“We begin.” he said. Maral’s eyes shone like pricks of stabbing light in the moonless night. Around them was a dark so thick it had a weight to it, a palpable Presence. The Dark flowed into both Neldoreth and Maral, together, the Master. “We begin.” she mimicked, her tone one of cruel irony. The pair of them knelt over the wide expanse of a black river. In the light of Day the river was not black, of course, but mud brown and swift. Its course took it down from the Mountains of the North, from a place which even after thousands of years had never been wholly cured of its incipient darkness, to the wider, stronger river Anduin. That river flowed through the heart of the lands of Men, and in branches it trickled off, to the rest of the Middle Earth. From this spot the Master was connected to the whole of the land, from this spot they could eventually poison it all. Without reverence Neldoreth placed his soot-blackened hands into the cold, dark water. Maral hesitated for a moment.

Some part of her, which was still Goldberry, a part which could not die, for it would leave her barren against her new Power, thrashed against what she was about to do. We will darken the waters with the Void. A new washing. The part of her which was still Goldberry faded back to the corner within her mind within which it was hopelessly trapped, wandering along the moonlit path. Maral asserted herself, opened her spirit to Neldoreth’s, to the Brown’s, to Tom. Those elemental forces merged together in the mix of the dark water. Maral cried out, but the darkness swallowed her voice, refusing to allow it to echo forth against the high wall of rocks which surrounded them.

The water here sprang from deep with the Earth itself, and from there it came from places even she, the River Daughter, had no knowledge of. But this did not stop the power of the Master, taken out from the love of the River Daughter. That power was poison now, and it flowed in thick, oily blackness out of their bodies, into the waters, into the earth itself. Some of the poison remained in the waters of the river. To wash it clean would take more power than the Master was willing to give, even were it so inclined.

The Master stayed there, for days, an unnatural darkness surrounding them, pressing outward with a pressure of black force to keep the light of Sun and Moon from diluting the strength of their magics. Over these days the Master sang spells of Might, such as neither had ever sung before. Full of virulence strengthened by Time, Hope, and the Void. Those harmonies became the black blood of the Void, congealed with the water of that foul river, and began to flow into the veins of the World.

After some indeterminate time, during which neither part of the Master spoke, save to sing, nor fed, nor took respite, their disharmony came to a clanging, dripping end. Both sagged against the fouled banks of the dark river mouth as first line of the Moon to touch them in some long time burned their skin. It was painful, but they delighted in the pain, turned it upon itself, to become something strong and terrible. Maral separated from Neldoreth, laughing bitterly.

“It is done.” she said.

“It is done.” Neldoreth said.

“We have bled the Void into the world, and corrupted the very Music upon which it was built. Now, we must let the song run its course. We must let the Void merge with the phrasing of the Great Music. Men must carry this part of the Song. And they will. But we must aid them, Maral.” Neldoreth said.

“How?” Maral asked.

“We will teach them.” Neldoreth said, not smiling.

It was not a pleasing thought for Neldoreth, to teach Men how to gain strength from the Darkness. But he understood something which had been lost on the old Powers, something which the Dark Lords of the past had failed to grasp. Their shades understood it now, however. Perhaps those shades were part of the voices which whispered to Neldoreth. He was not sure. He was sure, however, that it had been the withholding of power which had doomed those who came before. They had sought to rule with an iron fist of shadow and fire, and it had always, in time, come back to defeat them. It would not be the way this time. Neldoreth would spread power, had spread that power, to the lesser beings, the Second Children of the One, to Men. And they would destroy the world with their smoke and fire. It was their nature, given to them by the One, to spread and grow, to take and take. The Master had simply given them the fuel to fire their nature, to power their hunger.

Next Chapter: Chapter 17 - Anrik