His surroundings don't have a physical form, but they do have a nature, which his mind can interpret into an appearance. This place is a hall of stern iron and grey stone, a fortress, or a prison, but not a prison meant to hold him. The way behind is barred to him, but the way ahead is free; it seems to lead down to the shore of a sea and a vast bank of white fog. Beyond the fog a brilliant light shines.

He can go down to the shore and get in a boat and pass on into the mist. It would be entirely pleasant and perfectly peaceful. He would not return.

Well, that wouldn't do. He still has work to do on Earth.

Are there any other people here?

There are a lot of other people here.

The Halls of the Dead are vast beyond measure, such that in ordinary times one might wander for Ages and not encounter another soul, but they were not designed to accommodate half the population of the universe at once.

He's surrounded by a faceless crowd.

Can he recognize anyone?

Only those who were close in life can find each other here. He wasn't really close to anyone in the requisite sense.

His brief battle camaraderie with Stark and Quill and Quill's crew of aliens and the teenager that Stark insists on bringing along to superhero battles doesn't count, then. Fair enough, he supposes. He works best alone. Stark is the only one he actually needs for the plan, and Stark is still alive, because he traded the Time Stone for his life.

Well, time to focus on getting out of here. Opening a portal from the astral plane is difficult and dangerous magic, but it is theoretically possible. It's the soul that does magic, and since he isn't in the Material Plane, he doesn't need a Ring to compensate for the fact that humans' souls have a maddeningly tenuous connection to it. The Ring does other things than magnify, however. He could still end up splitting his astral body in half and teleporting half of it across the universe. He'll also still be a disembodied soul even when he gets back to Earth, but at least he'll be able to contact the surviving Masters and get them to help Stark with the plan.

He tries to open a portal to New York.

The portal opens. Not on New York.

On the other side, instead, is a long, dimly lit hall. At the far end a hooded and cloaked figure sits, half hidden in shadow.

STEPHEN STRANGE, says a voice cold as iron, hard as stone, deep as the night sky. YOUR ARTS ARE STRONG, BUT THEY ARE NOT STRONGER THAN THE FASTNESS OF MY HALLS. THE DEAD MAY NOT RETURN TO THE WORLD OF THE LIVING BY THEIR OWN POWER.

COME HITHER. WE HAVE MUCH TO DISCUSS.

Without ever passing through the portal, Stephen is now standing in the room on the other side of it.

The floor is smooth stone without markings or joints. On the walls hang what might once have been colorful and impossibly intricate tapestries. Now they are faded to grey and shredded beyond recognition.

"Who the hell are you?"

MY TRUE NAME WOULD TAKE AN AGE OF THE EARTH TO SPEAK ALOUD. MY NAME IS EVERY JUDGMENT THAT HAS EVER BEEN SPOKEN, EVERY LAW EVER ENACTED, EVERY OATH EVER TAKEN. BUT IN THE TONGUE OF THOSE INCARNATES THAT KNOW ME BEST I AM CALLED NÁMO MANDOS.

Space seems to bend around him to announce his presence. The floor of the hall is level, but Stephen feels himself pulled toward the throne as though by gravity.

When he is standing directly before Námo's throne, though he did not walk there, he kneels. It seems like the prudent thing to do.

"Are you a god?" he asks.

Námo removes his hood. His face is fair but deathly pale, his hair long and jet-black. He looks almost human, except that he's eight or nine feet tall, and his eyes are perfect mirrored silver.

THAT IS A USEFUL APPROXIMATION, he says. I AM THE POWER OF LAW, JUSTICE, AND FATE, AND THE KEEPER OF THE HALLS OF THE DEAD. BUT TODAY, IT SEEMS, I HAVE NO POWER AT ALL.

"Yeah, well, six Infinity Stones tend to have that effect on people who think they're all-powerful."

DO YOU SEE THE REMAINS OF THE TAPESTRIES THAT ONCE ADORNED MY HALLS? THEY SHOWED THE WHOLE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, PAST, PRESENT, AND MYRIAD FUTURES. MY WIFE, MY MATE-BY-NATURE, SHE WHO IS POSSIBILITY WHERE I AM CERTAINTY, THE OTHER HALF OF MY BEING, MADE THEM.

THANOS KILLED HER, AND ALL HER WORKS, WITH THE WEAPON YOU GAVE HIM FREELY.

What the Snap affected gods too—

"I'm sorry."

DO NOT APOLOGIZE. YOUR WORDS ARE WITHOUT MEANING. YOU DO NOT REPENT OF YOUR DEED, AND I CANNOT EVEN KNOW IF YOU WOULD BE RIGHT TO.

I…ONCE DID NOT THINK THIS POSSIBLE. WOULD NOT HAVE KNOWN WHAT IT WOULD MEAN, FOR ONE OF US TO DIE. WE ARE NOT LIKE YOU INCARNATES, TO BE SLAIN IN BODY. WE ARE BOUND PERMANENTLY TO THE UNIVERSE, AND IT TO US.

NOW I KNOW. HER VOICE IN THE SONG IS SILENCED. THE HARMONY LEFT INCOMPLETE. THE THEMES OF HISTORY, OF FORTUNE AND POSSIBILITY, OF THE UNCOUNTED INTERWOVEN STRANDS OF TIME, ARE NO MORE. I, WHO WAS ONCE THE WARP UPON WHICH HER TAPESTRY WAS WOVEN, AM LEFT NAKED AND BLIND.

NOW YOU ALONE BEAR THE KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT THE FUTURE MAY HOLD. I AM NOT ASKING FOR YOUR ATONEMENT. I AM ASKING FOR YOUR HELP.

"Well, uh, the interwoven strands of time getting fucked up is kind of unfortunate, because the plan involved time travel."

TIME TRAVEL WAS NOT POSSIBLE WHEN VAIRË WAS ALIVE. I KNOW OF THE HIDDEN PATHS IN THE FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE, WHERE TIME MAY SEEM TO BEND BACKWARDS ON ITSELF. THE TRUE FORMS OF THE AINUR ARE SMALLER THAN THE SMALLEST PARTICLE OF MATTER, BUT WE CANNOT WALK THEM.

"You seem to think a lot of things are impossible that actually work just fine."

PERHAPS IT IS POSSIBLE FOR MEN. YOU ARE FREE IN MANY WAYS THAT WE ARE NOT.

PLEASE TELL ME THE ENTIRE PLAN.

"Thanos destroys the Stones before anyone gets to him. It's not possible to prevent this. He doesn't care if he dies as long as his work is permanent, and he can see far enough into the future with the Time Stone that he can't be surprised. The Avengers kill him anyway.

"A few minutes ago, a man named Scott Lang used some sort of tech to shrink himself down to quantum scale. His partner, who was supposed to reverse the shrinking, got killed by Thanos. He's trapped in the Quantum Realm for five years, until a rat crawls across the control panel and pulls him back out. He goes to the Avengers and tells them about the weird physics of the Quantum Realm. They figure out that it could be used for time travel.

"They need Stark to make it work. That's why I gave Thanos the Time Stone—in exchange for him being spared from the half-of-everyone slaughter, which would otherwise have killed him. They travel back in time to retrieve alternate universe versions of the Infinity Stones, which they use to resurrect everyone.

"In the process, they accidentally alert a past version of Thanos to future events. He manages to reverse-engineer their time travel tech and travels forward in time to steal the Stones from them—this time, he's going to destroy the entire universe, since he's mad we didn't appreciate his attempt to fix us. He almost manages it, but Stark manages to steal the Stones back just in time and use them to erase him and his army. It kills him."

THAT IS A GOOD STORY. ERU—the word carries with it a connotation of big-g God—WOULD APPRECIATE IT. THE PERIOD OF TIME SPENT LIVING WITH THE CONSEQUENCES OF FAILURE, THE FACT THAT SUCCESS DEPENDS ENTIRELY ON A RANDOM EVENT WHICH HE CAN PLAUSIBLY CLAIM AS HIS DIRECT INTERVENTION, THE SURPRISING REAPPEARANCE OF THE ENEMY, THE NECESSITY OF THE HERO SACRIFICING HIMSELF—THOSE ARE ALL HALLMARKS OF HIS, THOUGH ONCE HE WAS EVEN MORE EXTREME IN HIS PREFERENCE FOR TRAGEDY.

IT IS, HOWEVER, A TERRIBLE PLAN. ESPECIALLY IF IT INVOLVES ME DEALING WITH HALF THE POPULATION OF THE UNIVERSE IN MY HALLS FOR FIVE YEARS. NORMALLY THAT WOULD BE A VERY SHORT TIME FOR ME. I AM BILLIONS OF YEARS OLD. I COULD BLINK AND MISS FIVE IF I CHOSE. HOWEVER, IF I AM DEALING WITH TRILLIONS OF MORTALS THE WHOLE TIME IT WILL BE VERY LONG INDEED.

