He looks out over the battlefield under the coldness of the
moon, ash and iron drifting like dark snow beneath the soughing winds —
there is nothing else he can think to compare it to, the hills and heaps
that have no edges, ribbed and rippled like clouds in the evening wind,
stirred and eddied unendingly, like the light falls of the coldest days…and
knows that any grain of it might be his kin, drawn by a decade's siftings
over the burnt plains westward, mingled beyond recall with weapon and steed,
friend and foe, as alike the wild growing things that once clothed this
fallow, that once fed, grass and tree, covey and herd, together blending
in unquiet dust as the dark clouds shiver across the skies over them.
Grim land to look upon — grimmer still, the thoughts that knowledge
makes of such grim sight; one would not think it should be better, than
to look upon one's own true love! —Better than watching her though he cannot
help hearing her voice, low in song, raised unceasing as it has risen and
fallen these long slow hours, past time when mortal throat would silence
in hoarseness, untiring, in effort of power on which more than life shall
depend, rising and falling, now to cajole, coax into quietude, lulling
into stillness, then strong to command, bind into submission, that over
which she sings.
The warring lights which move under her hands, like to the cold flames
that dance betimes in deepest winter (though not this night), still flicker
in the corner of his vision like the faintest stars, that are sharpest
when not seen direct; but he resists the temptation to look at that which
he cannot change, and dare not chance interrupting, for both their sake's.
And so he looks out instead upon the place where his kinsmen died, and
their liege lords died, and the death of his people was assured, though
none of them should know this then, and wonders when, in the measuring
of time's span, his life's course was set upon the irrevocable path towards
this: when did he, mortal son of a wandering folk, make that last turning
after which there might be no turning back, so that he should stop here
now in briefest pause, Aftercomer late-arrived at battle too long-lost?
—Not in the grey dawn, so swallowed up in the dark of this night that
it might as well be an Age ago; no more than that season hence, when words
bound him, bound them all into this trap, though they should know it not.
A little less than half a year, then? when voice and spirit were unlocked
alike and the soul that gave the Springtime voice summoned him from the
silent prison of his mind, or nigh to a year ago? when the lands he had
known and loved all his short life long had been made strange and terrible
by Enemy hands, and no more home to him, and a deep grey stillness like
a tranquil mist beyond the unpassed southern mountains spoke to him of
Autumns gone and beyond all returning, and a hope of rest that was not
death beneath the bitter snows…
Or five years hence, when a ghost hailed him in accents so-familiar
and dreaming-strange, warning him to no avail of Doom that he had escaped,
passing him by unknown, unknowing, without his willing?
Or longer, when the northern sky burned red not with the celestial glories
of the winter but with the sullen anger of a house ablaze, and all that
had been built of the great alliance and the power of the Kings was struck
down at a blow by the power of him who claims Kingship over all? —But the
way to this field of fires cold and dead was beaten wide far back before,
in the joining that named his people, and paid a weight of wielded iron
for a wide land to till and hunt, deeding Dorthonion to the folk of Bëor.
. .
The metal on his hand is warmed by the heat of his skin, and only the
small stones bite cold into his cheek when he bows his head into the shelter
of his bent arms, against his updrawn knees. All of these, and none, are
the truth of it. For his forebears fled shadow of fear and followed a hope
passed freely by those who had chosen otherwise, gifting them with word
of a Call theirs by first-right, shared vainly with the Second-born — yet
not all in vain.
For the world west of the Blue Mountains was good to them, for long
generations, and their lords kind, asking naught of them that they in their
own part were not willing to give, and if the Darkness that together they
held off for the while broke forth at the last and took them all, still
were there many bright years between, filled with all manner of richness,
of thought as well as thing, prosperity and singing, and the world was
good in the days of the Long Peace…
And this story, it seems to him, is strangely the same as the legends
he learned as a boy, the true tales of times beyond and the world's making,
more of the same than of difference: for was that not how it was, in the
farthest West, when the Powers ruled his lord's people, and the land was
quiet and filled with light, and all things sang, until the treachery of
this their same Enemy led many-legged Death within to steal the shining
things their siege was set for? And was it not the same in earlier time,
too, when that Enemy overturned the peace of the world with outpoured fire
and war, and drove the very makers of the world from these shores, and
battle raged across the face of the burnt earth before ever the stars he
knows so well were set above it?
