I COULD NEVER SEE TOMORROW

A chill ran through Maglor’s body at the feel of the stranger’s hand upon his shoulder. He sensed that something in the touch of that hand held a warning—a sense of some unfathomable woe—and he looked up at its bearer. He saw looming over him an elderly man—with hair and raiment both of grey the color of smoke. But the man’s eyes were bright blue and the skin surrounding them crinkly, and kindness was in their depths. The dread feeling soon evaporated like smoke from a fire.

He smiled warily at the stranger and the old man asked, “May we sit down with you?”

Maglor nodded assent, and Fëanor, the first to find his voice, said, “Please join us,” and glanced at the elderly man’s companion as he shifted aside and made room for the golden-haired Elf beside him. The old man took a seat beside Maglor.

“Let me introduce ourselves,” said the elderly one. “My name is Olórin and my companion is Glorfindel. We have followed you from Aman.” He nodded at Fëanor.

“I am Maglor and this is Tinumír,” Maglor immediately responded. “We were aware that someone was following us.”

Olórin looked puzzled and glanced at Fëanor, who looked impassive. “Surely you are Fëanaro Curufinwë,” he said, “unless we are mistaken and have come upon the wrong two men.”

Maglor slapped his hand upon the table-top to gain the old man’s attention. “We do not wish for the people of this region to be caused any distress by hearing his true name,” he said. “Least of all they would wonder why he does not still dwell in the Halls.”

Fëanor looked startled by Maglor’s vehemence and exchanged glances with Glorfindel, whose blue gaze was resting overlong upon the dark-haired Elf’s fair countenance.

Olórin smiled and replied in a reassuring voice. “Please forgive me. I understand completely your reluctance and I shall comply with your wishes. Tinumír, it is a pleasure to meet you at last,” he said kindly, and he held out his hand in a gesture of welcome to Fëanor.

Maglor relaxed, and with a tiny smile gracing his lips, normally set in a line of serious contemplation, extended his hand first to Glorfindel and then to Olórin, shaking each one in greeting. Though he felt more at ease, he was also uneasy, for he knew not the purpose of their visit.

After shaking Olórin’s hand, Fëanor turned to Glorfindel and their gazes locked once more. Fëanor felt pulled in by the magnetism that exuded from the golden Elf’s eyes, and from the steely grip of his hand. Indeed, when their hands touched, a current passed through Fëanor’s body as if he had just shuffled across a carpet wearing fabric slippers and then touched something metal. He smiled at the handsome blond Elf, murmured a greeting and then released Glorfindel’s hand quickly, a puzzled look crossing his face. He glanced toward Maglor who looked back at him, his gaunt face appearing lined with worry.

Fëanor sighed. “For many weeks, months in fact, we have traveled with you either at our backs or in front. We knew not if you were friend or foe. You have made us a gift of horses, and that would seem like a gesture of friendship. What is it you would seek from us? Is there a purpose to your pursuit of us?”

Olórin smiled benevolently at Fëanor. “You are direct, Tinumír. Let us drink some wine and I will explain why we followed you. And yes, I admit that we were following you, but it was for no fell purpose.”

The old man called a serving girl to their table and ordered a flagon of wine be brought for them. Once they had each drunk a glass he began to talk. Despite his elderly appearance, Olórin was energetic and spoke quickly. “As you know, Tinumír,” he said, addressing Fëanor, “you left Aman rather sooner than expected—your—er—watchers—guardians, if you will—were chagrined because of that, but could not stop you because you are now moving under your own power except for one thing.”

Fëanor looked at Olórin with keen interest in his piercing blue-grey eyes. “What is that?” he asked.

“You are now bound to your quest,” said Olórin. “Though you may not yet have realized it, you will find you are unable to veer from the path that has been set out for you.”

Fëanor gave him a startled glance. “What mean you by that?” he asked.

“You were given much when you were gifted with your new form,” said Olórin, gazing keenly at the resurrected Elf. “You are possessed with great beauty—such beauty that will cause people to fall at your feet begging to be able to do your bidding. You have been given great skills—you will find that whatever you put your hand to, you will accomplish with ease of effort.”

“That is true!” cried Fëanor. “With very little instruction from Maglor, I have learned to wield both sword and dagger with great skill indeed!”

Olórin nodded. “Yes. You have been given these gifts for a purpose,” he said. “But at the same time, you have lost something else that once you had.”

Fëanor turned to him with his perfectly-arched brows drawn together in a frown. A spark of terror flickered within his luminous eyes. “What say you? What have I lost?” he asked.

Olórin cleared his throat. “Your free will, my child,” he said. “You have lost your inner spirit of old, and your free will.”

Fëanor looked stunned by this. Frozen in silence, he looked first at Glorfindel, who regarded him with placid interest. Then he looked back at Olórin, trying to make sense of what he had just been told. The old man’s blue eyes twinkled at him.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

“You will find that you will follow your path to the end,” said Olórin. “You will accomplish that which you were brought back to do. You will find that you will not be able to do otherwise.”

“But no—that cannot be true—I left the Halls of my own choosing—and too soon,” Fëanor replied. “I wish now that I had learned more about myself before I did so.”

“You left the Halls when it was time for you to leave,” said Olórin.

“But I knew not my full mission!” Fëanor retorted. “I do not know what I am to do!”

“You will nevertheless accomplish it,” said Olórin. “Perhaps you are not meant to know.”

Fëanor looked stricken. “But I have done other things of my own desiring since I have been on this journey,” he protested. Then he looked up at Maglor, who was blushing furiously.

“You have followed the dictates of your new body,” explained Olórin further. “You have been given the gift of seduction. It is so that you may gain friends and attract many people to you. It will enable you to travel unscathed through dangerous places. I need not worry about you. I have allowed you to catch up with us that I may see first-hand how your new form is functioning. We—myself and Glorfindel—will travel with you farther east for awhile, and then I will leave you, as I have other duties to perform elsewhere.”