He pauses for an almost imperceptible instant as his attention is elsewhere.

SCOTT LANG HAS NOW BEEN RESCUED FROM THE QUANTUM REALM. WE ARE SKIPPING THE FIVE YEAR GAP.

"What? No! You just fucked up the plan! One chance in 14,000,605, and you just blew it."

THERE ARE MORE THAN FOURTEEN MILLION WAYS THIS SITUATION COULD END. YOU WATCHED UNTIL YOU FOUND ONE WHERE YOU WON. YOU DID NOT WATCH ALL SUCCESSFUL SCENARIOS. I KNOW THIS, BECAUSE—

I DOOM YOU AND YOUR ALLIES TO SUCCEED IN OBTAINING THE INFINITY STONES, IF YOU ATTEMPT TO OBTAIN THEM.

—I CAN STILL DO THAT. MY WORDS ARE REALITY ITSELF, WITHIN THE LIMITS OF MY POWER—I CANNOT CAUSE SOMEONE WHO ALREADY WIELDS THE STONES TO LOSE THEM, AND I CANNOT AFFECT THE FREE WILLS OF MEN, BUT IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO OBTAIN THE STONES FROM THANOS ANYWAY, I CAN CAUSE EVERYTHING ELSE ON YOUR QUEST TO GO AS WELL AS IT POSSIBLY COULD. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT IT WILL BE EASY.

"That's kinda cool. And scary.

"Thanks, though. Also, since the original plan in which I stayed dead is now FUBAR, can I be alive again? I could really help."

TO RETURN A MORTAL TO LIFE HAS ONLY BEEN DONE A FEW TIMES BEFORE, AND NEVER LIGHTLY. HOWEVER, SINCE THE CURRENT PLAN INVOLVES RESURRECTING SEVERAL TRILLION OF THEM, I SEE NO REASON WHY NOT. I WILL STILL HAVE TO CONFER WITH MY BRETHREN FIRST.

He does that.

IT IS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE WILL OF ERU THAT I RETURN YOU TO LIFE. IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD ASK OF ME BEFORE YOU LEAVE MY DOMAIN?

"Could you send Peter with me? Not Quill, he's worse than useless—the kid. Parker. This is no place for him, either, but Stark's gonna be real beat up about losing him, and I really need him on his A game."

I'LL ALLOW IT.

NOW, IF YOU'LL EXCUSE ME, I'VE GOT A FEW TRILLION HOPEFULLY TEMPORARY SUBJECTS TO CALM DOWN. I SHOULD PROBABLY ALSO CHECK ON FËANOR. ERU ONLY KNOWS WHAT HE'S GOING TO ATTEMPT IN THIS CHAOS.

"Who?"

But Mandos is gone.

He wakes up on a very soft bed in a very beautiful garden. He has a body again—a new body. He feels twenty years old again. And the old injury to his hands, which he had long since learned to compensate for with magic, is gone completely. He could go back to neurosurgery, if he ever gets tired of being a superhero.

He probably won't, and he wouldn't go back to neurosurgery if he did, but the fact that he could is hardly less amazing.

Thank you, he thinks again.

You're welcome.

A man—or god—emerges from the unrealistically colorful trees. He looks just like Námo, except that his robes and hair are ever-changing bright colors instead of black, and his eyes are normal (also changeable) instead of the weird mirror thing.

Hello, he says. His voice is milder than Námo's; he could almost be speaking an actual language, instead of commanding Stephen's mind to form words around his bare thoughts. Perhaps it's because Stephen is no longer dead. He might also just be nicer. Welcome back.

Stephen suddenly becomes aware that he's completely naked, and, embarrassed, covers the critical area with his hands.

I can number the particles in your body. I was hardly even aware of the fact that you weren't wearing clothes until it became important to you. However, there are clothes under the bed, if you would like to put something on.

There is, indeed, a set of grey robes under the bed. They seem a bit rough, but they'll do.

He puts them on. They are a bit rough, not to mention breezy, but they're better than being naked in front of whoever-the-hell-this-new-god-is.

I am called Irmo Lórien, says the new god, answering the questions that he hadn't yet deliberately thought. I am the Power of Dreams and Visions, and this is my domain, the Gardens of Lórien, where the Returned awake, and the sick at heart may be healed.

"Yeah, they're quite lovely. I'm not really in the market for a divine therapist at the moment, though. In fact I've got something quite urgent going on. Where am I in relation to Earth?

"Also—" for he remembers just then—"where's the kid? The other one—Námo—was supposed to send him back too."

My Gardens are in Valinor, the country of the gods, poetically called the Uttermost West, although in fact Earth doesn't have an Uttermost West, being round, and Valinor is currently on a completely separate planet about 25 light-years away. We will get you home in due time.

Peter Parker is in another part of the Gardens. I'm actually having almost this same conversation with him right now. I'll send him over.

A few moments later, Peter arrives in the clearing, wearing the same rough grey robes.

"Hey, wizard dude. This is a lot cooler than I thought dying would be."

"I don't think we're dead anymore."

"Are you sure? This could be Heaven, or something like it—have you ever heard of Valinor? Seems like I have, but I can't quite place where."

"There are a lot of legends. Most of them are at least a little bit true. I've definitely read of places like this, but I don't think I've ever heard of any of the names these god-things keep using. At any rate, we're definitely alive, and able to go back to Earth."

"What are we waiting for, then? Let's go kick some purple ass."

"You are going home to your parents, and staying there. I asked for you to be brought back because it was extremely irresponsible of Stark to bring you into this fight, not so that you could go and get yourself killed again."

"I don't have parents. Fifty-fifty I don't even have Aunt May anymore. And Mr. Stark didn't bring me into this—Thanos is my problem as much as he's anyone's, and I want to fight."

"You're sixteen. This isn't your responsibility. End of story."

Then, to Irmo—"How do we get out of here?"

The Gardens are in a valley of the Mountains of Lamentation in western Valinor, surrounded by pathless wilderness in which not even beasts dwell. The nearest settlement of the Eldar—the immortal Incarnates who dwell in Valinor with us—is six days' walk east of here in a direct line, although most take much longer to travel the distance. From there you will be able to take a train to Valimar or Tirion and a ship thence to Earth, if that is where you wish to go.

I will send a Maia—one of the minor Powers who are our servants and companions—with you as a guide. This is the sort of thing that will interest Olórin; I will ask if he'd like to accompany you.

What looks like an old man in white appears near Irmo.

"I would be honored," he says. "Although, my lord, our guests may have more need of haste than is usual for the Returned. Your realm is six days' walk from Mettanyë by your own choice; you know that you could have them in Tirion in an instant if you wished, and I think they would prefer that."

"Yeah. We would. I'm not walking for six days."

The Gardens are remote from civilization by their nature. I can bend space and time around my domain, but not ignore them. You will be in Tirion by nightfall, if you wish, but I cannot speed your journey much more than that.

"Whatever. Let's go, Gandalf."

Olórin looks puzzled for a second.

"How did you know I was once called that?"

"I didn't—I was making fun of you—wait—are you actually—?

"No fucking way."

"You should watch your language. But the books you're thinking of are translations of a true history. They say as much, quite clearly, in the introduction."

"I've only seen the movies."

"Hold up. We're inside The Lord of the Rings right now?"

"I did play a role in the War of the Ring, yes. But this land, and most of those who dwell here, were already removed from the Circles of the World at that time."

"You know, I was just telling Spidey here how most legends were true, but I didn't think that applied to literal fantasy novels."

"Your world has superheroes and you find Elves unbelievable?"

"I find it unbelievable that everyone has known this story for sixty years and thought it was fictional, when it was actually real."

"Do you think that anyone would have believed Professor Tolkien if he had really insisted that no, he wasn't kidding about the translation thing, and yes, the events of these books actually happened eight thousand years ago?"

"Eh, maybe not. But, I mean, we had Cap even then—"

"Interestingly, the serum that gave Captain Rogers his strength was made from Elvish blood, obtained—in a questionable fashion—by one of the agencies that became S.H.I.E.L.D., who knew of the remnant of the Eldar in Middle-earth before any of Professor Tolkien's work was published. It was found to be possible by craft to give a Man strength and speed equal to any of the High Elves of the West, though one cannot make them immortal. I would call it a black art, but it has been used for good as well as evil, as the Captain demonstrates."

As they speak, they've been walking away from the clearing where Stephen awoke. They crest a hill, and the lush vegetation ends abruptly. On the other side is a sparse pine forest.