—And I — what is it that I do here, confronting a foe the
Hunter himself has fought in vain for Ages, notwithstanding all my House,
all the Houses of the Edain and our Kings together, as though I were a
Power, nay and a greater than our Enemy? The weight of eternity weighs
upon him, heavier than mail: all those who have preceded him, the thought
of all his dead, not only who he has lost in his own lifetime but all of
theirs in turn, all of those who have fought or fallen as prey or in battle,
over the slow years' turning, like a vast army, a wedge of innumerable
figures of every Kindred, standing behind, all ending this night in him,
one foolish soul, aimed at the Enemy's gates like the needle's point of
a drawn arrow, and farther back still the shapes of two tall darkened pillars,
and a crowd of brilliant shadows…
It should not be me, he thinks, fatalistic, not for me this
task — but who else, of Elves or Men, has ever been mad enough to make
such try — walk in, without army, without might of arms or power beyond
mortal ken, to take the treasured prize as a skulking scurrier on the kitchen-board,
never seeking to match might with the householders' fury, only snatches
the golden honey-comb and dartles off, trusting to smallness and insignificance
to hide…
It is madness, and his thought fills the darkened plain with snow, and
then with the glare of fire liquid as a coppersmith's pouring, and the
sparks and roaring of a lightning-struck forest, and the haze of steam
and smoke that he remembers tainting the horizon so long ago — by his reckoning
— overpouring like a kettle-spill on the hearth. But what is now, is,
and it is solid shadow, unlike anything he has ever known in his life —
a frozen midnight sea, glinting in the moonlight, cold and lifeless, stretching
to the southern verge where lands he once knew, and once called home, begin
their steep arising in a stark black ridge of creaking wood and whispering
darkness, like the ghosts of a fleet of ships, tall masts moaning and sails
sighing upon the lightless heave of the waves, lamenting their lost makers,
lamenting their burning…
He closes his eyes, shivering and not from the winter's chill alone,
and cannot escape thus the burden of dreams that are not his, that ride
upon his own like a thin veil of mist, cold, troubling, everpresent — and
yet he would not be rid of them, even if he might, for they are all that
he has, intangible as they are, and no more his than anything else
that he holds now, from the garments he wears to his very life. Only his
war-gear may he claim, won in battle, and so fairly his own, hauberk and
deadly knife and beautiful, balanced sword—
The thought of that gorgeous metal makes him shudder anew, the sword
in scabbard against his leg, cold its casing of gemmed and gilded bronze,
colder in thought than the chill weight of woven links upon his shoulders,
than the deadly knife that he scarcely dares to touch, carrying it guardedly,
wrapped in such protections as he can fashion, and ever must refashion.
—Foolishness: there is no assurance that this sword was even forged
then, nor that if it was, it has not been reforged since, in the endless
Elven refinement, the seeking after perfection with no thought for cost
or cost of days. But he cannot help but wonder, and regard it with a twinge
of revulsion, this blade that might have fallen and risen red with Elven
blood, wielded in the second darkness of the world, before the glory of
the Battle-under-Stars, the fight against the Lord of Fetters, tainted
irrevocably as if set in service before the Black Foe, forever corrupted
in slaughter of kin…
He closes his eyes, and he stands at Araman, the pale light of stars
bright enough to show the icy waves to his sight, and the cold wastes of
this northern land, and beyond the land the Ice — and a Voice that he has
never heard, save in dreaming, whose words he cannot understand, and knows
by heart, speaks Doom—
Chilled to the bone, he draws the cloak about him more closely, trapping
breath in its folds, his hands guarded by the material he fingers beneath
its shelter. It is but patches, all of it, made from scraps not one of
which is larger than a hand's breadth, a beggar's garment, it would seem,
given in mockery…and no mortal lady of highest degree ever had fabric finer,
no lord of Men a cape so fair, for all its humble origin.
