependent on. Contrast with Sauron’s relationship with Saruman – they were allied, sure, but Sauron was always the much larger predator and it’s clear that, despite Saruman’s pretensions of being able to manipulate and control Sauron, they both knew it. I have a hard time seeing Sauron willingly allying with someone so close to him in strength – after all, he does not share power. At best, all I could imagine is that he'd be lining up Swahilloguz for a backstab. And in any case, the implication in the Appendices is that he escaped the destruction of his army in Eriador on his own and didn’t need to be “rescued” by anyone. Then again, for all Manus has complained (and will keep complaining) about ignorant northerners who know nothing about what’s really going on in Harad, maybe he’s engaging in some cultural posturing of his own, presenting his bad guy as the biggest threat. That might explain some things.

Bigger, Louder, More!: 64

Loremaster’s Headache: 207

Together, they rebuilt their decimated armies and resumed waging war against Greater and South Harad in the south, and in the north against Belfalas, Pelegir and Gondor.

MG: I assume “Pelegir” is meant to be “Pelargir,” which is a Numenorean colony that was founded in the early Second Age at this point, so that tracks. OTOH, not sure who’s in Belfalas to war against at this point (elves, maybe? There were elf havens in Belfalas before the human city of Dol Amroth was built there) and Gondor won’t exist until the tail end of the second age, roughly two millennia after the War of the Elves and Sauron. Whoopsie!

Loremaster’s Headache: 209

Amid these and other wars, in 2272 of the Second Age the Númenórean King Ar- Pharazôn became a traitor to his allies in Middle-earth. His navies invaded, but the combined might of the vast armies of Northern Harad and Mordor were more than a match for the small shipboard forces of the Númenóreans.

MG: Okay, one, I’m not sure how Ar-Pharazon is a “traitor” at this point. The point of this invasion is to crush Mordor and defeat Sauron – because of personal ambition and hardly from the goodness of his heart, sure, but he’s not actively turning against, say, Gil-Galad’s kingdom or anyone (he’s still decades off from worshipping Melkor and trying to invade Valinor right now). For another, canonically the Numenorean fleet was so massive that Sauron didn’t even try to meet them in pitched battle, because he knew if he did, he’d lose. Sure, you could argue that the Sil, having an Eldarin and Numenorean bias, inflated the numbers a bit and the Haradrim remember things differently, but even so… if Sauron could have crushed Ar-Pharazon in pitched battle without needing to humiliate himself by surrendering in order to get into a position to manipulate Pharazon and destroy Numenor from inside, he’d have done that.

Loremaster’s Headache: 211

But during the pre-battle war-council, Sauron asked Swahillogûz to retreat from the field.

Sonam: So, this is really not beating the idea that Swahilloguz is absolutely essential to Sauron’s military strength, isn’t it? That seems rather impressive, for someone we’ve never even heard of before this chapter!

He wanted to trick Ar-Pharazôn into taking him prisoner to get a free ride to Númenor. Whatever Sauron did there, it was bad. Númenor sank to the bottom of the sea.

MG: LOL. I kind of love just how… hilariously offhand this is. One of the greatest cataclysms in Middle-earth’s history, that literally reshaped the planet, and this is how Manus describes it! Now, maybe that’s on purpose. Maybe Polychron is going for the idea that the Downfall of Numenor was rather unimportant to the Haradrim and so this is all the significance they place on it (ie, not much). But… I don’t think that checks out. For one, Numenor actively colonized and occupied much of Harad at the height of its power. Knowing that their oppressor ended up eating itself and bringing about its own destruction seems like the sort of thing the Haradrim would care about! Not to mention that even after Numenor fell, its power in the region didn’t die immediately, since it seems that Numenor’s colonial possessions in Harad fell under the rule of the Black Numenorean warlords Herumor* and Fuinur, who seem to have been vassals of Sauron (how do they fit into this, I wonder?). And of course, Harad has had plenty of contact – sometimes friendly, often not – with Gondor and Umbar, both Numenorean realms. I find it somewhat doubtful the story hasn’t percolated into their culture, at least among people as learned and well-traveled as we’re clearly supposed to think Manus is. Now, maybe Manus is supposed to have a colloquial, somewhat irreverent storytelling style (I think that could be what Polychron is going for, at least) but it mostly just sounds kind of weird. *shrugs*

*Interestingly, the name “Herumor” is mentioned in Tolkien’s own scrapped LotR sequel, The New Shadow, seeming to be a figure of some authority in the dark cult that’s risen in Gondor. It’s not clear if the Fourth Age Herumor is named after the Numenorean Herumor, or if it’s somehow the same guy having presumably prolonged his life with some sorcery, as the fragment cuts off before he's properly introduced.

Since that time, Swahillogûz has turned his attention to Greater Harad and our people have been at war ever since.

Shade: So, he’s been trying to conquer Harad for thousands of years… and he keeps failing, with seemingly ordinary human kingdoms holding the line against him all this time? *rolls her eyes* Oh, yes, I’m really scared of this guy.

MG: And, sure Tolkien’s Dark Lords were around for thousands of years too and fought many wars of conquest during those times – but Tolkien actually describes those wars, what happened in them, what the parties who took part were trying to accomplish and how their actions contributed to their goals, etc. Polychron just makes it sound like Swahilloguz spent the whole Third Age in a holding pattern of trying and failing to conquer all of Harad.

To stop the bloodshed, Queen Akamai offered Swahillogûz a truce. As surety of her fealty, she promised him the hand of her only daughter, the Crown Princess Malvia.

Sonam: “Fealty” implies that Queen Akamai is giving her allegiance to Swahilloguz. Which makes it sound like they’re not having a “truce,” the war is over because Swahilloguz won. Is… is that what Polychron means to be implying? I don’t think it is, but it’s what he says…

The Queen hired me to transport Malvia to her groom.

Never having met her, I learned the rumors of the legendary beauty of the Crown Princess were true. I was smitten. She wasn’t.

Shade: *sporfles* Okay, I don’t know if that was meant to be hilarious, but I’m just imagining Manus falling to his knees with big hearts in his eyes the moment he sees Malvia, and she just holds up her hand and says “nope!” and turns and walks away.

She saw my eyes lingering on her face (just her face)

Shade: *rolling her eyes* Friend, if you have to specify… (also, isn’t she sitting right there, listening to all of this?)

and told me I wasn’t fit to look on the future Queen of the United Kingdoms of Northern and Greater Harad. I was furious, but I’m professional – I did my job.

I delivered Malvia to Swahillogûz in his capital city of Kakasmegga, ahead of schedule and under budget.

Sonam: *weakly* Well, I’m so glad you succeeded in saving money while facilitating your homeland’s surrender to the evil overlord who’s been trying to conquer them?

Malvia was gracious and delighted when meeting him. She smiled and laughed at his dumb jokes, but secretly, the White Elf Abomination horrified her.

MG: I know it’s not the probable intention, but something about the juxtaposition of her laughing at his “dumb jokes” while secretly being horrified makes it seem like Malvia’s chief objection to marrying the millennia old tyrant and ally of Sauron who’s been trying to conquer her people and is the herald of a primordial eldritch abomination bent on consuming the world is that his jokes are stupid. Just… what? Also, just imagine if during the Council of Elrond we had an aside where Elrond or Gandalf casually mentions how much Sauron’s sense of humor sucks. Not exactly dignified, is it?

By this time, I had collected my fee and returned to camp. We were prepared to leave at first light. In the dead of night, Malvia came to my tent, begging me to smuggle her out of Northern Harad and take her back to Queen Akamai.

Well.

I wasn’t sure I was allowed to break my signed contract with the Queen. She had trusted me to deliver her daughter as promised and I’d never failed to make a delivery. Breaking my contract could destroy my reputation and endanger my family business.

Shade: And your contract is the important thing here, not the clearly terrified young woman begging you to get her out of this situation. I’m starting to see why she’s not that into you…

There was also the matter of Akamai declaring me a traitor and having me executed.

But Malvia said she had discovered a terrible secret and the source of Swahillogûz’s power: the origin of the Silence That Devours.

MG: So, yes, that means we’re finally getting that information on just what the Silence That Devours even is that Polychron has been teasing us with this whole chapter. On the other hand, this means that, more or less, we’re about to have a flashback within a flashback. Fun!

* * * * *

Before the beginning of Time, there were two spirits moving in the great nothingness.

There had to be two. If one moved but didn’t have anything by which to measure its movement, it would have been the same as standing still.

Some people think of one as movement and the other, stillness. Others divide them as thought and emotion, being and anti-being, fire and ice.

Sonam: East Wind and West Wind, perhaps? *beat* Normally, I’d love nothing more than a philosophical discussion like this… but I somehow fear this isn’t going to go anywhere that isn’t very silly.