"Look now your last on the Gardens of Lórien, fairest of all the places in Arda, if you would. Few are the mortals privileged to breathe the perfume of my lord Irmo's flowers, or to be refreshed by the fountains of Estë. It is not likely you shall ever return."

All of them turn and look back at the gardens one last time.

Then they head on down down the hill and through the forest. It's a long hike, even with Irmo speeding their journey, but the sun is pleasantly warm and the breeze is cool, and the streams that flow through the woods are refreshing and sweet to drink, and seem to appear whenever they get thirsty.

After a while—a few hours, probably, though it seems like it could have been much longer without them noticing—they arrive at a village of Elves, who are astounded to see two mortals emerging from the western wild dressed in the robes of the Returned. Olórin does most of the talking, in a language neither of the others understand. They find a train, a sleek metal-and-glass vehicle that seems like it could have been grown rather than made, which bears them eastward across the fair plains of Valinor with a speed surpassing the swiftest wind.

"You know, I could have done this even faster if I could still make portals. I need to get a new Sling Ring—uh, I realize you have a complicated history with magic rings—"

"Only those made by Sauron. The craft of ring-making among the Eldar long predates his involvement. In fact, the foremost expert in it dwells once more here in Valinor, and though he once forswore his art, it has been many Ages, and he might be persuaded to take it up again for a good cause. Yes, I think we ought to go to Formenos and meet him."

Meanwhile, Tony is feeling kind of like he wants to die.

Part of it is the big Thanos-induced hole through his abdomen which is only technically not fatal. But also—fuck, that was a bad jump—their hyperdrive must be busted, jumps aren't supposed to feel like that—

Also, they're not anywhere near where they were trying to go.

Or are they? They could be on Earth, based on the view out the window. They shouldn't be on the surface, but that's a minor detail.

They've come to rest in a shallow sea beside a beautiful tropical island. They could be somewhere in the South Pacific. Except—Tony's been to the South Pacific, and the best postcard views in Polynesia pale in comparison to this. It's actually too beautiful to be Earth. There's something supernatural about it: the water is just a little too clear, the leaves too green, the sun too bright—

There's no such thing as the supernatural. Impossibly beautiful tropical islands are pretty great, though. Although generally a little far from civilization, and he can't stay here—

Relax, Tony. This is a Good Place.

Tony (mostly) no longer feels like he wants to die. He also kind of feels like time itself has been slowed to a crawl.

"Who said that?"

Not feeling like he wants to die is great, unless he's actually still dying and just prevented from realizing it. Being slowed to a crawl is not.

No one said that. The land itself said that, welcoming him into its blessed embrace.

He's not dying. He can't die here, except by his own choice or violence too sudden for his body to react.

"Who said what?"

"'This is a good place' or something creepy like that."

"I didn't hear anything."

There are people gathering on the shore. It's a mix of men and women, though the men are as long-haired and smooth-faced as the women. All seem to be fairly young adults. Most are dressed in a green and brown fabric of some kind.

They're also carrying longbows, some of which have been drawn and pointed at the ship.

"Uh. We've got company."

Nebula grabs a gun.

"Want me to shoot them? I'm pretty sure this beats whatever they're carrying."

"They're called longbows...this must be some sort of primitive tribe. Don't shoot. I'm going to go talk to them."

"Are we sure it's a good idea to have you as our ambassador?"

He ignores her and presses the button to lower the stairs of the Benatar. He opens the door and steps out onto them.

"Uh, we come in peace," he says to the assembled crowd.

A few lower their bows. Some who didn't have bows drawn draw them.

They shout at him in a language he doesn't recognize.

He goes back into the ship to grab his helmet, which is pretty useless as armor at this point but still contains most of FRIDAY's circuits.

"FRIDAY, translate," he tells her.

Language not recognized.

Damn it, he can understand Nebula who's from another galaxy just fine and now he's about to get shot by some primitive tribe from Earth because of language issues—

YOU ARE FROM A COMIC-BOOK WORLD WHERE ALIENS FROM THE ANDROMEDA GALAXY LOOK LIKE HUMANS WITH BLUE MAKEUP AND SPEAK ENGLISH. YOU ARE NOW IN A COMPETENTLY WRITTEN UNIVERSE THAT CARES A LOT ABOUT LANGUAGES.

What the fuck?

Okay, he's clearly hallucinating. He'll have time enough to get that checked out when he's not in danger of getting shot by primitives with longbows.

"Try harder," he tells FRIDAY.

Running extended search.

Possible match: Sindarin.

"What the hell is Sindarin?"

One of the constructed languages of J.R.R. Tolkien. Sometimes known erroneously, or at least incompletely, as 'Elvish'. There are in fact several Elvish languages created by Tolkien, the others being -

"Okay, well, that obviously can't be right. Your data file does note that that language is fictional, no—?"

Match confirmed with 99% certainty. Proceeding from the assumption that Tolkien's works are historical, as he in fact claims in the introduction to The Lord of the Rings, I conclude that we have landed just offshore of Tol Eressëa, easternmost of the Undying Lands, and the people on the shore there are Elves.

Well, he flies around in a metal suit and beats up bad guys. One of his co-workers is a Norse god. A giant purple dude just killed half of literally everyone with six magic rocks. This probably isn't actually the strangest thing that's ever happened to him. Warping into the world's most popular fantasy novel has to be up there, though.

"Whatever," he tells FRIDAY. "Just tell them whatever will get them to stop pointing bows at us."

She announces something loudly in Sindarin.

An Elf runs onto the beach and shouts something at the others, who lower their bows.

Tony walks down the stairs and wades through the water toward the shore.

It's bath-warm and only a few feet deep.

"Welcome to Tol Eressëa, Mr. Stark," says the elf in vaguely Australian-accented English when Tony reaches shore. "My name is Legolas, son of Thranduil. As of a few hours ago, I am king of the Wood-Elves that you see before you. I believe you may have heard of me."

"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me.

"Also, aren't you supposed to be blond?"

Legolas, who has dark hair, laughs.

"That's what he said. I laughed at him and walked out."

"What who said?"

"The director of that awful movie. Finrod dragged me all the way back to Middle-earth to audition for the role of well, me, because he thought it'd be hilarious. It's why I learned English.

"Anyway, director told me I did perfectly and it's like I was born to play the role, then asked me if I was willing to dye my hair blond. That was when I walked out."

"That may be the most meta thing I've ever heard. It's nice to meet someone who speaks English in this bizarre fictional universe, though."

"I assure you we're not fictional. Actually, you're quite the legend yourself, here—well, mostly among the Noldor, but I have friends in Tirion so I've heard of most of your exploits."

"Well, I can't complain about that.

"Me specifically, or the Avengers in general?"

"You specifically. There are, ah, historical reasons for your appeal among a certain subset of the Noldor—let's just say that 'asshole genius who likes redheads and shiny objects' is a pre-existing archetype among them. Makes you controversial, actually, but you haven't yet screwed up as badly as the original example, so they have hope for you."

"There's slightly more to my character than that.

"Anyway, nice chat, but I kind of have a large hole in my abdomen. Also, a giant purple dude just killed half of everyone, and I kinda need to do something about that."

"We'll get you to a healer right away. And I'm aware—not that the new Enemy is giant and purple, but one of the people that was killed was my father, so I am very aware of the killing part."

"I'm sorry."

Tony is taken to the healers. They do a surprisingly good job with his wound, considering their total ignorance of anything Tony can recognize as modern medicine.

When the probably-magical anaesthesia wears off, he falls into an ordinary but dreamless sleep.

He's awoken by arguing in Elvish outside his door. One of the Elves, by his voice, is probably Legolas, but the other has an accent different from any he's heard in his short time on Eressëa.

"Ugh—FRIDAY, what's going on?"

It appears that a representative of the Noldor, who are one of the groups that live on the mainland, has arrived and is demanding to take you with him. Legolas is perfectly willing to let you go if you choose, but the High King of Tol Eressëa has standing orders that all mortal arrivals are to be brought to him at once.

"The High King?—I thought Legolas was king."

The political structure of Tol Eressëa is an attempt to recreate a number of partially overlapping states that originally existed at different times over a period of several thousand years. It has, accordingly, something of an excess of kings.

I strongly suggest that you sneak off with the Noldor as quickly as possible. The one whom I believe to be the High King is known to dislike humans, but the Noldor are renowned as the 'most skilled of all the Eldar in lore and craft' - it's unclear if that's Tolkien's Old-English rendition of words that would be better translated as 'science' and 'technology' -

"Some technology would be nice. I have to repair a suit of nanite armor and these people have bows and arrows."

Most Noldorin engineering effort appears to have been directed towards magical artifacts whose workings may or may not be possible to explain within the known laws of physics. It is unclear if typical modern conveniences would have been developed by any society in this post-scarcity, post-hardship environment, although the Noldor would be the most likely group to do so.

