Chapter 415: The Summons of Valinor
The others were just as curious about what had befallen Kael inside Mount Doom.
Kael sat back into the soft cushions of the sofa, one arm around each of his children, and was quiet for a moment before he began to speak — his voice measured, as though drawing the memory up carefully from somewhere deep.
"When I reached Mount Doom, the One Ring had already fallen into the hands of a Balrog. It was immensely powerful — beyond what I could overcome. And Sauron was on the verge of returning." He paused. "So rather than allow the Ring to pass back into Sauron's hands, I collapsed the crater. I chose to fall into the lava alongside the Balrog."
Elthir and Elríen let out small, startled sounds. Both of them tightened their grip on his arm.
Even knowing he had returned safely, Arwen felt her heart clench to hear it said aloud.
The expressions of the others in the room grew grave.
Kael offered his wife a quiet, reassuring smile, then continued.
"After we fell into the magma, I transformed into my phoenix form and managed to survive. I continued fighting the Balrog — but then the One Ring was destroyed in the molten rock, and it triggered the most violent eruption the mountain had ever produced.
"The primordial fire from the earth's core came surging upward. It was far more intense than any ordinary flame. Even the Balrog could not withstand it — it was consumed and reduced to ash. I could not escape it either.
"Once my body was destroyed, my soul seemed to follow the channels of the volcano's molten rock down into the depths of the earth. And there, deep in the earth's core, I found a gemstone — radiant beyond anything I had ever seen, blazing with heat that was the very source of that primordial fire, the origin of Mount Doom itself.
"My soul was drawn to it. I lingered there for seven days, bathed in the light that it cast. And in that light, my soul grew purer — and stronger. Then, when the volcano erupted again, I rose with it. Back to the surface. Reborn through the fire and the lava."
Everyone in the room had fallen silent, absorbed in what he was describing. But at the word gemstone, something shifted in Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel. Their eyes sharpened, a light kindling in them that had not been there a moment before.
"A gemstone in the earth's core?" Elrond said, clearly startled. "Could it be—the Silmaril that was lost into the depths of the earth?"
Kael nodded. "That is my guess as well. I cannot think of any other jewel that could hold such radiance and power."
The story of the three Silmarils was old, and those gathered in the room knew it well.
Fëanor had crafted them, and Morgoth had coveted them — stealing all three and setting them in his Iron Crown. One was later wrested free by the mortal hero Beren and the Elven princess Lúthien, who crept into Morgoth's fortress while he slept and pried it from the crown. That Silmaril, after passing through many hands and many sorrows, had come at last to Eärendil, and been borne up into the sky — where it now burned as the brightest star of all.
The other two were seized by the Valar after Morgoth's defeat in the War of Wrath — only to be stolen again by Fëanor's last surviving sons, Maedhros and Maglor. But the Silmarils, forged in a purity that neither son could match, burned them for the blood they had spilled in claiming them — the blood of kin.
Maedhros, unable to endure the searing pain any longer, cast himself and his Silmaril into a great chasm of fire that had split open the earth, and was lost there forever in the depths.
Maglor, wracked with equal anguish, threw his into the sea, where it sank into the fathomless dark and lay there still.
And so the three Silmarils had passed to their final resting places — one to the sky, one to the sea, one to the earth — becoming the three great legendary marks upon the world of Middle-earth.
Mount Doom, the greatest volcano in Middle-earth, reached down through the rock into those very depths where the earth's core burned. It was through those channels that Kael's soul, in the moment of his rebirth, had drifted — drawn, by some fortune that was perhaps not entirely chance, to the Silmaril buried at the world's heart. He had been bathed in its light for seven days, and when he rose again, he rose changed.
Hearing it, the others could not help but feel the strangeness of it — the sheer improbability, and the wonder.
When he had finished recounting his own story, Kael turned his attention to the others.
He had already noticed it — the Elven Rings on Gandalf's, Elrond's, and Galadriel's fingers had gone dark. The brilliance that had once set them apart was gone. They looked, now, like nothing more than three finely crafted ornamental rings, beautiful in their way but holding no power at all.
"My lady Galadriel, Lord Elrond — now that the Three Rings have lost their power, what will you do?" Kael asked, his tone direct but respectful.
It was a serious question. The beauty and vitality of both Rivendell and Lothlórien had always been sustained by the Rings' strength. With the One Ring destroyed and the power of the Three extinguished along with it, neither sanctuary could maintain what it had been. Both would fade. Middle-earth's Elves would lose the last places where they had been able to dwell in peace.
Elrond and Galadriel had known this would come. When they had committed to the plan to destroy the One Ring, they had already made their peace with it.
Now that the moment had arrived, there was only acceptance — a clear-eyed, quiet acceptance of what fate had decided.
Galadriel spoke slowly, in a voice that carried the weight of long reflection.
"The Age of the Elves has ended. The Age of Men is at hand. We have no choice but to accept what has been ordained." She paused. "I have already felt the call from the West. I will take the next ship and leave Middle-earth."
Elrond nodded. "The Elves of Rivendell have already begun preparing to journey westward. When the last of them has departed, I too will set sail."
The room grew heavier at that.
Even with the decision long made, leaving the land one had known for ages was not a simple thing. No one, if given a true choice, would willingly leave their home and cross the sea to another shore — however blessed that shore might be.
Gandalf, by contrast, had seemed a different person entirely since Sauron's fall. He moved through the world lighter, almost buoyant, as though some great weight had simply dissolved from his shoulders. Even Narya's loss of power appeared to trouble him not at all.
He turned to Kael now with an expression of easy amusement.
"Kael, by rights, you ought to qualify for passage to the Undying Lands yourself now. Have you felt the call from the West yet?"
Everyone turned to look at him, equally curious.
Kael blinked. He closed his eyes and focused — genuinely searching — then opened them again. A faint look of surprise crossed his face.
"There's something there," he said slowly, sounding not entirely certain of it. "Something in the back of my mind — a sense of a place, somewhere beyond the western sea. Is that what the calling feels like?"
He hadn't noticed it before Gandalf mentioned it. A location, of sorts, vague and just at the edge of awareness — there only if he directed his attention toward it.
Gandalf smiled and nodded. "Congratulations, Kael. Everyone who has the right to enter Valinor will come to feel its presence — a sense of its location, a pull they can follow to find their way there. The fact that you can feel it means the Valar have granted you passage."
Elrond and Galadriel offered their own quiet congratulations. They had expected it, had thought it probable — but having the answer confirmed was still a glad thing.
Kael was not an Elf. He had not come from Valinor. For someone like him to be granted the right of passage there was, by any measure, an honour.
Kael received it with genuine pleasure. He was curious about Valinor — the dwelling place of the Valar themselves. That curiosity had always been there.
But his first instinct was to turn to Arwen.
She was already smiling, and before he could ask, she gave a small nod. She had felt it too.
As a half-Elven with the right to choose her fate, Arwen had made her choice long ago — on the day she wed Kael, she had chosen the fate of the Elves.
And so the summons had come for her as well.