Caught — caught — how dare they, how
dare she!
—How long it has been since any has dared to smite him, to strike at
him — how long since his flesh has been broken, this earthly form that
he wears for earth's mastery, how long since Elf of Aman as of Endor has
not feared to come at him in combat clear, his shield of powers welded
from this world's working bent to his will, forged of his cunning and honed
with practice, and fed with pain…
Not since a full handful of years, when he burned with fast-driven fire,
the wood's long wrath striking through hand as through glove and mail,
sent by hand that feared not retribution, by archer deaf to the song of
his sorcery and blind to the shadow he sent forth, and he felt the fury,
far-distant, of She who sang the Trees… Woods burned that night, leagues
of them, but assuaged not the flame in his riven flesh and splintered bone.
—But that was long ago, and the dealer of that blow has well-learned
his power, and the ways of shame, and fear, and his own folly, where he
awaits the caress of torments sweeter still, for so long as his mortal
flesh may endure… Yet that pleasure shall not come to pass, for he is stricken
down himself now, though still he comprehends it not fully, nor accepts
it. But disbelief shakes not the fangs from his throat, nor closes the
furrows torn deep in his hide beneath the protection of his pelt, nor lets
the air come clearer through his strangled windpipe — he is well-caught,
and well-shaken, and his Enemy has neither fear nor doubt nor pity…
But still he wonders how this may be, and how the Laws that bind the
world have cheated him, as with some part of the sense that is left him
he wonders why they have come here to challenge him… For is he not
the Master of Wolves, and knows he not all his minions, and their girth,
and is he not the greatest?
—Fool, the Hound laughs at him, joylessly, did you not heed
the words? Not — the greatest that walks the world, but — shall ever walk
the world — and now thy time is done: now the Master of Wolves must kneel
and yield him to the Nightingale he would cage. Surrender to my Lady!
No matter — he can flee, as his captives might not, and leave behind
this damaged dwelling for a better, gift of his great Master. He struggles
to unleash the couplings of his will from the bonds of the flesh he has
worn for this Age, wrestling against the well-wrought making and his agony
alike, his venomed slaver burning his own wounds where it froths from his
jaws, distracting him from his song, choking from within and without and
the deep-pressed claws of the terrible Hound weighting him in the torn
tenderness of his underbelly, gouging still deeper to his innards, his
bitten forelegs throbbing like the ceaseless rhythm of thralls' hammers
— he writhes, fëa as hröa, endeavoring to abandon
the field of his defeat—
And a voice commands him, shaking body and spirit together:
"Hold—"
Next to him, to them, she is a tiny thing, a moth, a slip of snowflower,
a small bird barely a mouthful for either — and both combatants are subject
before her, one for his love, the other of dread. The light that flames
from her is a storm of silver, endless arcs and whorls boiling forth like
the white foam of the sea, and she is not even aware of it as she advances
upon him, her gaze burning into him like a blow from a sword of crystal.
It is not hatred she casts upon him, for the taste of that he well-knows,
having found it sweet many times beyond numbering, hurled upon him from
the hearts of his breaking — but purest wrath, raging clear and undiminished
by any tainting of self-concern or savoring of his pain…
He looks into her eyes, and is caught — the song that she sent through
his stronghold was not the greatest expenditure of her power at all, but
barely the least skimming of it, as the white of the wave is but the barest
surface of it, and the full weight of her will is turned on him, like the
weight of the wave that comes from the deep ocean, and it crashes upon
him and spills him now open like a casket left carelessly on the strand,
and his thoughts are scattered loose before her, beyond his gathering—
(… and still behind the wave there is the Sea…)
In her brilliance there is a light that he recognizes — remembers
— and how had he forgotten the glory of it, faded in recollection to a
mere disdained illusory shimmer? He wants to devour it, consume this small
vessel with its spark of the first Light that wanders wayward through his
dominion, to blot it from his sight that it not reproach him with what
he has become—
"No, chosen—" her soul rebukes him—
—and at the same time he wants, most desperately wants, to be
taken
by it and made welcome and all wounds forgotten forever as in far-distant
Days before the Sun…
—No! I am not your Hound, he snarls, and the teeth in his ruff
stab deeper and slam him against the stones, and his glazing eyes dim at
the renewal of agony.
"I care not what you are, Hound of Morgoth, so that you obey me."
She sees in his mind that he has minded to abandon this fast-held shell,
and she smiles, and it is the most terrifying sight of his long, long existence,
more dreadful than the wrath of the Wrestler, than the Hunter on his rampaging
steed, than the sorrows of Uinen rising in storm, than the grim jaws of
her champion even — this girl-child, not even a warrior of Finwë's
scions to master him, not even true Power, who has seen not full ten of
her people's time-measures, smiling down without mirth upon him in his
anguish—
"Go, then, to your Lord, and to his good welcome. No doubt he will
thank you well for losing him the hold on this vale, that guards the wide
way to his gates, no doubt reward you most generously for it—"
Her words are a mirror held up to hold him, reflecting back at him his
own knowledge — as though she, not the Hound, had her foot at his
neck, battering his soul beneath relentless blows of her will, he cringes,
whines, the wolf-shape yelping in terror and desperate wish to escape —
but escape there is none, for his fate will be worse in his Master's holding
than in the grip of the Hound, horrible though that be. He has not thought,
in the chaos of his defeat, has not considered the truth of his plight—
She does not tear from his mind what she seeks, no more than she takes
what he would rather withhold of his secrets: the fact that he plotted
her capture, long gloated over the image of Angband's proud rivals in anguish,
Doriath's dearest treasure taken in thralldom, his hunger to see her abased,
great Melian's daughter a shivering slave at his feet, to be given in tribute
to the Lord of the Void, and sent forth soldiers to snare her… it is simply
that her power has smote him like the storm-deep upon the sea-tower, and
as though his soul-castle were but sand it has fallen in ruin, or a log
wet-rotted in woodland, struck by the shoe of a galloping steed, crushing
asunder and all the creeping, scurrying things, sticky-pallid and glassy-black
and slick-brown, all hasten for their homes in vain…
He strives to send forth his will to see her thought, know her will,
her reasons for hence-coming — but it is as though he stared into the Sun's
face directly, no more can he see of the figure therein, but only a brightness
that blinds him and wounds him. There is neither fear nor the disgust that
is fear too (and more crippling) that will not regard but must look
away, in the gaze of the maid who has mastered him: his cruel ambitions
to use her as pawn do not daunt her, she but glances past, as one who scans
a page of dreariest chronicle, seeking some one pertinent fact in the record.
There — she has found what she seeks, the fact of his knowing,
the way into his stronghold, past ward, past guard, needless of battle,
the words of unbinding, of opening, of revealing — the mirror-brilliance
of her thoughts, like a shield of silver and adamant, sends fear-flight
deep into his heart—
"Give them to me," the command shivers through his spell-fashioned
bones, "or believe me that I will set the Lord of Dogs to serve you
in such wise as you have served so many hundreds, that your fell sovereign
may set you in your turn houseless in darkness, your pleas heard but unanswered!
Now!"
From the wreckage of his thought he gathers together and offers them
to her, upheld, soul bending in supplication, that she not rip him apart
like a falcon her prey, not send him shrieking hither to his Master's calling,
unbodied, helpless, to be harrowed and seared, left a mere wraith in the
bitter cold of the North-night, or made into other, reshaped into
form far from his choosing—
He has no thought of deception, for once, now; no treachery dares to
cross his mind, lest she slay him, her will not a hammer of hell-forged
iron but a sword of clear crystal to sever him, through the teeth of her
liege — or a sickle, bright as starlight, sharp as the points of
stars, keen, irresistible, fashioned in Valinor, wielded by the wrath of
the Lady…
—The keys are hers, the words that rule all his wardings and
Workings set through the citadel, all of them laid in her thoughts as though
on a ring in her hand. She has no need of him now, this Maia of Morgoth's,
less in his worth than the youngest Dark-elven child — than mortal—
—Ai, yes, than mortal!—
—he flinches, grovelling into the pavers, under the weight of her wrath
— that deemed himself mightier than the Valar even in his cruel lordship,
his arrogance sinking him still lower in the slough of his evil, that seeks
not nor sees need for escape. Death he deserves, and torment after, and
small pity indeed—
But a bargain has been made, and there is no taking it back, and breaking
it were to set at work such forces counter to her Working that it were
better she had never set edge to strand than come so far and fail. Were
it not for his dangerousness, when recovered, it would not even be consideration.
He is less than nothing to her now, that she has defeated him, and has
no more to gain of him — his vaunted might and mastery and scorn such wretched,
pitiable things to deem exaltation that his downfall is scarcely
worth triumphing over.
—What greater punishment is there, she wonders, than to bear
the burden of self that is yourself? What greater misery than to gnaw bones
in the dark, and believe that mastery over the wide world? Poor starving
fool, that will not take gift of bread and water free-given!
And with that he is gone from her thought forever, swept aside in more
worthy concern, and this is yet another score across his soul as he shapes
his tooth-scored
hröa into a form more suitable for flight,
hatred filling his spirit yet not sufficient to drive out fear, of her
companion's fangs, but far more of her fearlessness, that clove through
his works and ways and wards with the ease of a sword's edge through cobweb
— and does not even deem him sufficient for her hate, which is as venom
poured over his wounds—
Already she has turned from him to face the Tower, now hers;
he is forgotten, to go on his wounded way, wheresoever he chooses — but
where is there to go, that will welcome him? Until he has redeemed himself
he cannot return to his Master; until he has recovered his powers he dare
not venture anywhere within range of his foes — his many, many foes! With
his inner sense he can see in the night a darkness far other than the simple
lacking of light — eastward a Shadow malevolent, brooding, wary and hungry
abides. He will be hated there, no less than all others, but the burnt
and broken wood of Tar-nu-Fuin is savagely to his spirit's liking — hatred
and death and pain aplenty to draw from, dark stream of suffering to plenish
his soul…and none will dare trouble him there, not even his Master's wrath
shall easily pursue him to that twisted fastness.
He would like to rend at her with his wingclaws of iron, striking at
her disdainful lack of regard, but she is not foolish, only trusting
— trusting of Huan, loyal Lord of Dogs, whose lean shaggy jaws raise paling
of spikes like the ice-tipped Pelóri between her foe and his Lady.
At last he gathers himself from the ground of his breaking and writhes
himself up into the sky, ungainly lumber of limbs not meant for such earthborn
efforts, so much of his might spilled out there, blood upon stone, strength
shaken from him by one who should not have been even his equal, let alone
ever his master—
—and still he wonders, as he goes, as he will wonder long ere he knows
the full answer, (and never to know it in full, being beyond his soul's
comprehension) — why he has been thus struck down by Doom without
warning…?
Before his wingbeats have ceased to trouble the night air above them
he is pursued by a cry terrible and strong, triumphant without rejoicing,
cry of victory without gladness — the dark words of his Mastery yet made
beautiful despite themselves, for the glorious voice of the Singer who
sends them. Still, though he flies, can he not escape minding of his defeat,
still can the Abhorred One find yet neither peace nor place: without even
gambling, without choosing this match, he has hazarded and lost all to
the Elf-maid behind him. She, for her part, cares nothing for any who hate
her…
In her urgency she pours out all her terror and longing and lost hope
returned into her call, so much more of herself than is called for:
gem casket lids spring off, iron-bound chests fling themselves wide, doors
unlock and slam open in a thunderous chorus of liberation through the masterless
fortress before they shall be poured out with the stones that unravel beneath
them — and chains are reft open, the iron collars of thralldom parting
from bowed neck, shackles falling from lean, galled limbs in the far subterranean
hovels. Trembling the wearers look up, hollow eyes growing wide in terror
of change — and those who were awakened, who heard that unstoppable song
and rose up from blank being into true dreaming, feel something
more — something that savours of fear in its outward ways but is far other
— that might, almost, be the memory of joy…
The stones tremble, mortar falls at an instant to dust as the full strength
of her voice strikes it, the roof-slates melt like winter ice from a dwelling-roof,
slide down themselves to shatter so far, far down upon the courtyard below,
shards of them dancing over the stones of the causeway even almost to where
they stand. Facing of marble loosens, pulls out from itself, unravelling
like a scrap of gauze; the upper rings of the tower begin to spiral free,
unwinding as the spun thread is unwound from the rod upon which it is wrapped,
falling one by one, and then faster and faster still, as the hailstorm
begins with one fallen stone, and then another, and then grows in sound
and strength until it is a roar too loud for hearing of voice.
—And yet her voice is still heard, over it, through it, woven into its
making, unbinding, opening, parting, shifting, stirring and loosening as
a thousand years of wind and rain would not so shake it, nor aught but
strength of earth shaking, stone-under-stone rolling in sudden thunder
of the depths. Only spell shall do so besides — but never thought any that
such thing be accomplished, one to wrest the control from the Wolflord
— far less one ancient in the naming of Men, yet she but a child to the
Power that ruled here, lesser Power though he be, and old beyond reckoning
in the ways of mastery and entrapment, nor one of those Firstborn who had
set self and sword in defiance of the Northern shadow, the mighty of Aman,
proud in their little towers, never thinking that those towers faced a
fortress built of mountains, what that should mean—
And now the tower, raised by Elven hand and spell, is cast down by a
Song, the servants of Morgoth's servant realizing that they are lordless
and defeated, and not even stopping to ransack the treasures that now lie
open everywhere to hand or claw they flee in disarray, those with wings
hurling themselves from aerie, shrieking, piping, sending call of mind
and voice afar seeking guidance, seeking after their fled lord in their
own flight; while those of foot, two or four, hurl themselves into the
river, daring Sirion's wrath rather than face the Singer who holds the
bridge and the fangs of her liege.