Legolas appears at his door.

"Mr. Stark? Do you feel well enough to walk? I'm—really sorry about this, but I need to take you to see someone.

"I couldn't help but overhear your conversation, and I agree with your computer. But the law is the law. I don't think he'll try to have you executed for trespassing in the Blessed Realm—satellites pretty well confirm you didn't arrive here by your own power—"

Some parts of this are reassuring. At least they know what computers and satellites are. Other parts are very, very concerning.

"Try to have me—" he blurts.

"Again, it's not likely. He wouldn't do it himself, anyway, he'd just hand you over to the Valar expecting them to do it, and since they presumably brought you here I'm pretty sure they didn't do it just to kill you."

"What are Valar?"

"The Valar—singular, Vala—are the Powers of Arda. You might call them gods."

"I don't remember gods in the Lord of the Rings. Unless—was that what Sauron was? Okay, that makes a lot more sense now."

"It's Sow-ron, not Sore-on. But yes, he was a Maia—one of the minor ones. The greater gods are all truly good, although they tend not to interfere in Middle-earth even when they probably should."

"You don't say.

"Anyway, I was walking before you fixed me up. It wasn't pleasant—walking, that is—but whatever you did to me worked really well, I could probably manage better now."

They leave the hospital and begin to head up the island's central peak. It's not as long a walk as it looks, although from the coolness of the air they must have gained quite a bit of elevation.

At the very peak is a tower of pale grey stone. There are two sentries whose job seems to be to stand outside the doors and open them for visitors; they are wearing apparently ceremonial armor but not actually armed.

The hall within resembles a dense old-growth forest carved entirely out of stone in such detail that the trees almost seem to be alive. The light is dim and it isn't really possible to identify where it's coming from—well, some of it is coming from the two people seated in state at the far end, who are visibly glowing.

Tony walks to the far end of the hall and kneels, briefly, before the thrones, then gets up again without waiting to be prompted.

The king is silver-haired and ancient-eyed, but young and fair of face, taller than any human, regal and immovable as the ancient stone oak which his throne has been made to resemble.

He emits a stream of stern-sounding Elvish at Tony.

His queen is even more inhumanly beautiful than him and nearly as tall. She is so still that Tony could swear she's not even breathing.

You'll have to forgive my husband, she says, though her lips do not move and she makes no sound. In fact he speaks your tongue perfectly well. He thinks it sacrilegious for mortals' tongue to be heard in the Blessed Realm, though I have assured him it is not, and I ought to have a better idea of such things than he.

Okay that's creepy as fuck.

Are you going to translate what he said? he thinks in her direction, testing to see if she can actually read his mind.

Of course not. It was not, ah, particularly diplomatic. Let's see if he can't do better the second time.

"Mortal and guest," he says, with a snooty British accent that sounds a bit fake. "Trespasser in the Blessed Realm. Thou standest now before Elu Thingol, Lord of Doriath and of Tol Eressëa, High King of all the Elves of the Twilight, who hath gazed with his own eyes upon the Light of the Trees of Valinor ere the Sun and Moon were made. What hast thou to say for thyself?"

Tony ignores the pretentious titles and the archaic language and the claim to be older than the Sun.

"Uh, I can hardly be considered trespassing when I didn't mean to come here and still have barely any idea where I am. A few hours ago I thought he was a character in a book—" he gestures at Legolas—"and apparently they didn't make a movie of the book you're from, because I hadn't even heard of you."

"Yes, the accursed Kinslayer gave an old history to a mortal, and he translated it, and called our history his own invention, and apparently now it's become quite popular among the Men of Middle-earth. I had hoped that this would save me from the tedium of having to explain to future errant mortals the full import of their being suffered to walk in the land of the Powers. Apparently this is not the case."

"Uh, I remember Frodo getting on a boat at the end of Return of the King. I suppose this is where he was going?"

"Very good. But Frodo Baggins was the hero of the Third Age. He destroyed the Enemy at unimaginable cost to himself, such that there was nothing left for him but to come to the West or slowly die of despair. Who are you, to deserve the same fate?"

"I—" he pauses for effect—"am Iron Man."

"Yes, yes. And no doubt you consider yourself the hero of your own Age, with your own Fellowship to go along. But there's one difference between you and Frodo. You lost."

"Not yet.

"And at any rate, when I showed up here, I wasn't imagining it as a fucking reward. If I was brought here for any reason at all, Your Wise and Benevolent Majesty, it was probably to get your help. Speaking of which—this is the land of the gods, no? Where were they while we were out there getting our asses kicked?"

A look of recognition spreads across Elu's face.

"Oh," he says. "You're the new Eärendil. Allowed to come make a last, desperate plea for the aid of the Valar. I don't think it will do you any good, this time. The attack of the new Enemy slew half of the Powers as easily as it slew half of all Elves and Men."

Based on the panicked whispers that spread around the room, this probably wasn't widely disseminated information before.

"Nonetheless, you are beyond my authority. I am remanding you to the custody of the Valar, who brought you here, and must have some idea of your purpose if they did, or will punish you appropriately if they did not. Melian will escort you to them."

There is a flash of brilliant light, and then there is a woman—a goddess, probably—standing between Tony and Thingol. It is a provably true fact that she is the most beautiful being in the universe, though she isn't ostentatious about it: she's probably shorter than Melian, and not physically glowing in the sense that one could see by, and dressed in unornamented white. She does not need anything more. If she wore the fairest of jewels, the Silmarils of old themselves, their light would only seem to cast a shadow before her. But her eyes are the deep blue of late evening, and sparkle as though the host of the stars were only their reflection, and her skin shines as though all light in the universe were her creation. (It is.)

Looking at her is like looking directly at the Sun, but it's nearly impossible to look away. The memory of the Incarnates is too small to capture her beauty, and every moment one looks on her seems to be their first and their last. One might be content to stare at her for all the Ages of Arda.

Thingol gets up from his throne, kneels, and bows his head.

Okay, this new arrival must be really important. Tony does the same.

THERE WILL BE NO NEED FOR AN ESCORT FOR MY GUESTS, LORD ELWË. The sky seems to ring like a bell when she speaks.

Then she turns to Tony and smiles. RISE, TONY STARK. I AM VARDA ELENTÁRI, LADY OF THE STARS. COME, AND JOIN OUR COUNCIL.

Tony feels his heart stop for an uncomfortably long time. Long enough that, were he wearing his suit with vitals monitoring, FRIDAY would definitely be beeping at him right now. But he recovers, and rises to his feet.

YOU TOO, FINDARÁTO. She is speaking to the Noldo who was arguing with Legolas earlier, who had accompanied them to Thingol's court.

The world changes, and now Varda, Tony, and Findaráto are standing on a smooth hard floor that is neither metal nor stone nor glass, beneath a transparent dome. Based on the color of the sky beyond, they must be almost at the edge of space.

Tony walks to the edge of the room and looks down.

He's on top of a really high mountain. Its base lies nine miles below him, covered in equatorial jungle, but it extends up through cold forest, and alpine tundra, and everlasting ice, to an uttermost tower of stone in air so thin and cold that not even snow can form, and on that tower stands Ilmarin, mansion of Manwë and Varda, from which one can see the entire world.

He can see Tol Eressëa out to sea and far below him, in impossible detail, down to the smallest leaf, down to the cells that make up the leaves, and on scales smaller still. He can see the planet's curvature, easily, but he can see beyond the horizon, to the other side of the world. If he looks up he can see stars, thousands of light-years away, with planets around them, and on those planets, craters and continents and oceans and forests and individual trees—

He can see Earth, if he wants to.

He's afraid to look.

Varda looks at Tony playing with his new infinite-resolution vision, and laughs, a sound as though the crystal spheres of heaven had been made into wind chimes. IT'S COOL, I KNOW. TRY NOT TO GET LOST IN IT. WERE MY HUSBAND WITH ME, I COULD HEAR AS WELL AS SEE ALL THINGS THAT CAME TO PASS IN THE UNIVERSE. BUT— Her words fail, and she gestures to the two thrones of translucent crystal in the center of the room, and Tony remembers what Elu said about the Snap extending even to the Valar.

"I'm sorry. We're going to beat him."

I KNOW.

HE IS HERE. The sky beyond Ilmarin seems to zoom in on a particular star system, and on a green planet, and then on Thanos himself. He's picking some sort of large vegetable.

I COULD, AND VERY MUCH WANT TO, DESTROY HIS WHOLE PLANET IN AN INSTANT, BUT I DO NOT THINK IT WOULD BE THE WILL OF ERU.

"Is he—farming?"

"He called it the Garden. His work is done, and now he means to rest. You could kill him, if you like. I don't think he would care. But he will destroy the stones before you can manage it—the Time Stone lets him see far enough into the future to be forewarned."