In Hildória, before the East Sea and the shores of Kalórmë, where I have also been, people call them Yin and Yang.

Some think of them as opposites: God and Devil, Osiris and Set. Others see them as siblings or brothers; Apollo and Diana, Cain and Abel. Many think they are masculine and feminine; male and female, man and woman, brother and sister, wife and husband.

MG: Okay, one question, why are we invoking real-world deities and concepts in a context where none of them exist? Also, Arda has a God and Devil – Eru Iluvatar, and Melkor, respectively. And the Devil, going by most Abrahamic traditions (the specifics vary significantly and it’s well beyond the scope of this sporking to get into the details of Jewish, Christian and Muslim interpretations of Satan and how they differ within and between those traditions), is nowhere near an equal opponent to God, and Tolkien’s characterization of Eru and Melkor fits with that. And, honestly, if Eru had an opposite, I’d probably say it would be the Void itself – Eru as the original creative force opposed to the Void as infinite primordial nonbeing.

Loremaster’s Headache: 216

Call them whatever you want. One thing is certain: in the beginning they were very close, close in origin and in original cause and effect. But it is also clear they were never equal and in fact, they were very different.

In Harad we know the truth: they couldn’t have been more different.

Shade: I think we’ve established that, yes. Does this have a point, exactly?

Whatever the similarities and differences, one came first, the second, second; and they began in Harad – everything did. Some call them Ilúvatar and Melkor. Those beliefs are false. Men and Elves, Valar and Ainur, and Melkor too, were creations of Ilúvatar, not His brother, sister, or anything close to His equal.

MG: That, at least, is true. What isn’t true is that “everything began in Harad.” Case in point being that, you know, Eru and all the Ainur existed long before there was even a planet for Harad to be on, and Men and Elves both first awoke far in the east, whereas Harad is in the south. I really am beginning to think that our good Manus is engaging in some cultural posturing, and everything he says should be taken with a very large grain of salt.

Loremaster’s Headache: 218

It was Ilúvatar’s thoughts that gave birth to the Ainur and He told them – sing. Calling the song, the Ainulindalë, He used it to create the world.

Sonam: By the West Wind, when Manus Tarqus starts from the beginning, he starts from the beginning! Is this entirely necessary?

It wasn’t jealousy that drove Melkor away, he had a crappy voice. You call it Discord. We tell it like it is – the guy can’t sing!

MG: So, apparently, in Manus Tarqus’s version, the Discord wasn’t Melkor deliberately attempting to hijack the Music to fluff his own ego, he just sucks that much at music. Wow. Just… Polychron really has a feel for the grandeur and tragedy of the thing, doesn’t he? I’d enter this as further evidence we’re meant to see Manus’s storytelling tone as snarky and irreverent, but it’s not really borne out in enough of his narration if so. And I’ll also note that since the Discord is the origin of evil in Ea, the logical conclusion is that evil exists because Melkor has a bad singing voice. That’s sure a… novel solution to the Problem of Evil, I have to say! Why do bad things happen to good people? Hate to break it to you, but it’s because back in the day, Melkor just couldn’t hit that high note, and his singing was so bad it spontaneously brought the concept of suffering into being. Very sad.

Loremaster’s Headache: 220

But before the Discords, before the Ainulindalë, before even the thoughts of Ilúvatar, there were two spirits flying over Harad and they took the form of the first birds.

Sonam: So, they were flying over Harad… before the planet even existed… before its creator deity even considered creating it… I’m given to understand that the minds of mortals simply aren’t intended to comprehend such cosmic events, but I wasn’t expecting an outright oxymoron this early!

One, we call Benu and the other, Ban Ban. When Benu opened his beak, he created sound from which Ilúvatar later created Music. Maybe in the north, Ilúvatar is another name for Benu.

Shade: Since this was “before the thoughts of Iluvatar,” does that imply that Eru existed before he had thoughts? My, my. If this is the state of divinity in this version of Middle-earth, that might explain some things!

MG: And while I’m not sure what “Ban Ban” is supposed to be based on, if anything, “Benu” seems to derive from Bennu. So that’s another non-Middle-earth concept we have randomly dropped in here.

Loremaster’s Headache: 221

Ban Ban didn’t move, didn’t think or open its beak. From its unmoving stillness flowed the Silence That Devours.

The Silence became the Banaean and the Banaean silenced Oblivios. Ban Ban gave the Silence secret Heat. The Heat boiled water and the water began to whistle. The whistles became Music, this became the Ainur and they sang the Ainulindalë. Pleased with their song, Ilúvatar rewarded them by infusing it with Secret Fire. In the North, you call it Fëa.

In Harad, we call it Life.

MG: And I call it “something that probably sounded a lot more profound in Polychron’s head but just doesn’t make sense no matter how hard I think about it.” I know, I know, it’s a creation myth, those are poetic and metaphorical almost by nature, but even so… And in this case, I suspect we are meant to take it at least somewhat literally, because the Silence does exist and clearly came from somewhere (though we’ll get some contradictory explanations for its origins later).

But the Silence That Devours exists outside Life. It doesn’t possess the Secret Fire. The Great Evil lives apart from Ilúvatar and His creations.

Sonam: So, it doesn’t possess life, but it lives… I think this is becoming the sort of paradox that would take a greater master than me to untangle! Or possibly it’s like one of Gollum’s riddles? “Alive without breath?” Is… is the Silence That Devours perhaps a fish?

MG: I mean, in some Jewish and Christian traditions, the embodiment of primordial chaos opposed to God is the Leviathan, a sea creature (and the sea in general is often a stand-in for primordial chaos in ancients Semitic texts more generally)… it’s more likely than you think!

Outside Eä, maybe beyond the Void some call Other, it exists outside the realms of motion, music and time.

Shade: Very pretty. Does it mean anything?

In the center of Harad, so long ago that memory has forgotten the number of years, there once grew the most beautiful gardens. There the flowers never withered, giving endless beauty and pollen for bees, who produced endless honey. The trees were always full of the sweetest fruit at the peak of ripeness and the fields were full of the biggest variety of crops. These were always fresh and ready to be picked without having to plant or harvest. The fruit never spoiled or withered and the garden stretched from the mouth of the River Anduin to the tip of South Harad.

Everything was fertile and green in the Midsummer of the World.

MG: Is the “Midsummer of the World” supposed to be based on garbled, mythologized memories of the Spring of Arda? Because if so, that almost makes sense…

Every creature, be they fishes or Beasts, lived in friendship and peace. There was no sickness or aging, nor jealously or greed, not even violence or war. There wasn’t anything to fight over because there was more than enough of everything for everyone. The people of Harad were of all races and Harad was the heart of the greatest beauty.

At the height of the greatest heat on Midsummer’s Day in this first golden Summer, the Sun reached the top of the sky and burned at its zenith. It was so hot and bright, even Eru Ilúvatar and the Valar slept, waiting for the heat to go down.

All was quiet and still.

The Silence That Devours came in hushed noiselessness, while the thoughts and dreams of the Valar were in the north. It crept in a Silence more deadly than Melkor’s Discords.

MG: So, does this happening “while the thoughts and dreams of the Valar were in the north” mean that the Silence crept in during the Battle of the Powers, when the Valar were preoccupied with defeating and chaining Melkor for the first time? Or am I just desperately trying to make sense of something that doesn’t really fit into Arda’s cosmology and timeline (more on why I think that is when we wrap up the chapter).

Expansion-Pack World: 22 (adding a point for this new golden age Polychron has added)

The Silence is not cold, dark or a black shadow, like men in the North paint their fear. It is hot, dry, bright and blistering. The Silence That Devours dries rivers and lakes, melts snow off mountains, grinds rocks to dust-like grains of sand to flay entire cities, like an avalanche of daggers driven sideways by the wind, laying waste to peoples and whole populations. If this blistering heat has a name other than the Silence That Devours – we don’t know it.

MG: I actually rather like this one. Evil in Arda is often associated with darkness and shadow, but that’s because Morgoth, and after him, Sauron, made use of those things, not because they’re somehow evil in themselves. There’s no real reason why a different, unrelated evil force would use the same symbolis.

The fields withered and fruit fell rotten from the trees. The first lack was felt. The first fears and jealousies were kindled in hot lustfulness. The first blow was struck in the first violent act and the first murder led to the first war. The friendship and harmony of the races was shattered. People left Harad. We experienced the first Winter, ending the Great Peace.

In Harad, we mourn the loss of friendships between the races and work to restore the world to the peace and harmony that existed before the Great Migration.