—Not merely for the grace of the gifting, silent thanks in every patch
and stitch, worked in secret to equip him better than all others, whose
weaker nature should find the coming Winter harder-wearing: such skill
is in it, both seen and beyond his mortal sight's discerning, to transform
drab and tattered rags into a work of art, fitting and fashioning the faded
pieces into a harmony of form, making of mere necessity an ornament, art
indeed learned of mortality in past times, seen and remarked as quaint,
such careful hoarding of every least scrap…care not to be mocked now, but
sadly made use of in bitter days of dark confinement —
—and now set free, wildest flight of fanciful shaping, changing worn
shreds into leaves, wings, stars, all fixed together in harmonious accord,
no one piece large enough, of one possessing, and this mattering nothing
when all have given, fastened with stitching delicate and lovely in itself,
thread twisted of wild flax and other wild-reaped fibers making spirals
to strengthen the mesh, in which words are threaded also, some few of which
in the common tongue he can read, but most beyond his pains, whether for
being in the High Speech or the extravagant ornamenting of the symbols,
even as those carved upon the oaken ring and pin, fashioned not in mockery
after the customary brooch's bronze and gold…
…and yet beneath his fingers' blind tracing they speak to him, mute,
and every stitch bears in faint echo the same song, same meaning that she
now sings — of guarding, of blessing, —of love. Fear runs through his every
nerve, through every upraised hair that is not lifted by the winter's cold
alone, far past the sensible and common dread of any soul, of any folk,
going into battle against the Enemy, and outnumbered — mortal terror, not
borne of knowing, but of what is not, cannot be known. It would be sense
to fear the thing they do, seeing her fear of it…but that is not
what chills him.
When he awoke from the darkness that he had thought should be his last
sleep, to a dawning he had no hope to ever see, the Tower fallen outstrewn
like a scattering of seed from hand, the waking was as a dream itself,
so great its impossibility that he could not think upon it, could not fashion
image nor fit tale to it, even seeing the consequences of that deed, hearing
it told in wonder by those who heard that Song… So far from his ability
to comprehend, to fit in mind, that thought slipped past it like a giant
boulder dropped who might say how, large as a byre, in the midst of stream
— as though one might say of a Winter storm that whitens the wide ground
and vanishes all familiar things, "I did that." The snow but is, and who
may think upon how it comes?
Now — seeing her war in spirit with the work of Morgoth Bauglir himself,
setting her strength and skill against the unholy artisanry of death-magic
and ancient web of cunning, he must think upon that which he has not
seen, and upon its significances. There is no way left open to him by which
he may evade the truth: that her power too is no less terrible, for all
its different nature — terrible as the wind that sings in the trees, that
holds the strength to tear apart or cast down, that may bring rain or drought,
terrible as the frail might that rises to force stones asunder as seedling
grows to sapling grows to standing oak, terrible as water that drowns or
saves, terrible as the coming of Spring — none to be blamed for their strength
that is so dangerous, far beyond the understanding or withstanding of the
small and ignorantly-confident wills that wander amid them without awareness
of their danger.
The memory of his efforts to protect her now seem so much in vain, like
a child striving to shield elder from distress, distract from grief with
a bright flower or a simple jest or antic, when heart breaks and world
is ending. How can he comprehend her, who is so far other from his
nature, whose thoughts and deeds he cannot give true words to, but only
the clumsy lisping of thought like the stumbling efforts of a child…?
If he is arrowhead, then they are bow and bowstring, the Lady and the
Hound who have set him so far upon this path, all three unwilling, all
three compelled by some strength beyond their reckoning. —And he fears
her now, as never has he feared the Lord of Dogs, and never thought to.
