The Kabbalah-based stone giant Rowan was practicing owed its accessibility to modern magic's refinement. Without centuries of consolidation and theory, the spell would have been far harder to execute.
"Again."
Learning a new magical system meant repetition. Endless repetition. Rowan was familiar with that rhythm.
Sherry Cromwell hadn't been an ordinary mage. As an official cryptography and spell-analysis specialist raised within the Church, she had been exposed to far more magic than her earth-based specialty suggested. Fully digesting what he had taken from her memories would take time.
Rowan was midway through another practice cycle when his body suddenly stiffened.
"…Not again."
The world tilted.
A new perspective. A new life. A new stream of memories forced themselves into his mind.
"Humans. Elves. Morgoth…"
Rowan slowly sat up, his breath unsteady.
"This is… Middle-earth."
He recognized it immediately. He had seen the stories, watched the films, even looked up background lore when the details became confusing. Combined with the memories of this body, there was no doubt.
But the timeline was wrong.
This wasn't the era of hobbits. Not the War of the Ring. Not even the decades before it.
This was the First Age.
Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years earlier. A brutal, myth-heavy era when the true Dark Power still walked the world.
Morgoth had not yet been cast into the Void. Sauron was still only his lieutenant. Dragons capable of annihilating entire dwarf kingdoms were merely soldiers in Morgoth's host. Balrogs weren't legends or rare terrors. There were many of them.
Dangerous didn't begin to cover it.
Still, Rowan's instincts stirred with something sharper than fear.
Opportunity.
The elves of this age were at their peak. Many had lived under the light of the Two Trees, dwelling alongside the gods themselves in the Blessed Realm. They had learned arts and powers far beyond what later ages would ever see.
At this point in history, the gods still lived in Valinor, far in the west. The world had not yet been bent into a sphere. It was still a single vast continent.
If he could reach Valinor, he could learn directly from the gods.
Unfortunately, this body was human.
Mortals were not permitted to walk Valinor's shores unless they had accomplished deeds great enough to earn the gods' favor. Elves could return through repentance. Humans could not.
Rowan almost laughed at the irony. He had wanted no more strange incarnations. Preferably adult human males.
Now that he had one, he wished it were an elf.
Sorting through the memories further, he reconstructed the broad shape of the world's history.
At the beginning, there was Eru Ilúvatar. The creator. Absolute, unknowable, omnipotent. From his thought came many spirits, kindled with the Imperishable Flame. The greatest among them were called the Valar. The lesser, the Maiar.
To Rowan, it felt like the distinction between greater and lesser gods.
Together, they sang the Music of Creation, giving shape to the universe and the world that would become Middle-earth. The Valar and Maiar descended into that world and shaped it, raising mountains, carving seas, filling the land with forests and beasts.
They erected two great lamps to illuminate the land and waited for Ilúvatar's Children to awaken.
Elves and humans.
This was the Age of the Lamps.
But the most powerful of the Valar, Melkor, rebelled. He desired dominion over the world. He destroyed the lamps and waged war alongside corrupted Maiar such as Sauron and the Balrogs.
The conflict nearly tore the world apart.
Unwilling to destroy the land before Ilúvatar's Children had even been born, the Valar withdrew westward across the sea and raised a new realm, Aman. There, they created a perfect land and planted the Two Trees, ushering in the Age of the Trees.
Much later, the elves awakened. Immortal, radiant, deeply loved by the gods.
Melkor captured some of them and twisted them into mockeries of life. Orcs. An insult hurled at creation itself.
That act finally united the Valar. Melkor was defeated and chained in Valinor. The elves were invited west to dwell in bliss beneath the Two Trees.
Some refused, choosing to remain in Middle-earth. These would later be known as the woodland elves. Others began the journey but never completed it, becoming the Sindar, the Grey Elves.
Those who reached Aman diverged further.
Some lingered by the coasts, drawn to the sea. Others dwelled directly beneath the Two Trees. The first were the Vanyar, golden-haired and beloved by the King and Queen of the Valar, the most powerful and luminous of the elves.
Galadriel's legendary power would one day stem from this very bloodline.
Another group, the Noldor, lived farther inland and learned craft and creation from the god who would later fashion the dwarves. They were brilliant, driven, and dangerous.
Together, the Vanyar and Noldor were the High Elves.
For a time, everything was perfect.
Then Melkor was released.
Feigning repentance, he sowed lies among the elves, convincing some that the Valar were their jailers, not their guardians. Betrayal followed. Blood was spilled. The First Age plunged toward catastrophe.
Rowan exhaled slowly.
"So this is the era I've landed in."
A world of gods, monsters, and ancient magic.
And he was standing at the very beginning of its greatest tragedy.