Many are swept under, sucked down by the fast current, not knowing how
to swim who abhor the spirits of water, that cannot be burned or uprooted
as the trees, but only fouled and dammed, but not forever… Those who make
it to shore do not wait to see what comes next — many do not even know
what has happened, only that their world ends about them, their lair is
broken, the power they trusted to guide them and send them in safety on
their ways of destruction has forsaken them like smoke blown away on the
wind, and they are routed utterly.
Northward they fly, scattered like Autumn leaves, thinking of nothing
but themselves, each for own self only, each dreading to hear the baying
of the Hound in its ears, to feel his teeth laying them by heel or hackle,
fleeing still more the sound of the voice that rings through their
souls like brightest crystal, piercing notes that are terrible in their
clarity as arrowshafts, as the lights of heaven, as the Valaróma's
long-forgotten call…
That same clarion summon others as strongly as it banishes the rest,
though they still cower in the shelter of their caves, while the thunder
of stones overhead and the groaning of the earth deafen them, (yet never
so much that that Song is overwhelmed), while above them the citadel opens
like a white rose of stone, unwrapping itself in uncanny grace, buttress
and finial and architrave floating apart, falling like the petals of a
rose full-blown in a wind of Autumn, yielding all that it holds, defends,
conceals, to the wakening sky…
—Sirion rises from the stones below as if the steams of a destroying
fire, leaping up to consume the Bridge of Sorrow that unbinds itself in
swift collapse, falling into the tide as a handful of pebbles cast into
a stream by a child, up to the very feet of the sacker of the Citadel—
…and at last, when the silence is deafening, when the bedrock no longer
trembles around them, and from the night about them the words of command
no longer pulse like the beating of their own blood in dread of hope, and
only the fading Stars are to be seen above them, not the dim roughness
of smoke-blackened masonry, those who have been so luckless as to be doomed
to imprisonment here instead of death now venture to climb forth, as of
out of their own graves.
They fear not the water, but they are weak, and fearful of all, and
the Moon blinds them, who once freely walked beneath not only Moon but
Sun, and it is some time before in resoluteness they gather at the bridge's
shattered head, and helping each other, making bridge of arms linked and
guiding hands, they make a way across the river that they never thought
again to cross in flesh, never thought to see in life again, strongest
carrying the weakest, all supporting each other as they can, starting in
terror, and then smiling in fierce vicarious triumph to see the crushed
bodies of the werewolves jammed about the blocks beneath their slipping
feet. —And then, as one, they look up to see who has done this thing, and
know not what to think.
One of the twain who waits at the height of the further shore where
the causeway is torn from the bridge's breaking, tide of destruction flowing
downwards and outwards from the topmost tower that was the Necromancer's
place of pride, is familiar, though strange: Huan, the great gray Hound
of Valinor, fame gone out through all Beleriand, not only in the lands
of his master. Surely it was he who slew the wolves, cast them down in
slaughter, but the other—! The other is stranger still, both considered
in plain sight and in the regard of the spirit, so far at odds with each
other, in seeming at least.
Outwardly she is a woman of their own race, no great majesty or awe
about her, not any warrior from the West beyond the Sea, looking only frail
and uncertain in the moonlight. But seen with tercen she is far
other, something new and never seen before, something terrible beneath
the Stars…
She who sang now stands silent, her eyes unblinking fixed on the further
shore, waiting. In the silence, as the slow fading of near-winter
night stretches on, darkness slackening its soft hold upon the world, while
yet no light of day or dawn is present, they are silent, and after the
yammering of the wolf-horde fleeing the cataclysm and the shrilling of
the vampire-covey and the wildness of the stone-storm the river's sound,
which seemed so faint a thing in the heat of battle, is a loudest song
in the stillness, when even birds (if any dare dwell in the shade of the
Wizard's Isle) do not yet stir and speak amongst themselves.
She is brighter than the very Moon, light pouring from her as foam from
the rapids, ever-new, inexhaustible — she stands, hair hacked unkemptly
short even as theirs as in mark of servitude, with her garments in rags,
pale tatters and starry blue, and barefoot, her eyes hollow shadows in
the pallor of her moonlit face, and about her swirls a high-tide of darkness
and rest, her wide cloak rippling on the slight breeze over the water as
though it were the lightest of gauze, tumbling over itself like ink dropped
in water, or long dark hair upon a dancing surge of wind.
From the place where the Lady waits, staring past them unseeing, towards
the stronghold that is no more, come upon the cold and bitter air of the
Island of the Tower of the Wolves and the eaves of the Nightshade instead
the sweet clear fragrances of summer forests and unpoisoned, flowing water
— and even those who are come of Aman, who have walked among the Powers
of the world themselves in days of joy beyond remembering, do not know
if she be of their Kindred or of far mightier name.
Little by little they venture to approach, (yet not too closely, not
yet) and to bow trembling at a distance from her feet, whispering their
gratitude in voices yet meek and uncertain after so long duress, weeping
with the gladness and unbelief of it, and still she looks beyond them,
as though they are but ghosts unhoused upon the night wind, too dim for
seeing, too faint their voices to be heard by one living and complete,
consumed with her own thought and needing nothing that they might offer
her.
—Where are you? where are you — O my love, answer me again, come
to me — must I go to find you in that Darkness, must I go into that—?
such terror at the end of the terrible path that yet daunts me — or am
I too late? —too late in the coming, too late in departing, and only the
memory of thy voice shall I save? O Beren, return to me, return—!
At last when no more straggle across the gap to the shore where she
stands, the frailest sustained and welcomed by friends, kinsmen, strangers,
she turns to the great Hound beside her and exchanges a long look, and
haply more, for all they know.
Then, slowly, so slowly, as though she is walking into a high wind of
Winter, she begins to make her way down the slope up which they have climbed,
down to the rocks and half-broken vaultings of the bridge beneath her,
her strange companion by her side, whom she holds to by shaggy fur as though
to a friend's hand, as though she durst not go forward without the Hound's
companionship.
They begin to pick their way across the blocks that bar and bridge the
river, slipping and catching themselves, until at last at the great Hound's
nudging she yields and climbs dripping onto his back, clinging hard to
the fur of his hackles while he surges forward without the halting, careful
pace he kept to stay her and shield her from the frothing tide. Like a
trained courier's remount he gathers his strength and expends it by need,
and she sits him as confidently as any King's messenger over the uncertain
terrain.
Like a star burning across the earth she goes forward, bearing night
with her — they watching her from the bank, increasingly from afar — over
the broken bridge and its sunken arches, she and her shadowy steed, over
what once was the barrier to all their hopes, now but a tumble like to
a sculptor's model half-crushed for rekneading and fashioning into new.
Slow their passage and careful their going hence on the wet stones,
even as their own in leaving — but some who saw it before they were taken
remember, and cannot put from their thought now, nor leave off from speaking
of it, how once another rode over the broken land, star-shining, unstoppable,
into the Dark — Somehow, despite that, despite the dread of that Island
she ventures, their hope is not quenched that she will come back to them…
The darkness that has overlain the island for almost a decade clings
to her ankles, clutching her bare feet like black mud, oozing-cold and
poisonous in its touch — she can feel it trying to scald her, eat away
at her soul and her hopes, and in weakness wishes she had not dismounted
just yet — but if Huan can endure it and must, then so too shall she. But
she sees him, catlike, shaking each paw in disgust as he lifts it from
the layer of shadow-vapour, and so is less troubled.
They have left the bridgehead — or what was that, once — behind them,
and now labour upwards to the footings of the Tower. She had tried to use
the tumbled stones from the upmost stories that are heaped thickest at
the outer range, the curve of spans and buttresses taller than she, to
aid her in her climbing; but the web of horror that coated them made them
too awful to touch, and like wet moss her hands slipped back from them,
so that now she only holds fast to the long coat of her savior, her friend,
and trusts to his strength to carry them both up the rise of the mount.
Behind them, though they do not know it, where they have passed over
the track of their passing is clear — the light that surrounds them melts
away the residuum of the Necromancer's wardings, and the clotted veils
do not roll back behind them — rather, the clear darkness of before-dawn
continues to wash wider on either hand, and where the shade of her mantle
sweeps over it the bitter earth softens, as under the rains of the far-distant
springtime…
…Heart should not be able to bear such burden of dread, such cold weight
of anguish growing like ice-weight on branches, crushing slowly and with
such insidious increase, every step like another drop of freezing rain,
catching, coating, unable to slip off as snow may, or be shaken by hand
or wind, so that the burden is gone, to be renewed, but with a brief while
of ease…the pain growing, breath by panting breath, not the dull weight
of stones that crush, now, the dead weight of hopelessness, helplessness,
the weariness of the trapped that cannot break free, can see no way out
of the deep-dug trap, the walls falling in upon the leaping creature, the
chain and collar fast about neck, no way to even gnaw self free in flight
bloody-footed but better than other…
This is slow, too, but sharp, sharp as the rending of wood deep
within bough, wound unseen but no less fatal, wider-tearing as the time
draws near, when weight shall be too much and self shall be rent,
soul ripped as the heartwood, unless the Sun shall haply rise in time ere
the breaking, ere the moment of breaking inevitable, even though freed
of the ice-prison—
Is it her own fears only, that drag her down towards the earth, towards
the foul footing of the Island? Or the darkness that has drenched it so
long, the welling residue of death-magic outpoured by its robber-lord,
the memory of dread wielded to overthrow its defenses so long ago, so brief
a time in the ken of the Eldar, and yet so long in the living of those
held here in thrall — how can she know, how tell them apart, when they
are one and the same?
How strange that to her this last, briefest journey should be more fearful
than all the rest, this short walk uphill more of heart-freezing terror
than the long drop of Hírilorn, when there could be no resting,
no pause, only to keep going, down, and down, and yet down, as the slow
Moon passes over, fearing to be seen despite working of Song and shuttle,
pressing bared foot against bark so smooth that any carelessness of ankle
means slip, and shock, and trembling dread, only arm's strength and angle
of leaning holding one from fall and death of breaking, and never a thought
of turning back, only step after step as the thin cord sears hands already
worn raw with the work, too much in too short a time, with never rest for
healing, never pause to reconsider, nor ever a regret…
No regret now, not that, but such reluctance as never encumbered her
earlier, dark webs of apprehension tangling her, holding her, through which
she must force her way ever onward, dragging at her like wet mud soaking
the hem of her dress, her mantle, slowing her steps ever as she must ever
force herself to keep pace with Huan, Huan who will not leave her behind
nor stop, so must she then go on. Not in the worst weathers of the rough
lands she traversed alone, veiled in shadow and dream, fretting sleeplessly
where she tried to rest, and plodding onward in weariness for having neglected
rest, did she ever face such difficult going.
