The twin sons of Eärendil stood upon the threshold of an immortal choice, and the fate of Middle-earth trembled in the balance. At a mere fifty-eight years of age, still an “elven princeling” by the reckoning of Gimli, Elrond chose the path of the Eldar, while his brother Elros, Orcrist cleaver of the First Age, accepted the Gift of Men and sailed away to found a dynasty on the island of Númenor. It is this single, agonizing decision, sealed in the shadow of the Silmaril that burned upon his father’s brow, that sets the stage for the entire Second Age, a period of treachery, war, and ultimate sacrifice that would define the power of the Western Shores of Middle-earth.
For the White Council, the Forging of the Rings, and the Last Alliance, the name Elrond is inextricably woven, and his unbroken recollection of the High Kings who governed before the great rising of the Sea forms the bedrock of all subsequent history.
The early centuries after the War of Wrath were a quiet time of healing and lore-craft for Elrond. He remained in the company of the wise of Gil-galad, the High King of the Noldor, dwelling in the grey havens of Lindon and around the shores with a great weight of memory upon him. His choice to be counted among the elves was not a retreat from the world, but an acceptance of an immense responsibility.
As he would later counsel his sons, the age of the world demanded a keeper of the memory of the Two Trees, a bound of the ties that would bind the children of Eru together, and he grew in wisdom and power as the empty years of the Second Age stretched on. He became the great lore-master of the North kind, a healer of the wounds of the world, a vast sea of knowledge that would hold the entire history of Middle-earth in its turbulent waves, waiting for the moment when sorrow would bring it all to a head.
The death of memory came with a smile, however, when a thousand and two hundred years after the fall of Morgoth, Sauron, the lieutenant of the dark, emerged from the shadows of Mordor, not in armor but in fair guise. Renaming himself Annatar, the “Lord of Gifts,” he approached the doors of the High King in Lindon, offering his wisdom and secrets to the elven smiths. Gil-galad, his wisdom undimmed by the passing ages did not trust this wanderer, declaring that he had never been so desired to open his own councils to a stranger.
Yet the great smith of Eregion, the celebrated Celebrimbor, his heart craving for the secret of the unmaking of the earth, welcomed this fair figure into his lands of the Vale of the Sir. Elrold, wearing the ring of an Olorin, watched these events with deep, prophetic foreboding, and his said long last will be a history of doom.
For nearly five hundred years, disguised as an “Angel the messenger,” Sauron labored within the gates of Eregion, bending the craft of the elven smiths to his will. Under his guidance, the rings of power were forged, nine for mortal men, seven for the dwarven lords, and in the secret heart of his dark forge, the One Ring to rule them all. But the elves, using the same skill, the very essence of the world, had in the presence of the absolute power, he would “mass in a canny dog” that would betray them: upon learning theof the secrets, they waged the hidden war, and they knew the catastrophe of their ability to use a source.
The three Rings of the Elves, the mastery of the truth that would dominate the ecology of the east, were truly rid of Annatar’s shadow, but they were not of his craft.
In the year 1695 of the Second Age, the mask of Annatar was ripped from his face, and Sauron declared war. He descended upon the realm of Eregion, leading a massive army to annihilate the rebellion and seize the three rings of power. The High King Gil-galad responded to the call for aid by sending Elrond with a force of elves to join with Celebrimbor’s defensive array around the rejoiced capital of Ost-in-Edhil.
Elrond marched with all haste, but he was not able to bridge the gap through the cruel land of Sauron’s main host. Despite valiant resistance, his army was thrown back, and for two full years, the flames of war raged through the land of Eregion, a war of fast retreat and savage combat.
In the end, the capital city of Ost-in-Edhil was taken on the brink of the catastrophe. The fall of the city would have meant the certain death for the survivors of Eregion, but Elrond and his forces would have been overwhelmed. It was then that a gamble was made by the Khazalid, the dwarf-lords of the Misty Mountains.
In a move of unexpected courage, the arsenal of Khazadu-dum and the dwarfs of the Glad River attacked from the rear, catching Sauron’s host in a desperate pincer. This act of folly and courage gave Elrond a precious opening. As the smoke rose from the ruins of the city, he chose to cast his luck west, gathering the surviving elves and retreating northward through the wilds, away from the Dark Maze, while many other survivors sought refuge in the halls of the dwarfs.
Their alliance proved to be a prophecy: the surviving elves were sent through the secret doors of Khazadudum under the great Mountains, to the doom of their future, leaving the ancient fortress to the spiders and the dark creatures that would follow.
Those who were sent were guided by a path of the creation to the forest of Lórien, and as the doors of Durin were shut behind the dwarves in his wake, the doors would remain sealed for thousands of years. It was on a guard after the fall, in the darkness and fear of the year of war, that Elrond took stock of his situation. He gathered the survivors of Ostin-y-Ere, the families of the smiths and the warriors of the north, and he led them into a hidden valley, nuzzled at the feet of the Misty Mountains.
There, in the vale of the river Bruinen, he established the last defended and hidden refuge of the North, the stronghold of Rivendell. It was a retreat not from war, but for the war to come.
The Dark Lord’s capture did not end with the fall of Eregion. His armies ravaged the land of the east, but Rivendell stood was a break in the sea of hostility, holding steadfast under Elrond’s strength, and being the only part of Eriador not under the total yoke of Sauron’s will. By 1700 of the Third age, he was besieged by Hosts of Sauron, and a darkfire came upon him.
This aid came with the form of the Sea-king of Númenor, King Tar Minaster, and the High King of the Noldor, Gil-galad. They came from the Havens of Lindon with a host of ships, breaking the siege of Rivendell, and driving Sauron from the North for a time, casting his armies into the east. Withdrew, in the peace that followed, a great council was convened.