MG: Honestly, thematically, lost paradises and fallen golden ages are a recurring theme in the Legendarium (Almaren and the Spring of Arda, the Noontide of Valinor before the Darkening, the great elven realms of Beleriand in the First Age, Numenor before it fell, etc.) so Polychron invoking the same motif isn’t entirely out of left field. I just wish I had a good sense of how literally to take this, and how it fits in with the rest of the mythos if it is meant to be literal, because Polychron doesn’t do a good job with that and seems to think that “if it’s off the edge of LotR’s maps, I can do whatever I want” which is a bad approach!

Where the Silence That Devours appeared in the Gardens of Harad, there now exists a terrible Wasteland. It’s an almost endless desert, unlike any that existed before. And it is growing. It wants to drink the ocean and take what little bounty is left for Men and Beasts, who fight in endless violence, warring over meager leavings of what was once a boundless feast.

In the vast, uncharted loneliness and emptiness of Harad, the Silence That Devours grows unheard, unseen and unacknowledged. When the Men of the north, east and west hear rumors of the Silence That Devours, they’re too scared of what they don’t understand to admit it is real.

Shade: *rolling her eyes* Because clearly, the people of northern and western Middle-earth have no experience whatsoever with apocalyptic, supernatural evil. Sauron and Morgoth? Whoever heard of them, right?

They lie to themselves and everyone else. They drive themselves crazy lying, so they can deny the Silence That Devours exists. They fooled themselves into believing their own lies and then made everyone else deny the existence of the Silence. Now they get mad at us, like it’s our fault. They say the truth we tell are lies, instead of the greatest evil, the greatest danger, our world has ever known. This is how they spread their willful ignorance and terror, their madness and evil.

Sonam: Actually, I don’t think they know about any of this at all, so maybe they’re not making excuses, maybe you just genuinely aren’t very good at warning people? Possibly because I’m pretty sure none of this existed in the source material?

Take That, Tolkien!: 29 (for implying tortured and sinister reasons for why nobody seems to have heard of the supposed legendary evil that Polychron just made up)

That which fuels the growth of evil – is Evil.

Sonam: *flatly* Thank you for that tautology, Master Manus. It clears everything up.

Shade: Oooh, Polychron, look what you did. You reduced a kind and innocent monk to sarcasm.

To help us face the Silence That Devours, Black Elves came from the South, bringing us their Fire. Unlike the Valar in the north, they didn’t keep it a Secret.

MG: Excuse me? The Secret Fire, aka the Flame Imperishable, is Eru’s own divine creative power. The Valar don’t keep it a “secret” because they don’t have it. Eru does, and Eru alone. Methinks that the “Black Elves” may not be entirely forthright with you… that, or they’re possibly descended from Arda’s version of Prometheus.

Loremaster’s Headache: 223

They shared it with everyone. Elves traveled across our lands and met the Pygmies, our tiny jungle builders.

Pygmies showed Elves how to make arrowheads and bows from Yew trees, beginning the friendship that’s always been. Working together, Elves and Pygmies built the greatest city that has ever existed in the history of the world: Zerzura, the City of Gold, silver and jewels.

MG: Valimar, Tirion, Gondolin, Armenelos… what’re they, chopped liver? Arda has no shortage of legendary, wondrous cities, including a literal city of the gods. Top that.

Expansion-Pack World: 23

Loremaster’s Headache: 225

When the Silence That Devours came to destroy it, they slid the City onto a cloud and floated it into the sky. It flew above the stars, far away to distant Hither in the South.

Sonam: …speaking professionally, as a Monk of the West Wind, sworn to spiritual communion with the air and sky to master its secrets and pursue enlightenment thereby… I don’t think it works like that?

MG: Yeah, unless a Netherese Archwizard hopped over from the Forgotten Realms and brought a mythallar strong enough to power one of their flying cities with them… I don’t think that checks out. I don’t think the Valar ever did something like “make a whole intact city fly out of harms way,” and I have a hard time buying these people could do that, either.

Loremaster’s Headache: 226

Cheated of his conquest, Swahillogûz enslaved the Pygmies, forcing them to make copies of his bident blades. Bidents spread the Silence That Devours to every corner of the world.

Sonam: …isn’t a bident kind of like a pitchfork with two prongs? I had no idea they were so… evil?

MG: *grimly* We’ll get an explanation before the chapter is done. It’s… interesting.

All bidents come from Swahillogûz’s first. Made of tikal, galvorn and mithril, it’s the only known alloy of all three.

MG: Mithril is rare, but I could buy that a ruler as powerful as Swahilloguz is supposed to be could get his hands on some. Galvorn was an alloy the secret of whose making was known only to Eol, the Dark Elf smith (and possibly also to his son, Maeglin) but he (or they, if Maeglin did know) seems to have taken the secret to his grave. So, it seems unlikely Swahilloguz would have any. Tikal appears to be Polychron’s own invention.

EDIT: I've been reminded that tikal is an alloy that appears in the Book of Lost Tales, though not the later Legendarium. Point to Polychron!

Loremaster’s Headache: 227 (for galvorn)

But they didn’t invent tikal. They stole the recipe from the Sisterhood of the Elves of South Harad. The gnomes of Northern Harad, which you call Dwarves and we call Pygmies, have been making bidents for Swahillogûz ever since.

MG: Okay, “gnomes” as a distinct race don’t exist in Middle-earth. The term does show up in the Lost Tales and some of the early Silmarillion material as an alternate name for the Noldor, but Tolkien seems to have dropped it fairly quickly (possibly somebody pointed out to him that when most people see the word “gnomes” they think of something like “garden gnomes,” not exactly the image he was going for!). It’s never been an alternative name for the dwarves.

Loremaster’s Headache: 228

If he isn’t stopped, Swahillogûz will make turn everyone in the world into a slave of the Silence That Devours.

Shade: So, he’s bad, we get it. And now we’ve got what, five dark lords trying to enslave the world now? Estel, Glorfindel, Thuringel, Lungorthin and now Swahilloguz. Plus some more warlords who’ve been mentioned but not really given much focus. Come on, Polychron, enough is enough! Is your plan to just keep adding new villains until the story gets crushed under their collective weight and we can all go home, or what? Enough is enough!

Bigger, Louder, More!: 65

* * * * *

Before we left North Harad at dawn to return home, Swahillogûz came to my camp with his warriors and accused me of kidnapping Malvia.

Sonam: Well, she’s going with you willingly, but you’re also taking her away from him which seems like it violates your treaty, so… legally if not morally, I’m not sure he’s wrong?

I’d known for sure there was trouble ahead, but I never imagined how much.

Shade: Take it from a professional, Manus. When you steal something (or, in this case, someone) extremely valuable from a very powerful person who will likely go to great lengths to get them back… no matter how much trouble you imagine, it’ll probably be worse, so best to prepare for that instead of just hoping for the best!

Plot-Induced Stupidity: 104

When she vanished from the palace, her guards told Swahillogûz about our bad blood. He brought his guards and said I was the only person depraved enough to steal her. If I didn’t give her back, he promised my death would be the slowest and most painful anyone ever suffered.

Well!

There’s one thing you should never do to Manus Tarqus, son of Oduduwa of Greater Harad: don’t ever threaten him.

Shade: …also, don’t backtalk the evil overlord. No matter how much you want to. I’ve got no love for Grand Inquisitor Leska in my own world, but if I ever met her, I’d keep a civil tongue in my head because I’d rather not spend the next month or so stretched out on the rack, thanks. I also think Hurin from your world has things to say about what dark lords can do to you when you mock them to their face.

Unfortunately, Swahillogûz’s army had surrounded Manus’ camp.

Sonam: …why is Manus suddenly speaking in the third person, exactly?

MG: No idea, other than “possibly Polychron forgot just who was telling this story?”

Before they could attack, from inside my personal tent, Malvia screamed. They found her all tied up. Removing the rope, she thanked Swahillogûz for saving her from the evil Manus Tarqus.

Swahillogûz was going to kill Manus on the spot and make him an undead servant of the Silence That Devours, but Malvia demanded that he deliver on his promise to make Manus’ death as slow and painful as possible.

It wasn’t looking good for Manus!

Shade: …actually, it sounds like a ploy to permit your escape, one that Swahilloguz foolishly fell for (especially considering that you’re still here telling us this story – what, did you think I’d believe you were actually in danger of death or permanent imprisonment?).

Plot-Induced Stupidity: 105

At Swahillogûz’s palace, he was locked in the lowest dungeon and his guards were quintupled. In the morning, Swahillogûz would begin the years of torture he had promised Malvia he would start before their wedding.

But Malvia wasn’t a warrior princess for nothing. She and the Sisters of Harad attacked the dungeon at midnight, killing the guards and breaking Manus out. Making their escape, they found his captured Oliphaunts and freed them, riding out of Kakasmegga together.

Sonam: So, their grand plan to free Manus was just to… attack the dungeons head on and then fight their way out with him? From the middle of Swahilloguz’s stronghold? I… am utterly amazed that worked and didn’t get all of you, with the possible exception of Malvia, slaughtered!