The Bridge of Sorrow was not so dreadful, even as wolvish minions stalked
her down its span, cold green eyes filled with wrath and hunger and nothing
more, save hate, as this cumbered slope from which all enemies have gone
in haste and terror of their coming, battle won at a stroke of challenge,
the field forsaken and left scattered for them to take at leisure. Open
battle, pitched and engaged, filled with its own particular and distinctive
fear, the taste of which never had she known before, save in others' Telling,
leaves no room nor time for any other fear or thought of bleak surmise:
there is nothing, in that moment, but the moment itself…
The shock of the Wolflord himself, huge beyond mind's ability to comprehend,
too big for the world about him, falling upon her like a wave of poisonous
shadow as she stumbled backwards in recoil of body and mind, that
was a little like to this, with its rending sharp stroke of fear through
her heart as she imagines the blow of a sword would be like, but that was
quickly ended as it begun, her self defending herself as though
she were twain, the Lúthien that fell back before the Enemy
that had shadowed her people all her life long, whose dread and works had
darkened the horizons of her days, though the present be clear and cloudless
— and Tinúviel, who no more fears beast or blade in hand
than a nightbird on the wing, crying a note upon the envenomed wind that
stopped that Enemy in mid-leap as surely as any spear—
—who was no more than sight and will and fiercest hope, without any
recollection of hröa standing on the cold stones of the causeway,
while the Lord of Dogs and the Lord of Wolves battled for the mastery of
Doom in that hour, and the latter learnt most hardily that Fate cannot
be fooled by the tricks of a conjurer, and the lies of one whose greatest
art is but deceit…
Ai — she is here, now, at the brink of it, where the tumble
of blocks is worse than the snow heaped of a midwinter, and she clings
to Huan's strength again, holding to his neck with her face pressed against
his shaggy coat as though he were a horse taking steepest bank of a river,
shaking too much to climb over of her own strength without slipping. Over
what was the arch of the eastern gate he struggles, huge haunches driving
him tireless onward, even after the long night's battles. Until, now, they
look upon the uppermost of the foundations of the tower, opened before
them as an anthill by the turning of earth, the maze of half-built caverns
and shaped delvings that hold no more of their unwilling, saving only those
who cannot come forth—
Her tongue cleaves to her dry mouth, she could not sing now if life
again depended on it, cannot even whisper, her ribs so tightly bound
by fear that breath itself is pain — the tide of horror is so strong here,
the echo of the Necromancer's dark Song trembling still in every stone
and scrap of mortar, every grain of sand that made its mixing, pressed
into all by year, month, day, hour, breath of sorrow and destruction
that she can scarcely hold, would flee as the enslaved, wiser, perhaps,
than she, whom all name
foolish—
So deep is the shadow of death-spell and memory of agony and deceptions
worked for cruelty that she cannot sense, so close though she is, any presence
within it. Only Huan's sure press forward, seeming to know where they must
go, as though he can scent trail through this mirk of horror, carries her
past stillness of despair into the warren of stone. —If after so far, so
long, so much struggle and strife she should be too late — Perhaps it
would be bitter justice upon me, that delayed so long to follow him, —
but not for any other —! No— She forces the cruel and useless
thoughts aside, dwelling only in body, only in present, this scrape of
stone on knee and thigh, palm and sole, the feel of sandy mortar through
stretching cloth, this straining of sinew in bending of limb and lifting
of self, the placing of weight as a dancer must, to counter fall, ever
changing, ever yielding, ever recovering as water over stones—
But this only defers, and for so long, as they scramble down
through to below the upmost layers of the honeycomb of rock, and stand
at last upon the brink, looking down into the well of darkness, this vast
fosse of sorrow, into which so much anguish and suffering have been poured
in so short a time, scant years of the Sun, years of nightfall and pain…
If it were not for Huan's seizing of her shoulder in his gentle maw
she would topple, drowned in the overflow of Shadow that spills forth from
it like poison steam from furnace of Morgoth's making, her heart frozen,
her spirit overwhelmed by the darkness that is not fear for her own harming,
but far, far worse than that…
—Peace, she whispers silently to any who linger yet, unhoused,
upon this isle, within these walls, peace and quiet rest, with such
forgetting as thou wilt have— But there is none that her sense can
descry, remaining, none yet bound here without shelter. Only the memory
of their pain, in the stones that she must steady herself on, memory of
defilement and despair, clinging to her as though she touched half-dried
spill of blood, too thick to be shaken off…
Down and yet down, they work their way over rubble and through blockage
of fallen column caught on the barrier of the steps cut in the living rock,
and ever she must lean upon Huan's strength as she grows weaker, her pulse
so rapid that it seems she will faint as she goes, but she compels herself
to remember breathing, and though it does not feel as though it helps,
she is not yet ever overcome by dizziness…
It is as though she swam to the bottom of a well, clawing her way down
along the side-stones of it slow hand-press by hand-press, when not only
the crushed frame but spirit as well both yearn and strive for light and
air, forcing herself deeper against the mounting strength of dread, layer
upon layer of anguish like water ice-cold and colder, each descent more
difficult by magnitude than the last, so that all one's self becomes focussed
on the task, on not slipping and failing at end, now, and so when end is
reached, of this portion of journey's ending, at the least, it is as a
wonder, and a dream, and one does not believe it, and staggers, trying
to step down where there is no further
down.
—Only across, across a space level and dim, scarce brighter than
full darkness, more dreadful than the distant mountains one's ancestors
crossed so far ago, following a Call, and a Light, that some had seen,
and others only heard of, to where the overwhelmed inner sight believes,
or is deluded, that there is yet light—
It is so cold here that she cannot stop trembling, or that is what she
tells herself, and this is likest to what she has known before, the fear
that has no name but must be named, and not self-blinded pretense raised
as false and frail shield of gauze, against both the smiling evil and the
silent turning-away of those who stand by and refuse to name it so, pretending
ignorance and hence formal innocence of complicit guilt — when only love,
and painful sacrifice may save one whose defenses are nonexistent, when
only the withholding of power for its own purpose against prey delays Doom
— she puts her arm over the back of her faithful steed, letting his strides
carry her, letting the heat of his side warm her own as her hair does not
in the abyss—
Each step deeper into the mire of misery and soul-defiling horror that
fills this space, each movement more reluctant than the last, as though
one should wade into a vale filled with the overflowings of innumerable
distillations of venom, knowing that it shall only grow more painful as
one goes on, nor grow used to it, easier with familiarity — the faint radiance
of the coming Sun barely shifts the night here at all, and her vision can
glean little as yet, but still she seeks with eye as with heart… Sound
affrights her, and she realizes that it is felt as much as heard, bearing
through flesh as much as upon ear, the low growl of anger that Huan gives
unceasing now…
A roofless pillar looms up beside, like a bare and branchless tree,
dead in swamp, giving home but to carrion crow, or fire-burnt pine, and
as they near it the impress of torment, of terror, agony, shame, despair
so oft spilled at its footing reaches at the same instant sight discerns
the tangle of curves pale and dark, bone and black iron, and the comprehension
— unwilled, unwished, undesired and inescapable — dashes her to her knees
as though a hammer had felled her, and when she would push herself to her
feet her elbows fold beneath her own weight and she cannot but bow under
the terrible weight of knowledge, the cold of the stone paving flowing
into her like venom into her pulsing veins, and she pants for breath and
cannot even draw a full measure of the foul air where she gasps, shuddering,
broken by a truth past any imagining.
Though no seen or scented foe threatens, the Hound bestrides her at
once, thews like trunks of thick-barked oak, like gateposts to either side,
gateway guarded by vigilance sharper than spears, spear-sharp the defending
weapons, and his hackle-raised anger a flame like unto torch blazing to
defy the night. The heat of him shelters her, the strength of his love
braces her, so that she can brace herself against his strong forelegs and
thrust herself up from the floor, leaning against his muscled chest as
though he were war-horse, the two of them pressed now against each other
for comfort, both shaken with horror and rage and dread of what may find,
pressing forward in bleak determination now, knowing the secret of abyss
they have fathomed…
…past each lonely outpost, where so many have yielded self without volition,
crushed in sacrifice to the ambitions of the tyrants, greater and lesser,
who would master all, if mastery means destruction of what will not yield,
and surely here would the unrestful dead be most likely to remain, but
she senses none, hears no word of reproach or lamentation, no glimpse of
any faintest lingering light, though she is too unsteady to speak or answer
did any reply, all her strength of spirit forced to the forcing of self
onward, to find the answer she fears she knows already…
Until at last they have reached their long-sought end, and still she
does not know if they two be but two, alone, here: for the wolf-demon at
which Huan bares teeth snarling in ready instinct of defense is lifeless
as its fellows that lie in the riverbed far above, and her kinsman whose
body lies in its fatal embrace is likewise gone, and he that huddles so
near to them, hand stretched towards as though straining against the now-opened
shackle, neither stirs nor attends to their approach.
Again, as on the bridge in the heat of battle her own flesh fades from
her awareness, all that is her drawn into one consuming flame of seeking,
the questing spirit fixed only on that which is without, so completely
that the rest might be left behind, and only mind, only yearning self,
remain and never mark the loss. Without perceiving the motion she has flung
herself down by his side, turning him with trembling hands, not only her
own form but all the world beyond, past and present, lost to her sense.
—Beren — Her lips trace the name, but her soul shouts only —Too
late — too late — and her chest is too tight to breathe, to take that
which speech requires, as though her very ribs were iron claws closing
ever more fast upon her efforts. Iron is still caught about his bleeding
wrists: she reaches up to pull the chain free, and the evil in it is so
fierce that she flings it from her as though it were an adder, its poisonous
bite burning into her fingers even through their benumbed coldness.
Briefly she is aware of her own bodily existence, as a bewildering thing,
this sudden sense of weight, of presence, of the soft brush of cloth
against her skin, lifted by the risen hairs of her forearms, of the unholy
thickness of many layers of blood beneath the press of her ankles, slightly
sticky despite passage of time ever, as paint overlaid too soon and never
drying fully hard, of the steaming of her own breath against her face,
taunting hint of warmth in the abyss… Then the moment, lightning-flash
perceiving, as if such a storm-light should reveal another, a stranger,
unknown and at hand in darkness, and its startlement, is past, and quite
forgotten.
How strange it is, to come to it at last, that moment past all postponing,
when there is no more least room for uncertainty, no least distance between
might
and is, and that which is, is so far beyond all worst imaginings
that thought stands still, as though one found blank wall of stone where
door should be, and all words of opening swept from memory, and the way
back too is now unmarked stone, and there is only now, and here,
and thus—
She cannot tell how he is wounded, nor how gravely, no more than she
can say if he lives or not: the blood on him though drying is not all old,
and perhaps not all is his, but he moves not save by her moving of him,
and she finds long tears beneath when she rubs away what she can of the
masking stains with a handful of her sodden clothing, and not even that
hasty scouring of rawness sparks resistance as such usage does with one
who merely sleeps, and the tiny candle-glim of hope so long carried, so
carefully and painfully borne through betrayal and captivity and fear and
darkness dims to a blue-hollowing glow, too weak for breath of air to revive.
The horror that he has known since that worst day, when sorrow that
she had thought could grow no greater was shown to be as light as the truth
of all she had believed in, pours into her soul as though the thin strand
of sense that bound them were become a wide and raging channel of knowledge,
told not by word but by flesh, the press of bone through what was lean
and now lies gaunt, hardness of ribs so deeply carved it seems they lie
as bare beneath her searching hands, the face so clear in recollection
that fades beyond recall, replaced by the cruelness of features yet familiar
when so cruelly changed that few else would even know him, for mask of
filth and agony and hunger.
It is as though she herself has become a Void, a space empty of even
the memory of joy or beauty, holding nothing but suffering now. —There
is so much of it, no matter how much I take there shall be inexhaustible
and ever-renewed more… The taste of certainty is different
from fear, even as one fear differs from another, horror like the
savor of burnt bread, bitter, where terror stings upon the tongue like
cold iron, and sudden shock like a mouthful of warm blood—
She touches him, seeking pulse or breath or beat of heart, but the blood
that roars in her own temples is louder than the torrent of Sirion over
the broken stones, and her hands are so chilled that she feels nothing,
and there is no warmth against the palm she places at his mouth, and her
breath too fails, the bonds that clench her ribs, hard as iron, cold as
ice, tightening at last beyond her strength to battle against.
Under the deep weight of shadow she sinks, settling like a drift of
dark silk through the still air, fitting herself against him, drawing his
strengthless arms about her in unknowing embrace, and like a drowning swimmer
caught in a raging flood, slips finally from the long struggle into the
grim tranquillity that comes with relinquishment of all hope, all thought,
all seeking after flight…
They have gone, the Lady and the Hound, down into the Pit, where none
save the servants of the Dark go willingly, and their light is quenched
beneath the power of Death, and they do not return. Nor do any of those
who watch from freedom expect, truly, any return.
For none comes back from the Pit, not though breathing flesh be hauled
hence, surrendering, yielding, opening all hidden thoughts and entrusted
faiths to the Wolflord's gaze: that which the Pit expels is not any longer
what was given hence, no more than are the exhumed bones of one buried
live, though fëa creep on for days after, unable to believe
no longer bound — who was sent thither has truly died there, in that refusal
to die, betrayed self no less wholly than those friends betrayed by broken
love, and the saved flesh more loathsome thereafter than to be trapped,
were such possible, in hröa falling with decay.
And yet they wait still, for there is nothing else for them to do —
they wait for one to step forward to lead them, but none does, there is
no hope for them among themselves, and so they wait, and wait, and wait—
—Far, so far above them the dimming Stars turn upon the Sickle's hilt
in the slow-lightening sky…
This dream, too, is familiar to him, though only from his own soul's
sending, nor from memory, and long since any strength remained to blossom
forth or hold onto its welcome untruth. Yet there are small facets of it
that are simply wrong, elements that pry away at the simple unity
of illusion, disquieting enough that together they suffice that singly
might be disregarded. Greatest of these is the cold beneath him, for no
bed would be so chill at dawning, and where would he, save in his own great
hall, where walls shelter warmly and loft and bower alike fend out the
winter's cold? —Surely not, willingly, by campsite, cold at back, warm
only where facing the fire.
And it is too quiet: ever, even in the deeps of night, some noise, stirrings
of folk, shiftings of rafter and beam in the ancient architecture, grumbling
of hound or nightjar's whistle without. There is as well a strange tickling
against his face, like the brush of finest fleece, or the down of seeds
in Summer on the breeze, and the light that glows present even to eyes
fast closed is cold, not the ruddy tinge of banked hearth coals.
