A Synoptic History Part 1

Update 4/10/08: If you have not already read this, don't bother starting now. I have very nearly rewritten it all, replacing a lot of the names. I mean to post it in smaller portions next time, in a couple of weeks, perhaps.

I've called this Part One for a reason, however the other parts to come are still rather sketchy - even in "synoptic" form. (Of the Rise of the Quendilli; Of Ereston Irchamilon; Of Ingold and Ingram; Of Adinnir Drakesbane; Of Loquendon and Oedis; etc.) You'll just have to try your luck with the names. And please don't anyone mention "The Silmarillion" - those of you who know what that is.

Of the Creation of the Lower World and the Great Enmity

First there was Venaur, called Telúmono, Lord of All; and from the word of his thought sprung his beloved, the Arváni, named his Holy Children. Of these there were three. Foremost among them was Víor, the Lord of Light; second to him came Athrú, Lord of Darkness – for in those first days ere time was yet counted, darkness was pleasing and night held no fear, for fear had not then been conceived. Last came the Lady Mará, and most dear to her brothers. And they dwelt together with Telúmono in Vinyóldë.

Erelong, Telúmono fashioned that which he called Hándaion, the Lower World, for he hung it without Vinyóldë, in the Void, and made a window looking down upon it from his throne. This world he clothed with trees and grasses and raised mountains and cut seas upon its face. He placed beasts and birds on the land and fish in the waters; and he made the soulless fays of tree and mount.

And the Void he filled with the greater and lesser Seraphs, the Arlússindi and the Ailostí. The lesser seraphs were numberless, and none have learned all their names; but of the Greater were only a few, and their names are recounted in all the histories. There was Vrános the Watchman of Day, ablaze with a great flame and chief of all the Seraphs; and there was his wife Quë, gentle Mistress of the Night. Also there was Rastmú who dared to pilot his ship closer than any other to fiery Vrános; and also bright Silfeínyn of the Morning, fairest of all; and Díndiol the Red Headed; and doughty Lirósto; and Kilmárë with her shining garlands hung about her; and Tastúplë and his sister Tíntwiel, and distant Ilún, last and least among the Arlússindi. All these were set by Telúmono in their courses across the sky. And his work was good, and it was fair, but it was yet incomplete.

For when the Arváni saw the beauty of Hándaion, they were enamored and sang of its wonder. And they said to themselves that if only they might each add something to this work. Therefore they came to their father and asked that they might join in his labour together with him.

This pleased Telúmono, for it had been his own thought that he had placed in their minds. Thus he decreed that they three should each of them shape a man and from that man would come an entire race; and under the unliving flesh of these new men, he himself would kindle life.

But when the Arváni had fulfilled their task, and saw how glad were these fathers of men as they walked in the glades of Hándaion, Athrú felt suddenly ashamed. For though the men of his brother and sister were fair and oft merry, his was short and grim and quick in temper. He fancied them to be harsh, unlovely and rude; creatures ill matched with the beauty of Hándaion. And so he cursed his hands, that they had fashioned these malformed people.

In truth, they were not as him thought them – they were not ugly, but nor were they passing fair – but they were hardy, and skilled in craftsmanship. Yet they seldom cared to fashion small, delicate things, but would fainer raise soaring towers and fine cities. They were named by Telúmono the Ngóstili, the Stalwart Folk.

Mará's people he named the Merdili, for they loved the oceans of the world and its heaving surf, and the wide northern skies, therefore they took their homes beneath the seas.

To the last race, those of Víor, Telúmono gave the name Quendili and it is with them that this history is chiefly concerned.

Now, to these three races Telúmono gave dominion and judgment over all things within the spheres of Hándaion, bounded by the path of Quë, who sailed closest of all the Seraphs to Hándaion; but this pleased Athrú illy. He loved the new world dearly – dearer than he ought, nigh covetously – and desired that he and his brother and sister should govern it as their house. But this was never in Telúmono's purpose.