Plot-Induced Stupidity: 106

During their many battles and legendary exploits which followed,

Shade: *Manus* No, we’re not going to tell you anything about them, but they totally happened, we promise!

they often joined the wizard Incánus the Gold and the Pygmy Prince Pyushum. With their help, Manus and Malvia fought their way over many lands to return home to the Palace of Harambee.

MG: *double-take* The palace of Harambe? Like… like the gorilla Harambe? That… was not a reference I was expecting when I started sporking this fic! Or is there some other “Harambee” with two es I’m not aware of?

NOTE: Actually, I have recently learned that “Harambee” is a Swahili word that roughly translates as “all pull together” and is the national motto of Kenya, as well as the name of a Kenyan humanitarian and community building organization. So Polychron didn’t give us the Gorilla Palace, unfortunately. He was just being weirdly stereotypical instead.

When they arrived, Queen Akamai was furious. Not because Manus had rescued Malvia: the Queen was in love with him. She had planned on making him one of her consorts.

Sonam: *coughs politely* One must imagine that the good Manus may be slightly embellishing events here. Also, perhaps I’m not the best to judge considering I’m vowed to celibacy, but I can only imagine that being in love with a woman and then nearly becoming a consort to her mother would be… awkward.

MG: Reminds me of an LotR badfic I ran across years ago where Aragorn cheated on Arwen… with Galadriel. The author apparently being unaware Galadriel is Arwen’s grandmother. That’s got to make family gatherings a bit… awkward.

She thanked him for bringing Malvia back and stripped him of everything as punishment, Oliphaunts, fortune, citizenship, and she banished him from her kingdom.

Shade: *rolling her eyes, again* Oh, yes, she’s clearly in love with him! Nothing says “romance” like “I’m taking all your worldly possessions and legal standing, now get out of my country!”

On his way to eternal exile, Manus stopped at his childhood home to say goodbye. But Swahillogûz had sent assassins ahead of his planned invasion and Manus arrived too late. His family had been turned into undead servants of the Silence That Devours.

Shade: Hmmm. Possibly Swahilloguz was reading Morgoth’s playbook after all. That, or evil tyrants are a distressingly predictable bunch. Either/or.

Manus would have died too and welcomed death, but Malvia had enlisted the help of Incánus, Pyushum, and Malvia’s ever faithful Sisters of Harad. They arrived riding Manus’ own former Oliphaunts, killing Swahillogûz’s assassins and Cryptid servants.

MG: No, Bigfoot isn’t serving Swahilloguz. We’ll find out what Polychron means by “Cryptid” shortly. It has absolutely nothing with how the term is used in real life, to a degree that makes me wonder if Polychron knows it’s a real word.

With proof of Swahillogûz’s invasion lying dead all around them, they went back to Harambee and warned Queen Akamai. She assembled the army of Greater Harad and there followed a terrible battle. Although a great many people died, together they saved the Kingdom.

Shade: *flatly* Oh, my. Very exciting. So amazed. I can really tell how deeply moved Manus was by taking part in these events. However shall I return to my mundane life after hearing such a remarkable tale and being forever changed?

Afterwards, Akamai spared Manus’ life as a reward for his service and she allowed him to travel north with Incánus and Malvia, as part of the Queen’s diplomatic caravan to the North Kingdoms.

MG: I guess they just… misplaced Incanus along the way, then? Because they don’t seem to have a wizard with them now, which is unfortunate, because a wizard who isn’t Alatar might come in handy!

But the Queen made them swear they’d stay true to her wishes and be nothing but Princess and servant. They agreed and the Queen sent her personal Royal Guards with them for protection, and to make sure Malvia and Manus kept their promise.

MG: As for how they ended up in Bree when they were going to Minas Tirith from Harad… I’ve got nothing.

* * * * *

“How does the Silence That Devours make slaves?” Alatar asked.

Sonam: Oh, right, Manus was telling all of this to everyone while they’re fleeing from their lives from the evil monsters, wasn’t he (also, did his story ever explain the rikedons or the vultures? I don’t think so!)? That’s… kind of impressive. Unwise, perhaps, but impressive. And, uh, do I want to know why Alatar wants to know this, exactly?

Manus went to his locker at the back of the basket and took out a scabbard. Unlike the curved scimitars the Haradrim carried, it was straight. Longer and thicker than any they’d seen, it looked as if it held a pack of blades. The thick black pommel bore a black hand guard affixed with two black spikes. Manus withdrew a long black blade. It tapered abruptly to a fine point.

The metal was black. Not matte like Númenórean stone or shiny like gems, black as a shadow casting no light, a mirror that doesn’t reflect, a thought or feeling that never was.

MG: Okay, I think I know what Polychron is going for, here – it’s supposed to look less like it’s made from metal, and more like darkness itself made solid – but that’s a kind of weird and rather purple way to describe it. Also, uh, Polychron? Lights cast shadows, not usually the other way around!

He turned the blade and they saw it was two blades. They were set side-by-side, an inch apart.

“This is a bident,” Manus said. “The double blade that extinguishes the Secret Fire and silences the Music of Ilúvatar. Anything dealt a mortal blow from these blades not only dies, in death their bodies live on, giving form and function to the will of whoever killed them in service of the Silence That Devours.”

Shade: Say, I think I’ve heard something like this before! Isn’t that just a Morgul-blade, more or less? Can’t Polychron at least try to be a bit more creative? Or else just use an actual Morgul-blade and stop pretending he’s not, either-or.

Passing the blade to Eldarion, the others crowded around. From a cage, he pulled a rabbit kept to breed more. “The Elves of South Harad say bidents kill, but they don’t destroy the body.

Shade: Uh, I can think of lots of ways to kill that don’t destroy the body. Poison, strangling, even stabbing will just leave a wound, it won’t, like, cause the whole body to unravel or something. It’ll rot after its dead, of course, but that’s a different thing…

They dead remains are empty, except for the will of whoever drove the bident to devour the Secret Fire for the Silence. That person becomes the lifeless body’s Master. These animate, unliving bodies are called Cryptids.

MG: A “cryptid” is, to quote Merrian-Webster, “an animal (such as Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster) that has been claimed to exist but never proven to exist.” This… is a sort of zombie created by an in thrall to an eldritch abomination. What do those two concepts have to do with each other at all, Polychron? Seriously, this is what makes me wonder if Polychron even knew “cryptid” was a real word… I guess it’s not exactly something you’d casually throw out at the dinner table (unless you’re having some very particular conversations, at least…) but it’s not exactly obscure, either!

You can recognize them by their eyes. When their Music is Silenced and the bident devours their Secret Fire, the heat and dryness turns the pupils white.”

Sonam: I would think that if the very essence of their being had been consumed and corrupted, that might make a bit of a more dramatic change than simply changing the color of their eyes…

He took the bident from Eldarion and stabbed the rabbit.

Sonam: *stunned* By the West Wind, Manus, what was that for? What did the poor rabbit ever do to you?

It screamed. Its eyes went from black to grey, getting lighter and lighter. Although the rabbit’s mouth stayed open, its scream faded until its eyes were white and its scream had turned to Silence. For a moment, the Silence That Devours filled their minds and they couldn’t think.

When Manus withdrew the bident tips, no blood flowed from the wounds. The rabbit stopped breathing and its white eyes didn’t move.

MG: So… yeah. Manus just used an artifact of pure evil to kill an innocent creature and use the power of an eldritch horror to turn said creature into a mindless undead slave… for a demonstration. What the hells, Manus Tarqus? You know, Gandalf and Elrond didn’t feel the need to use the shards of the Witch-King’s knife to turn the local wildlife into wraiths to demonstrate to Frodo how it worked! Between this and how the fic is treating the Rings of Power, it really makes me wonder if Polychron has realized that there are certain powers that one probably shouldn’t mess with so casually. Because this strikes me as both morally abhorrent and, you know, incredibly dangerous when you’re actively being chased by servants of the Silence and have just created a new minion for it. What the hells, Manus?

Feel My Edge: 71

Plot-Induced Stupidity: 106

He set the dead rabbit on the floor. “Hop!”

The unliving rabbit – hopped.

“Hop hop!” he cried.

The unliving rabbit hopped twice with jerky motions, a mockery of life.

Sonam: *looking sick* And remember, everyone, Manus did this for a demonstration There was literally no practical reason to put the poor rabbit through this!

From his locker, Manus took out a bejeweled scabbard. He withdrew a curved black blade and the air grew cold. The surface of the blade misted, producing crystals of black ice. “This is Apocope, the most treasured Morwan in Greater Harad. In your Westron tongue, it’s called a Dark Sabre.”