"How did you get up here?"

"The ship." She points out the window; the Benatar is docked to one of the many wings of Varda's celestial mansion. "There was a voice calling me. I followed it. I think it was her." She points at Varda.

IT WAS.

"So, uh, what's the plan here?"

"I was going to ask you that.

"Ah, I don't think we've met. Findaráto Ingoldo called Finrod Felagund, one of far too many Princes of the Noldor, first ambassador of the Eldar to the race of Men."

"Tony Stark, called—well, you know, apparently."

"Iron Man. In Quenya that could almost be a real name—Atanango or something like that. Yes, I'm familiar with your deeds, although I was a friend of your species long before you started doing anything interesting."

"I'm not sure whether that's a compliment or an insult. To me, or to my species."

"Take it as a compliment. You're way more interesting than us, now."

"Anyway, I have a suit of nanite armor powered by a miniature fusion reactor that I need to repair and I've yet to see any indication that your tech level is remotely suitable for the job, so the plan is probably going to involve me going back to Earth. You're welcome to come along, if you like. Goddess lady should probably stay here, she might accidentally kill people."

"We're generally exactly as high-tech as we need to be—which isn't very, this land is safe and plentiful and necessity is the mother of invention, as I've heard it said. But the Mírtani, in Formenos, like to experiment for experiment's sake, and they've had like ten thousand years to do it, so they can probably help you out."

"Cool." He turns to Varda. "Can we go to—what was it?—Formenos? Also, can you, like, send me the coordinates for Thanos' planet—do you even know what that means—"

YES. YOU WILL LIKE FORMENOS. THE GREATEST OF ALL THE ELDAR IN LORE AND CRAFT ONCE WORKED THERE, THOUGH OTHERS MADE IT A PLACE OF LEARNING AND NOT A PLACE OF SECRETS. I WILL HAVE WHAT REMAINS OF YOUR SUIT SENT THERE ALSO, AND I WILL ENSURE THAT YOU ARE ABLE TO FIND THANOS AGAIN BY LESS SUPERNATURAL MEANS.

She turns to Nebula. YOU, DAUGHTER OF THANOS, HAVE A DIFFERENT TASK. PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT TASK OF ALL, AND THE MOST DIFFICULT. IT IS APPOINTED TO YOU TO SEE—well, I will let Eru worry about whether such creatures as Thanos may still be said to 'love'. But perhaps you can cause him to let down his guard long enough for the Stones to be taken from him.

And then she is alone on Taniquetil.

Meanwhile, Loki is pretty sure this isn't Valhalla. He didn't really want to go there anyway—too much feasting, for one—but he doesn't like this either. This looks like the sort of place where there are rather few opportunities for mischief, or even for anything at all interesting to ever happen to him again.

He can think of a few reasons why he might have ended up in the wrong afterlife.

One, being strangled by Thanos after trying to stab him didn't count as a proper death in combat. Asgard has all sorts of rules about honorable combat that he had always made a point of ignoring. Honor doesn't keep people alive. Except, apparently, in Valhalla.

Two, Thanos used the Infinity Stones to deny him his proper afterlife. No resurrections this time, he'd said. But something like that was a job for the Soul Stone, which he hadn't had at the moment of Loki's death.

Three, Valhalla didn't actually exist at all. But it was supposedly a physical place in Asgard. He had never visited, but Odin supposedly had. Odin, who had lied to him about his species and would have continued doing so to his dying day if he'd had the choice—

Four, Asgard, and therefore presumably Valhalla, had been destroyed. Being a physical place had its disadvantages.

Five, he wasn't actually Asgardian.

There are tapestries on the walls of this place that show him the past, present, and future. Mostly they show him things he doesn't want to see: the suffering of civilians during his attempted conquest of Midgard; Thanos, whom he had once served, advancing mercilessly towards his twisted goal. He starts walking, trying to get away from them, but these Halls seem to go on forever.

When he has been walking for what seems like several days (the dead neither tire nor thirst), a wave of power passes through the Halls and tears all the tapestries to shreds, and the space around him, which once was empty, is now filled near to bursting with other souls. He doesn't know exactly what's happened, but he knows Thanos did it.

At almost the same moment, he reaches the edge of the Halls.

There's a spirit there that burns brighter than most, turned away from the others to face out into the void.

"Hail, stranger."

"Once these Halls were vast enough that one might never meet another soul if so one chose. Now they seem crowded. How is this so?"

"Thanos must have succeeded."

"Who?"

"Y'know," he says, as though it were absurd for whoever this is to not have heard of Thanos by now. "Yea high. Purple. Thinks he has to bring balance to the universe—by murdering half the population—"

"That is absurd. Not even my old Enemy could have done such a thing, and he certainly would have if he could."

"Infinity Stones tend to make the absurd possible. That's kind of their whole reason for existing, I think."

"Hold on."

This random stranger, whom he had kind of wanted to get away from, has just become about five orders of magnitude more interesting. Not, precisely speaking, in a good way.

"What exactly is an 'Infinity Stone'?"

"Uh, I'm not sure of the technical details. But they're some sort of primordial naked singularities, imprisoned in crystal by the arts of the Celestials before the dawn of time."

Well, the technical details are definitely a bit off. But the resemblance is well within the bounds expected for a 15,000-year-old legend, and it's unlikely that two sets of objects that similar would exist.

"I do not know you, stranger," he says, pride and rage and excitement conflicting within him, "but if you know these 'Infinity Stones' then you do know me, corrupt as the tale of their making has become. Their right name is the Silmarils, and they are my work.

"As well as my property."

"You're a Celestial?" He hadn't known it was possible for Celestials to die.

"No! That part is a vile and abominable lie; it seems that, not content merely to steal the jewels themselves, the jealous Valar now lay claim to their authorship. But it is not so. I am an Elf, a Noldo of the House of Finwë, called Curüfinwe Fëanáro at my birth and Fëanor in history, and the Silmarils are the work of my hands and mind, and no other's. This Thanos, if he has taken them and used them for unspeakable evil, has made of himself my sworn enemy: for even in death I am oath-bound to pursue with unrelenting hate him whoso keeps my sacred jewels from me.

"Who are you?"

An álf created the Infinity Stones? That doesn't exactly seem plausible. Probably there is a very significant miscommunication happening here somewhere.

But whoever this álf is, he's very powerful, if he created artifacts that even had the slightest chance of being confused with the Stones, and in his current state of confusion he considers himself obligated to fight Thanos. This miscommunication might be useful.

"I am Loki, of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose. Perhaps not quite as glorious as yours, I'm afraid."

("I am Loki, of Valinor," Fëanor will hear him say. Fëanor isn't yet aware that he's using translation magic that sometimes gets a bit overzealous with any proper noun that has an etymological equivalent in the target language.)

"Huh? You're not an Elf, or an Ainu, and I'm pretty sure you're not a Man, although I don't think those are allowed in ValinorAsgard anyway."

"ÁlfarElves live in AlfheimEldamar. I don't think they're actually native to it but I'm pretty sure they didn't come from AsgardValinor. Besides, how can you have heard of AsgardValinor and not recognize an AsgardianValinorean?"

...

"Okay, almost nothing in that sentence made sense, but for one, there's no such race as 'ValinoreansAsgardians', unless you mean the Valar, which you're definitely not."

And then he finally realizes.

"Hold on. I believe there is something very wrong with my translation magic—I actually didn't expect it to work at all in death—and I believe it has derived a false equivalence between our homelands. Let me turn it off, and hopefully we'll still be able to understand each other, since I'm pretty sure neither of us are speaking actual words anyway."

He deactivates his Allspeak.

Fëanor is easily distracted, especially by things like "translation magic".

"You have translation magic? Is it universal? How does it work? I tried to do something like that, a ring or something that would allow you to understand any language you heard, but it would need to be programmed with universal principles of grammar, and I only had basically two languages to study—although Valarin probably counts for at least three—so I couldn't really be sure what those were—"

"Yes it's universal, although it sometimes takes a little while to adjust to new languages, and sometimes it has bugs like the proper noun thing we were just experiencing—what, by the way, are the meanings of all the words you were trying to say to me that came out as 'Asgard' and 'Alfheim' and such—?

"I have no idea how it works. Most Asgardians get it installed as soon as we're old enough to speak."

"What sort of thing is it that gets installed? Like a Ring? An artifact?

"Valinor means the country of the Valar—the gods, if you will, though I've never found them particularly worthy of worship. Eldamar is Elvenhome—and 'Elda', Elf, breaks down to 'star-folk', we're also called Quendi which is 'speakers'—

"How many etymologically unrelated languages are there in your world?"