She ends her song abruptly, as one who has won a hard combat leaves
the battleground, without ceremony, and her head droops, and he would rise
and go and take her in comforting embrace, unthinking, regardless, but
she is afoot with her gruesome burden before he may aught but stand, and
the shimmering ice-like pelt with its sheen of power hangs over her arm
as though naught but a deerskin brought in from the drying-frame, and her
eyes upon his are so sad, so brimming with sorrow, and pity and regret
that his own fill with tears, and he tastes her own fear as she draws the
very breath from his lips and gives him hers in return, and wonders in
still-greater fear what it is that gives her such dismay—
And the thought is broken like a dry branch over knee as she parts from
him, flesh leaving its memory set in his own for a briefest instant, before
she steps back and unfurls the wolf-fell in her hands and flings it over
head and back like heaviest of capes—
—and he is claimed by darkness, and the Dark, and he can no more
resist this violation than he could the rough hands of his enemies riving
away the masking overgarments of his disguise and the fine-wrought armour
beneath it and his own garb, ripping off all earthly protection from his
body while he lay stunned and soul-broken beneath defender's fall, as under
lightning-struck oak, in bygone hour—
This taste he knows too well, the repugnant savour of sorcery invading
his self, permeating his flesh like frost in Autumn earth, twining
through his bones as creeper through the picked skeleton of the unburied
in Summer — but far more encompassing, so that he cannot even struggle
against it: all that is him is dissolved, washed apart like a vessel
of unfired clay cast back into water for to be rekneaded and shaped anew
into something more fitting.
Fitting — but for what purpose?
He knows now, or deems he knows, why Huan left them ere now, ere the
change was made and the setting-forth: for Huan too this form has worn,
this self, that is more than merely shape, and must thereby also know this
agony of hate, this rage that yearns to slaughter, that rises like the
pulse of blood in wrath at even thought of the mighty Hound, the longing
to fight, to rend, to give battle renewed upon this earthly realm, battle
eternally waged, across depths and gulfs beyond his mortal comprehending—
—have known, too, that mere will alone should not have held back the
Beast from its red madness, that their great love — no less profound for
its brevity, as though they twain might have known and met as friends in
the far ranges of eternity, impossible though that be — should not be enough
to restrain the killing rage.
And hence no help could come to them, from such strange thing, of Hound
journeying with Wolf in such unnatural consorting, though mortal soul should
ride within the demon-shape, and so for love and faithfulness did leave
them… and left behind as well the dark and bloody knowledge of these warfain
garments, impressed within the spell-forged flesh, and of their winning…
…Hot the heat of heart's blood under the cold and cruel eye of the Moon,
sharp as silver the teeth that stab him, as they were the darts of that
fierce Archer, spirit-shot splinters of angry scorn, hailing as bright
sleet through the shadow-horde that assailed him in the early hours of
his journeying — the din deafens, his own angry cries mixing and clashing
with those of his ancient adversary — the stones of the causeway, graven
for horse-hooves' traction, aid him in his charge and defense — but ever
he slips back, forepaws tangling in braced resistance no use against the
other, whose strength seems tireless, seems to be flamed higher in exertion,
made greater with each contest, and —
—his fangs rip through the pelt and clash together like the violence
of icefall, the taste of his enemy's blood — his enemy's hate — hot in
him, the fire of his rage fanned as high as the flames that roar against
the northern zenith in his memory, when the lands were riven and the winterchill
of the starry night made foul with belching smokes and sulfurous steams
— he would tear the Unlife from this monster's throat, as he has torn cries
of rage and pain, but his rightful prey flees from him back down the darkened
bridge, into the stronghold of shadow where he dares not follow…
…the rank stone beneath him, this towering shadowed form of power before
him and above him: familiar, too familiar, the alloy of his nightmares
this, and yet… it is help he seeks and hopes for healing as he crawls
