Many thanks to @BeaconHill for betareading.
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Celebrimbor soon became as much a fixture in my workshop as Colin or Dragon. He had been honing his craft over millennia in Aman, and was now the greatest craftsman in Elven history save Fëanor himself. We settled into an easy rhythm—Colin offered Tinkertech ideas, Dragon translated the esoteric pseudoscience his Shard provided into physics more comprehensible to the rest of us, I provided Song, and Celebrimbor optimized the materials. Soon we had established printers capable of rapidly producing sheets or struts of mithril, and Celebrimbor began working them into every design we came up with.
Flying vessels, each a work of art, began to take shape around the
Vingilot. Some, like the original, were sailing ships designed to cross the sea of stars. Others were more modern designs, starships like those from science fiction, bristling with turrets and propelled by heavy thrusters.
As the Silver Flight (as we had taken to calling our new fleet) began to take shape, the Valar left Aman for the first time in millennia and came to Earth Bet. The first was Tulkas, whom Eärendil carried on a special trip back to and from Aman. The first thing the Wrestler did when he arrived in Brockton Bay was visit our workshop.
"Incredible," he said, examining our work. "Truly, you do Aulë proud. This puts many of his works to shame."
I flushed. "I am flattered to hear you say so," I said. "I doubt I can truly compete with the Lord of Smiths, who created the Dwarves with all their cunning, but I am honored nonetheless."
He laughed at me. "Such humility!" he exclaimed. "Take pride in what you have done here, Taylor!" He gestured out the window at the glimmering silver hulls hanging in the sky above the Bay. "You have created the armada which will take us to the field of Dagor Dagorath! No other has done such a thing. No other
could have done such a thing!"
"It's not as though I did it alone," I said, glancing around at the others. Dragon grinned at me from her screen.
"Where would you be without us?" she joked.
"Still hammering wooden hulls together by hand, most likely," Celebrimbor chuckled.
I expected Tulkas to join in the laughter. He did not. I turned to face him and blinked.
Tulkas was gone. In his place stood a young man—human, by his rounded ears. He wore a fine blue uniform with two lines of buttons down the sides of the chest, which was sopping wet and torn in places by battle damage. His hair was startlingly black and gray, oddly old for one who looked so young, and waved about his head in a furious wind I could not feel. He held a short spear in one hand. There was an ornate sword through his chest. The four-foot blade was an iridescent silver and thin as a rapier, but it was double-edged, and the metal was covered with a spiderweb of glowing, blue-white cracks.
His teeth were gritted, and his dark eyes—almost black—seemed to be smoking slightly. He met my gaze, looking bewildered, and in a shock like lightning I knew exactly who this was. I reached out a hand, his name on my lips, but before I could say more than "Cu—" the sword in his chest shattered like a detonating shell, and both he and all of the blade's fragments vanished.
Tulkas reappeared, blinking. "What in Eru's name was that?" he asked blankly. "I blinked, and suddenly I was somewhere else!"
"—rumo." I whispered. I turned and met Celebrimbor's stunned gaze.
"He lives," he whispered. "He is undergoing transformation, just as you did."
"If he survives," I said. "You saw that sword in his chest."
"He will," Celebrimbor said, certainty in every syllable. "We must tell Olórin. He will be overjoyed."
"Can we find him?" Dragon asked. I turned to see her looking speculatively at Tulkas. "Is there a way we can trace whatever that was, find where he is? I assume he's in some other world. Could Fortuna and Doormaker find him?"
"We can try," I said. I activated the Queen Administrator's powers, splitting myself apart to give simultaneous mental commands.
Celebrimbor, go tell Olórin what has happened. Dragon, get the instruments Fortuna asked you to make for Clairvoyant over here. Tulkas, stay here and describe what you—
I found all my selves suddenly frozen under the weight of Tulkas' gaze. "Do not presume to command me," he said in a voice which, though quiet, reverberated with power.
"I—I'm sorry," I said, returning to my singular self. "I was just…" I shook myself. I hated giving excuses. "I'm sorry."
"I forgive you." Tulkas looked thoughtful. "I will remain, of course. I, too, wish to help our wayward cousin. And it is… good that you are so dedicated to the search. You need only remember yourself, and not grow so consumed by one drive that eclipses your better judgement."
That rebuke was pointed. It was also painfully accurate. "I will… do my best, Lord Tulkas." I cleared my throat, trying to regain my train of thought. "I was going to ask if you could describe what you saw. If Curumo was standing in your place, perhaps you were standing in his."
"It seems likely." Tulkas' brow furrowed as he tried to remember. "I had only a moment, but… I was in a stone corridor. Part of one wall had been cut away, as if a blade had shorn through the rock. Outside a storm raged, wind and rain like a hurricane billowing into the passage. A man in white was stumbling back from me, terrified.
"To my left was a young man in a blue uniform, carrying an enormous sword like nothing I have seen before. To my right another man in blue was reaching for me, looking stricken with grief. Beside his head hovered a girl composed of blue light, perhaps four inches high." He put his tongue between his teeth, trying to remember. "It was night… but what little I could see of the land outside, through the gap in the wall, looked blasted. There was no grass, no greenery, only a flat expanse of bare rock."
"There are a few rock shelves on Earth that might match that description," said Dragon. "We can start by looking at those places on alternate Earths."
"Those blades were distinctive," I said. "We should keep an eye out for any world where they use weapons like that. Or creatures like the little blue girl Tulkas saw."
"I'll pass the description on to Fortuna and our explorers," said Dragon.
We did not find Curumo that day. But we kept looking.