Therefore Athrú thought to make himself a new world to be his home; so he took himself to the underside of the disc of Hándaion – called Úngothon, the Nether-hells – were nothing lived, save the sightless, formless shadow-fays, to whom Athrú gave their visible shapes in return for their service.

But the bodies he gave them were terrible, like those of great spiders; and like spiders, they wove gloomy meshes of web that barred-out the daylight shed by Vrános. They were the Mim-Úthrioth, bound by oath and strange love to their master.

Neither was anything else he fashioned fair, but always his designs would go astray and result in forms of dismay – dark and twisted towers, blasted trees, and poison lakes, dead cities of shriveled gardens and empty windows. But never could he imitate the gift of life that was Telumono's alone to give, though he tried unceasingly.

In the midst of Úngothon, Athrú set a great forge – Talquóro he named it, for upon it he smelted the materials from which he sought to fashion his realm. But as the fires of Talquóro grew hot and burned fierce, of a sudden they leaped forth and burned Athrú's hands as he worked there, so that they pained him always and hindered him in everything. Thus was his own curse worked out.

And so his shame and jealousy grew and he came to hate Hándaion with malice as strong as his former love, because he could not copy it. Moreover, it came upon him to employ all his cunning to secretly turn the designs of Telúmono awry, for in the defeat of the work of his hands and fruit of his mind he greatly envied the power that his Father wielded.

Now, long ere his fall into darkness and jealousy Athrú had seen the beauty of Silfeínyn, Morning Star, and had wedded her, and had had many children by her. These children were, for the most part, of the same mind as their father, ready to follow his will. One alone among his off-spring still fainly sought Telúmono's favour; Óchë he was named. But he was scorned by his brothers and sisters, and because he oft spoke against their father and would have thwarted much of his malice, they bound him in the nets of the Mim-Úthrioth, and there left him to torment.

Athrú's first move to further his ambition against Telúmono was to send out into the world of Hándaion these children under the fair seeming guise of lords and ladies bearing gifts and teaching wisdom and knowledge to the Three Races. Some he sent even into the heavens to deceive the very stars that could see the gates of Vinyóldë from the rail of their bright ships.

And to all who would harken, Athrú's children whispered discontent and spoke of freedom from the fancied constraints of Telúmono, promising a new and better power would rise in his place; and everywhere they went they won over countless thousands by these lies and the trickery taught them by their father.

Of the Three Races, the Ngóstili were ever the readiest to listen and learn from the children of he who had shaped them, for they forgot that it was not Athrú who had given them life, but Telúmono, therefore they turned aside to worship Athrú, and with them many of the Quendili were also deceived; for both these races desired autonomy.

And among the Arlússindi they won over Tíntwiel and also Ilún, who was flung the furthest out in the heavens, and who desired most to take the place of Rastmú by Vrános' side. And many of the nameless Ailostí they won also; and thus were the heavens thrown into disarray.

But among the Merdili they found no welcome, for those people of the sea were content with their lot and they saw through the lies of Athrú's messengers.

Such black treachery as Athrú's could not long remain hidden, and when the darkened mind of Tíntwiel came to be known to Tastúplë her brother, he and and Díndiol, fearing to go to Telúmono with such evil tidings, came first to Víor as he sat in Vinyóldë and told him of all that was passing in Hándaion by Athrú's design.

And at the telling of their tale, Víor waxed mighty in wrath; and he threw himself down upon Hándaion in the dreadful fury of a thousand tempests to see himself how things went. And as he came he gathered to him all the scattered Seraphs who would still heed his summons.

But even as they came Vrános set in the West of Hándaion, and as he passed beyond the Odán Echirímunt – the mountains which encircle the world – Athrú led forth his dark army in tumultuous clamour to overturn Vrános in his fire-ship and to put out his light. And thinking to usurp his place, Ilún, captain of Athrú, drew his sword and slew Rastmú as he sought to defend Vrános his lord; the first and most terrible of all deaths in Hándaion.

