The farmer, Ted, hands me a bag of food. There is a note of regret in his eyes as he turns away. He knows he has got the work of two men from me in payment for his straw-scented hospitality, aware that he is unlikely to see such a tireless farmhand again.
He knows about farming, this tow-headed man. But he is as innocent as his cheery sun- coloured hair. Behind him his broad-hipped wife gives me one final baleful stare, fists upon her waist. The knowledge passes between us ... I am a snake in the grass ... be rid of me before I strike. I give her a tiny nod - of acknowledgement - not of farewell. She does not care if I fare well or die tomorrow, just that I am gone and far away.
She turns from the gate and goes back into her cottage - but I wager that her faded, clean curtains will be twitching as she watches from the window until I am out of sight.
I cast the bag over my shoulder, run my thumb over the growing stubble on my chin. Hospitality does not extend to hot water and a razor here it seems. But no matter - this place served me well enough while I regained my strength.
The need in me pulls, like a cord tied from my belly to the woman, until it snaps like a physical slap back to me as I move away from the farm. Well and good ... I know the whisper of the famine stone now... and I have answered it. I will not be driven into coupling with whatever washes against my path, a blind fevered scrabbling to get a brief respite from the stone's yammering void.
I know the voice of the stone now and I have an answer. It will suffice the stone ... more than suffice, most certainly ... feed it until it is satiated, a cup filled, running over, flooding all that it touches, so full that the lack is choked and throttled by the richness of the food I will cram in its ever- hungry mouth.
I walk over the hill at a steady pace, take my bearing back toward the north. I push the northern woman away in my mind - she proved to be a worthless, shrew-voiced distraction. The Crow and the Dunlander may have her, if they have not already done so, and then turn her out to bleat to her cowering kin. It may flush them out of their complacent holes. My long easy stride allows my thoughts to turn towards my plan. Even I catch my breath at the audacity and immensity of my thought. I am both repulsed and entranced. How could it be otherwise?
I will have my son - and I will give him what Men have yearned for since we first awoke. I will give him what the elves kept from us, the one thing that even the kings of Numenor in their wealth and glory craved above all things but could not have. Oh my son ... beyond even the years of the first Men, even of the first of the kings ... life. Immortal and eternal. Imagine what a true Man could become, if he had the life of the eldar....
And... why not? Man has mated with elf before ... My stomach heaves, rebelling at the thought of betraying all that I believe. Yet ... and yet ... such a son... with such a mingling of blood. Oh Numenor reborn and as she should have been!
I gasp at the enormity of the consequences.
She would die, the elf, yes of course. It is said that if they are taken against their will then they lay down their life force and fade from the world. In truth I doubt it. What female, elf or woman, would choose to die if her babe were in her belly? Let Celebhir grow a son for me, let her spit him out from her womb and she can live or wither as she wishes, I care not. For the boy will be mine - to be raised as a Man, to believe and act as a Man. A Man who honours his father's proud heritage, adept in our arts and crafts in shadow, with the strength and powers to refuse this worthless 'gift of men'. Old age, sickness and death will not be his payment ... never. Life eternal, power immeasurable, a new breed of Men from his loins, and I remembered as the great father of the house.
Both stones yammer eagerly within me ... before my eyes I see the Mouth of Sauron cast down, and my proud scions take his place. Even the tower of the Eye trembles, yes! The eye shivers in fear, or in love, like a bride before her bridegroom. I see new ships launched from new harbours built on the ruins of the old. I see an army, as vast as the elder days, led by the bright undying Men of my blood. They embark, a forest of spears, do what should have been done the day the flower of Numenor was drowned - to take the war westward and over the sea ...
My hands begin to shake at the thought. I clasp one with the other to try and quell the rising emotions as they begin to tumble around me, heart racing and breathless. But she floods my mind unbidden, pushes all other images from my mind ... her dark hair, lily-scented, her limbs as white and lithe as a young birch... as proud as a queen, as pale as a maid.
Men have lain with elves before - oh yes. Such a glorious abomination.