MG: *blankly* It’s named after a mediocre Star Wars Expanded Universe novel from the mid-nineties? That or the weapon symbolizing rulership of the Mandalorians… though considering the overall quality of FotK, I feel like a Kevin J. Anderson novel is probably a better point of comparison!

“The blade is thick as a cleaver,” Eldarion noted. “Almost more of an axe than a sword. Wielding it would require great strength and inflict massive injuries.”

“Yes!” Manus said. “It can cut a man in half or rip through metal armor if swung with enough force, especially from the back of an Oliphaunt or even just a horse.”

Shade: Considering how big the mumakil are, are you perhaps planning on fighting giants with this blade? Or other mumakil? Because otherwise, I think you’re going to have a hard time reaching that far!

“Why do you not wear it instead of your scimitars?” Eldarion asked.

“Apocope wasn’t forged for killing living things,” he answered. “It can be used for that. Usually we don’t. Only a Black Sabre can destroy a Cryptid.”

He slashed at the unliving white-eyed rabbit, still grotesquely hopping in beats of two.

Where the blade struck, the unliving flesh crumbled to crystalline gravel. In two unliving pieces, the legs spasmed and kicked, trying to hop in beats of two.

Sonam: Well, that’s… absolutely horrifying. At least he showed the poor creature some mercy, then?

Enraged by the terrible memories of his family flooding his mind, Manus hacked at the Cryptid. Furious and with wild eyes, he chopped it into a pile of crystal pebbles. He used the blunt end of the Saber and kept hitting it, grinding the pieces to powder.

“Manus!” Alatar said.

Sonam: …or maybe not. By the winds, why take out his rage on the poor rabbit like that? It was a victim of the Silence, too! In point of fact, it was Manus himself who made it a victim of the silence, once again, for no necessary reason! And he seemed weirdly fine with turning the rabbit into a zombie, and it’s only when the chance to do more violence came that he let this side of himself out! *beat* I’m not sure I like Manus Tarqus very much…

Feel My Edge: 72

He stopped. Seeing their worried looks, he sheathing his Dark Saber, wiped his sweaty brow and took his seat. “If you saw what Cryptids did to my people, my family…”

Shade: I have to agree with Sonam. That “Cryptid” did nothing to your family, and in fact, you just made it yourself. So spare me your protestations of nobility.

“I’m sorry,” Elanor said.

The pile of gravel spread across the floor with every one of Dzombor’s strides. Manus opened the basket door and swept the gravel out. From the open cupboard, he took out a third scabbard. It looked like a long dagger. Unsheathing it revealed a double blade with razer-sharp edges and needle-like points.

“This is a biger,” he told them.

MG: “Biger” just makes me think of a two-headed tiger. Or possibly a bisexual tiger. Either-or. I’ve certainly never heard of the term used for a weapon before.

“There’s no living thing the tips can’t pierce and turn into a Cryptid. Cryptids don’t form slowly after sickness or ‘fade’ like people wounded by Morgul blades. They drop dead.

MG: Actually, from Gandalf’s description, it sounds like that’s how Morgul-blades are supposed to work too. Had the Witch-King succeeded in piercing Frodo’s heart, my understanding had always been that he’d have turned into a wraith instantly. He only took so long to “fade” because the Witch-King missed and got his shoulder instead, and because Frodo himself fought the infection so hard (Gandalf notes that a less strong-willed person would have succumbed much quicker). So, I don’t think the good Manus knows what he’s talking about, big surprise.

Loremaster’s Headache: 229

Although the dead body lives on. It becomes a nameless thing enslaved by the Master of bidents, the Silence That Devours.

Shade: And, once again, you yourself invoked that very evil just now in order to casually punctuate your point. I can tell you’re taking this really seriously.

This is the Evil the people of Harad have fought since the Birth of Men. This is the Enemy that wants to take the place of people, put out the Secret Fire of Ilúvatar and return everything to the Great Void, as it was before thought, music or Fire. In Harad we believe to this danger, Ilúvatar has been deaf.”

MG: And you know this how, exactly? Eru Iluvatar doesn’t normally communicate directly with people or work in big, dramatic displays of divine intervention – in fact, the only time He really did so in the history of Arda was the Fall of Numenor, and then only because the Valar collectively laid down their authority when Ar-Pharazon’s invasion force landed on Aman and invoked Him. More often than not, Eru works in very subtle, long-term providence. In other words, if Eru wanted to deal with the Silence, then, say, making sure a certain Haradrim caravan just happened to be in Bree to meet a certain wizard, prince and some hobbits would be much more likely as a way to set that in motion…

Bigger, Louder, More!: 66

“What,” Eldarion asked, “would happen if the Master-ring of Middle-earth traveled to the Great Desert and sang in the heart of the Silence That Devours?”

Sonam: Oh, is that how Polychron is going to try and tie all of this… digression… together with the actual story, then? Though I’m not sure how much it would really help, since Eldarion doesn’t have the Master Ring, nor does he even know where to start looking for it… I can think of a number of artifacts I know of that might solve all of my world’s problems, but that’s no help if I don’t actually have them, is it?

Rings-a-Palooza: 93

“We hope it would destroy the Silence,” Manus answered.

“These rikedons are servants of the Silence?” Alatar asked.

Shade: Still waiting for an explanation for that, by the way. Not sure how “evil demon rhinoceroses” fit in with “turning people and animals into zombies,” but I’m willing to keep an open mind. *she hoists a flask* S’long as I have plenty to drink during it, at least.

“They’ve been hunting our caravan since we skirted the Great Desert,” Manus answered. “We sailed as far from the coast as we dared, but their snouts are rumored to sniff out those who oppose them.

Sonam: As opposed to their snouts… doing something other than sniffing? Do I want to know?

I guess they did. They swam out and attacked us at sea, riding the waves like ships. My other ships were destroyed. Only my own ship’s crew and these six Oliphaunts survived. We plunged into the jungles of Northern Harad and never saw them again, until now.”

MG: Still waiting for an explanation for how you all ended up in Bree, then. And while real-life war elephants could be transported by ship (the Carthaginians did it!) the mumakil are enough bigger than real-life elephants that it might make that a bit… impractical. And all of that pales compared to the absurd OTTness of how the evil demon rhinos can swim out to sea (or possibly run across the waves, the wording here could go either way) and attack ships. Now, most of the evil forces of Middle-earth are depicted as fearing the ocean and/or running water and fearing to cross them, but that seems to be because of Melkor’s enmity with Ulmo – again, no reason the servants of an unrelated evil would share that prejudice. On the other hand… doesn’t that just seem a little silly to you? Is there anything these ridekons can’t do?

“How many Dark Sabre’s do you have?” Alatar asked.

“Just this one,” Manus answered, “and there are six rikedons!”

Shade: Is the “Dark Saber” used up whenever you use it to kill a rikedon? Is there a reason you can’t just use it multiple times on multiple rikedons?

“If their snouts are so good, how did you escape them in the jungle?” Eldarion asked.

“I trapped Anarawd, the King of Beasts,” Manus answered. “He’s the Lion of Harad. As my prisoner, I ordered him to tell his Beasts to stop the rikedons.”

Sonam: *boggles* Polychron, friend, you’re throwing quite a lot at us this chapter, aren’t you? Now we have a divine(?) king of lions in the mix, too? Was this even remotely foreshadowed before? Can we just… slow down, a little bit? I think I need to catch my breath – and I’m not even the one running!

MG: And part of me wonders if this wasn’t meant to be Polychron’s shout-out to Narnia and Aslan (though if so, considering that Our Heroes captured the Aslan-expy and are, spoilers, carting him around with them, that has… interesting implications). Though I will say, while Tolkien and Lewis were friends, Tolkien was no fan of Narnia (mostly, iirc, because he thought the allegories and “dressing Christ up in a lion suit” was too heavy-handed, and also thought the worldbuilding was hit-and-miss). In any case, such a creature as this certainly doesn’t exist in Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

Loremaster’s Headache: 230

“Why not slay the rikedons instead?” Eldarion asked.

“There weren’t enough creatures at the edge of the desert for Anarawd to command,” Manus answered.

“We are in the heart of the forest,” Alatar observed.

Shade: The forest that we previously established was too thick for the mumakil to pass through? Is a little consistency too much to ask?

“Where is Anarawd now?” Elanor asked.

Manus stood, put his fingers between his lips and whistled. The other Oliphaunts stopped and Malvia pulled alongside. He had her lower a large cage to the ground. It had been stored at the back of her basket under a tarp. On the ground they removed the tarp. Caged inside stood the golden maned Lion of Harad.

Sonam: …so, you weren’t exaggerating. They have caged what seems to be more-or-less a demigod and are carting him around with them! They have been the whole time! And this is only just now dropped on us? I… I don’t even know what to say about this! Surely this isn’t how you tell a story… is it?