"Uh, it's a brain implant—keep in mind we don't have 'magic' per se, it's just very aesthetic tech that only technically doesn't violate the laws of physics—

"Asgard is the country of the Æsir, which is the proper name of our species—we tend to go by 'Asgardian' in mixed company because the singular form of 'Æsir' has an unfortunate resemblance to a vulgar Midgardian word for the buttocks—you seemed pretty sure that we don't resemble your Valar, but Asgardian is actually a language from Midgard that we speak for complicated historical reasons, and the people we borrowed it from did think we were gods, so that might explain some of the confusion.

"There's got to be millions of languages in the universe that's known to us—galaxies are big and we've explored two plus a few smaller satellite ones—but without Allspeak I know Asgardian and Vaniran and Álfish and pretty good English and a bit of Groot because ugh Thor—"

"Midgard is—'middle-country'—Endórë? Also millions of languages, I've really got to get out of here—could you say something in 'Álfish' and 'Vaniran'? I want to see something. I realize we're probably using some form of thoughtspeech, focus on the actual sound of the words instead of the meanings—"

"Is Endórë what you call the galactic backwater filled with useless humans that somehow manages to be the center of universal-scale events on a regular basis?

"This is a sentence in Álfish," he says, in corrupt but recognizable Sindarin.

"This is a sentence in Vaniran," he says, in nearly perfect Vanyarin Quendya.

"—uh, now that I think about it, I think those two are actually related."

"And this habitation might seem a little thing to those who consider only the majesty of the Ainur, and not their terrible sharpness; as who should take the whole field of Arda for the foundation of a pillar and so raise it until the cone of its summit were more bitter than a needle—" he intones—"which is to say, yes, basically, the apparent backwardness is by design, though I don't understand it.

"And okay, clearly some Elves got very lost at some point. What do you know about the 'Vanir'?"

"They look kind of like álfar, but taller, stronger, and blonder. My mother was of that people. Their king is called Yngvi."

"...Ingwë of the Vanyar," he corrects, "but seriously, this time: who are you and what have you done with my universe?"

ALL GREAT WORKS INSPIRE IMITATION, FËANÁRO; YOU KNOW THIS. LOKI IS NOT TO BLAME.

"Maybe yours do; mine are inimitable. No one ever made some kind-of-shiny jewels called the 'Sylmarylls' or something."

"Who was that?"

"Eru, I presume. The supposedly-benevolent creator of the universe. My personal heresy is that he's actually optimizing it for entertainment value rather than the well-being of any of us who actually live here. He isn't normally that talkative, but I also thought he was very insistent on only having two races of intelligent Incarnates and yet here you are."

"I don't think the One-Above-All has ever made himself known except when the destruction of the entire universe was imminent. I suppose Thanos could probably bring him to the table. You might be on that level too, if you really made the Infinity Stones."

"Nah he just threw a rampaging army of Balrogs at me and then caused the Silmarils to get 'lost' after they'd caused their fair share of murder and horrible tragedy. The Silmarils can theoretically kill Valar and turn the universe into a perfectly entropic hot gas of non-interacting particles but fighting Eru isn't even a metaphysically coherent concept."

"Is there a way out of here? Where I'm from it is not customary for the dead to return to the world of the living but I had always planned on it if I continued to exist in any recognizable form."

"It's customary for us, I'm just not allowed to on account of being considered dangerous. It's quite possible to leave anyway—I just need outside help, a Silmaril, and the means to make a new body without the aid of the Valar, and I haven't had any of those."

"I might be able to request outside help—I'm pretty sure my magic works while dead and my magic is visual and auditory illusions at theoretically unlimited range as long as I have a line of sight—although that might be hard to get in here—and Asgard had good cloning tech—it kinda got blown up but I don't think any of its tech was completely unique, we could find somewhere else with it. Infinity Stones might be harder, considering, y'know, Thanos."

(Actually, whatever these Silmarils are, they're not the Infinity Stones, so this might actually be a viable plan.)

"The tapestries let you see any point in space and time, but they all got destroyed a little while ago—do you know what happened there—I'm assuming that if Thanos killed half the population of the universe he didn't exclude the Valar from that and he got Vairë—"

"I don't know who Vairë is but if that sounds plausible to you then sure. I also don't think tapestries would be sufficient for the line-of-sight thing; images generally don't work."

"Vairë is the Weaver, sort of a history and time goddess. She made the tapestries and I guess they're considered somehow part of her being. If any image would be considered a direct window onto the thing it shows, it would be Vairë's tapestries.

"My mother is her assistant. We should try to find her. We don't speak much anymore but if anyone in here will help us she will."

They start looking for Míriel. As is usual in Mandos, she'll be found if and only if she or a higher power wants her to be.

She wants to be found. She's been looking for Fëanor too.

A living mortal could not be seen at all by the Dead in Mandos, but a living Calaquendë glows very brightly in the gloom of the Halls. She makes everything around her seem bright silver, like a miniature Telperion.

"Oh, Fëanáro, darling. What have you gotten yourself into this time? Who is this?"

"The sudden appearance of half the world's population here is not my doing, although—apparently—the Silmarils were used. I'm currently searching for a way to recover the jewels and hopefully reverse it in the process. This is Loki, an Asgardian. He has magic that will allow us to send a message to the outside, but only if we can repair the tapestries. Do you know what happened to Vairë?"

Míriel looks very worried.

"I knew those cursed things were more dangerous than they looked! Vairë just...turned to dust, suddenly, a little while ago. If I'd known that your jewels could kill the Valar I'd have..." She actually has no idea what she would have done.

"You know, I can take a message out of Mandos, if you need, without needing the tapestries or magic. I'm not technically permitted to facilitate communication between the Living and the Dead, but I'm pretty sure Mandos isn't concerned about being a stickler for the rules at the moment."

"I made the Silmarils to preserve the light of Valinor beyond the rule of the Valar. That they could also be used as powerful weapons was a necessary side effect of their design, and one I kept secret for a...contingency. It should remain so—do not tell anyone who does not already know what artifacts were used to accomplish this attack. This is very important. I allowed myself and my sons to be thought madmen and murderers rather than allow the world to know why it was the most important thing in the universe that I not allow anyone I did not trust completely to handle the Silmarils. Hopefully some things make more sense now.

"Can you take a message to Endórë?"

"That might take a while. It's a separate planet now, you know."

"And I need you here, to help me work on the Loom in case we need a backup plan."

"What's the message, anyway?"

"That we are trying to escape Mandos, and need to be rescued by living allies with a Silmaril—or something that can serve its function of navigating twisted spatial geometry, since those seem to be unavailable—and cloning technology. I believe that Loki knows some people we can contact."

"They call themselves the Avengers—'Earth's mightiest heroes'. They're quite famous; you won't have trouble finding them. They're—not exactly my allies, under normal circumstances—but these are obviously not normal circumstances, and they are trustworthy though they won't be inclined to trust me. My brother is one, however, and I don't think he'll refuse the chance to rescue me from death."

"Mother—can you carry that message to someone—trustworthy—in Valinor, and have them carry it on to the 'Avengers' in Endórë, and come back here to help me work on the Loom?"

"I don't think trying to escape Mandos is a good idea. But I don't doubt you can do it, or that you're going to try, whatever I say. Yes, I can carry a message."

She leads them to the room where the now-broken Loom of Vairë is kept, then leaves them and walks unobstructed, as one of the gods, out the high iron gates into the grey Forest of Twilight. The wind off the Outer Sea is wet and chill, and rain threatens, and soon comes, but she walks on through it. There is a maze twisted into space itself around the Halls of Mandos so that errant travelers may not reach the gates unless Mandos himself permit them, but she knows all the quickest paths through it. She does not have to make the weeklong walk back to civilization which the Returned do; she is at Mettanyë within the hour.

The Oronairë, the Mountains of Lamentation, were made to look ancient; nothing in Valinor is more than twenty-five million subjective years old, and had the mountains formed by the usual geological processes they would all be as knife-edged as the Pelóri. To be as worn-down as they are, under the time-slowing effects of Valinor, the Oronairë would have to be older than the universe. In a certain sense, they are, for the gods are, and to go beyond the Oronairë, it is said, is to see the true nature of the gods, stripped of the shapes that they wear for the Children's comfort. The low mountains divide the sunny plains where the Eldar dwell, where once the full light of the Trees shone, from the empty, pathless, and twilit wilderness of the west beyond west, where few living things have walked, and none that have not passed through death.

At the eastern feet of the mountains lies a small village, the last outpost of Elvish civilization. It was built sometime in the Second Age, by the first of the Returned who came back out of the western wild; they called it Mettanyë, a poetic word for the End, and it has stayed true to its name: none has ever built anything further west. Those who choose to make their homes here are whispered about in Tirion and Alqualondë far away east—most are Returned, and of those in particular it is said that they must not believe themselves worthy to return to life fully.