over the blackened surface, failing body straining, torn flesh slipping
from mind's mastery, towards the looming shadow that glazing eyes but partially
discern, not merely duty that compels… but the memory that strives to seal
itself upon this scene, as the wooden carvéd stamp may be pressed
again upon the unbaked dough before the baking, to renew, or to change,
the pattern, is of terror, and despair, and sickened fury as gnarled claws'
seeming blurs into hands' pale press against the unwashed layers of almost
a decade's suffering's yield (yet which I, which self's remembering
is it?) and like a contradiction, or a fading dream, he recollects this
slab beneath as marble white and fashioned under fingers' touch (and again,
who is it that recalls—?) The dark that silences this clamour as the tall
form puts forth hand to touch foam-masked muzzle in almost-kindness and
most truthful regret, is most welcome in its coming—
—but that too ends:
Scent has guided him to where his fled foe's corpse has fallen amid
stones, where the crushed bones lie flaccid within the pelt, still withstanding
a little the unmaking forces of Arda that will undo the spell-work far
swifter than mere nature, when Sun rises and night's shade no longer defends
this broken carrion that has no dark unblessed fëa to hold
it unified. The teeth that took that Unlife now take what power remains,
the binding spell that weaves about the foul flesh of Morgoth's breeding,
slicing as delicately as knife in hand along the blood-matted throat, the
unmoving ribs and hollow belly, grasping as it were a rope cast for a puppy's
game the ripped fur-fabric and worrying it free of the falling flesh, that
melts to bare bony splinters even under the mere touch of the freshening
air.
—A sudden hiss, like adder's, assails his ears and a sharp pang sears
his wounded sides anew, as of Orc-arrow's sting, and in the instinct of
battle, needing no thought, he turns upon the spot and bears down this
lurking assailant and with the merest expenditure of his battle-weary might,
he crushes and shakes even as his mind ascertains the nature of the attack,
and the attacker — the bird-thin bones splintering beneath his jaws' power,
slight limbs and lean frame no match in the least, despite armament of
iron, for the huge-muscled weight of the Lord of Dogs — and this beast,
no mere scavenger seeking to guard its prey, no more than he is
seeker after carrion, lies a wrecked and empty shell beneath his paw.
And he sniffs at her, to prove her spirit truly fled, not to arise when
flank is turned once more, nor flee, and a thought comes to him, nosing
aside the wings like cape of filmy linen, translucent, fine, the slender,
delicate arms that wore that burden and were broken in unequal contest,
tearing at him in hate and love and agony of heart—
And there is yet one more thing for him to undertake before full day
arises, and another thing to hide within the deeps of shadow in the Island's
heart…
(Thought and memory there is too, that is all but beyond his comprehending
as bat-song all but beyond Man's hearing — recall of a fragrant wind, and
the sound of leaves upon it like sweetest music, and a Horn's call that
no mortal ear has ever yet heard, that shakes his heart in this distant
echo, even in this changed and wolfish state — and other things, and other
matters, that are as distant, fair and unfathomable to either of his present
selves as the Northern Lights of a midwinter night…)
The shaping anew completed, the change done, he that but a little ago
went upon two feet now struggles to comprehend how four shall serve, that
are not fitted to socket of bone nor jointed in similar fashion to his
true self's shape, and earnestness wars with panic at the effort — and
his mortal mind is driven aside as by a hard impatient blow, and like a
stunned prisoner he is lifted in a great heave to paws and shaken,
that reflex that wrings spine in sudden violence that is but nature to
hound, or horse, or wolf, resting from work, or rising from sleep, or shaking
off the wet.
The flesh is wise in its own way, and needs not hand upon the rein,
thought to guide it in its own most natural workings. Sound, smell, sense
that there are no words in any speech of Free People to name or circumscribe
— all these in their extremity would flood and whelm a mortal and send
the reasoning mind in crawling panic; yet the Sire of Werewolves knows
them all, and comprehends them as he-who-he-once-was knew path of human
hands' making and path of forest branch, and all their changes, and they
are naught to trouble him.