“My Lord and King of Beasts,” Manus said, bowing. “I know you’re mad at me and we still haven’t found the Master-ring, but our enemies are coming to destroy us. If I release you ahead of schedule, will you destroy them?”

Shade: Okay, one, they actually have been looking for this “Master Ring” the whole time, then? And we’re only just now learning about it? Still doesn’t seem like anybody in this thing has even made the slightest bit of progress towards figuring out where to look, but whatever. For another, ahead of “schedule?” They were planning to release him on a schedule? When? And I know that if someone had caged me and carted me across half a continent, “I know you’re mad at me” wouldn’t be nearly enough in the way of apology!

The Lion looked away.

“Please?” Manus begged.

Shade: *rolling her eyes* Pretty please with sugar on top, even?

“Wait,” Eldarion said. Still wearing Elanor’s Ring, he saw on Anarawd’s paw a golden Ring of Power. It was Rávi, the Ring of Bravery, Fortitude, Gallantry and Courage – the Ring of the Lion Kings.

MG: A lion is wearing a Ring of Power. A freaking lion… is wearing… a Ring of Power… a non-anthropomorphic lion is wearing, on his paw… I know, I know, the Rings can resize themselves to fit their wearers, but did it occur to Polychron that this image might be a little ridiculous? *beat* I mean, it’s too late for that in this chapter alone, but even so…

Rings-a-Palooza: 94

“You wish to find the Master-ring and destroy the Silence That Devours?”

Sonam: I’d thought we’d already established that? Is now really the time for stopping to make sure everyone is on the same page?

“Of course I do,” the Lion growled. “The Silence threatens Men and Beasts. It threatens everything that lives!”

“My companions and I are searching for the same Ring,” Eldarion told him.

Shade: …are you, though? I mean, it seemed to me that your goal right now is “get to Rivendell and rescue your uncles,” and if you’ve made any progress at all towards finding the Master Ring – or even discussed finding it – you’ve not share it with us. Though somehow I’m not surprised that the princeling here wants an all-powerful ring – why not give him the Torch of the Burning Sky for good measure and call it a day?

Rings-a-Palooza: 95

“If we are to survive long enough to find it, we need to borrow your Ring of Power to end this battle. In exchange, I pledge to return with the Master-ring and destroy the Silence That Devours.”

Sonam: O great Lion King, not to speak ill of the heir to the Reunited Kingdom, but… why can’t you destroy the enemy forces with your ring, if it can do that? Or maybe His Highness wants it for less than altruistic purposes – I would not be surprised!

“I am a King!” the lion roared. “You think me a fool? I will escape this cage and destroy you for trying to deceive the Lion of Harad!”

Shade: I mean, I can’t say as I’d be thinking much different, in his place…

“Your Majesty!” Elanor pleaded. “Eldarion isn’t lying and neither am I. What can I say to convince you?”

Shade: Girl, he doesn’t know you at all, so why are you thinking he’ll value your word, exactly? For all he knows, you’ve been in cahoots with his captors the whole time! *beat* “Cahoots” is a fun word, by the way. Note to self, find excuses to say it more often.

“Words can’t convince me!” Anarawd told her. “Only deeds.”

“Of course,” she said. With the power of Rómhandë, the Ring of Sound and Truth in Voices, she heard the truth in his words and turned to Eldarion. “Can I have my Ring back?”

“Certainly,” he said, handing her Oialëhén. “You have a plan?”

Shade: *Elanor* Well, first, we’ll build a large wooden replica of the Lion King, and then Alatar, Theo and I will leap out of the lion, taking the rikedons completely by surprise…

“I do,” she said, holding up her Ring. “Your Majesty, you’re wearing a Ring of Power. With your permission, I’d like to lend you two more and back my words with deeds. You’ll see and hear with the power of Oialëhén and Rómhandë. They will reveal the Truth and you can decide for yourself if we are sincere and are worth helping.”

Sonam: That’s… a reasonably well thought-out plan. I’m kind of surprised and impressed. Though I still think that so casually handing these rings around sounds like a potentially bad idea, if they behaved anything like they’re supposed to…

Rings-a-Palooza: 96

“Hold on!” Fastred shouted.

“Lady Elanor!” Alatar exclaimed.

“Have you lost – ” Theo began.

“Wait!” Elanor begged. Silence followed. Her companions stood, waiting. She turned to the King. “Your Majesty. If you give your Word you’ll return our Rings, I’ll lend them so you can see and hear the Truth.”

“I will agree to all you ask,” the Lion growled, extending his paw outside the bars of his cage. “In exchange for my freedom.”

Elanor turned to Manus. “If the King gives us his Ring, will you give him his freedom?”

Sonam: And will anyone bother explaining just why the Lion King’s ring is so important that they’re willing to trade all their others for it? Surely the Lion King himself might be more useful?

Manus didn’t want to. He looked at Malvia and Eldarion. They were in agreement.

“Sure.”

She put two Rings on Anarawd’s paw. The golden bands grew to accommodate his large toes.

MG: *beat* Sorry, no. Still think it sounds silly.

A golden glow rose from the hairs on his mane. At first, it was almost blinding.

MG: Enough is enough! First Glorfindel, now Anarawd has gone Super Saiyan! *beat* Considering Anarawd is a lion, and Saiyans have an ape motif, I’m now wondering what a cross between a lion and an Oozaru would look like. Help me.

When it faded, Elanor saw on the ground in front of the cage, three golden Rings of Power.

“Thank you, your Majesty,” she said. Putting on Oialëhén, she handed Eldarion Rómhandë and gave Alatar, Rávi, the Ring of Anarawd, the Lion King.

Shade: ‘Scuse me, quick question, but didn’t Alatar make a whole big deal earlier about how as a wizard he’s not allowed to use any magical artifacts other than his staff, including Rings of Power? Not that that made much sense to begin with, but it’s nice to see he seems to have just completely thrown that out the window. *beat* Still not sure why the Lion King needed to give up his Ring, anyway…

Reluctantly, Manus signaled his lieutenant. He winched the front of the cage up and the Lion King roared. Leaping from his cage, he ran towards the rikedons.

From the forest came answering cries from birds and Beasts. Everything that crawled, ran, flew or tunneled underground: bears, aurochs, ibex, and falcons responded. Every killing thing in the forest rose and together they attacked the rikedons with beak, fang and claw.

Sonam: So, uh, this is happening now, I guess? And it looks like the Lion King really is some sort of godlike creature, if even without his Ring he can still command all these creatures from a completely different part of the world! Which just makes keeping him caged like that all the more baffling. Also, this is a really dry and bland way of describing something that should be exciting and epic, isn’t it?

“Look!” Malvia cried, pointing towards the sky.

Thanks to Oialëhén, Elanor could clearly make out the black shapes.

“The vultures are coming!” she cried, warning her friends. “The vultures are coming!”

The rest of the hobbits and many of the Haradrim took up the cry of alarm.

“The vultures are coming! The vultures are coming!”

MG: …I saw what you did there, Polychron. Also, canonically, the Eagles of Manwe don’t seem to have any sort of evil counterpart (the Sil explicitly notes that the Winged Dragons were the first flying creatures Morgoth ever bred, and they only made their debut at the end of the War of Wrath) but Polychron seems determined to put the vultures in the role. *beat* Still not sure how or why they fit in with the Silence that Devours and all…

“VULTURES!”

A great force of vultures descended from the sky to aid the rikedons. They were led by Percnopter, King of Vultures.

MG: “Percnopter” seems to derive from neophron percnopterus, the Egyptian Vulture. Why this character has a name based on Greek I am less sure about. And yes, I’m pretty sure the primary reason this character exists is to be evil!Gwaihir. And we’ve not seen the last of him, either, because if there was anything this fic needed, it was more villains.

Linguistic Confusions: 28 (not giving a lot of points here this chapter because of all the Haradrim words and names from languages Tolkien never really outlined much, but I’ll give a point for this one)

Savagely, they tore into the Lion King’s armies.

The rikedons fought the Lion King’s forces with their spear-like double horns. Stabbing, rending and gutting their foes, the screams from the creatures they killed immediately faded.

Shade: As dying screams are wont to do…

Their eyes grew white and they became Cryptids, servants of the rikedons and slaves of the Silence That Devours.

Shade: …or that, I guess. Wait, are the rikedons’ horns bidents, then? Or can they just, you know, do this? Is there anything these creatures can’t do, other than make sense? Why can they do this? Gah, I have so many questions, and no answers! Nothing for it, then. *takes a long swig of her drink*

The rikedons turned these newly created Cryptids on their companions, in turn creating more Cryptids. As more animals attacked the Cryptids, more Cryptids were created. The armies of the Lion King could die or become Cryptids – but Cryptids were already dead.

Sonam: By the Winds, I know this is supposed to be horrifying, but it’s just so bland and I don’t care, at all!

