Prologue:

Ar ilye tier unduláve lumbule…

In their eyes I saw Mandos. Before they faded in my arms, I knew they could already see the wraiths of our ancestors welcoming them to the realm of quiet shadows.

Mandos. The grey halls.

The wisest of our kind say that our time has ended on Arda, that it is time for us to leave Middle Earth to the dominion of human weakness. Time for the Eldar to sail back to the Undying Lands in the hope of enjoying eternal bliss in Valinor, as so many of our people have done before us. “This is the autumn of our years,” says Elrond of Imladris, “We have given to this land all that we have to give.” And so they leave, ship by ship, white sails fading in the horizon, singing sweet, slow songs of ancient joy, all the cares of this tortured world becoming as distant as the thin strip of land behind them.

But there are some things that even Aman can not forgive, some curses even the Valar can not undo, a sleepless doom only satiated by ignominious death. There will be no white shores for my House, no parting mists, no warm smiles of loved ones welcoming them back.

Long have I, Nimros, son of Maedhros, tried to escape this fate, thinking in my younger days that my generation would be spared the destiny of our mothers and fathers. I had to believe that their blood was enough to save us from the shadows. The events of my life, however, have told me otherwise and I watched helplessly as one by one they were taken from me. One by one, I watched the hand of death snuff out every last hope of the Noldor.

For you see, we are this land’s guilty conscience, and this land wants so desperately to forget.

I want to forget.

Always have I been the one to live in the light of the future, locking away the black ash of the past deep inside the recesses of my heart. Yet now I find this hard, with Morgoth’s old lieutenant rising again in the East. Our future seems as dark as the past. Perhaps the end of all free peoples, not just the Eldar, is at hand. Only the Valar know. And, as usual, they remain silent, just as I have been these long millennia, silent, stubborn and proud.

It is time to record all that I have witnessed: all that I have done and all that I have failed to do. I need for it to be told, once and for all, so when I join my family in Mandos some orcling may find this book and wonder before making it into a nice, warm fire.

Therefore, I shall begin with the beginning.