I am Beren, son of Barahir, son of Emeldir, scion of Bëor, Lord
of Dorthonion-that-was—
—remembrance of war in a high hard land — of a shadow that shot and
fled from branch to tossing branch, and flames sent into stronghold, blinding
night-eyes and maddening with reek of smoke — heaves beneath him like earthquake,
shaking such small foothold of mortality in confusion—
—I am Beren, beloved of Lúthien the Nightingale, —Elf-friend—
—anger at the thought of the Firstborn thieves rises like tide of blood,
washing away all such collectedness of mind and self in joy and sorrow
beneath insatiable hunger—
—I am Beren—
—the wind like bitter wine brings distant sense of home and den within
its savour, places of safe shadow against the Sun's menace, and memories
of food, and familiar throb of power through every fibre, strengthening
body and obliterating doubt—
—I—
—no more is left than that—
A light prickling touch like the whip of berry-briers against his side
startles him, though it is too little and lacking in strength to cause
him any pain, and a deep, drawn-out note rumbles from his jaws as he turns
— not from feet, as one of the Children of Eru would, in gesture of guard
— but from withers, long low neck flexing serpentlike, so strange to feel
it! — as bared fang like half-drawn blade warns away unworthy touch.
And the hair that rises slow like the blades of new wheat upon his shoulders
springs quick like the spear-hedge in unwilled astonishment, and coldest
dread — for the air of the dead Plains no longer touches his mortality,
no longer troubles him — sends dreadful ripple of shivers through the heavy
coat.
That which holds to him, hooking needle-sharp talons into thick fur,
trembling as it crawls upright on limbs not fitted for earthly labour,
is as like, and as unlike, to a bat of the sort that haunts the wood about
house or hall, as the monster shape he — is — is like unto and far from
the form of wild wolf-kind that flits shadowlike in shade, melting away
from man's approach like frost under finger. And again he growls, and the
sound ceases not, and again his thought splinters, and each fragment yet
does know this being, and still — he growls.
The thing whose fragile wings straggle behind her, like a most
hideous butterfly new-crept from its shell of sleep, this thing with glowing
eyes and reek of power like stench of burning upon her fine-haired pelt,
with claws of metal ingrafted by means unnatural and fangs that gape, panting
with the effort of the change, sharp as needles too, for the taking of
the sanguine sustenance—
It is the same whose yearning made her follow him across the dark, daring
the wrath and power and discernment of their greatest, the King of the
realm, despite all risk and danger, into this dreadful change… they that
were Voices clear and bright and holy, bodiless and changeless, joined
in paired melody, unison their note within the ancient Song—
—until the harsh and clangorous and haughty cry of one as mighty as
his brother, or seeming so, and that incessant demand that caught and held
their twined attention, and he should not turn back from that strong lure,
and she unable to hold him back, drawn with him to the growing Discord,
and they together entered in that raucous ceaseless monotony—
—and after in the confused time when world was spun from Song and strife,
and some chose to enter, and others remained without, that Discord still
did haunt their music, and ever and again was her love drawn to haunt the
margins of that little whorl of substance, set within the measureless deeps
of Eä, and ever did she follow him, following that proud call, calling
his proud heart, tempting with promise of might and taste of mastery and
delectation of tastes, until one time in that measureless span did many
of their kin converge, all summoned even as they, and in obedience to his
will that obeyed great Melkor's will — and the desiring of his own Immortal
heart — she followed him, to earthly plane and dividing of flesh and bond
of guilt and shame and dread, joined with him in love and spirit — and
that alone has never changed, howsobeit changed to hate—
And this she knows, from the same horrible change that once already
has undergone, and knowingly has worn again, and too knows her risk, knows
how this changed one, given earthly name to wear with earthly form, that
nameless was but self, different, known, and precious to all others
of the same untamed eternal fashioning as one jewel, one leaf, one voice
is unlike to another, this that was her ancient deathless love did grow
to hate her for her earthly weakness, this frail and hesitating hröa
with its limbs fashioned but for flight, and scant defense saving the same,
and for himself grown loathsome as she, Voices now no longer one, but parted
forever, the one strong and harsh to howl, the other a thin and grating
whine upon the night—
He might so easily snap at her, and break her, that repels him in all
ways: for memory of shared delights now lost, for gruesomeness of hairy
batwinged form, for thought that it is he that has brought this
pass upon her; and this too she knows, and does not care, and knew even
as she kissed him as might be for the last, and gave him pity, and perhaps
the strength to master all such horror, in her unearthly song—
She clings to him, awaiting what ever may come — so much does she love
him, and the werewolf's broken spirit, that holds self of holy Hound
and ancient Power and lost and fragile Man, melts as shards of iron in
the misery of mortal heart breaking and the anguish of Undeath's torment
and he cries out in anger and despair and defiant plea, and the wild echoes
of that howl ring far across the deathly strand.