“They’re turning the tide against your armies!” Alatar told Anarawd. He raised his staff and began to speak words of power.

Two rikedons slammed their horns together and the clamorous din of battle stopped. All was enveloped in a terrible Silence. Alatar moved his mouth, but from his lips came only Silence. Four other rikedons charged. Alatar stood before them flustered and momentarily helpless.

Shade: Yay! I mean, oh no, this is very bad, whatever shall we do?

The rikedons bore down on him to stab with their horns and trample him beneath their hooves. Malvia stepped between them. From the pendent around her neck, she withdrew the glowing blue Merkaba-stone.

Sonam: Excuse me? The what, now? Was this something we were supposed to be familiar with?

MG: Nope! “Merkaba” is the surname of the royal house Malvia and her mother are from and has been mentioned a few times, but we’ve never heard anything about this stone before!

Sonam: …Polychron is throwing things at us really fast this chapter, isn’t he? *buries his head in his hands*

Enclosed within the stone glowed a golden six-pointed star, the most powerful heirloom of the House of Merkaba. She lifted the Stone and in the air around them, the lines of a massive glowing blue crystal appeared. Between the lines, transparent walls of diamond hard crystal shimmered into existence.

MG: …I’d say that this isn’t remotely how any sort of magic in the Legendarium is ever depicted as working, but *gestures around at the whole chapter* does any more need to be said at this point?

Malvia held her arms out and lifted her voice in silent song. In the sky above appeared a great glowing Lótë tree. Its roots supported the Earth and its crown of leaves filled the sky. From perches on its branches, an army of great golden Eagles took flight.

Shade: Huh. *stares at her flask for a long moment, then quietly dumps the rest of it off to the side* Maybe I’ve been having a bit too much to drink, because I’m clearly hallucinating…

MG: Nope, this is what the fic is actually describing. Malvia has somehow conjured a literal giant glowing tree (possibly an Yggdrasil-expy?) full of actual living eagles in the middle of the sky… somehow. No, I don’t have the faintest clue what’s going on or how this works. No, it doesn’t align remotely with the setting, I don’t know what a Lótë tree is (“Lótë” does mean “flower” in Quenya, but that’s clearly not how it’s being used here). Just… what?

Loremaster’s Headache: 235 (I’m giving five points here for the general WTH)

These were the Eagles of Manwë. They could only be summoned to battle by an anointed ruler who held the Merkaba-stone.

MG: Please ignore all the times we’ve seen the eagles quite clearly summoning themselves to battle… also, as of the late Third (and presumably, still true in the early Fourth) Age, the Eagles explicitly nest in the Misty Mountains. I have no idea why or how Malvia just… conjured them onto the battlefield by means of the giant flying tree. I know people have complained about the Eagles rescuing Frodo and Sam from Mount Doom in RotK as a deus ex machina (I don’t agree, particularly, but it is a complaint about LotR that exists) but this… this is just whole ‘nother level entirely.

Diving towards the vultures and rikedons, the Eagles joined in the attack against the forces of the Silence That Devours.

The vultures fought back first, tearing at the Eagles. The rikedons charged Malvia, slamming their horns into the invisible sides of her crystal barrier. The walls of the floating magical gem around them shook. A crack appeared on the Merkaba-stone in Malvia’s hand.

Sonam: And maybe if we’d ever heard of this artifact before or had any idea of its properties, I might understand better why that’s important? *shrugs*

Her eyes grew wide. In all the years she’d wielded it, nothing had ever damaged the Merkaba-stone. It was the heart of her family’s power. Fearfully, she lowered the gem. The glow protecting them began to fade. Manus stepped up to her, silently pleading. He touched his heart, motioned at the sky above them, the ground below, their friends around and touched her heart.

Her lip quivered and a tear slid down her face. Afraid she might be betraying the trust of her mother the Queen, she knew what would happen to all of them if she let the barrier fall.

Shade: You know, between this moment and all the backstory Polychron just dropped on us (and skimmed over), this is really starting to feel like the climax of an entirely different story rather than part of the one we’ve been following… and we missed out on almost all of that story. I want my money back. With interest.

Lifting the cracked Merkaba-stone, heirloom of the Queens of Greater Harad since time immemorial, a blue glow and the lines of their barrier again grew bright and strong.

MG: …you know, in Arda magical artifacts don’t just happen. Someone made them (hells, LotR became what it did in part because of Tolkien deciding that answering the question of the origins of Bilbo’s ring of invisibility was something a sequel to The Hobbit should do!). It just makes me wonder about the origins of this stone. Did the Valar (or Maiar) give it to Maliva’s ancestors? Did they get it from the “Black Elves” or “gnomes?” Did they make it themselves (human smiths with the skill to create objects of power seem to be very rare, but not unheard of)? Inquiring minds want to know!

The rikedons continued smashing their horns against the barrier silently, again and again.

More cracks appeared on the Merkaba-stone.

From the forests around them, other animals arrived in response to the Lion King’s summons: leopards, boar, wisent, bison and lynx. At the command of the Eagles, an ever- growing number of birds descended from the skies, attacking the vultures and the Cryptids.

MG: What are leopards doing near Bree? Did they travel all the way from Harad to get here (AFAIK, IRL leopards haven’t lived in Northern Europe, that being the equivalent of where Bree is, since the ice ages)? And bison? Wisent are also called “European bison,” but Polychron lists “bison” and “wisent” separately, so… are these American bison? How did they get here?

Traveling at the Speed of Plot: 32 (for the non-native animals inexplicably showing up)

The tide began to turn. Percnopter and his vulture armies fled.

Sonam: That was… sudden. Does Polychron realize that a named antagonist fleeing the field and turning the tide of battle should probably be a dramatic moment?

Without protection, the forces of the Silence began to waver. The throng of the Lion King’s armies tore into the Cryptids with impunity and armies of the Lion King grew faster than the number of Cryptids.

The rikedons ignored the Eagles of Manwë and hammered at Malvia’s shield.

MG: …which strikes me as rather foolish, considering the size and power of the Eagles. I’m pretty sure they could do serious damage to the “rikedons,” at bare minimum clawing out their eyes and blinding them.

Plot-Induced Stupidity: 107

With every blow, the Merkaba-stone suffered another crack, threatening at any moment to shatter.

The Lion King leaped at the lead rikedon. Scrambling to one side of its lethal horn, Anarawd clawed his way atop the rikedon’s head. Slashing its bone-white eyes and biting its snout, he planted his feet on its head. Anarawd arched his back, whipped his jaws around and with a deafening roar that broke the Silence, he ripped off the rikedon’s horn.

The roar of the battle instantly resumed. The armies of the King of Beasts were filled with hope. They surged forward, attacking the remaining rikedons. Together they tore at the monster’s undead flesh, ripping it away and breaking the creature’s bones.

Shade: Now the rikedons are undead? Are they “Cryptids” too, or something else? Again, for all that Manus Tarqus rambled earlier, he seems pretty vague as to exactly what the enemy they’re currently facing even are or how they fit into things! You know, when I take a job, I expect to be properly briefed on it!

More animals arrived from the surrounding forest. They tore at the remaining rikedons.

Biting, clawing, chewing and stabbing, they ripped its skin and undead flesh away, exposing bone and devouring sinew. They clawed and bit, ripping more of the rikedons apart. Soon, nothing was left. Caught in the wind, pieces of bloodless rikedon flesh scattered in the trees.

Feel My Edge: 73 (for the enemy creatures getting graphically torn to pieces and devoured)

Malvia’s voice rang out clear and bright. The glowing blue lines of the Merkaba-stone and the Lótë tree faded. The Eagles of Manwë flew into the sky, heading higher and West until they were out of sight.

Sonam: I suppose, their work done, they just wanted nothing more to do with this story? I can’t say as I blame them – though it’s a pity, as I’d have loved to have a chance to talk with such majestic beings!

The Lion King returned. “My part in our bargain is complete, although I would have failed without your help. Thank you. From this day forward, the Queen of Harad and King of the Northern Kingdoms are my allies. I leave with my freedom and return to my family in Harad.”

Shade: So, no hard feelings about the whole “sticking you in a box and hauling you halfway across the continent” bit, then? Can’t say as I’d let someone who did that to me off so easily!

“Thank you, your Majesty,” Elanor said, curtseying. “I am honored to have met you.”

The Lion King roared and ran into the woods. In answer, the Beasts and birds arose. Rats and burrowing things dug back into the ground. Squirrels returned to trees. Badgers and beavers dove into rivers. Oxen and Beasts scattered throughout the forest.

MG: So… are the “Beasts” somehow different from all the other forest animals, then? Also, I’m now imagining the rikedons getting nibbled to death by squirrels and beavers. That sounds like a bad way to go, tbh. Silly, perhaps, but painful.