Fëanor remained speechless. He had slumped forward and put a hand through his raven locks, and then dropped his hand to his lap where he examined his fingers as they lay on his knees.

Maglor, who had been following Olórin’s words with keen interest, asked: “What is Glorfindel’s purpose here?”

Glorfindel looked at him and smiled enigmatically.

“He travels also for a time with us,” said Olórin. “Then he must depart as well, for he has been resurrected too—in order to assist the High King of your people and his herald in a similar mission to Tinumír’s. Glorfindel of Gondolin, slayer of one of Morgoth’s Balrogs, is a warrior of great prowess. His skill surpasses that of yours, Maglor, and although your talent with weaponry is considerable, Glorfindel’s is even more so, and more so than yours too, Fëa—I am sorry, Tinumír. His will is also not entirely his own.”

Seeing Fëanor’s distress, Olórin placed a hand upon his arm, patting it in a grandfatherly gesture. “Do not fret, Tinumír,” he said. “We none have our own free will. I, you, Glorfindel—we all have been returned to serve a purpose to which we are enslaved—but it is for the greater good that we may have to commit some form of lesser evil of our own making.”

“What about me?” asked Maglor. “Am I following the course of some higher plan also?”

“Your course is not the same as ours,” said Olórin, turning to the minstrel. “You are one of the First-born still, and a free person. You may do as you will, and set your own path. That is, of course, under Iluvatar’s greater plan for Ëa. The one that the three of us follow is a narrower path and is, for now, separate. But of course, ultimately it is likely all part of the greater plan as set out in the Music.

“But what is my purpose in all of this?” asked Maglor.

“Your purpose is your own,” said Olórin. “You are free to come and go as you will.”

‘I am not free,’ thought Maglor. ‘I am bound to Fëanor, more so than he knows.’ “And are you also a reincarnated Elf?” he asked Olórin.

“No,” replied Olórin. “I am of the race of Ainur, and I was there at the making of the Music.”

Strangely, at the Maia’s mention of the word ‘Music’, the singing of the Green-elves grew louder and soon seemed to envelop the air surrounding them. They sat back to enjoy the sounds of it and finished the rest of the wine before retiring to their rooms. Olórin told them that they should make plans to continue their journey after breakfast the next morning.


Maglor lay between the double-thickness of the sheets, though he felt cold. His arms were folded about Fëanor, whose body trembled against his in the dark. He held the reincarnated Elf close to his warmth, and felt Fëanor’s heat, but he was still cold. ‘He is real,’ he thought to himself, and kissed the top of the glossy head that lay against his chest. ‘They make him sound as if he is but a doll—or a puppet—whose strings are pulled and he does what the Valar want. But he is flesh and bone, and he has love in him and many good things. And he has his memory. He said he loved me.’ Maglor’s mind was in turmoil, and his hands roamed over Fëanor’s body in rapid movements, feverishly trying to find some indication that the beautiful Elf’s flesh was not that of a living person.

Fëanor sighed and moaned in response to Maglor’s touches. His hands sought the minstrel’s hair, while his lips laid responsive kisses to the minstrel’s smooth chest.

Maglor placed his hands under Fëanor’s arms and lifted him higher so their faces were on the same level. “You are real, Tinumír,” he whispered and kissed him, their lips meeting, Maglor losing himself to the sweet taste and intoxicating fragrance of the beautiful being, pliant in his arms. His hands stroked the silken tresses of his hair while he deepened the kiss, losing himself in the warm depths. Their tongues met and pressed against each others’. Maglor dropped one hand to rub against a hard, rosy nipple and he kissed harder. The satiny sensation of Fëanor’s skin, the almost rubbery feel of his nipple validating his reality, and his breathing becoming rapid, all attested to his vitality. Carnal lust overtook them, Maglor pressing their thighs together, feeling the hardening of their lengths, and shuddered from the bliss caused by the carnal pleasure.

“Oh,” he whispered, his lips surrounding the sweet rosy nub that his hand had abandoned, “but you are so real beneath me. As real as I am,” and his hand held the swell of Fëanor’s buttock, then slid over the silken skin of his hip to take hold of the firm swell of his erection. “Turn,” he commanded, lifting his head and removing his hand.

Willingly, Fëanor turned over. Maglor threw back the sheets, exposing Fëanor’s perfect body upon the bed, reposing on his stomach.

“No more darkness,” said Maglor. “From now on I shall take you in the light.” He rose and felt for his flint upon the dresser-top. Striking it against his dagger that lay in an iron dish atop the bureau, he started a flame and lit a candle with it; then another, and another, until the room was all aglow. There in the golden candlelight he looked down at Fëanor, the reincarnated Elf’s beautiful body stretched out upon the mattress.

“I want to see you from this day forward,” he hissed, and took some oil with which to slather himself. Bending over Fëanor, his lips pressed into the waves of hair at the base of the dark Elf’s neck, Maglor drove his length easily into Fëanor’s waiting passage. He pounded hard into the dark Elf’s heat, achieving orgasm within seconds. When he had spent his essence, Maglor turned his lover onto his back, and with his hand stroking Fëanor’s hard, beautiful cock his mouth claimed yet again his exquisite lips while Fëanor moaned and writhed upon the bed in ecstasy. Maglor brought Fëanor to climax, letting the warm juices flow over his hand, and then lowering his head to take them up into his mouth, savoring their sweet flavor, affirming to himself again that this beautiful creature was real. But he could not evade a permeating sense of unease from coursing through his veins.

‘Shall I lose you in the end?’ he thought. He could not stop himself from thinking, ‘I am so afraid, melda ni, that we shall not last.’