Chapter Text
It is dawn. Maglor mixes hard-won honey into watered wine, drinking it slowly to nurse his battered throat. Fingon wraps a dark brownish cloth around his braids, pinning them to his head and hiding the glints of gold. Aredhel has traded her stained white robes for garb of a mottled grey. Maedhros swings Turgon’s great sword through the air, feeling its weight. Wonders distractedly about its forging, about the bands of gold looped around the handle, the shapes of roses and roaring lions.
The sun rises. The air smells fresh, of morning dew and the of the forest. It odd, after their journey, to down to the smaller group, only the four of them.
“We ought to assume,” Maglor says, as they begin to walk up the winding trail, where the first meeting with the orcs had taken place, “that D—that the scream might be turned against us, and act accordingly. You ought to be ready to block out all sound; I will act as your ears.”
Aredhel raises an eyebrow. “And why you, pray tell?”
“I am the most suited to it,” Maglor says, “and in all likelihood will be the least affected.”
“That is not how I remember it,” Maedhros says, “in the swamp.”
Maglor’s mouth flattens, a sharp, solid line. Aredhel shuts her eyes, her face the very picture of exasperation. “You and Maedhros,” she says, “for is it not your quest to listen to the wails of the damned?”
No, not really, Maedhros thinks, but does not bother giving voice to it.
“Maglor and I,” Fingon interjects, “Maedhros will be harder to carry, if he faints.”
Aredhel seems ill-pleased with it, but does not argue. She cannot afford, Maedhros feels, to waste time. Maedhros himself thinks of arguing—it jilts his pride to let Fingon leave himself vulnerable—but in truth he wishes to be useful, to fight. In truth the thought of having his ears open terrifies him, though he would not voice this, in truth he would defend much sooner than be defended. In truth he is horribly grateful for Fingon putting himself in the line of danger.
It bothers him to think that Fingon might have felt that, might have spoken because of it. Perhaps Fingon feels that, because he bumps together their shoulders, speaking in their minds. Truly, ‘Ros. I would be unsurprised if you had weighed half your size now, last I carried you.
That comparison shuts down any possibility Maedhros might argue. There are some tales he does not wish told again, and that is one of them.
So he wraps a scarf around his ears, opens his mind to his companions, and continues forward, glum.
The morning dew clings to the long grass under their feet as they set off. Soon they pass the remains of Turgon’s first camp, abandoned in their hasty retreat to easier-to-defend, harder to find ground, and Maedhros looks with some regret at the comfortable wooden cottages, constructed over the past few months. His stay in Aman had been short, and he had not thought, leaving, to miss his uncle’s feather mattresses and silk-light sheets. But the ever-present ache in his back had noticed it, and notices the ground now.
(He recalls the mattresses in Amon Ereb only faintly, though it has not been long at all. Straw, soft enough, Maglor ever-fretting over his old injuries. Maedhros must have slept there, but more often he remembers waking in the stables, or in the grass of the gardens, curled up in the wine cellar, Maglor standing over him, eyebrows knitted together in concern.)
Turno would not have moved them. Fingon’s thought, pushed over to the rest of them. I am surprised Elenwë had; but I suppose I forget how different their judgments had been, long ago.
Aredhel hums. She is more cautious than he, and perhaps less prideful, if only in that way. She has not been long in the land, and was not so shaped by it.
They track along the path Elenwë had described, deeper and higher into the mountains. Maedhros watches the vegetation grow sparser, the pines scragglier. The air smells now only of pine and spring. Maglor’s awareness brushes now and again against Maedhros’, and Maedhros catches the snatches of song in his mind, playing again and again as they walk, some tune in Sindarin that sings of chasing rabbits.
It is some time before Fingon speaks to him alone, in their minds, and by then Maedhros has long stopped thinking of Turgon and Elenwë. But Fingon plainly has been dwelling on it.
Can you imagine if I had died on the ice? He asks. And come to find you only now.
Maedhros does not point out there would be nothing left to find. Or if I had burned with the boats, he offers.
Fingon quirks up an eyebrow. Of all deaths, that is the one you give yourself?
Why not? Often I dream of burning.