He stumbles, and again iron claws dig into his hackles, and again he
stops himself before he snaps at the thin-boned limbs that cling like brambles,
feeling blood well from the gouges, matting and mingling with the older
crusts along his withers. The black dust clouds his vision — or is it the
daylight itself? — as he presses on beneath the inimical glare, panting,
long past caring at the composition of the ashy air he breathes, distress
over the thought of the dead indrawn forgotten far leagues hence, when
north
and east alone remained of concern to what remained of reason…
It is cold, despite the darkness of the dunes; they hold no heat, and
the air burns for that reason too, when he snorts against the choking grains
that their going raises about them. The light is a burden, heavy weight
upon him, it beats at lowered skull like the pulse of coming storm, presses
straining back and stabs burning darts into labouring shoulders, sharper
than bite of blood-drinking fly—
Teeth clack shut on nothing, memory like a clamped hand about disobedient
hound's muzzle wresting head aside, though jaws strike against bony wrist
in dull blow. He is too tired to whine his distress now, throat roughened
from the life-stealing chill and dust, and he will forget, and snap at
the sting of pain again, and remember, and withhold from striking, ever
and anon in this barren traverse.
Another smell, not the dried-blood tang of the wind off the Hells of
Iron, nor the choking sear of dust, calls to him, summoning from every
other thought and noticing, so that he redoubles his labouring speed into
a quickened trot, though the sharp needles stitch the faster into his fur
for it, and every pace tears them into his skin. —It is water, a call like
the clear icy note of flute in darkness, warbling and changing in accord
with rules unknown and complex beyond the hearer's ken, and the dust-clouds
rise thicker, increasing the need of it even as the distance diminishes.
She slips from his back, who has not the strength to wing aloft under
the angry Sun (with whom once the self whose stolen shape now clothes
her sang, when the world was but a dream unshaped as yet) and crawls towards
the welling puddle, that is stained bloody by sifting through the polluted
sands, tainted with their iron, and yet is water, that these bodily
forms must have — and massive jaws as thick-boned and sinewed as a bear's
(but lacking ursine innocence) dip down as a heron's beak towards marsh's
surface, and close fast about her scrawny neck, but a little pressure away
from parting head from bony shoulders.