Any of these apart he might not even mark, or could choose not to regard,
as the half-felt sense that someone not long since has called his name,
knowing that no friend lives to hail him now; but all of them are too great
a strangeness, drawing the dream away from him would he or no, and thus
he yields, will slowly moving the reluctant spirit to attend half-fearfully
to its damaged shell, stirring from the illusory safety of sleep to wakefulness
and knowledge of the harsh world without…and to memory, that fearful foe
that waits so raptly for least opening to leap—
—Eyes open, that most absolute gesture of awakening—
That which is before his gaze, never this view present ere now, is but
a field the dim grey of a dove's wing, scarcely brighter than shade of
night and of no color — but it is light, so clear and transparent that
it seems as endless depth of purest water, so far off and unmarred that
it might not be real, save that sheer breadth and clarity prove its presence
unfashioned of imagining. This is no dream that he but falsely wakes, no
more than the rest—
Impossible though it be, beyond any chance or strange enchantment, that
his beloved does lie upon his waking body, warm flesh against cold, matching
his frame with her own, holding him pressed thus that he might not rise
even had he strength for it, save by lifting her, her head against the
hollow of his shoulder, her brows and cheekbones dimly sculpted as if in
ancient silver — it is as impossible, and as real, as the faint light that
so barely traces her to sight (scarcely sufficient for seeing) — as real
as the sky…
But for his eyes attuned to the darkness it is enough, and nearly more
than, and it is a wonderment to him, and beyond his compassing, and so
he can only accept it, for the moment. —As he accepts, without either understanding
or belief, that she is neither dream nor memory nor ghost, lying warm between
his body and the lax hold of his arms. Never in any dream would she appear
so, haggard and careworn, her eyes dark and tearstained hollows, her lips
set in the severe line of one who has forgotten how to smile, yet too proud
yet to concede defeat, surrender—
—Tinúviel — and she hears him, though he has no voice
left, and her eyes open suddenly with the clear flash of gems uncovered
in casket and the start of wonder that leaps through her then stabs through
him like a lightning-bolt, like a sluice of cold water, the pounding alarm
of her heart through her breastbone, through his, like the slap of hand
on lazy steed, sending wit bolting wildly across fields of surmise—
His hand moves roughly, in a hesitant arc that startles nerves in the
fashion of one jarred awake by fall in troubled sleep, passing through
a froth of fine curls like the bubble of foaming stream against palm, fingertips
brushing clumsily down tear-wet skin, sliding from cheek to lips, fingers
spreading to embrace and tilt the parting jaw, raise her head that is set
so heavily and immovably upon his shoulder—
As he strives against his own weakness, reluctance of soul to encounter
harm no less encumbering than the inability of muscle, he realizes with
astonishment that is almost fear in its strangeness that the pain is not
merely kept from his awareness, as one shields with hand a sight too terrible
for friend's knowledge, but less — that the careless deep-drawn
breath of surprise does not meet a clawing as of thorn spikes, that the
ache
as of arrow-point touching bone in joint and limb does not lock against
his moving, that the formless and cold-burning touch that has drenched
his veins and thoughts so long is gone, as he had not remembered
it could be otherwise.
Slipping through his unruled grasp like water rising from a fountain
she lifts herself a little, enough to look down upon him in glad astonishment,
her expression not plainly such save to him, so drained of hope and weary
is she, whom never has he seen other than glad and proud in strength —
even in that distress of their last parting was she still unbroken, confident
in her love, lordly in her manner as befits the daughter of a King and
Lady of lands divine…
"—Beren," she exclaims, nigh as hoarse as he, and her face is
transformed in wonder and becomes glorious in its distrait pallor, of all
sights the fairest that ever he has beheld in waking or in dream, under
Sun or Moon, a thousand times lovelier than when first she came to him
after hope had died in the bleakness of day, as her voice calling him through
tears is beyond the beauty of that song that stole heart and life from
him to give back changed so long ago…
She traces her forefinger along the height of hollowed cheek and nosebone,
across beard's roughness to bareness of broken lower lip, and the sensation
of touch that is not dream, not pain, is more almost than starved sense
can bear, and he shudders, drawing convulsive breath, forgetting again
the long-known need to drink but shallowly of the chill night's cruel draughts
— but it is no matter, the breath he takes is hers, warmth of steam
exhaled upon the shadows like the river's that rises at the dawning, and
it cuts him not; and the fine mist flows into his parched body, and the
Life which claims him he accepts at last, surrendering to it without comprehending
it, no longer warding self against hope with shield of disbelief.
Her hand slips down to the stones beside his head and her face lowers
to his in overwhelming nearness, and as he trembles, fëa reeling
in flood of sensation, trapped thus between inexhaustible floods of heat
and cold, her mouth brushes over the path her finger has blazed, but pauses,
tongue flickering to part his dry-grained lids, melting the hard matter
that crusts lash and inflames eye, and that most intimate of intrusions,
touching that which bears not touch, unharming, — not even that
brings return of fear or defense, seeming as natural as the brush of falling
leaf on brow… Touch, gentler than ever hand's shall be, caresses away scalding
spatter of poison here and there… Lip claims lip, lightest pressure against
the cracked flesh, and again that liquid touch, so soft and harmless, delves
into the dry rifts, and fleeting pain fades as though she but lapped it
up with the seeping blood. His soul founders beneath the tide of pleasure
as though drenched in strong wines, almost fainting at the surfeit—
Before he is completely overcome, swept into swoon for his weakness
not by torment but too-great joy, she raises herself again from him, this
time to kneel upright, hands outspread in excess of wonder, staring down
at him with such amazement and delight as though he were the fairest of
her own people, shaking her head a little as though not even evidence of
solid hröa were sufficient to sway disbelief — and then, finally,
he recalls his present state: that he stretches beneath her clothed but
in clotting blood and the salt bitterness of dried sweats, torn, emaciated,
rank and befouled beyond words, and he would recoil, hide the horror of
his flesh from her sight, if it lay within his power.
Yet as he suffers in abject shame, mute under her rapt gaze that holds
no revulsion, a shadow in darkness that stirs behind her sends fire of
terror through soul as through clenching heart — the gray bulk looming
with lowered head and heavy quarters pacing towards — and two divergent
thoughts hurtle madly through his battered mind, the one that this joy
granted him past all possibility is but an Eilinel fashioned for him alone,
image stolen from his thought to set against him, thus to steal his dearest
secret, and wield it for weapon against those whose power still meets and
matches and thwarts the power of Morgoth.
And even while thinking it as much likely as haply that she be but such
a ghost of memory, forced upon his dreaming self with the vast might of
their sorcerous foe, he lunges up with outspending of strength that only
direst need could have called forth, forgetting all in fear for her, injury
and nakedness alike — but succeeds only in pitching a small ways to one
side, too weak to interpose shield of self between her flesh and fang—
But as he gives strangled, wordless cry of fury and dread, the grey
and rough-coated beast whines, so like any mortal dog, and leans pressing
over her shoulder in gesture both seeking and bestowing of comfort, concern
shared with master in doglike fashion, and absently as any mortal mistress
she reaches backwards up to caress long panting muzzle, and the eyes in
that great head look down upon him with no less pity, and as he shuts his
own in gasping relief, empty with that exhaustion of limb that is beyond
ordinary weariness as starvation is beyond hunger, he sees yet, as the
brightness of flame impresses its memory upon sight in darkness, their
shapes wrought of light, though no earthly cause is there for it in this
dimness…
—Who are you, lord? he asks in thought, but the Hound answers
him not; or belike not in words: for the other, whose long hair is patched
and matted with blood and slaver, though he moves not as though wounded,
draws near to stand beside, warmth of breath gusting over him from the
half-bared jaws, clean animal reek strong as any mortal hound's, a single
clear droplet splashing like Summer raindrop on his laboring chest from
the lolling tongue. With feeble, ungoverned effort he reaches out to stroke
the other, succeeds only in striking softly against the tangled locks of
foreleg, wet-clinging and sand-rough as any dog's that has lately swum
a stream, and the Hound keens softly through those massive fangs, instinct
lifting hoof-large paw at his touch, and then stoops to lick his fallen
hand penitently.
A silken brush, like fall of apple-blossom in late springtide breeze,
against collarbone and scratched sides and hollow of belly beneath rib
— dappling touch of fingertip brings another formless gasp of startlement,
forced past the damming dryness of his throat, recollecting himself, his
crushed and weary mind, to her presence — and his own disgrace.
He must lie before her even as one dead on field of battle, helpless
to cleanse himself as to cover, and shame burns with the cruel searing
of strongest spirituous liquor into wound; for flesh yearns toward her
thus kneeling over him, his thigh caught firmly between her calf and ankle,
her body's heat like a bed of coals against his hip where her knee presses
him, countering the inward cold that renders hröa stonelike-still.
Yet even as he flinches from her look, turning for distraction to the
mystery of her shorn hair, blood rising in burning face as well, her voice
compels him, summoning him with his name, and his eyes are caught by hers,
and there is neither answering shame, nor confusion there, nor anything
but sorrow mingled with joy as water of stream with heady wine, sunlight
and shadow at the slide of afternoon to even, and wisdom far older in bone
and blood and the fashioning of flesh than his thought can compass.
And the crumbled ruins of memory give up this truth, that she has been
Healer as well as dancer for long Ages before his people ever crossed the
Ered Luin, ere he himself had bloodily been drawn from between his mother's
thighs, to be rested in weary disarray on Emeldir's sweating breast, famished
and thirsting and new-assailed with the chaos of the world…No more should
there be shame than to bathe naked beneath the Stars, to rest beheld by
the starlike gaze of her who so anciently has known of war's wretched harvest,
long years before a child born of Men ever knew that men come not back
from the field of battle, or but in part, body divided by blow of iron,
or soul divided by hurt of parting from brother and friend, no more than
those who must live in this world's bonds should (or ever do) know shame
to be so seen by the Kindler of those lights or her kingly lord…
(—But would one of the holy Powers ever weep so, tracing the scores
rent across gaunt rib and hollowed flank, the gouged haunch and deep-bruised
jaw, and claw-torn scalp, gaps where gift of life outpoured in claiming
of him mingled with his own…?)
But still there is shame, to be so broken, naught more than a half-dead
beast lying so under her eyes, that see in this twilight far more than
his own might, no grace of dark to mitigate the ugly image of his ruin,
and with such fierce effort as brings prickle of sweat to brow and sides
and wrists he forces mind to shape thought, mouth to shape sound, offering
of word, of knowing, that speech that raises mere flesh to folk,
of any Kindred, that signifies self, that is not mere matter—
"—Lúthien," he says, hailing her as herself, King's daughter,
distant legend, —Lúthien, a name in song, of song renowned,
Princess he had never dared to dream of, far less ever court, and then
as she looks at him sorrowfully, the memory of Menegroth and shining lights
of trees and spears strong between them both, he names her:
"Tinúviel—"
— my nightingale —
—and she smiles again that radiant joy that is like the fairness of
moonlight on lake water, and bends forward to caress him full, not for
her own sake, her own savouring, but for his salvation…
Beneath her hands his body softens like beeswax beneath the candle's
flame, joints opening, sinews untwisting, knotted muscles easing into the
deep rest that healing requires, gentle impress of heat more delectable
than ever sunlight on a Spring morning after bitter Winter — her touch
shapes his flesh as sculptor does wax, recalling the limits of form from
out of darkness, where, blinded, and then driven deep within by cold and
agony and kindness of binding spell, his senses crippled and crushed, he
long since lost that knowledge rightfully bequeathed to him at birth.
It is not all comfort, that she gives to him: as living skin and meat
recovered from bite of frost must surely feel deep and lasting pain in
the undoing, so too
hröa so enslaved, so wounded for so long,
must know deep change in exercise of healing, and though it is not the
same either as the horrible webs that meshed him fast, delaying harm and
supplying lack, nor as the enforced mending sacrificed to him by service
of friend that seared in quick completion, hastening nature to swift scarring,
still — it is
change, though change as the new growth of youth or
season's turning, and disturbance of that which would easier lie still,
though that stillness should work only to death's last change.
And so he groans, as wood might groan were it quickened with a year's
growing in less than a single hour of the Sun, and the Hound whines again
in echo of his suffering, and the liquid silver of his true-love's song
fills the interstices of his frame as slow rise of ground water through
fissured rock, low melody of healing trickling along the riven paths that
necromancy has eaten, privation widened, clean untwisted growth stirring
withered fibres from dry sleep of Winter…
He writhes a little, in unwilled brute resistance to the ingress of
strength and harsh kindness, but her hands and voice cease not from the
work of clearing and refashioning as after devastating gale the forest
makes itself anew; and the broken crevices of his inward parts, fëa
no less than flesh, move and melt together like the parched land at drought's
long ending, remembering their ways of working, speaking mind and cleansing
bowel and the hot heart-marrow of the supple, growing bone, and he slackens
in her arms at last.
Briefly she lays him down upon the hard chill of the pavement, but to
remove the shadowy cape from her shoulders: against her pale dress the
flare of her mantle about her sides minds him of the proud white breast
of the dark-winged hawk rearing to claim its tattered prey. Once more her
hands shape him, molding the cloth about him, enough to wrap him and more
than to spare, and as he settles his face against its comforting folds,
breathing in its familiar fragrance as of countless blossoming trees, recognition
comes, and he comprehends the doubled fact of that one lack, this addition,
and knows that which laps him is his love's lost hair, and does not understand
it, and does not need to, now.