Míriel is greeted coming into town by an elf she does not know, but seems to recognize her. "What is this?" she asks. "Half the living taken away, and now the dead return unlooked-for from beyond the western wild! First two mortals, and now the Grey Seamstress, who swore herself to eternal death before the Ages of the World began. Shall Fëanor himself come over the hills next?"

Míriel laughs. "Probably," she says, "if he has his way about it. Although I've actually been alive since not long after my husband passed. I remained living in the Halls, serving the Weaver, until the same attack of some new Enemy that took half of you took her."

The elf is horrified. "Is it a new Enemy?" she asks, at a whisper. "Or has the old one come back to us as well, with powers yet greater than before?"

"No, not Melkor. I ought not say more.

"I need to get to Endórë. Although—you said two mortals passed through here? That is unusual, and probably significant. What did they look like and where were they going?"

She osanwës the image. "A grown man and a youth, perhaps in his forties were he one of us; I know not how mortals mature. Olórin was with them. I believe that they were enemies of the new Enemy, and were headed to Endórë as well, by way of Tirion. You'll be able to check at the train station, though."

She goes to the train station and greets the attendant there.

"First of all, do not be so astonished by my appearance. Do people actually believe I swore an oath to stay dead forever? I know that sort of foolishness runs in the family, but Finwë could have dealt with his problems, had that been the cost.

"Second, I have urgent business of which I can speak little. I need to know what became of two mortals and a Maia who passed this way a little while ago. Supposedly they may know how the new Enemy may be defeated."

"I can't say that I've ever believed one way or the other, my lady," he says. He's a Noldo by his voice and features, but not one she recognizes. "But I don't think anyone thought you were, ah, like your son in that regard.

"And is that why Mandos sent them back? I suppose that's a reason at least as valid as 'Eru is a sucker for true love', if it's true. Here, I can check where they went—"

He runs a search on his computer. "Original destination was Tirion. But they changed trains at Valimar and are now in—Formenos." He says the word as though it were only a slightly more desirable destination than Angband.

"Book me passage there as well, please."

"Yes, my lady," he says, trying not to think she's insane for it—she's his mother after all—

Her great-grandson greets her on the platform when she arrives.

"Grandmother*," he says. "You won't believe the messages Nolofinwë has been getting from World's End—'The Battle of Battles is upon us indeed! She returns from beyond the hills who was sworn to death unending ere the rising of the Sun'—but I guess people who choose to live at a place called World's End probably have a tendency to melodrama. Though I can't say I'm unsurprised to see you," he adds.

*Quenya only has one word per gender for ancestors more distant than a parent; otherwise, with the number of generations that tend to be alive at once among the Elves, the 'great-' compounds could get quite long.

"Thankfully I was not required to swear not to return to life—the Valar didn't have any reason to go that far and I'd have refused them if it had been a condition—"

They are alone on the platform, but she dares not speak the next part aloud. Fëanáro believes the Silmarils were used in the attack, she sends. He has a plan to get out of Mandos that's probably going to be a disaster but is still probably our best chance of doing anything about this situation—the Valar can't, whoever this was can kill them too. I need you to take a message to a group called the 'Avengers' in Endórë—I know you're probably busy, but he was very insistent about only going through very trustworthy people. And supposedly two Returned mortals also arrived here? I'd like to know more about that.

Celebrimbor osanwë-laughs. And I suppose Fëanáro's definition of 'very trustworthy' is 'blood-related to him and not to Indis'! But you can deliver your message and answer your questions all at once: the two Returned belong to the Avengers, and a third appeared from thin air in the Great Hall not long after they arrived—sent, apparently, by Varda herself. They say that the attack was done by someone called Thanos, using something called 'Infinity Stones'—perhaps these could be the Silmarils, though I haven't asked too deeply into it. If Fëanáro's jewels can kill the Valar he was right to keep that knowledge secret.

But if you still need a messenger I am otherwise occupied. I am helping the Avengers restore their equipment—one wields what is for all purposes a Ring of Power, and making those is, I daresay, a more specialized skill than carrying a message, Fëanáro's classified-information policies be damned.

"I'd like to talk to them—wait, how have you been communicating? Surely they don't speak Quenya."

"Osanwë, at first, but one of them has software that does speak Quenya—probably from Tolkien—and the first thing he did when I gave him access to the nanite printer was make translation earpieces for him and his companions. We still have to use osanwë to understand them, but I've been working on learning their language that way."

Míriel doesn't understand the technobabble but she gets the point.

Celebrimbor leads her to where Stark, Strange, and Spider-Man are.

"A star shines on the hour of our meeting, Avengers."

"Uh, hi. Who are you?"

"I am called Míriel Therindë. You would not have heard of me, but my son may be...uniquely able to help you. Unfortunately, he's currently dead."

"That doesn't seem to be much of a setback around here."

"Your companions have been returned to life by the the special grace of Mandos, Doomsman of the Gods. Only once before has such a boon has been granted to one of mortal race."

"I hope your god of doom realizes that we plan on repeating it a few trillion more times before this is all over. Also, I'm fairly sure you're not 'of mortal race' so I don't think this is relevant."

"I am assuming that is the plan and Mandos is not just doing it now because it would be difficult for him to reembody that many.

"Ordinarily the Eldar who are slain return to life after a time of rest and healing, but Fëanáro is...not permitted. He is considered too dangerous to live."

"We need dangerous right now, as long as it's to Thanos rather than us."

"His dangerousness is primarily due to an inviolable oath he swore long ago, to recover at all costs three small objects. Which Thanos currently has, so Fëanáro will be your ally as long as you do not withhold his jewels from him once this is done."

Well the plan as far as he's concerned is to destroy the Infinity Stones once they've brought everybody back but they can burn that bridge when they come to it. There's just one problem—

"Uh, three objects?"

"The Silmarils, the Great Jewels, in which the ancient Light of Valinor is alone preserved, and with which the fates of Arda are eternally bound up."

What is it with shiny rocks and the fate of the universe—

"Yeah I can see how there might have been some confusion there but I am fairly sure those are not the same thing as the Infinity Stones, of which there are six."

Oh thank Eru.

"That is...good to know. I doubt this will make Fëanáro suddenly unwilling to help fight Thanos, but it will make rescuing him easier—a Silmaril is one of the required ingredients. You will also need the ability to artificially manufacture a new body."

"Okay, where do we get a Silmaril? And Earth doesn't have cloning yet—maybe Wakanda does but our best bet there is going to be Asgard—I've been avoiding calling home because I don't want to know just how bad it is there but I can probably reach Thor—"

"The Silmarils were 'lost forever' but that's by a dark-age-Endórë standard of impossibility. There's one in a ship orbiting this planet and one at the bottom of the ocean on Endórë. The third might be somewhat more difficult.

"Asgard. That's where Fëanáro's new friend is from."

"His equally-dead friend, I assume. Do you happen to know this friend's name?" If Thor's been Snapped and they need to reach Asgard that's bad, Earth doesn't have another point of contact—

"I think he said his name was Loki."

And he thought Thor being dead was the worst-case scenario here.

"Uh, that's no good. You may not have heard this, but Loki? He tried to conquer Earth. Killed thousands of people and nearly destroyed New York City."

And Fëanáro—no, that is not where she wants to take this conversation.

"We can leave him dead, I suppose."

"Yeah.

"Alright, FRIDAY—patch me through—"

Long pause.

I am trying to use their computer system to route the call, but I have been prevented. It appears they have actually managed to implement an effective security protocol.

Celebrimbor gets an alert on his phone and figures out what's going on fairly quickly.

"You know, you could have just asked," he says to Tony.

"Sorry. I'm not used to having to."

"You should acquire the habit anyway."

But he allows FRIDAY to use the lab's computer to contact the Avengers Facility.

"I couldn't stop him."

"Not yet."

"Oh my God, Tony—"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. The world needed saving, and you—"

"Didn't save it. But you can be damn sure we're gonna avenge it."

"What's your situation there, Tony?"

"Uh—I suppose this might be a little less weird for you than it was for me—you went into the ice before Lord of the Rings was a thing—"

"I haven't been living under a rock since I came out. But I know about that part, twice. I read a lot of SHIELD files, when I was trying to track down Peggy—it's all in there. And then Nebula appeared out of thin air and explained the whole thing to us.

"I mean—who'd he get, on your end—"

"Mostly people you don't know. Pretty much everyone I was with, though. A wizard. A idiot and his crew of aliens. And the kid.

"Then the literal god of death sent back the wizard and the kid."

"There's only one God, Tony."