She does not move again, save for the flurried pounding of heart against
the cage of bone that shelters it, shaking her where she crouches; nor
does he move, held back by reason where the wolfshape's instinct did lunge
first, and thus they both are held—
—So great is the temptation to crush, to rend and worry, to silence
this discordant note that whines at him, even without voice, with its fears
and pains and wretchedness, ever moaning of bygone days, ever reproaching
him for what he has made of her, of himself, a mere Beast, and a thing
of scorn even as they are feared by the ones who might have been their
siblings, had they but stayed within the Song, and chosen shapes of lawful
making, enduring the work and struggle to embody even as She who now has
forsaken her form of flesh forever to guide the Light that still remains
against them…
And the memory, of such a deed, done under waning dark, and fading Moon,
is strong within his unborn flesh, and spell-wrought sinew tenses, and
still the wolf holds, and whines, and another memory arises, of a boy who
saw another, this one half-grown into tallness already, and not quite a
stranger, with casual and relishing force, crush beneath his walking-stick
a half-fledged nestling straying from its nest while parents watched with
anxious piping call from the osiers near at hand — and how that boy hurled
self like a thunderbolt against the killer, and struck him down in judgment
and in fury and in tears, and beat him despite the other's greater strength
and height and his own maddening sorrow, until companions parted them,
not fully comprehending either the ugly deed or the answering wrath—
—as now, with venom pulsing to be released from root of fang, like adder's
deadly kiss, and the Singer whose voice has brought him to this pass cringes
beneath his might, and wrath that such a pitiful and ugly thing should
go before him — now only too well he does understand both—
And as the Man would weep, a different music from the cruel mesh winds
through his tattered soul, that comes as well from the fell that wraps
him, that now he must battle to keep from throwing off in rush of horror,
for never again could he bring himself to enter its darkness, and dark
knowledge, being freed — and it is armour, stronger than meshed iron, woven
of love tangible as sound striking upon the ear, not the keen cutting note
of silver flute but a softer song, clear as water, clean and present —
He nuzzles her, pointed muzzle pressing softly against the matted fur,
keening like a blind pup against its mother's side does seeking for comfort
as much as sustenance, and when he straddles her it is not in menace now,
though no limb has shifted, but only to shelter her from the angry Fire
that courses through the sky above, until she has lapped her fill, and
only then does drink himself, still giving her shade with himself. And
then he shepherds her, dazed and crawling, from the glare into a scant
margin that overhangs the spring, rising like a low island from a mere
of shadow; and there she grooms him, licking the dust from his slitted
eyes, and then the gritty knots and beads of blood that tangle in his silvery
fur, small selfish gesture that is far more than that, while the wolf rests
head on paws and tries to flee from the understanding that cannot be escaped,
being woven into the wearer, enmeshed within the wearer's skin…
…and through the knowledge of this body comes at last peace, that yields
beneath the certainty of too great a matter for its knowing, and all that
is left is one, and that one is known, and loved, and held within
the other's self, folded within the shelter of her Song…
Through the bitter, tainted daylight they rest, curled together, gentleness
of unmoving touch, no struggle against the world without to spark pain,
to kindle anger; and between them they share, as it were bread, or the
sweetness of Autumn fruit, a dreamed memory of life… the remembrance of
shade, and cool dark silences lit by strands of poured gold falling from
leaves high above like brightest rain, and rain itself, making the greens
glow like beryls on wroughten ornaments in Menegroth against the shadows
of the water-sweetened air, and the fish-gleaming depths of the stream
between the trees, and the ground soft beneath feet with the deepness of
moss, and the little white pearl-flowers shining there, and how he had
laughed, thinking she teased him, when she told him they were made for
her, a gift of the Lady at her birth, and how the stars glittered between
pine-boughs like frost over the mountains, so many, so countless many of
them in the clarity of the night sky…
And when the cruel sunlight wanes, afternoon hiding the land's torment
in welling shadow, they rouse themselves from this kind delusion, rising
with no more than dullest ache of wolf-anger and vampire-despair, nuzzling
misshapen face to brutish jaw, only bittersweet yearning left now of the
unspeakable pain that love's fearless song has tamed; and on stiff limbs,
coats matted with dust, they stretch reluctant measure across the plain,
on paw, and on wing.
And as the sun fades into fumes of amber and blood behind the Ered Wethrin,
they reach the banked road that scars across the Gasping Thirst, the gash
that goes towards the towering scarps of the Hells of Iron, following wearily,
ceaselessly, along the straight track that leads them, like a drawing tether,
to the terrible Gate where the Last Wolf waits for him — for them—
January 14, 2003