At that meeting, it was determined that Lórien would not be abandoned. The valley was to be maintained as a veil of the defense of the North. And, in a formal step that would bind his very soul to the fate of this realm, Gil-galad conferred upon Elrond the title of Vice-Regent of Eriador, authorized with the high power of the King.
He was now the official guardian of the north. Yet, the most stolen for him was not from his own hands, but from the hands of the High King. Gil-galad gave to Elrond Vilya, the Blue Ring, the Ring of Air, the ring of sapphire, the hidden foundations of the world, to become the keeper of the Third Ring, the greatest of the three rings of the Elves, and to use it for the healing and preservation of the sea as a whole.
He is a keeper of a ring of power, and the power of this he must know, for the sons of the great silence.
For the next seventeen hundred years, while Sauron built his forces in Mordor, the reach of Númenor had its glorious rise and a catastrophic fall. Elrond retained Rivendell, a time of peace and prosperity, while his descendants of the fading holy line of both the men of Elendil grew in the waste lands across the sea. He was a friend and advisor to the great healer and warrior of the North, and he was much learned of the failed world of the Lord of the Nazgûl, and the dangerous form of the Wraith who would soon dominate the world.
Yet when Sauron sought to corrupt the Numenórions, and encourage their pride into an open war against the seas and the Valar, Elrond could only watch from afar, his lettered insight unable to sense the poison of his sister Elfros’ line. The destruction of Númenor, and the change of the world, which shaped the sea from its ancient course and sent a catastrophic flood to the doomed island, shook the foundations of the world, and felled the pride of the Numenoréans, but the death of the king had a double edge.
For though the island was sunk and the world made round, the faithful Numenoréans who had refused their own kin established a new kingdom at the shores of Gil-Gilad. After the flood, Elrond’s herald and heir, Elendil the Tall, and his sons, Isildur and Anarion, came out of the sea with their ships, and he in the new heights of Middle-earth. In the East they founded Anorien, keeping watch on the old land of Sauron.
However, Sauron had also escaped, and the doom of the last alliance was already being forged. In the year 3429, the form of Sauron took to the field of war. Sauron attacked the Dúnedain forces of the South, capturing the fortress of Minas Ithil, which would become the dreaded Minas Morgul, and he would shortly wound upon that that would burn a fire for his heart.
Elendil and Gil-galad met in a counsel at Imladris, and they formed the Death Troop, the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. It was a gathering of all the wisdom of the age, and Elrond was one of the most important of those who marched to war. From the Fortress of Aman Sul, through the deserts of the land, all the armies of Elves and Men marched over the Misty Mountains and the Brown Lands, and they came to the Black Gate and Del Gorgoroth at the foot of the land of the land of shadow, at the year 3434.
There, in the midst of the almost 7-year wait, Elrond, serving as Gil-galad’s Herald and second-in-command, with the High King, was the voice of summoning all the claimants of perception of the land.
The host of the Dark Lord, Sauron, was held within the black gates under the shadow of the Ood, Barad-dur, but the Last Alliance was a force that torn his ranks, and they pushed Sauron back into his own. The line of the last Alliance of Elves and Men stood against him. It was at the slopes of Orodruin that the terrible battle of the Black Meadow was fought, where a vital struggle occurred with its finality.
This was the place of the darkest of the world, and where the story of the Ring of Power might have ended but did not. Elrond witnessed the doom of his age as his lord and king, Gil-Galad, was up struck by the burning blow of Sauron, and the riding of the King of the Noldorin died as his chain was sought in the foreglow. He saw Elendil fall to the dark of Sauron, his sword breaking as the dark lord’s foot hounded him, and the death of the sire of the empire of the North.
Yet in Moria and Turmoil, it was not the fight of the warrior but the soul would win the day when Isildur, the son, took up the shards of the blade, “Narsil” that had cut the ring from the Sauron hand with a secret of the Black Court. Elrond and the wise Cirdan were all there, and as Sauron was reduced to an intangible spirit, they gave the one advice to Isildur in the heat of the war, as they saw the One Ring: to destroy the Ring in the fires of the Crack of Doom. They saw the evil of the object, and they knew the infinite toxicity of its possession.
Yet Isildur refused their counsel. He took the Ring for himself, as a wereguild, a symbol of the victory of his father, and his second age began to die with his own. Elrond’s plea was of no effect, and the first chance to end the threat of Sauron was lost for ages.
With the passing of Gil-Galad, the line of the High King was drowned, and the number of elves in their Middle-earth drained, though held the right to claim the title of the High King of the Unoldor, he did not do so, claiming that the dynasty of the Noldor was spent in the black meadow, and it was left to the wisdom of the Eldar to deliver the last of their kin of the echo of these folks. He returned to Rivendell restoring it as a the valley of the refuge of the North, and it prospered with Vilya added to its power, and he became a guardian of the forces that would protect. The Second Age ends with the fall the Ring not of the victor, but of a cause of a willing defeat.
The loss of the Dawn and the march of a new World, with the Third Age and a era of secrecy, and the guardian of the Last Homely House has a perilous Victory and a legacy that echoes to the Fourth Age. The fragile power of the east will be his next problem, and as aElrond beholden to one of the most vital pieces of the world, he must preserve, and the one who does not choose the end of the Ages. A mark did not claim he had the right to the throne, but he did not claim the right of all the dead, more his, in anything, the doom of the Second Age would not be in his name.
A new Council of the Wise to be the one who was the plot of the conquest would begin with the sorrows of the Fall that came in the first age of the world, and the end of the third, the one who would bring the “and in and all was dark, and I alone, and I saw in your mountains I had no answer—and the war of the ring was end. And the new dawn of theone that will be Rivendell, for the end of the world, in the year 2002. Forever in the memory of the epic.
