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Tumunzahar makes Menegroth look like a contract project. Which, the Dwarves assure her, it was. The stonework is astonishingly careful and beautiful, silky to the touch up close while from a distance it gives the impression of stretching on forever above, a sky of stone with crystals for stars. Vast natural cave systems are connected by dozens of perfectly smooth, gently sloped broad stone pathways from which the fall, if she fell, would be several miles down. There are handrails. "We use those to move materials carts," someone explains to her, "we're not going to be reckless."
There's an amphitheater, a place where a hundred of the stone walkways twine around to create space for a hundred thousand people to sit in close proximity, and someone is giving a lecture or a demonstration at the base of it, the seats closest to him filled with eager, tiny, bearded Dwarf-children.
And they spiral down, and down, and down, past waterfalls and egg-sized gemstones left half in the rock and halls of crystal. Everything grows gradually more ornate and more perfectly maintained and the clang of hammers fades behind them. "People say," her guide says, "that we only have a council instead of a single King because there were nine winners of the competition to design the throne so we couldn't just select one person to sit it." And they push open the doors to reveal, indeed, nine thrones so elaborate it would be hard to choose between them, and nine squat bearded people sitting them.
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Fair. Though we did a lot of tolerating up to the point where he decided it couldn't go further. Under less time pressure, most rulers would try people who are openly going around saying that they're only continuing on in a military campaign for the opportunity to hurt the King as badly as possible, which Artanis said several dozen times, often on a podium in front of a crowd.
I wish we hadn't burned the ships. But it's easier to make calls like that in hindsight.
I wish we hadn't burned the ships. But it's easier to make calls like that in hindsight.
purposeful_glory
Tolerating has its drawbacks! I am not advocating universal toleration! I just think he'd work well in a setting where the sphere he controlled was more complete in precision and less so in life-consumingness.
Sure. And best in a setting with no Enemy and mining which didn't take years and thousands of people defending the site to get crappy metal. I'm not arguing that the current setting is the best one for my father's talents, I am saying that Kingship is a thing he's good at and entirely capable of being great at, and what you're calling 'corporate officer' might be the only way to win the war, so it is fortunate that he has the political power to pursue it.
There are a lot of other kingdoms around. People can just leave, if they so desire. Instead they're joining us. Lots of the Thindar communities in the area have settled near us and might eventually move in, they're just hesitant.
..does it seem like one of my father's shortcomings is that he wants people to be around him even if they don't want to be there?
purposeful_glory
No. But political units have a sort of stickiness to them.
Having a war on complicated everything. I know what good leadership looked like in Valinor. If you were that lenient here - well, you get Artanis giving talks every day about how she wants the King dead, and then angry when he doesn't give her a ride over here to keep doing it.
The boats weren't good enough to make it all the way across from Alqualondë, or we weren't good enough at oceangoing boat navigation. We headed north again, half the host on the shore and half in the remaining ships. It was mostly our people in the ships, since we'd taken them in the first place, and all of the supplies were in the ships so everyone on the coast could move faster. We were going to head north to Araman on the edge of the Ice and then cross there. It's the shortest point - three hundred miles, perhaps? Not more than four - and we'd planned to make multiple trips.
When we got to Araman the Valar spoke the Doom, and things were very tense. Father kept saying he wanted to leave now and they kept saying not yet and Maitimo was keeping all of us on shore as proof that we weren't about to sail off without them but no one could agree on which mixture of the hosts to have on the boats and Artanis - and a bunch of other people, I don't mean to pick on her, but she was the most powerful and the most visible - was saying that they were crossing only to avenge the theft of the boats and see my father destroyed for it.
And then word got out that Nolofinwë'd formally started calling himself King of the Noldor. I thought Father'd be angry but he just said 'all right, we're leaving now.' And we got on and left.
When we got to Araman the Valar spoke the Doom, and things were very tense. Father kept saying he wanted to leave now and they kept saying not yet and Maitimo was keeping all of us on shore as proof that we weren't about to sail off without them but no one could agree on which mixture of the hosts to have on the boats and Artanis - and a bunch of other people, I don't mean to pick on her, but she was the most powerful and the most visible - was saying that they were crossing only to avenge the theft of the boats and see my father destroyed for it.
And then word got out that Nolofinwë'd formally started calling himself King of the Noldor. I thought Father'd be angry but he just said 'all right, we're leaving now.' And we got on and left.
It was the wrong call. He wouldn't have made it again, today. But it - when Maitimo begged to return the ships I actually wasn't sure which one of them was right.
They crossed. We thought they'd go home. Given that they were going to cross, it was obviously better that they cross in a way that didn't cause unimaginable suffering and pointless deaths.
Also now they wouldn't hate us quite as much as they do but I promise that was my second thought.
purposeful_glory
My first reason would probably sound like 'even Artanis does not deserve to be trapped with the Valar indefinitely'.
Yeah, I know. Do you know where I was four days after we landed, which is when we'd have finished taking the ships back across the ocean and back? I was in Brithombar, which was close to being overrun.
Those people do not deserve to be trapped in the Halls of Mandos indefinitely, either. No one is getting what they deserve, and defeating the Enemy as fast as possible has to come before fixing that.
Also, who do you think is likeliest to devise a way to get people out of Mandos, and how likely to happen do you think it is if he's dead? Well, now that you're here might happen anyway, but we couldn't have predicted that.
Those people do not deserve to be trapped in the Halls of Mandos indefinitely, either. No one is getting what they deserve, and defeating the Enemy as fast as possible has to come before fixing that.
Also, who do you think is likeliest to devise a way to get people out of Mandos, and how likely to happen do you think it is if he's dead? Well, now that you're here might happen anyway, but we couldn't have predicted that.
purposeful_glory
Brithombar remembers you fondly if unpronounceably. Believe me, I do appreciate - very thoroughly - that getting rid of the Enemy is probably not going to come down to having a specific quantity of swords on hand.
Not when half of them are pointed at each other. If they'd stayed home, and you'd come and talked with us and somehow found out about it and pressed me on whether it was the right thing to do, I'd have said 'I think so'. Wouldn't have known for sure until we win or lose, and maybe not even until we'd made it possible for anyone to leave Valinor, but I'd have said 'I think so'.
They've reached the camp.
Can you debird me?