And the Ice that locks his inmost heart begins to thaw, and the warm
Summer midnight surrounding him is briefly sprinkled with a short rain
of tears…
Wistfully he drifts back to that dream of bliss, of home about hearth-light
and sturdy oak-hewn marriage-bed, the life of Men that he was born to,
the sunlit joys and sorrows that dwell in shadow of things greater as the
hall-roof before the mountains' roots, to which the wars of Powers and
sorceries and strong-sworn Vows alike were strange and distant — or so
seeming — and then, not without regret, gives up the dream, relinquishing
it as he turned from his homeland and the place of his birth, knowing it
lost to him forever, and choosing this life, this place, this real world
of Arda for the present over all dreams and memories…
For this moment he is held safely, twice shielded from the cold by her
body, and the Void driven off by the rich darkness of her love, and her
light washes away the despair that clogs his soul like clotted blood, and
the sky changes, warming to rose upon silver, like the sheen of turning
plumage on a flight-spread wing, or the flush of life in fish's scales
leaping in the splendor of Spring…
Forever — until Arda should cease to be, the Stars themselves
fade for the last time into dark, not dawn, and the boundary twixt World
and Void be broken: for so long she could cradle him, or hold him out of
turning time for a measureless Age even as her own mother held her father,
and not weary of her burden — thus, at least, it seems to her. But he is
mortal, and swift as the great river beyond them runs time for him, and
every pulse-beat is one smallest flicker nigher the Sea of parting, and
this is no place for those who live, nor can she hold back that forceful
torrent any more than she might restrain the tide of Sirion above.
But when she speaks of this to him, shifting him a little in her encircling
arms as she readies to rise with him, he shakes his head, struggling with
speech again, and the pain that overflows his heart and chokes him freezes
and stifles her as well, so that she can only rock him until it eases enough
that he can manage language once more, and she attend:
"I cannot leave him here," he whispers, and his anguish makes her jaws
ache in mirrored pain, "I must not abandon them…in the Dark." For immeasurable
span of sorrow they cling to each other in mute mourning, one linked tangle
of grief and regret, guilt and heart's breaking; but then that other
that is also her arises, as she must, since none else shall do it for her,
casting about in thought for answer, and with the mad practicality that
won passage through depth of height and wolf-haunted night discovers a
resolution, most elegantly simple.
"I can carry you," she tells him, "all of you, I, and Huan — but I am
not strong enough to descend here again." And it is true, for not alone
could she manage it, not even with Huan to stay her, and she will never
make him return here. His answer chills her like a sudden gust of
wind, for when he assures her that there is nothing unfitting in her plan
the word that he uses is not the usual, nor is the form, and she does not
think it but accident, nor the different uses of their speech, of lands
far sundered though of tongue the same, that he says:
"It's of no matter — we'll not mind."
—We, not they — shall, not would — But of that
she makes nothing, says no word of her own, only lays her cheek against
his before rising to unwind her long blue mantle from where she has wrapped
it tightly folded around her hips for the climb.
Like a wandering star, or the lamp of the Moon crossing the twilit sky,
she goes from them then, swiftly moving from resting-place to resting-place,
gathering the dead: the long bones and the little, the broken with their
splintering, needle-sharp, where the rich darkness of marrow was drained
out, the rounding of ribs, the sharp angles of jawbone riven from hinge,
the cup-curve of skull fragment crushed between massive jaws, the heavy
strength of hip and the supple strength of spine, unstrung now, the smooth
flat of bladebone pierced where no hole should drill its plane, the pitting
as of acid's wash where venom etched, the rough grooves of gnawing on all…
Each one she gathers, cold as the stone from which she takes them, that
once were warm with the life that burned through them, that they bore,
and each is precious beyond measure, and each is not his, and she
thanks each one who gave them, though knowing her thanks unheard, honouring
no less for all her haste than as if she gathered the spill of sun-rich
grains from basket at harvest-time, lest the garner be lost into wasteful
stones…
The ice in her bones has gone past pain to numb clumsiness when she
strives to reknot for the last time the corners of the fabric, and yet
as her burden has grown her soul has risen beneath it, not lightness of
heart at all, but a brightening of spirit, as a coal buried deep in ash,
slowly uncovered, warms to kindling strength in the breathing of air, strength
that will suffice to save life in mid-winter, when no hope had been left:
Soon
we shall go from here—
Though reason knows it but for soundest reasons and shortest while,
soul cries out nonetheless at being forsaken, though voice troubles not
the motionless air of the abyss, though body feels yet lingering presence,
tangible heft of valour and devotion, weft of strange devising…
But the other abides, third of three, strangest of all saviours of this
night's struggles, and the fear that four-legged vastness evoked is transmuted
into wonder, and bittersweet sense of boyhood's returning, when his father's
hounds were horse-high to him, and in their might was he guarded, wrestling
fearless with strength that could shatter bone so easily, ignorant of danger
where there was none to him, sleeping warm on bulk of hairy side…
…as though his memory did summon, loud as whistle or clap of hands,
the Hound moves to lie down beside him, curling about his head, shaggy
fur damp against his skin — as was her gown where it pressed upon him —
Did
they swim the river, then? Surely not possible — but his thoughts
scatter like young mice when byre door is opened, and only
grief
remains, that needs not words to hold itself in mind's constructing… Will
is moved to accomplish, moving unwilling flesh—
—Scaling the sheer ledges of Ered Gorgoroth was not harder than hauling
weight of limb that bare span of level stone, to where the brief battle,
close of too-long war, came to ending vain it seemed and foolish at the
instant. Shadow hides much, much of destruction veiled from flinching view,
but there is light, silver-pale and faint though it be, and sight must
bear bitter witness to their Enemy's work—
Almost past recognition, for the marring of hröa, for pain-wracking
and smear of blood and scald of venom, for starved gauntness and deep-scored
suffering of helplessness — yet no breaking could ever make him turn from
that beloved flesh in horror, no ruin or decay ever cause aught of disgust,
nor mar fairness of memory — but still bond of mingled reproach and shame
and veneration holds him, folly though it be, and his grieving withholds
hand, though neither vanished spirit nor cold and broken house should mark
such embrace, no more than living should have minded.
But the Hound, in the way of dogs, wise simplicity, but nuzzles the
King who held his heart, regardless of master, and whimpers in the hound's
grief that cuts soul and ear like chill wind, like broken ice, like keenest
knife, and almost it calls tears from his own self; but the weight of sorrow
that presses upon him chokes him, and he can only rest his palm on the
horse-long head that leans towards him, and fight for breath against the
pain…
…and the whelming tide of sadness and guilt and regret and love drowns
him, shared utterly, equally, between the silent spirit whose coming not
only here but to this realm, this world, is Mystery, and he whose life
may be compassed in days, and each knows the other for Kindred, needing
no words, needing no likeness of form to show the truth of it.
Together they lament their lost, with speechless pure outpouring of
grief, and wearily the young Man bows his head to the still heart's broken
shelter, bared muscle of breast cold as the stones now, and the Lord of
Dogs drops against them both, covering the mortal's lean waist with outstretched
foreleg in hound's gesture of affection, licking impartially at the living
warrior's scabbed wrists as the unhealing wounds of the dead…
As halfway down a sheerest height one may falter and weaken and know
that this cannot be allowed, that there is no safety nor sure rest until
the ground is reached, and still unmoving after profoundest terror and
the utmost certainty that more and worse awaits and after it bitter dying,
find new breath, and go on almost in laughter at one's weary folly (save
that too were folly) — so now this return of strength, limitless as the
storms of Autumn, carrying all upon their dancing gusts. No force either
of earth or Undeath shall restrain her, slow her strong-pounding heart
or steal her wind renewed by slenderest victory.
—Not this ungainly burden she leans beneath, nigh twice the weight of
a warrior living, or lately dead, to lower heavily to the paving stones
once more, close to where the last awaits. The sickened horror returns
upon her again, so that only the tithe of hope sustains spirit, looking
upon him that she has flung off all bonds for sake of, who lies in hopeless
misery beside the ruin of her long-loved cousin, kinship of blood preceding
the first Sundering of Elven kind, but kinship of heart freely given, as
none else of Noldor lineage returning, saving only the family and following
of Finarfin's son.
Under the graying sky all of her small past dreams of hope, the few
that struggled into kindled flame and were not dashed out at once by the
icy gusts of long and recent fear, all the night's imaginings with which
she heartened herself when the trackless way grew strangely daunting and
the arches of the forest seemed to stretch on for leagues that twisted
back upon themselves, the same returning as though she had strayed into
the snares of her mother's great devising, the little dreams of rescue
and gladdest embrace, of subtle scheme and daring escape, all seem in the
cruel shadows of dawn no more than the fancies, whim and ornament and art
sublime, wrought for feast or friends' delight, yielding their unsolid
substance when mind relinquishes thought of them.
Between the extremes of that which is known in thought and that
which is known in flesh is the median of witness, but the distance
between is not equal: no horror told of, imagined, recounted and lamented,
shall ever be the same as that which is known and present — all remembered
tales of grief and grimmest fears, too, fade into the morning mists, lost
like clouds torn on the winds of the real.
—This is not the reunion I hoped for, she mourns, as much for
her own lost hopes and the world that is forever changed for her, as it
shall be for all others, as for the casualties of war, a reunion that should
be like all those that came before, only so much the more — How far
indeed from it! — not too late for thee, but in vain for him,
for all of these, that your heart holds to even as body — How lately lost?
How little time more of delay should have seen thee, too, lost to me —
forever?
But such musings serve no useful purpose, and most purposeful is she,
having started on her northward road, staying or turning for nothing, despite
impediment. Obstacle is aught but to be evaded, avoided, escaped, or cast
aside — and here is yet one more.
She grips the wolf's body by scruff and shoulder, hauling at it, but
the night has taken of her strength and she stumbles a little, faint again;
but recovering thereafter in short moment she renews her effort, dragging
it back in a single slowed stride, so that it is mostly away from its victim
before Huan heaves to his feet and hastens to help her, his massive withers
tensing and knotting as he closes teeth upon furred pelt and backs off,
drawing it farther into the shadows.
But when she would gather her dead kin as well, kneeling beside that
pale wreckage revealed by their effort, her love fends at her, lifting
eyes that scarce can see to stare at her wildly in the gloom, striving
to keep off perceived despoiler with hand's strength less than that of
Elf-child half his age, and she overmasters him not, but only touches his
lean temple with pity…and the desperate wildness fades from his mad look,
yielding to anguished misery that is worse than blow to her, but he does
not relinquish his guarding grasp.
"—Shall we not take him from here?" she asks, (so carefully chosen that
word, we—!) and the thought penetrates his half-healed mind, and
slowly the bitter confusion slips away and his countenance clears to comprehending
sorrow, and he nods mutely, letting her hands join his in linked embrace,
before permitting her to lift the forsaken dwelling of his lord and friend
from the place of his leaving, and without further resisting allows the
wasted form to be enfolded with the rest who came here with him, who alone
remains…
In the shadow of the walls that stretch above them on all sides the
midnight blue of her garment is nigh as black as the one woven of her hair,
as the shadows of the abyss, and the star-gems sewn upon it give back no
gleam of light.
—So ends hope, she thinks, her thoughts sent back along the skein
of days to so long since, when bright and brave her cousins rode to greet
them, offering grace and service and honor in such innocent pride, their
coming a source of mirth and confusion together, like a great wind blowing
through the stillness of the deep woods' shade, like the Sun breaking through
those bending branches…and now they are dead or scattered, so too their
followings, and the mighty endeavor, the vaunting boasts, the ambitions
of all things made new all done — So end the mightiest among us — and
how, how shall the rest of us endure, go on, far less conquer—?
As though he has heard her exclaiming Beren then looks at her, startled
eyes raising to her own, and perhaps he has; but he says no word, and when
she moves to help him up, calling Huan hither, both attend her, obey her
direction with only calm acceptance. Once again the Lord of Dogs bows down
like best-trained of steeds, and with her assistance the last of all prisoners
of this Pit makes ready to depart, lifted upon the recumbent Hound more
like to smallest child set on pony, lying down at once from weakness, as
of the instinct of one who knows not how to ride — or no longer has any
sense of balance — to cling flat upon mount's back, while she wraps more
securely about him the gentler darkness of her self's strength.
—Do not let him fall, she begs, and the Hound presses his muzzle
into the hollow of her shoulder, comfortingly, needing not voice to tell
her that her trust in him is well-set, that he will guard her love as surely
as he guarded her person. Then she in turn takes up her lighter burden,
thrice heavier, but easier, safer, for that no stumble nor misstep of hers
shall cause the slightest harm to those she bears.
Then, while the night's grip is slowly broken on the world beyond, the
Sun's light inexorably flooding up from beyond the Blue Mountains afar
off, though the well of darkness about them remain brimful, they begin
the return, the journey none has ever made, ever thought to have made:
up, from the depths of stone, from the dark, from the keeping of death,
towards the sky…
Neither Star nor Sun is in the sky now, only a warm silver field, gray
melted with gold as leaves of gilding overlain with fine enamel or layer
of translucent stone, and the light is not enough to dispel the cold that
is stronger than sense, the grey chill of dawning when morning brings no
promise of joy. But still they wait, watching the crest of the Isle, friend
clinging to friend, weak held by strong, hoping though they dare not admit
it even to themselves, far less each other.