"They call themselves the Powers—Valar in the local language. But gods is a very useful approximation. Anyway, we're currently working on a plan to resurrect a guy who made another set of shiny rocks that are similar enough to the Infinity Stones to get confused, might give us an advantage—death god doesn't like him, so we're having to do this the hard way. I need to talk to Thor."

"Hey."

"Thor—does Asgard have cloning tech?"

"Asgard has been destroyed."

"What."

"My sister—Odin's firstborn—Hela, Goddess of Death—escaped her prison. She was out of control, and she drew her power from Asgard. Destroying it was the only way to stop her. It was fated to happen."

"Huh. Well that's inconvenient."

"Wakanda might be able to do it. I'll check."

"Okay. Part two of the plan is we need one of the other set of shiny rocks. Apparently there's one at the bottom of the ocean somewhere on Earth—can you give me anything more specific than that, Míriel—"

"Off the northwest coast of the major landmass of the eastern hemisphere. I really can't be more specific than that."

"They're extremely radioactive."

"Well, that—will make it easy to find I suppose. Banner should have the equipment to do it—is he available?"

"No. It's late here, I'll call him in the morning and tell him to come in."

"Sounds good. See you."

He disconnects the call and goes back to working on his suit.

About an hour later, the Avengers Facility calls back.

"Hey—I thought you were going to call back in the morning."

"It is the morning."

"What—how long has it been since Thanos snapped?"

"Four days."

"What the fuck."

"Language. How long has it been for you?"

"Hard to say—seems like eight, ten hours since I showed up here."

"Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention. Subjective time in Valinor passes at approximately one-tenth the rate it does on Earth."

"... That is really the sort of thing that ought to have been mentioned. We need to get out of here—every second we spend we're wasting nine—"

"Is Banner there?"

"Yeah, I'll put you through to the lab."

"Hey, Tony. I've been running a scan for anomalous gamma sources. There are two major ones on Earth: one on the floor of the North Sea, the other inside an extinct volcano in Sokovia."

"Okay neither of those sound easy to get to but the bottom of the ocean sounds better than entombed in solid rock."

"Wait."

No one knows how Olórin got there or how long he's been listening, but he's standing at the door.

"Unless I be mistaken, this Silmaril is not entombed in solid rock." Then he added wistfully: "To think that I held it in my hand—and did not know—but of course—"

"What do you mean?"

"I believe that this mountain of which you speak is the same which was long ago called the Lonely Mountain, Erebor in the Elven-tongue. Once a great kingdom of Dwarves dwelt within, and there they found a jewel which they treasured above all the other riches of the Earth. I did not know, when I dealt with it long ago, that it was the Silmaril that Maedhros son of Fëanor threw into a chasm in his despair, which must have passed through the fires of the Earth to be disgorged when Erebor was formed.

"The jewel was interred with their king, Thorin II, called Oakenshield. I do not know what of the ancient passages through the mountain have been lost to the shifting of the Earth, but I doubt that none remain. It is probably still possible to retrieve the stone."

"Alright, in that case I want to grab both of them. I can get the ocean one myself as soon as I can arrange transport back to Earth. Cap, I'll leave the rest of the team assignments to you."

"I am not likely to be popular in Sokovia so I'll head back to Wakanda and see where we can get on the cloning front. Nat, Bruce, and Thor can go to Sokovia. Send the kid home. Strange can do what he wants."

Strange looks up from where he's working with Celebrimbor.

"We don't expect to be done with the new Sling Ring for a while longer. I'm staying here."

"I'm also sending one of my own people with you. The Oath was foolish but the Silmarils are still my family's property, and I don't want them ending up in some mortal research facility."

"Do you have any people who have ever been to Earth?"

"Most of them."

"Within the last five thousand years."

"Two. Unfortunately Thanos took one and the one that remains is..." He sighs. "Well, let me go talk to him."

He goes up to the second floor of the lab.

There's an elf sitting in the middle of the floor, curled into a ball with his face between his knees.

"Calanáro."

He looks up.

"What."

"I think I've found a way that you can help."

He leaps to his feet in a single angry bound.

"Oh really! I can help? We could have helped before he got all the fucking Infinity Stones, now they're gone—"

He crumples back to the ground and starts crying again.

"I'm sorry. But they're not gone forever, no more than any of our people would be; you know this."

"Are you sure about that? He killed the fucking Valar, Tyelpe—I mean, Lord Curufinwë, Heir of Fëanor, O mighty among the Eldar in craft and lore, and so forth." (Celebrimbor hates both titles and his father-name and Calanáro knows it.) "They're not in Mandos, why would any of us receive a kinder fate?"

"They are in Mandos; two of our mortal guests are Thanos' victims who have returned from there.

"And I am not your lord. But I wield authority in this city as I must, and I thought that I could not in good conscience allow you to risk being parted from your newborn child. This has been our law since the days of Beleriand. But now the parting has been made regardless, and I see that I was wrong.

"The Men who oppose Thanos are going to try to retrieve a Silmaril to use against him." (The part about resurrecting Fëanor seems vaguely like classified information.) "I need you to keep an eye on them—make sure the jewel ends up here when all is said and done, and not in some mortal research lab."

"I would do anything at all toward the cause of having Thanos strung up in the Void by his ankles for Morgoth to use as a punching bag. Babysitting your family's stupid shiny rocks does not seem to fall into that category."

"If Thanos is going to be killed with a Silmaril, wouldn't you like to be the one who does it? And then bring it back here—I mean, where else would you go with it?"

Sigh.

"I could throw it back into the sea to spite you and all your House?"

"Since when did you feel spite for the House of Fëanor? You're halfway named for him, and I'm pretty sure your mother-name is a reference too."

"That might be a reason to feel spite for someone. I did not choose my name.

"But in fact I admire Fëanáro's greatness and mourn his tragedy as I always have. I only hate you."

Well, as he already said once, damn all his grandfather's opinions on classified information.

"They're going to reembody him. That's what the Silmaril is for—to break in and out of Mandos. And also kill Thanos, maybe, later."

Calanáro manages a half-smile for the first time in a while.

"Now I'm definitely going. I still hate you, but I'm going. He can have the Silmaril, so I suppose I won't throw it into the sea."

Celebrimbor leads Calanáro back downstairs and introduces him to the Avengers.

"Hi. Tony Stark, you might know me as Iron Man."

"Dr. Strange—that one works both ways."

"Peter Parker. Uh, Spider-Man."

"What is this, a party in Tirion?" he says in perfect English. (He has the accent of a BBC radio announcer from the first days of radio's existence, which combined with his youthful mannerisms is a little off-putting to the mortals.) "One name apiece is plenty."

"So you've been to Earth. Dare I ask what year?"

"Uh, Elë and I went to Italy on our honeymoon. I think the local year was, uh, 1532?"

Sigh.

"Yeah I know time is fucky here but that was five hundred years ago."

"I keep up with trends. You've almost managed to single-handedly drag Earth up to our technology level, I'm impressed."

"I know, I'm impressive.

"How long does it take to get to Earth from here?"

"Not long, there's a portal a few hundred miles out to sea and that's instantaneous. Pops you right out in the middle of the Atlantic. Some people are old-fashioned and make the voyage in sailboats which makes it slow but we can do better than that.

"We don't have general FTL, no one has really put any effort into it because no one wants to go anywhere but Earth and we're not going to beat the Valar, who can make their domains adjacent to arbitrary points in space."

"Oh is that how she was doing that."

He smiles weakly. "You've met Varda? Most of them are more subtle about it, bend space instead of breaking it but she's just like 'nope, you're here now'. I suspect Eru finds it horribly unaesthetic but he allows it because she's his favorite."

(Eleniel, who used to be one of the Starqueen's handmaidens, one of those weird things the Vanyar do that's one part religious order and one part intensive astrophysics program, could explain exactly how the teleportation thing works but he is trying so hard not to think about that—)

"Alright, can we get out of this time warp immediately please? I know it's getting late but if we spend the night here that's like four more days at home."

"Late isn't a thing here. We need to sleep like fifty, sixty hours a month and while it isn't pleasant to do that all at once it's not exactly uncommon among the Mírtáni."

"Well we need to sleep a bit more often than that but we can do it when we get back to New York so that it takes eight realtime hours and not eighty."

Tony, Peter, and Calanáro board a ship and fly east, through a pass in the Pelóri, and at some point they are over the Atlantic Ocean on Earth instead of the eastern sea of Valinor. They turn around and head back toward New York.

"Wait so how come every time someone flies across the Atlantic they don't fly through the portal and end up in Valinor?"

"It's supposed to be one-way—Valar have to manually let through elves going the other direction. Sometimes it glitches, though—where 'glitch' means 'Eru thinks it would be funny'. And it can be forced."

"Forced by what, exactly?"