THE PATIENT
Prologue:
The Changing World
The world changes.
She who was once called the Evenstar
had said this often during her lifetime. She said it as a testimony to the
rapids her own existence had become, particularly after her choice of a mortal
life. Those who knew her in the flesh remembered her fondly for she was difficult
to forget, especially in the minds of the immortals. Nurtured in loving memory,
the words remained when the images of her faded away as time tumbled forward
as it inevitably did. She, like the rest of the world they knew, which disappeared
into the horizon of the sea they had crossed in a time so distant, had become
that most intangible of things, myth.
Still even myths are mortal though they take far longer
to die. Thus it came to pass that the realm called Middle earth vanished
forever into the mists, forgotten in every aspect save a faint trace of sensation
whenever one happened along the places it once had been. The world took
on a different shape in the hands of its inheritors, the race that came from
Hildorien who survived the changes despite their
memories being too short to perpetuate the history of what had been. They
were flames that burnt bright but brief. Their cities rose and fell. They
conquered and were conquered. Their seed spread to all corners of the globe
and though they knew something amiss, for they felt trace of magic retained
in memory that brought sparkle to their eyes when they tried to remember,
they never could find it.
The golden age of man came and went without any one
remembering it. The great kings of past were forgotten like their kingdoms,
disintegrated into a world of bitter struggle, devoid of wonder and magic.
The men who followed in the aftermath were of an entirely different breed
from those that emerged from Hildorien. They
were ambitious and driven to master their domain in every manner possible.
If there was land, they conquered it. If there were beasts, they tamed them
and if there was any enemy, they destroyed it with a precision that would
have frightened even the foulest of orcs.
Ironically, man’s finest moments in history were often
accompanied by his bloodiest.
They still craved the beauty of that earlier age when
as race they had been young and innocent though they held no tangible memories
of it. In their hearts, they felt its absence and often wondered when the
starlight had vanished from their lives. They sought to recreate it in their
endeavours, either in reaching for impossible
goals or replacing the awe and wonder of those earlier times with myths of
their own, though these were often badly constructed and led to more destruction
then any real good. Finally, they came to think that there was no such thing
as magic and wonder, that it had been a fanciful illusion and abandoned their
search for it altogether.
If there was any innocence left to the race of men,
it was burned away forever the moment wonder was given up for reason.
In the wake of its destruction, the world and the
men who lived in it continued their existence in a juggernaut of change,
not always for the better. An insatiable need arose to conquer all frontiers
and when those were exhausted, the snake began feeding upon itself, slowly
reaching implosion. It was only a matter of time before someone chose to
take advantage of this chaos and turn the cycle of change into the spiral
of Armageddon. Ironically, it was the search for the very thing that they
had been missing in themselves that allowed the this
catastrophe to find its root in the new world.
It should have answered all their questions and filled
the void inside of them. Instead, it would destroy them.
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Behind the veil that separates one world from another,
the immortals lived in a strange sort of stasis. They enjoyed beauty, tranquillity and peace in a realm that was remained
unchanged over the course of thousands of years. For most part they were
content, though some took too leaving their enchanted world on occasion,
curiosity of the outside world compelling them to see what had become of
Middle earth in their absence. Most returned rather quickly, while some
did not return at all and the stories brought back were often conducive to
discouraging those who might feel the urge to journey abroad from doing so.
The immortals came to the firm conclusion that the world had been spoiled
by the race of men and it was best to wash their hands of it.
There came a time when all journeys past the enchanted
isles halted all together for the immortals had received their fill of the
world beyond them and had no wish to dwell on times that were long past in
a present that had nothing to redeem itself. They devoted themselves to
the finer things of life and became more removed from its harsher realities
then ever before. The dark times of the early ages melted away into distant
memory and after awhile, it was almost difficult to remember that they had
once battled such creatures as Melkor, his servant
Sauron and their demons. While the Valar became
even more unapproachable with the passing ages, the First Born who shared
Valinor with them were a little more grounded.
They remembered fondly the world behind and mourned
the changes it had suffered since their departure. They thought kindly of
men, knowing that it was unfair to judge a race whose lives were so finite
when they had the luxury of all the time there was. Mortals were not evil,
they were simply young and the nature of their existence ensured they would
never live long enough to gain wisdom like the immortal elves. Even when
the Eldar had existed in Middle earth, they had
come to accept the mortals as children that needed guidance. Being sequestered
away in Valinor for almost a hundred thousand
years did not change that perception among them.
Perhaps it was because they were so removed from danger
and evil, that they were taken completely by surprised when they felt tremors
of chaos so fierce that not even the barrier protecting Valinor from the rest of the world could keep it out.
It was like the sun slipping behind the clouds for an instance, taking with
the heat and leaving a brief interlude of cold. The chill was felt by every
one, even the Valar and though they could not
discern what had caused, they knew something was emerging, something dark
and terrible was beginning to take root in the outside world.
Following the incident, there was much rumbling of
discourse emanating from Ilmarin, the mansions
of the Valar Lord Manwe,
at the
Finally, a decision was made and like so long ago, Manwe
chose his servant to go forth from the Timeless Halls into the world beyond
Valinor, to deal with the danger that would undoubtedly
consume both worlds if ignored. He set this task to Olorin, a Maia who had
distinguished himself greatly in the eyes of all during the Second and Third
Age when he had been instrumental in the downfall of Melkor’s dark servant, Sauron. He was also one of
the two surviving ‘walkers’ in the Fellowship of the Ring, the other being
the Sindar elf, Legolas Greenleaf. Olorin who returned to the Timeless Halls and dwelled
in the company of Nienna the Compassionate after
his labours in Middle earth was done, accepted
the duty before him without question and prepared for his departure across
the
Legolas offered to accompany Olorin
on his great mission but the Maia declined citing
that the world beyond did not have much use for elves and may not receive
Legolas well. Fearing that his presence would complicate an already difficult
quest, Olorin set out across the sea alone.
He did not return.
For a while, the Valar
could sense their agent in the other world, could feel his mind and thoughts
as he conducted himself on their behalf. However, it was not long before
that connection was severed and from then on, Olorin
became as great a mystery to those at Valinor
as the evil that had inspired his journey. They thought he might be dead
but if that were so, his soul would have returned to Mandos.
Wherever Olorin had disappeared,
he remained lost for the next four hundred years.