Almost in the half-light do they miss the reward of that unlikeliest
of hopes, the sight of return — the radiance of the dread Lady and
the dark awe of her Hound alike bedimmed, so that they are lost in the
grey shadow that swathes the vale yet, and seem but as wavering ghosts
moving down the rubble-strewn slope towards the waves.
And they are not alone, though the freed ones do not recognize who accompanies
them, not for distance and lack of light alone: neither as individual nor
of what Kindred do they know that other, nor may even those who have known
those of the Secondborn name him as mortal until but the span of Sirion
divides them from the three, so changed is he from others of his kind to
their sensing. (Yet what surprise in that? when none escapes the annealing
of the Lord of Wolves but twisted, suffering meant not to melt,
destroy entire, but to warp, to soften, so that bent beneath that pressure
soul becomes fit tool, to spy, to serve, betray one's fellows, devise new
punishments, surer weapons, nor shall such torsion ever be released, thus
set
in forge of deathless power, in life.)
They do not go to where the fallen bridge bridges the course of the
flow, but a little ways upstream, where the strand lies more level, washed
stones made smooth by untold Ages' polishing, eaten from the cliffs that
cut the higher borders of the island, whose eaten caves offer vain hope
to the newly taken thrall of hiding-place, not knowing yet how impossible
escape from their Master's spell-wrought chains shall be. —But he
is fled, vanquished, and the fetters opened—
—and so they follow, on the eastward shore, waiting still, for what
shall be done, by those who act, have acted through this long night's ending—
A bowshot hence, more or less, across the course of the river she
crouches, lowering her careful burden, bundle shrouded in the ells of night-blue
mantle that she no longer wears, that is too much of bulk for but one—
Then, with hand upon the smoke-wreathed muzzle like that of horse's in
deep Autumn, as if leading an ordinary steed, she wades out, far into the
current, to where the water runs clean of the tainting touch of the Isle's
polluted banks, leaning against the Hound as she goes, and they shiver
at that, Eldar though they be, for the season is late and the Sirion bitter
cold, and there is not one of them that would gladly do so — yet she appears
to feel it not, and where her dark cloak floats out in the water beside
them the steams of the morning seem strangely to rise more densely.
They have come to where the water is breast-deep on both her and Hound,
and there they halt, and the Lord of Dogs stands crosswise to the current,
shielding her, while she pulls the rider (no less shrouded, no less still)
from his back and plunges him beneath the torrent. He struggles, then,
a sudden spasm, undirected, but she clasps him to her tightly, holding
his head against her shoulder after, smoothing away the water from his
face and kissing him softly, giving him water in her free hand to drink.
Cradled equally in her long arms and the river's might he stills, closing
his eyes as though in sleep or death, and she begins to wash him as one
slain in battle, before burial, opening the fabric about him to stroke
away the filth of his torture from every finger's-breadth of skin. The
dark weft swirls about them both, whether she holds to it or not, as though
clinging to them in spite of the river's current, tumbling in a soft and
constant caress around the one she stays…
There is no question, as the slow light broadens, and the vapors of
the morning are seen more clearly over the water's surface, that the mist
is thickest about the three, soft veil of silver over the dark Sirion,
as over a hot-springs such as those found in the lost North, as at Rivil…
It is unimaginable, the power that could warm so much of a swift-flowing
river filled with wintry cold, letting it pour away in the flow unheeded,
and never mark the loss — yet it is true, and truly perceived, no less
impossible and no more than the fact that the air that pours over the waters
to them in the breeze is fragrant with the flavor of seasons long lost
and stolen from them.
The richness of thawing earth is in it, the wholesome scent of the winter
grass that feeds the new growth of Spring in its surrender, the sweet,
sweet smell of deep woodlands, the smells so familiar and forgotten that
they bring tears to the eyes of all who breathe them, and also too, familiar
not to all, yet seeming so, the heady fragrance of wind-tumbled flowers,
not only roses and others of Beleriand, but blossoms never grown beyond
the sound of Valmar's bells, of the shining sight of the holy mountain,
of the touch of the Light of the Trees of Gold and Silver…
The light grows stronger, making them flinch as under a blast of snowy
wind, more than their strength is equal to, to heal as yet eyes so long
wrapped in shadow and sullen flare of torch-flame. Yet they do not recede
to the shelter of the forest, not yet, unable to turn away from the wonder
that is before them. There is something frightening in the look of her
face, the set fierceness of it as she gazes on him, like the tenderness
of falcon to blind nestling, the knife-sharp beak bent in caress that only
the most foolish hand would think to defy in theft for its present gentleness.
(—The last Wolf crouches, deep in shadow, barred by the daunting
force of water unbridged by stone. It can afford to wait, its hunger will
abide—)
—Warmth as of a forgotten dream, longed for and unrecoverable, encloses
him, defends him, and touch, gentle as breath, inescapable, escape
unwished-for, both soft upon him as the light that should sear and crush
his night-bound eyes, but impossibly does not… If this is healing it is
so far different from aught he has known as the light of pine-torch searing
at the hand is from the daylight of high Spring, when Sun and wind together
are a torrent of Life bathing the earth and all things on it — shame is
washed away by love, soul does not flinch under gaze of pity that does
not flinch from what it looks on, no more than flesh beneath the press
of fingers slipping between limb and limb to free that which is most fragile
of foulness, free of shame…
He reaches up to her and it is not a dream now, this weak movement of
scarred limb, stretching up like shoot from depth of soil to brush her
lips, and she bends in answer to his asking and quenches a greater thirst
than that which she has already ended, and as her mouth closes upon his
own their faces dip for a heartbeat beneath the surface from her bending,
but he does not struggle this time, for in this moment there is no more
fear or pain or sorrow—
(— In the dark where no light reaches the last Wolf lies resting,
watching, so patient in its hunger…)
At last they turn back to the farther bank, the Hound flanking the Lady
who carries her love to the shore, she striding tall and unbowed, straight-backed
as a queen for all her burden, silver as a birch tree in a rainy wood in
the shadow of the cliff-footing. In the light which clears away the depth
of night, though the full light of the sun has not cleared the shading
hills, they see that the banks, for all downstream of where she has stood,
are washed clean of the ash and the acid smeltings, the rust that has more
than one source, the darkness that is not only of nature that fouls all
the isle to its borders. But in her gestures there is nothing of notice,
nor surprise, whether it be that she expects it, or is merely oblivious
of all save the one she bears in her arms to land.
She lowers him then to stand against the Hound's tall side, clinging
unsteadily with shuddering limbs to the unyielding shoulders while she
braces him with her own side as she draws the shadow-dark cloak from him
and with swift efficiency wrings it out, water pouring over her feet upon
the water-smoothed stones. For her wet clothing she might as well be as
naked as he, and as heedless of it, as though they two and the great Hound
were the only living in the world…
The black fabric flares out from her hands, seemingly dry already, seeming
to obey her thought as she folds it round him again, floating like a shaped
mist as her arms ease him down to sit beside the river, touching his face
again and not once in that brief passage, lightly, lightly, before drawing
away, turning aside with that same relentless slowness of step that they
watched return into the hells of stone whence they had fled.
They know, have guessed without doubt, the burden that she returns unto,
that Doom which they might not leave behind, however far from the Wizard's
Isle they may journey — yet still they cannot help but shiver at the unknotting
of the blue cloth, that hides at least from outward sense, and thus may
be in willful pretense ignored, the presence of Death. But she who kneels
white as a wraith over the dark bulk in the shallows has no more weakness,
no more unwillingness to turn mind or sight to things unwelcome, and unsparing
of herself, spares them not either.
That which her hands uncover and shift, pallidly grey in the deep banks'
shelter, shaded from the rising tide of light, is familiar in its kind,
but unknown, unknowable: the twisting arch of a cheekbone, eye's orbit
separate as a single petal of a white lily, gives no sign of whose sight
it sheltered, whose smile anchored, no more than the birdlike bones of
hands recollect their holding strength, scattered and mingled past discerning,
laved in the thin depth of the river, separated from the pale stones by
the wide cover of her mantle.
And ever she moves them further, her face still, wide-eyed gaze unflinching
as a statue's, setting them gently aside like shells on the sea-strand,
until her ceaseless efforts reveal not bone, but skull in seeming, dead
face so gaunt that it is not until her fingers free the long matted tangle
of wheaten hair — rarest royal color that not even blood has altogether
darkened — that they know him, even those whose fealty was sworn to him,
who daily saw and spoke and rode in his company: Finrod, called Felagund,
eldest of Finarfin's scions, founder and first in Nargothrond's dominions,
oath-holder of the House of Bëor, lord over Noldor and Sindar and
mortal alike, Prince, King, — and murdered slave.
Outcry then, clamor of shock and rejection and appalled belief, as beyond
their willing they are drawn to the water's edge, and further, though the
tide be too strong to cross here where no stones span the way, still those
hale enough must splash out as deep as they are able, to better see that
which they would not, but self-willed blindness will change naught, and
they cannot help but look—
The Lady's long hands are careful, as though it should make difference,
how she lifts the cold limbs into the deeper shallows, as though pain might
yet follow carelessness. She is heedless of them now, as though for all
of her care they may witness or not, concern all for those she has brought
up from the Isle's black heart: the dead whose wounds she washes with handfuls
of water whose freshness is made sharp with salt of tears that fall unmarked
while she works, though her face is a pale unmoving mask carven as of ice
or marble; and the living, who creeps so painfully to bend beside her,
laboring with lowered head and shaking hands to unknot the hardened mats
in the skein that streams palely gold in the current.
About each wrist that the dark cloth slides from is band of livid scarring,
and though no tears sheen the bowed mask of anguish, the clearness spilling
from those wounded hands could not express more grief, poured so gently
from hollow of palm over the ravaged corpse of him who takes neither healing
nor counsel from Sirion's waters now. And there is gold, there,
too, darker gleam on finger shining amid the paler threads—
—And surmise, born not of fact open and single but of many, fragmentary,
half-buried like wrecked ships abandoned on storm-washed shore, and some
begin to whisper a name, a House, though no tale yet attends upon that
word…
The light is broadening, but still the coolness of the Sun's vanguard
rays, no gold yet, nor even bar of cloud to burn with shell-rose band against
the almost-blue of ceiling-dome, when task is done, and the ghostly mourners
in white and black shroud again the broken dwellings of companions absent
but unforgotten. And still none dares yet to recross that narrow unsteady
way, return to place of breaking, though fëar torn with yearning
— for truth if not for comfort, for guiding and protection — urge that
crossing ever…
The Hound returns, whom they have not seen go hence, riderless bounding
down the steep bank like wild goat or puppy, not the carefulness of horse
on stony slope, dashing out into the water again, this time to drink, and
then to lift long grey head to stare at them, measuring their worth, it
seems, who tremble inwardly at each glimpse of him, whose shape and height
and color are so similar in outwards to his foes.
Now that he is beside them, circling before pressing between, in the
busy way of dogs' motion, the Lady comes to some inward resolution, and
with some brief reassurance of touch and word unheard across the rushing
current she leaves them all at the water's edge, the living who trouble
for her and the dead whom nothing troubles. Once more out into the deeper
stream, and then farther still, whence she dives otter-like beneath the
surface and swims to the center of great Sirion, faint whiteness seen like
silver flash of scales under the river's swell.
After so long that blood runs chill in shudders of imagining that cold
purgation she rises again and pulls to the shore, standing in the lesser
depth with hands joined, doubled cup of icy draught, not to drink but to
bear to land, gaze fixed, will fixed wholly on that plain treasure, unshod
step most deliberately placed with heed for footing, though seeming oblivious
to all about her — up that rain-scoured wash of steepest track, like bedraggled
sleepwalker on errand of madness, singing—
—not the unbounded power like sea-storm of light unearthly that smote
the Gaurhoth down, cast down Sauron and dispersed his following like smoke
upon the wind, not such is this, but a simpler power, the deep strength
of water rising from depths of stone, gathered in the roots of mountains
from long harvest of rains, heavens' eternal gift, pooling slow, rising
to trickle forth at last from smallest rifts, seeping down the crags to
form freshets, foaming streams joining as they fall, ever growing, ever
gathering in answer to the ocean's call, returning to the source of their
rising, the vast Sea from which the rains arise—
At the height of the island's rise where the solid bedrock gives way
to earth, that once was judged too soft for surety of building, and given
over to growth of copse, thicket and grove and grasses green and wild-flowering
alike, charming the sight and breath alike as well of those who held this
first, that now is iron-hard, beaten naked of all life, sown with such
poison that nor shall green thing ever thrive upon it — there she stops,
standing with upheld arms, her Song rising as she lifts face to the dawning
sky, and in that instant—
—in that instant she is no tattered wanderer forlorn in the wasted land,
but one far other, standing like a column of white stone, unshaken
by war, like a tree unswayed by blast of storm, like a fall of water from
tallest cliffs, in whose voice all hear the ring of Power that is of the
ancient earth, of binding roots that delve within it, of cascade's roar,
as she lets her guarded measure slip from fingers' hold like fall of ceaseless
tears—
In that instant the Sun clears full the eastern woods, the eastern mountains,
and the sky changes from softness to the brilliance of adamant, and a sudden
gust of the morning breeze takes the spill of water as it runs like a crystal
strand between her hands and the shadowed earth and flings it wide in a
spray like the sea on the cliffs at dawning, and every drop is a sun-spark
itself, and the light is so much that they must hide vision beneath it,
far more than the flashing of liquid on the wind may account for, as if
again for the first time She rose from beyond the Sea upon the darkened
world.