“That was an amazing display of power, your Majesty,” Eldarion told Malvia, bowing. “Thank you for saving us.”

“You are welcome, Prince” she said. Tears slid from her eyes. “Though I fear this victory has come at a terrible price.”

In her hand, the cracked Merkaba-stone vibrated. Pieces of its crystal walls began flaking off. Abruptly, it crumbled into a pile of pale blue dust. Where it had rested in her hand, a golden six-pointed star floated above her skin and began to fade.

“What’s happening to the Star of Merkaba?” Manus asked.

MG: You know, if, say, Sting broke in battle, I’d feel some sorrow there – but I’ve followed Sting as it’s been carried in battle and adventure by Bilbo, by Frodo, and by Sam, over the course of two books I’m strongly invested in and attached to. I don’t know this artifact at all and only just heard about it, and I barely know Malvia as a character (she’s mostly been hanging around and letting Manus do all the talking, tbh) so I’m having a hard time feeling the tragedy here.

“Its protective coating has been destroyed and I used too much of its life force to create another,” she answered. “It is only moments from death.”

MG: *muttering* I still have so many questions about the origins and nature of this artifact…

Alatar lifted his staff. “Akašân Dâhan-igwiš-telgûn Dušamanûðân Phelûn athâra iniðil!” The golden star floated through the air towards Alatar’s staff, growing ever dimmer. The wooden top of his staff opened like the petals of a flower. Flickering and about to go out, the star swept into the staff’s center. The wood closed around it and the golden light went out.

Sonam: Did… did Alatar just steal the power of Malvia’s sacred and magical family heirloom? I can’t imagine that’s what Polychron intended, but that’s sure what it looks like!

Malvia closed her fist around the blueish dust. Unable to contain her grief, she began to cry. Manus took her in his arms. The Haradrim left them alone, returning to their baskets.

Alatar, Eldarion and the hobbits climbed their ladders into their own basket. For quite a while, they sat in silence wondering if their positions had been reversed, if they would have been sacrificed their most precious heirlooms to save the lives of strangers.

MG: I mean, looked at one way, LotR itself was the story of having to sacrifice a family heirloom to save the lives of everyone… so I would think that Sam, at least, being part of that quest, would be able to answer the question!

Malvia returned to her Oliphaunt. Manus joined them in his and they continued traveling east. When they reached the Midgewater Marshes, the Haradrim enclosed their baskets with fine mesh nets. With the nets in place, Dzombor led them into the swamps.


They began slogging through the treacherous midge-infested fens and bogs. Neither the traps of sucking mud, peat pits nor the stinging flies seemed to bother the Oliphaunts. It took two days to cross the marshes. At night, they never left their net covered baskets. They slept peacefully inside them atop their sleeping Oliphaunts.

Shade: Well, I can only hope the Oliphaunts don’t roll over in their sleep, then. Otherwise, you might find yourselves soaked, immediately before also being crushed.

MG: And real-life elephants, though they often sleep standing up, do also lie down sometimes, so this seems like a very real concern!

Anyway, we have now come to the end of this chapter, and also to the end of Book I of Fellowship of the King. And this one was… a lot. The biggest thing that jumps out at me is how little it has to do with anything that’s been going on in the fic so far. The closest thing to foreshadowing we’ve had is that Malvia and Manus left Harad and are seeking an audience with King Elessar for a reason, but that doesn’t really prepare you for, well the sheer amount of stuff Polychron throws at us at the last minute. Seriously, we’ve left in a situation where the climax of the fic’s first half… is entirely based around a conflict we’ve never even heard of, against antagonists we’ve also never heard of, while the actual villains the fic has previously established go entirely unmentioned. It’s as if the first Book of Tolkien’s Fellowship suddenly abandoned the Ringwraith plotline entirely after “A Knife in the Dark” and had our heroes chased the rest of the way to Rivendell by Shelob, a character who had never been mentioned or alluded to before, instead. Only if anything even more out of left field. The internal structure of the chapter is also weird, with so much of it being taken up by Manus’s infodump (while fleeing from the rikedons, no less!) which skims over a lot of the important details of his and Malvia’s story and never provides any good explanation for the rikedons themselves or why they serve the Silence or why we even have evil super rhinos in the first place (and we won’t see the rikedons again for the whole rest of the fic, either). And then the final battle itself just feels like a string of random events that rush by us so fast it’s impossible to actually care about what’s happening, and feel like they’ll give you whiplash if you actually do try to keep up. Ultimately, the way it all happens feels like it reduces our actual protagonists (Elanor and her friends, Eldarion, Alatar) to passive observers while Manus and Malvia temporarily hijack the fic to have the climax to their storyline fighting the minions of their bad guy. Also, Manus is weirdly cool about playing with the powers of absolute evil just to get a visual aid for his infodump, and that feels worth noting.

Speaking of new characters and concepts introduced this chapter, we have a new big bad (yaaay…). I’ve mentioned before that I’d count the fic as having roughly six “big bad” tier villains. So far we’ve dealt with four – Estel, Glorfindel, Thuringel and Lungorthin – to which we now add a fifth, the Silence that Devours and its herald, Swahilloguz (counting them together, because they’re mostly dealt with together as a single threat) and needless to say, their existence hasn’t been remotely hinted at so far (the sixth villain has been mentioned but not yet appeared in person; we’ll be seeing them before the end of the fic). As I mentioned already, I think Swahilloguz in a vacuum is a reasonably interesting concept for a villain, and one who can be made to fit into Middle-earth much easier than some of the others (though I kind of have to both laugh and side-eye that the guy whose power base is in fantasy!Africa has a name that includes the word Swahili; real subtle, Polychron). On the other hand, Polychron really seems determined to hype him up as an equal threat to Sauron, which I don’t care for, and he’s tied very strongly to the Silence, which is a threat that simply doesn’t fit in the cosmology of Tolkien’s Middle-earth, and trying to make it fit just makes the dissonance seem all the worse. Also, neither Swahillguz or the Silence actually do that much during this fic, though the way they’re hyped up I suspect they were being built up for a bigger role later in the series (possibly the Silence was even meant to be the final boss, what with the idea that only the “Master Ring” can defeat it and all, though I’m not sure of that). Though that does leave us in the unusual position of having an eldritch abomination in Harad that’s trying to eat the planet… and for the most part of this fic, nobody seems terribly concerned about that and seems more focused on doing other things.

As for the Harad worldbuilding itself, it’s not uninteresting, and while somewhat stereotypical is still leagues better than the utter disaster that is Yeskov’s take on Harad. On the other hand, it really doesn’t seem to fit very well with the rest of Middle-earth, and part of me suspects the answer is that it doesn’t fit because it wasn’t meant to – that all of this worldbuilding was devised by Polychron for either some other novel he intended to write or a homebrew D&D setting, and he ended up crowbarring it into Middle-earth for this fic series after he decided to use it here instead. Not only does it feel like he’s put a lot more effort into the worldbuilding here, albeit with very little effort to connect it to the history of Arda more generally, but there’s the matter of Manus and Malvia’s story, which seems like an extremely complex and involved tale that includes a number of important parts (their escape from Swahilloguz, the subsequent war against him, etc.) that are skimmed over quickly, almost as if Polychron knows the full tale and doesn’t feel like repeating it. I strongly suspect that either Manus and Malvia are the protagonists of some other story he wrote, or PCs from a D&D campaign he played or DM’d, that just got refitted for Middle-earth and slotted in (and for that matter, the way the backstory is handled is clunky – for comparison to LotR, Aragorn’s history is revealed to the hobbits and the reader gradually, and we don’t get the full story until the appendices, it’s not just dropped on us in a big chunk like this!). No idea if this is actually true or not, but if it was… I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Anyway, that marks the end of both Chapter Twelve and Book I of Demetrious Polychron’s Fellowship of the King! We’re not quite halfway done with this spork, though, as while Book II has the same number of chapters, most of those chapters are quite a bit longer, and I’ll be splitting several of them across multiple posts. Still, this feels like a milestone! Next time, we switch gears entirely as Eldarion’s sister Celendrian takes over as our POV character for a while, we get some more unfortunate implications-laden Estel backstory, and Arwen seems to be channeling Viviane of Avalon as she puts her daughter through something that I don’t think Polychron quite realizes how traumatic it would be… or, worse, maybe he does… in any case, we’ll see you then! Our counts stand at:

Bigger, Louder, More!: 66

Expansion-Pack World: 23

Feel My Edge: 73

Happy Ending Override: 23

Linguistic Confusions: 28

Loremaster’s Headache: 235

Pervy Hobbit Fanciers: 41

Plot-Induced Stupidity: 107

Rings-a-Palooza: 96

Take That, Tolkien!: 29

Traveling at the Speed of Plot: 32

The Unfair Sex: 41