But this deed was beheld from afar by Víor, and he perceived in that moment all the evil his brother had wrought in the world; and he hurled himself with all his following into the battle. Thus the first of the great wars to rend Hándaion – the War of Brothers – was joined.

In that battle Úngothon was destroyed, the fires of Talquóro were quenched, and the webs of the Mim-Úthrioth were torn asunder, and Óchë the Faithful was freed from his bondage. Hándaion was riven in two and all the seas ran together into one place, severing that world into two great continents. And Athrú was utterly defeated, though in the fight he dealt Lirósto a grievous wound in his side. But he was finally taken; and bound in the same webs that had held Óchë fast, was thrust into Cûrleigon in the outer void, his prison of unyielding adamant, there to remain until the ending of the age.

And Telúmono gave this judgment also: that Athrú was banished forthwith from Vinyóldë and fated to one day lose all he sought and whatever he gained, and in the end to be finally destroyed along with all who served him. And the Ngóstili and the Quendili were cursed with mortality for choosing to follow the lies of Athrú. Yet Telúmono swore also an oath that he would not forever abandon them to their doom, but that they would one day be saved, and whosoever trusted in that oath would regain their immortality in the end. But ere that day's dawning, he turned the world over to the servants of Athrú to do with as they pleased.

At the uttering of this doom, Mará, who had alone sued Telúmono for her brother's forgiveness, cast herself in grief from the doors of Vinyóldë and ever after strayed in the skies above Hándaion, her tears shed for the lost world oft wetting those very lands below.

But to faithful Óchë was given the place of Rastmú by Vrános' side. And for a little while their was peace.

And so an age past, and a thousand years of captive malice lay dormant in Athrú's heart; and he escaped from out of Cûrleigon, even as Telúmono had foreseen. And as the gates of Vinyóldë were forever barred to him, he came to Hándaion thinking to regain his power there and once more take up his dark sceptre over all the lands. But he found things little to his liking, for although in his stead Ilún had rebuilt Úngothon and rekindled the fires of Talquóro, and many of his former servants had gathered there to await his return – or had found darksome holes and hideaways in Hándaion, safe from the wrath of Víor – Athrú found that Tíntwiel had abandoned him, and in contention had raised herself up a mountain in the midst of the great sea and had enthralled there under her power two of the kings of Hándaion and all their people with them. These kings were Nímro of the Ngóstili and Khúro of the Quendili; Thrall and Bondage; and by their hands she had fashioned herself a false paradise named Torodíor Găth, a snare to unwary mariners who ventured too near her realm. For although the land seemed fair, upon the mountain top was built a tall tower and a gold dome – a heathen temple to herself, within which was daily offered a sacrifice of mortal blood. She was the queen of sorcery and witchcraft and necromancery.

And so Athrú hated her, as he hated Telúmono and the three Races, and plotted her destruction and the destruction of all the world.

By this time many of the Ngóstili and the Quendili had lost all remembrance of his former evils, for in their mortality they had many of them become weak-minded and ignoble, and this Athrú worked to his gain.

He issued a summons to all the Ngóstili, calling them to Ilábtoron – the easternmost continent of the two in Hándaion– and claimed their fidelity by saying he was their sovereign lord and maker, and as such they were bound to serve him. As of old, many Ngóstili heeded his words and those that followed him to Ilábtoron were named the Chorochán, for he fed them upon his hate, and they became truly foul and grotesque, even as he had first thought them.

But a few still recalled the tales of his ways and refused to again listen to his lies; and so they remained in the west, in Vuintoron; and they were the Úlethoch, for they were separated from their kin.

And He set the Chorochán to work making great engines and armories as to ready them for battle against the Quendili and Úlethoch, and so destroy or enslave all the peoples of the world and cling to his mastery of Hándaion, defying even the final curse of Telúmono.