It is only for an instant, and then it is but full morning, too bright
for eyes enslaved by shadow still, but not beyond the workings of the world's
days, and the world is as it was — and is not. For where the Elven-maid
sags pale and worn, no longer a Mystery in darkness, the sun shines down
upon bare earth, hard, beaten into clodlike ironhard dullness, but not
vile with the effluvia of sorcery and foundry, mixed into a layer of spirit
and substance that none willingly would ever touch…
…and it is not only there, but everywhere that unclean power soiled
the island, everywhere that the unknown dead lie, that bone splintered
and ground to dust and burnt to ash in forge-fueling is spread, everywhere
that the Shadow claimed is claimed back in one stroke, as in that first
trumpet-hour an Age ago, when hope was bright and glory within grasp, and
all things seemed surely swiftly to be accomplished…
But that first Day is long past, and the world grown cold and ashen
in defeat, and nothing changes, or little, and not that which would be
changed, and slowly the one who has rescued them climbs to her feet again,
pressing her hands on the hard dirt to lift herself, and swaying a little
she strides with the heavy step of exhaustion down the bank to lean wearily
beside her liege and her love, and her face betrays that dismay that is
almost fear that still, still there can be no rest yet, that blank
expression that at a heartbeat may slip to tears, or mad laughter.
—How can I make such ascent again? even for thee — bearing
thee, bearing thy companions, even with Huan's help? Is this the weakness
that mortals know all of life's passing, is this how it is ever for thy
kin — and ai, how then may you endure, strive so, hold out against
such storms as rend our embattled land—?
A little longer — but a little longer — but still she is kneeling
upon the graveled shore, leaning as much against her love as he to her,
weary beyond either sleep or waking, and the gold-cerulean of the sky deepens
in blue, and still she cannot rise from her knees, lift head from shoulder
and warmth of shared breath, press of skin warm through veil of clean water,
this tired embrace that asks no more, nothing else of the world, having
attained goal at bitter last—
—Over the water a deep clamour arises, the Lord of Dogs crying — Attend!
— as though the hunt were up, the fell game at desperate cornered stand,
summoning outriders to the battle. His gaze is fierce, his ears lifted
in alert posture, his belling is command: in that bayed note could not
be clearer word —
Come! Help! Do not stand like witless kine, agape,
adrift!
And so, at last, they return to the place that was Tol Sirion, and is
a tomb; that was Tol-in-Gaurhoth, and is a field of rout; that was place
of power and contention over vast angles of the land, that is now but an
island in the course of the wide river; all those who are able, who have
strength enough for that unsteady concourse over stones and streaming rivulets,
making bruised and frightened way to where the Hound watches over the unmoving
figures by the water's edge.
There they come to give, offering not of pity only but duty,
giving of hands' strength to lift them living and dead alike, to raise
and stay and support to the high ground again, to give thanks more solid
than mere words now, gift so hard to share, greatness of gesture hidden
in meagerness of offered rations hidden and carried against guards' notice,
of spare garments worn always against the threat of theft and spoiling
by their captors — small and of little value, either in themselves, or
against the magnitude of their loss, would seem—
Yet in the giving, deed to raise self from less-than-earth, make Speaker
again that long was prey, lift honour from the grave in honoring
the Secondborn (that none would ever now name Engwar, being all
Sickly Ones alike themselves), whose story now they hear, in tale that
shall take many tellings, faltering, slow, from she who if she willed it,
might command them all as Queen, though her awesome power be dimmed now
— yet not as expended, depleted, burned away, but rather as a banner furled,
the standard of an army wrapped close around the slim spear-shaft, to be
flung out in time of need, flowing in the hour of challenge and desperate
contest to lead and hearten and call forth…
(—And the last Wolf sleeps, ice-cold eyes quenched for the present,
invisible in darkness, until it shall wake in the dark hours of the night,
the cold watches before dawn, the grey and starless time when there are
no names, no defenses of thought or doing, but only self—)
The hill is dark beneath the Sun, an uplifting of darkness under the
daylight; but it is not Shadow, not the darkness of burnt things — only
the dark of fresh-dug earth, solid and real, shaped with simple effort,
no spell nor sorcerous binding to make swift its raising. Those who set
their strength to call it up by work of hands do so full freely, neither
asked nor ordered, but purely of their own will, and the wish to join him
who wears the King's sigil as though it were his by blood-right, kin-right,
as though brother or brother's son to bear without challenge, as none thinks
to challenge, who speaks never to them, only to the Lady, and to the Hound.
He labors beside them, as he began it, so to the finish, he and the Lord
of Dogs, with whose first help he began to break up the packed ground and
loosen clods of the sterile soil to heap up above the grave.
It is a mortal custom, this building of new hills to mark the dead,
but it is one that well they comprehend, the wish to make some lasting
sign upon the earth, some fixed and changeless mark, not easily to be overthrown
or hidden, and if it come of a race so short-lived and swiftly given to
death that distinction be needed to signify a life spent more rarely in
great service — still they understand this now.
—Not after losing first family to the nameless Ice, where mark was neither
possible, nor in those first dreadful times of knowing Death, should have
been desired nor comprehended; after war, but after the slow but steady
losses, over the Long Peace, and more so after the cruel defeat, when none
lost might be buried, save those only who lived long enough to die in such
safety as might be scantly found; and most particularly now, when
all have lived a daily dying, spirit and hope and love as well as body,
reduced to little more than breathing earth, whether High-elven or Grey-elven
mattering nothing now, when all are so brought low.
And now they are free, and they will do this thing, because none may
forbid them to it, and because they will no longer hide from Death, who
have been the prey of the Necromancer these sorrowful years, turning away
in fear no longer from what they cannot compass, and not least — not least
of all — because he wills it.
And they are his now too, though he commands them not, makes no demand
nor presumption of them, merely accepting their assistance without question,
as from the first when seeing him struggle with his burdens, the immeasurably
small handfuls of earth, carried so carefully from below, followed by the
Hound and the Lady, who assists him, though she does not fully comprehend
his need, those who did perceive, and understood, stepped forth to aid
the work, asking nothing but to be seen in return. And this recognition
he gives them, always.
He suffers their touch — though he startled at first — without anger
or contempt, no more than the great Hound that stays by him ever, staying
him when the Lady is elsewhere. For they cannot help it, no more than can
help stroking the Hound's heavy fur, brushing him gently with hands scarred
as none of Elven-kind should be, touching his wrists, his scars, who alone
has ever returned from the Pit, the prize won from the Dark at such price,
who looks on them without the horror that those of their own folk would
regard them with, that in other days they themselves might have turned
on such as they…
Never does he speak to them, no more than the Hound does, but he ever
returns the gesture, with a gaze that utters more than any word, stroking
their own galls of iron and whip in his turn, his eyes speaking only of
mercy and regret. There is no power in this Man, no gift to bestow upon
them, it would seem — and yet there is healing in his touch no less
than his Lady's, healing of heart as he pours out his pity and understanding
upon their wounds, who knows, knows all too well—
He will allow no stones to be used in its fashioning — not one of the
one of the worked stones of the castle may be reused, all must lie where
the Lady downcast them. He does not speak, nor needs to, and all obey him.
It must be of earth, and earth they bring, in hands and cloths and baskets
woven of the stunted willows that struggle to live on the tainted banks
of Sirion, carrying it carefully across the rough-fashioned causeway that
planks the fallen bridge at changing levels, as though it were more of
worth than gold or jewel or clean water And thus it rises ever, hour by
unnumbered hour, with speed past mortal believing, even for all their weary
weakness, by night as day.
They would not dare to remain on the Island at night, daring the nightmares
that must still dwell here, in its shadows and hollows, beneath the nooks
of stone and round of arch, and most especially in the deep well of darkness
that is never emptied, not even at full noon, too far sunk in the bedrock
to ever be touched by daylight — did not they bide there, by choice,
working in starlight and moonlight, or sleeping, when they do sleep, though
they seem to draw more rest from speaking, or merely looking, to each other.
And so they too work, bringing, or building, or fashioning tools and
shelters and seeking food in the woods nearby or in the river, and like
their ancient ancestors — nay, far less efficient than those — they make
a strange simple village of branch and packed leafage, of small useful
vessels that are the greatest part of property, foraging and preparing
fare scarcely finer than their meager sustenance as slaves — yet better
far than anything ever tasted in their first freedom it seems to them,
this simple stuff of garnered chestnut and sharp rose-apple, of bland and
bitter, fungus and fibrous water root and fish seared on stone, and what
the Hound hunts for them.
Straggled out across both sides of the water, it is an inconvenient
and unwarded way to remain, but they know through some mysterious common
sense, some shared Sight unspoken, that it is but for a brief while — even
as they are sure, without any seeking for proof, that there is no danger
to them for the present, that while the Lady bides here nothing dark shall
dare draw near, none banished by her presence have courage to return.
—And besides this, how else shall they be with him, who remains
only upon the island, as though bound to it — or to his task: for it cannot
be that the river daunts him, neither the waves nor the tenuous crossing,
who has struggled down the shallows as soon as his returning strength allows
it, not only to wash but to wander, over and about the rocks and hollows,
seeking nothing, apparently, save to see the boulders, and match muscles'
agility against them, and look on the water from this point, and not that,
as though he were of their race, in happier days, seeking out new vantages
for mere curiosity and gladness of the world.
She goes among them, even beyond the bridge that was, and orders
them, and sets some to this task, some to that, and chides them for folly
who would be too loathe to seek out the bread of their captivity remaining
in shattered cell and all such useful things as might be found, setting
example; she speaks to them, answering such questions of doings in the
world beyond as they may ask who have been entombed for a handful of years,
or more. Her strangeness is more akin to theirs, than his, though she is
twice foreign to them, for her heritage of ancient mystery and remote realm
as for her sundered kinship with them — and yet there is bond deeper than
blood between the Man born scant days ago in their reckoning, and they
who have been held by the same dreadful Power upon this place.
They hold him in awe, not dread, and yet there is much the same between
the two — mute, he holds such power over them, for having followed so much
further into the Night and yet returned to day, that were he indeed to
give command, to make request, they could refuse no more than did he speak
with the proclaimed authority of their dead King. But they do not even
know how much of this he perceives, how great his sway upon their wills,
or whether he thinks that they, too, but act upon the heart's free wish,
like falcon following the changing winds.
One thing is constant, and that is that one or the other of the two
is ever nigh him, either the Lady or the Hound, whether he sleeps or wakes,
works or wanders the shore. Another as well, and that is more of concern
to them: when he does sleep, whether guarded by her embrace, or by the
Hound's watchfulness, it is at the foot of the raising barrow. Thus they
must always take heed, though he rests far off enough that he might not
impede their labours, still they must be careful of him.
And yet it makes it easier to give him what they would also, moved by
forces of spirit which have no easy name nor comprehending, for as they
dare not touch him when his spirit is hidden from them, would not presume
so much (no more than they dare use his name to hail him, though they speak
it low amongst themselves, hailing him only as Edain), so when he
looks on them with that mute clarity are they thrown into confusion, and
thus bring their offerings, their small and paltry tribute, only while
he sleeps.
—A gold leaf, still bright, found clinging to a spindled branch in thicket,
or a stone washed smooth with a vein of glittering crystal like stars at
midnight; or a pale willow withe, braided and knotted into a memory of
woven silver; a few strands of thread, saved from a garment of one long
vanished; a bit of clay from the riverbed, molded into the semblance of
a recumbent horse, fired in secrecy amid forge-coals, small enough to be
hidden in hem; a snail shell, art not worked of hands; a single acorn,
undamaged by borer or decay, beautiful in its myriad shades of brown; and
a feather, blue as the sky, fallen in reeds from a kingfisher's wing—
—Of such are the gifts they leave, the small treasures of slaves, each
given not without pang, each given yet gladly; and each he considers most
carefully, turning them over in hands, staring long and close at these
tiny fragments of beauty and color new-gleaned or long-hoarded, giving
each the heart-praise their worth demands, and they are glad, despite the
pain of losing. At first he was bemused by such offerings, left in silence,
unclaimed by the givers, uncertain though cherishing of them, and did not
know what to make of them, or do with them after, no more than they. But
then the fittest use became plain, and his troubled expression cleared,
and now he places each deep in the mound where they build, molding a careful
hollow for each, and setting it within, and covering its brightness most
gently with earth.