Fingon bumps their shoulders together. The day does not grow warmer. Somewhere, he hears through Maglor’s ears, a nightingale sings.
Aredhel is the first of them to find traces of the party. She moves with the precision of a hunting-dog, her dark eyes scanning the path, her ears twitching with a nervous agitation. She could have ridden with the wild hunt, once, as Celegorm had done—Maedhros had never thought to wonder before why she had not.
Two hours into their trek she stops and turns over pine needles with the toe of her boot. “Someone stopped here,” she says, “this stick was trimmed, and where the leaves have protected it from the damp it bears yet some traces of fire.”
Fingon quirks up a brow. “Turgon’s party?”
“I cannot know,” Aredhel answers, and draws the tip of the stick to her lips, tasting the black ash at its tip. It stains her mouth; she draws her lower lip under her teeth to suck it clean. Whatever she learns from this she does not share.
They search the area, but there is nothing to be found but the remains of the fire. They learn nothing from it, Maedhros thinks; after all they know already, from the surviving boy, that the group had gone that way.
They keep walking. Maedhros’ blisters have turned to a dull ache, his boots breaking in though in places still stiff with mud. After some hour Fingon finds a raven feather, old and bedraggled as Elenwë had described, stained with rain and dust. Aredhel tucks it into the inner pockets of her robes.
They break near sunset, with some few hours left of the climb, when they come upon a mountain-stream. There they wash their hands and faces, drink deeply of the cold water, chew salted meat and waybread.
Maglor sits for some time looking into the water, flicking his fingers against the rocks to redirect the flow of water, or dipping his burned hand below the surface. Maedhros sits down next to him, linking his right arm with Maglor’s left, and pulls him closer.
“What shall we find, Káno, going to seek your ghost?”
“I do not know,” Maglor says. For a moment Maedhros thinks he will weep—wants him to weep, so that Maedhros might know what to do, might wrap his arms tightly around him and hold him, might feel himself the older brother. But Maglor does not, of course, only glances up and catches Maedhros’ eye and smiles his odd, discordant little smile, the kind with nothing below the surface. “I cannot imagine what could have brought him here. It is very unlike him, to be caught in something like this; he was not himself a fighter, nor trained in the killing-arts.”
None of us had been, Maedhros does not say. He knows it is different, for the people of Doriath, with darkness ever caught around their borders. Instead he takes Maglor’s hand and traces the edges of the scars on his palm, set deep against the lines of his hands. “He was a singer,” he says, “as you were. In truth I assumed him dead.”
“Some lived,” Maglor says, “even after the worst of our deeds. But he had left, before even the death of Thingol. At times I thought perhaps we would see each other again, on the road or the battlefield, but we did not. In some ways I was relieved by it.”
“You did not wish to let your lover see you were a monster,” Maedhros says, “as I had.”
Maglor hmphs. “Fingon had known you for what you were,” he says, “it is different.” Maedhros laughs, humorless, and wonders if he ought take offense. But Maglor looks down into the water, and says, his voice much quieter, “He must be terribly hurt.”
Maedhros wonders if he ought to try to deny it, ought to be reassuring. But such is not his shape, as a sword cannot be turned to healing, and he says only, “Yes, indeed he must,” and tries to close his mind so Maglor does not see in his memories the ghosts of elves torn apart as rag dolls, voices turned to ill use.
Soon they walk again, and Maedhros does not ask Fingon what he and Aredhel had spoken of.
Darkness has fallen by the time they arrive at the designated meeting-location, and the sky is full of clouds, the air threatening rain. For some time they try to search the forest path, but then Aredhel raises her hands, gesturing for them to stop.
You do more harm than good, she says, switching now only to mind-speak, their ears firmly closed to the outside. We will trample whatever remains. I like it very little, but we must wait for the night to pass.
I have light-gems, Fingon answers, we can each take on, and look comb the road carefully…
But Aredhel shakes her head. They would have asked for no meeting here if it were not a place of comfort for them; I would not be surprised to learn they have a watch-man on it. If we have not been seen yet, we shall be, given light. Let us hide in the trees, and wait for the sun. I shall try to speak with my brother in my mind; perhaps Fingon might do the same.
And I, Maglor says.
Aredhel’s scowl is tangible in her thoughts. We do not know that we can trust your bard, she answers, and stalks off to climb into the crown of an oak-tree.
Fingon casts a glance at Maedhros, pecks his cheek, and follows her. Maedhros and Maglor sit on the roots of a pine tree, silent. For some time Maglor is inwards, but whatever efforts he extends with his mind are frustrated; Maedhros feels his waves of loneliness and despair and anger quite as keenly as he would his own.
When nothing seems to come of it he reaches out, and wraps his arm around Maglor’s shoulders, but Maglor is stiff in his hold, and shrugs him off. I am well, he says, I am well.
I have ill thoughts, Maedhros says. It is a lie; as it often is on the eve of battle, his mind is quite clear, his feeling grounded, focused on nothing by the task in front of him. If he thinks of violence, it is only the natural sort, the clash of elf and orc. Would you not sit with me?
He cannot hear Maglor, but sees his mouth form the little, “oh,” and then Maglor turns to sit with him, and frets, braids and re-braids Maedhros’ hair into the simple war-braid, messes with the buckles on Maedhros’ cloak. By the time the morning comes, Maedhros thinks with satisfaction, he is much calmer.
The clouds begin to part just before sunrise, and Maedhros sees Aredhel’s small stocky figure jump down by the trees, walking to examine the path by starlight. He himself does not go; though his eyes well see in the night his instinct for the hunt is worse than hers, and he knows he will be in the way. He feels the ghost of the sensations of bow-string through his connection with Fingon, and knows he watches her back. Maglor stands, stretches, and goes to stand facing the mountains, his ears raised to listen.
It is not long until Aredhel finds what she seeks. She calls them over with a nudge of her mind, and they follow her. By the yellow-pink light of the sunrise they see what she has found; torn leather and broken glass among the grass, yellowish twigs and dried leaves strewn around the scene.
Fingon bends, and picks up a town leather satchel, examining it. “Sliced open,” he says, speaking at once aloud and in their minds, “in quite a hurry, if they did not bother undoing the knots; they are tied well, but it would have only taken a minute. Certainly this was Turgon’s, or else one of his lords’; see the emblem of the rose and the bleeding-heart. Do you know, Irissë, what was inside?”
She shakes her head. She is examining the glass, holding it up to the light. The pieces are small, greenish, well-crafted. Some dried liquid stains them.
Maedhros sniffs. “Tobacco,” he answers, speaking aloud also by habit, “and fire-weed. Turgon smoked, yes?”
“Yes,” Aredhel says, “yes, both. By the age it is almost certainly his; it passed some rainfalls here. Someone searched his bags.”
Maglor picks up one of the bigger pieces of glass, holding it up to the light. “This was salve,” he says, “the most common sort among the armies of the west. Not particularly potent, but the easiest to carry around, and unlikely to spoil.”
Maglor had gotten his hands on some, Maedhros remembers, during the fifty years of the war. It had somewhat helped the ever-present pain in Maedhros’ back, but the amount necessary made it unviable long term; the whole of it was gone within a week.
Fingon reaches down, and picks up a twig from the ground, dirty and broken. Even Maedhros can tell it did not come from the surrounding area—it is too well-preserved to have lasted the winter on the ground, and too dry to have sprouted up in the spring—but it is in so sorry a state he cannot tell what it is. Perhaps the nodules at the ends had been flowers, once—perhaps it had had leaves.
“Lavender,” Fingon says, “see, it was coated in wax, and tied here with string; devotional herbs, worn to honor Yavanna.” His free hand goes without thought to touch his own devotional-necklace, bird-feather and gold and bottled wind.
“All in the same place,” Aredhel says, “their captors stopped here, and broke open the salve bottles, cut free devotional-herbs, emptied tobacco. Is there aught else here?”
They search. There is something that could be a footprint, in the mud, badly smudged by some days’ rain. By the roots of a yew Fingon finds a blue hair-bead, likely belonging to one of the warriors that had gone; it is not Turgon’s.
“Only that,” Maedhros says, when they gather again together, “and very deliberately done. They were looking, after all, for the medicinal herbs. They took your brother and his men only after they saw they had not brought them.”