And they are glad, for they never could have done so themselves, and
he has done it for them, and their meager gifts, twice given, gain in worth
so that the thought of them does not bring shame for the paltriness, and
though he does not nor would ever name himself their lord, nor do they
claim him so, all know that in this, in some strange fashion he stands
in the place of lord for them, as he is leader in this tribute that they
raise…
At last it is high enough, taller than he, and he turns from that work,
wordless as ever, and begins to hunt among the stones of the citadel. Leaderless
and lost, they must watch him, wandering amid quoins, wondering what it
is that he seeks for, for never has he gone, as the boldest of them have
done, as she has done, hunting for such useful things amid the wreckage
as have perchance survived the downhurling and the fall of stones, to be
scavenged for repair, for usefulness and their survival.
Finally he halts, after long searching far and wide, and drops to his
knees so suddenly that they fear some break in the ground has felled him,
as though struck down by a heavy blow, and when they draw near in disquiet
their spirits are disquieted still more, seeing what he has found. The
Hound at his heel growls low, too, hackles rising in anger, not fear; but
the Man does not shrink from setting hand to the blackened stone, nor look
aside in dread of vision not of this day but of the endless night of the
Gaurhoth, when this huge slab was of the lowest step of the dais, set before
the blood-splashed throne of the Necromancer.
It is cracked, one large corner gone, and chips have been dashed from
the face of it leaving white patches, as of splintered bone in a wound;
but it is
the same, and not one of those who have been slaves upon
this isle does not know it in waning daylight as in memory and dream, no
less vivid in the latter twain — indeed it almost seems far less real,
here, in the open and apart from the place it had, and holds in
mind still. Undaunted, the mortal runs his outstretched fingers across
it, as though it were aught precious to him, and leans against it, eyes
closed, for long whiles while they wait, silent, for him to act.
Then he rises, with that swift abrupt grace that has returned to him
with healing, liker to animal than Eldar, neat as a dog-fox springing from
sleep to waking down a sunny rock, and goes quickly down to the southern
shores of the island, where sand is washed in protected bars in the lee
of it. From thence he returns with hands full of the fine wet grains, spilling
it down heavily onto the middle of the stone, and tearing another piece
from the given tunic that will scarcely miss the loss, begins to abrade
away what covers the fallen block of marble. All through the long watch
he scours it, scraping away the writhen masses, frozen falls of darker-than-amber,
dripping from birchen pallor under scourge or edge or fang
It is their blood he scours away, their shame and torment, wrung
from them for the delight of their old Enemy, their memories of
mockery and destruction, mutilation and betrayal, sacrifice of love and
faith before the weight of power, the dark taste of hellish knowledge poured
down their throats, the blood of their breaking — It is long, long before
any of them can bring self to draw near, again, to that step of slaughter,
the blood-drenched footing of the throne of their loathéd Master,
reclaimed for its true lord by hand of one yet faithful, if but in vain…
Not until he pauses for exhaustion, head bent against the clotted surface,
and they see that his hands too are bleeding from the effort do any dare
come, offering late their own strength, own hands to the work, while the
Hound softly licks his worn fingers and presses against his side. Then
only do they compel themselves to come close, to take up sand and shred
of rag in hand themselves and set their wills to it, wresting aside their
own horror, and begin to wear away the stain of their own destroying…
When the Lady rises from sleep and sees what he has wrought, she weeps,
kneeling at his other side and taking his hands in her own, kissing them
and healing them and then unfolding her cloak so that she may wrap it around
them both, pulling him so that he rests in her lap while she takes up his
task for the while. As the face of the step is freed the carving on it
becomes clear as well, and the deeper-graven patterns now stand, white
against a field of grimmest black, the raised Stars in band enscrolled,
cunning work of hands, fashioned in love, freed by love and hands' hard
work…
As fingertip traces the round and hollow, following line and dint, shaping
the shape beneath in clearing out the defilement, memory of more returns,
remembrances of beauty made, and one who once knew the ways of stone and
setting chisel is moved to carry the band full about, so that all sides
shall be matched, and meet, and with his small haft of broken iron blade
set in blunt of wood for eating, and a round stone of the river-bed that
fits well his hand, begins to work in the pattern along the shorter face
of the slab.
But it is so long since, so long forgotten, that sinew remembers not
the way of it, and limb labors in almost-vain, and the symbols that shape
from the hollowing stone like ice forming in a pool look so crude, so unsteady
and rough that they seem a mockery of the forms they pattern after, and
he weeps at his own loss, and despises himself that he cares of it, when
such greater loss is all about him, and looks at his own work in bitter
contempt.
A gentle touch upon his shoulder startles him, and the artist looks
up in the defensive flinch of one caught in weakness, and into the foreign
eyes of the Man standing beside him to see what he does. Controlling the
impulse to cover his folly he waits, cringing inwardly as the mortal kneels
and traces blood-grained fingers over the new-cut star-shapes, brows drawn
together in a slight frown.
—I will hack it off, and at least it shall be plain, and not ugliness,
he
vows in his mind, as certain of his companion's displeasure as of his own.
But his hand is caught, and taken in the other's, and held with wonder,
and as the would-be sculptor looks up from his weary shame he finds that
for the first the other smiles, the faintest lightening of countenance,
as a glimpse of the Sun's light on a bleakest day of Winter, and his heart
begins to pound as though in fear as fear departs, and tears well up from
within as from a spring so long clogged with ash and cinder, trickle slow,
yet purifying, sure—
—and he is himself caught, and folded into a fast embrace, so that he
may weep without heed, supported on shoulder, until the flood-tide is past,
like the crest of a storm of Autumn, and he looks up clear-eyed into the
gaze of a pity deeper than words, and is released to the work, that he
resumes without trouble of heart, nor comparison, nor self-compare, only
steady striving, to learn again, and anew…
It is a strange thing, how purpose can give strength, where effort
would, one would think, take away from such store, hinder recovery, yet
it is far otherwise in truth. Not all can bring themselves to it, many
have not the will for it, cannot face that stain, that stone, but only
support those who may. Yet all of them give to it, even if only in yearning,
in gratitude, that it be done. And thus the guilt that is born of unreason,
of ignorance not deed — We did not know! a cry of shame, not defense
— little by little is assuaged…
It is soon readied, whitened with scour of sand and rasp of sharpened
stick, washed of the flakings with water from the inexhaustible source
at hand, and the broken face made a part of the whole with the carrying
of design about all edges. The swiftness of this, too, seems to amaze the
mortal, by his expressive silence, the wondering way that he circles it,
touches it, though to them it has been a slow and lagging labouring against
their own weakness, learning again to work in full daylight, to simply
work,
without fear of punishment, without any other need than that which is being
done, and to take satisfaction (if not, alas, delight) in the making.
There are chains that could be better used to haul it, to be found amidst
the wreckage, links and hooks that might be fashioned into harness and
gear more suitable, but they will not touch them. Easier, far easier to
weave of wood and willow, birch and reed, a soft sledge to case it all
around, working the withes beneath with patience, and to make a track of
water, slide of wet earth, so that it may be both drawn and pushed along
the course of mud by many hands. Dirt and plant bear no nightmares in them,
and with so many helping it is so swiftly done, for their strength so far
exceeds the Man's that his assistance is immeasurable — and yet did he
not set hand and stay upon the course, it would not come to pass.
When it is set upon the center of the mound they rest, without triumph,
yet with satisfaction: it is meet, it is needful, it is done. There
are embraces, and touching of hands, but they recede then, waiting upon
him, for this is his working, not theirs. What he does next surprises
them, though they could not say why. He goes around it, smoothing down
the furrowed earth of its track, and patting it down smoothly about the
sides, brushing the spilled clots of it from the face, though not with
great care — it is but earth, only earth after all…
And then he stands at the foot of the slab, simply stands, staring
at the blue clarity of the sky, unmoving, and something seems to pass from
his spirit then, some tension of bearing, to be replaced by a profoundest
calm. And still he only bides there, and they too wait, yet in patience,
until he half-turns, to where the Lady stands, a little apart, a little
nearer to him, with the Hound beside her, and holds out his hand in plea.
At once they go to him, and she takes his hand, and strokes his face while
he gazes at her, and kisses him freely upon the lips, and with hands clasped,
side by side, they turn again to the white stone, and he lifts his head
again, closing his eyes, and draws in a great breath of sunlit air—
And then — he sings. No lament: it is not a song of sorrow, nor
of regret, nor even of farewell, not a song of deeds, but only a song of
beauty, naming the Stars, and many things, a song of peace, of praise,
of joy-in-Arda that does not forget the sorrows of earth but looks past
them, not to what might be, in hope that may be deceiving,
but to what is, even no less than as the sorrow is, and which fails
not. The cadence of it is changed, even the melody is changed, but it is
enough the same that they know it, and guess truly why it is that he makes
this gift, for it was given in depths of time by the one to whom it is
returned…
—They are in wonder that they could have forgotten, since forbidden,
that no death was well-honored without a singing-forth, that this mortal
must remind them of it, child who learned it of them in days long past,
and it is strange, and troubling to many that one not of their Kindred
should take charge of this the honoring of their people. But then it comes
to them: he has no people, none to claim him save she who stands beside
him, who is of their people, and of race more ancient than this earth alike.
He has suffered for them, as one of them, in darkness not of latter date
alone, and still he claims them as his own, no less than the one whose
words he offers for them…
They would hold the moment poised, were it within their power, changeless,
flawless, to dwell within forever — that being impossible, they hold it
within memory like a blossom set within crystal, carved of perfect stone.
For all too soon it passes, and the present world asserts its timeful power,
and the power of that beauty but recollection, overswept by the ongoing
of that which is.
Even as they wonder what shall follow, the mortal stoops, sweeping his
hands again across the white, uncarved upper face, as though to brush away
some last scatterings of earth, and leaning forward lies full-length upon
the stone, pressed against it as though he would sink beneath its surface,
and the taste of the salt of his tears is strong upon the wind. The Lady
kneels too, beside him, and lets her hand glide upon his back, her eyes
filled with understanding, and upon his left the Hound lies couchant and
rests his great head softly upon the Man's shoulders.
And thus they bide, for hours, while the warm Sun pours over the three
mourners on the chill stone, and the day wanes; and as clouds begin to
ride in upon the currents of the air from the western horizon, hiding the
Sun's light, the late thralls go silently across to the river's shore,
slipping away by threes or twos or singly, not speaking, waiting still
in patience for sign, guide, leader, sensing that some time of change draws
near.
The overcast gathers heavier, darker, water riding it like weight of
ash upon the air, troubling in its image, but it yields no stink of burning,
rather a fine rain, not pelting nor whipping cold, but most rarely warm,
an unseasonable West wind bringing weather that is not from the deadly
North, and though the freed ones retreat to the margin of the woods, and
to shelter, the others do not stir from their place, save that she unfolds
her cloak to draw it over him as well, when she pulls it up over her head
against the mizzle.
Only when the rain has ended, and some silent signal has passed from
the clearing heavens to the three that a just measure of time has gone
by do they rise then, as one, he letting the other two help lift him without
resistance, without protest of pride, they steadying him until he is sure
of his footing again, one arm about the Hound's lowered neck, the other
held by the Lady. Thus do they make their way down from the white crown
of the dark hill, poised forever like the pale crest of a vast wave, down
the arc of the island to the side where once causeway arched, and with
the same tedious caution that all others must use, pick slow path to the
river's shore, the Hound warding them with his sturdy support, though he
might easily swim over where clear of the rubble runs the torrent.
And there in the grey light of the fading day, when all the browns of
the rainy woods are sharp and dark like polished agate in the wet, the
three causes of their freedom cross the shore of Sirion together at long
last: he who battled with sinew and blood to overthrow usurping power,
she whose challenge drew forth to that battleground, and he for whom all
fighting was accomplished, all obstacles overcome. A time of change has
come once more, and they fear it, fear the words the Lady speaks, though
inevitable it be, and well indeed they know that so it shall ever be upon
this Hither Shore.
"Huan will lead you home," she tells them, "he will protect you and
guide you through the secret ways to Nargothrond." Some object — their
return is forbidden, they will be turned back to find solitary lives, or
shelter with what village dares to harbor them, or fade — but she shakes
her head. Huan will bring them safely home, and none shall turn them back
— and between the calm assurance of her voice and eyes, and the great Hound's
mighty presence, and their own memories of the manifest power that banished
wolf and Wolflord on that night so short a while, so long since fading
into memory, their arguments subside — but not dismay.
—But ye twain shall not be with us! they cry in answer, and to
this she has no word, only gaze of pity and sad understanding. And so they
look to him, as though he might sway her, on their behalf, and reach out
hands to his, who does not flinch from their need, meeting touch with gentle
touch, with look of regret, but without yielding.
"There is no road back for me," he says then, speaking to them
for the first time and alike the last, and hearing his voice, that soft,
rough accent familiar to many, reminding of days of ease and peace when
Beleriand was free to both their Kindreds, they weep for lost lives, and
not theirs alone. "—Thence we may not return," and though his reasons
are both clear and manifestly true, still are they distraught, and fear
the lonely ways without their Lord and Lady to ward them through the shadows.
But they are resolute, and do not debate further, but only stand arm-clasped,
not to be turned from their will, by