“Then it was rushed,” Aredhel says, “unplanned. They wished to take advantage of Turgon’s generosity; when they could not, they turned instead to an exchange of prisoners.”
“They are not new to it,” Maglor says, “they had at least one elf hostage before, somehow subdued; it was the power of his song they harnessed, remember.”
“Turgon, six men, your bard—that makes eight, and much harder to keep than one,” Aredhel says, “they are likely itching to be rid of their captives. A small band might move swiftly with one prisoner, might disable him easily, but eight is not so easily done lest their numbers be great.”
“Then we must move, and swiftly, before more violence comes of it,” Fingon says, “they cannot be very far. I have found a prisoner before, held in darkness; certainly put together we can find a group of eight.”
I was not exactly hard to find, Maedhros does not say. He will leave Fingon his pride, even as it chafes at his own.
“It is best, I think, if we touch minds and walk at some distance from each other,” he says instead, “not so much it cannot be easily crossed, but enough to cover more of the ground. We will spend too long all on the same path.”
Aredhel hums. “I walk in the trees,” she says, “and speak to the birds.”
“I will walk by the stream,” Fingon says, “and listen to the whisper of the water.”
“I will take the main path,” Maglor says, “and listen for the song in the foot-paths, and the magic on the rocks, and to the conversations hanging in the air after travelers.”
“Ah,” Maedhros says, “well, then. I shall also endeavor to do my part. Perhaps I might carry something.”
And so they walk. Through their mind-connection Maedhros feels the ghost of the water on Fingon’s feet, the rocks under Maglor’s fingers, the chirping of birds in Aredhel’s ears. Someone was here, they say, someone had passed.
Pale hands had dipped beneath the water, the stream tells Fingon, and filled up water-skins to carry away and spilled blood from old cuts, but where he cannot say, for that water has gone. There were flowers, Fingon tells them, bright pink in the center and yellow on the outside, twisted as water-hollows. There they came, and took of the stream to drink.
But there are no flowers as these on their path, nor anywhere in the forest. Indeed it is cool, and early spring, and all that blooms is known to them. Maedhros has not seen flowers such as these, nor Aredhel, nor Maglor, who is ever-skilled in herbs.
Dark boots have stepped on the path, and pushed rocks away, into the darkness of a cave below a waterfall, where white sea-shells lay scattered on the ground and vines swung from the trees, and that is nonsense, for no seashells lie on the forest floor, and vines hang from the trees.
The birds too have seen the orcs, and the dark raven, and with them a bright-feathered bird of paradise with a yellow and white tail and pink-brown wings. Aredhel lets them see through her eyes as she watches sparrows, crows, finches.
And so the second day passes fruitlessly, and so does the third, and on the fourth they set out again grim-faced and tense, all too aware of the passing time. It is after all a tall mountain, great in its size, old and full of magic; what are eight elves and some small band of orcs to its surface?
Maedhros parts from the rest of the group again at dawn, and turns, walking somewhat at random, into towards a little hollow in the mountain. In truth his mind is elsewhere; he imagines what might happen in the negotiation, what elves shall live and which shall die, how much their enemy means to bargain. He thinks of who might be caught in the middle; how they might lay an ambush on the passing orcs as they go to bargain with Elenwë, and whether that would make their word quite as black and ill as the word of the enemy.
How warm the spring morning is, he thinks, going to loosen his cloak, and how damp—how very much like summer just before the roll of thunder. How odd the light has turned, very unlike the spring sun. How deep and green the vines surrounding him.
The stream is to his left, as it had been before. He dips his hand beneath the water, to splash some on his face, and finds it, too, oddly warm. White shells brush his fingers; he cups them, pulling them to the light, and sees mother-of-peal lines them. He feels, in the force of the water, the ghost of distant waterfalls.
Maglor, he thinks, Fingon— Aredhel! I have found it, or something of it.
But no thought answers him. He shuts his eyes and sends an image—the warmth, the rocks, the birds, shells, and feels nothing at all in his own mind. Not Maglor’s humming thought, nor the hunter’s precision of Aredhel’s awareness, nor the warmth of Fingon’s attention. The air around him hangs hot and humid, tasting of sweet summer rot.
No one, he realizes, can hear him.