Down. Out. Up. by Himring

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Out. Up.

 

The story of how Fingon finds the newly reborn Maedhros in the Gardens of Lorien is told at the end of Looking at the Stars and Counting the Hours. Maedhros has meanwhile followed Fingon to Tirion.

Quenya names: Feanaro=Feanor, Findekano=Fingon, Macalaure=Maglor, Maitimo=Maedhros, Turukano=Turgon.

 

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I

Fingon:

He lies on his back on the bed. A full complement of hands, smooth, intact skin without scars...   Drop-dead gorgeous—as long as you manage to ignore the expression on his face. I can’t.

‘Do you want to?’

‘No. Not unless you do—and I don’t think you’re ready for that.’

He accepts my answer without a flicker of emotion. It was only the most polite, most disinterested of inquiries in any case. I lie down beside him and cradle his head against my chest.

‘I forgot you.’

I had not expected this, not after what he said to me in Lorien. It’s surprising how much it hurts. Vanity outweighing all other considerations? Did I think he had my name on his lips as he went kin-slaying in Sirion? Would I have wanted him to?

‘When I threw myself into the chasm’, he says, unconsciously deflecting my train of thought. ‘As I was falling, I tried to remember you—your name, your face, who you were... It was as if the Silmaril had burned you out of my mind, as if I was falling into a hole in my memory as well as a hole in the earth...’

There is nothing wrong with his eyes, as far as I can make out, but when I came to find him in Lorien, he had to strain to see me. When I speak to him, he listens hard, as if my voice was almost beyond the range of hearing.

‘I don’t recall anything at all of what happened in the Halls of Mandos, except that it seemed to take a very long time... But do you think, maybe, I was let out just for that—so that I might be allowed to remember you?’

I can’t answer, but it seems he doesn’t expect me to. He settles his cheek more comfortably against my ribs and closes his eyes.

The last time I slept in this bed, I slept alone. Tonight I share it with a lunatic who claims that he tried to remember my name seconds before he burnt to a cinder. It occurs to me I would find it difficult to explain to anyone why this constitutes a definite improvement.

 

II

Finarfin:

Findekano has forbidden visitors. Findekano is behaving like a cat defending a single new-born kitten. I don’t quite understand this and, because I don’t understand it, it worries me. 

‘Is Maitimo likely to make trouble?’, I ask him, allowing myself to be diverted to the political in the face of more indefinable personal worries.

‘Trouble?’ He looks startled. ‘What kind of trouble?’

‘Will he try to interfere with the status quo—to upset the balance of power in Tirion?’

‘Uncle...! Tirion is practically swarming with former High Kings in Middle-earth, and you managed to handle them all. And you worry about the one who abdicated almost as soon as he succeeded to the crown?’

I fully realize I am about to be tactless, but there is this nagging worry at the back of my brain...

‘There are rumours that he didn’t really abdicate at all, that he was the one who made most of the decisions...’

He looks at me, exasperated. ‘Yes, I’ve heard those rumours. They were put about by kind, generous people who decided that I couldn’t possibly be to blame for the Nirnaeth, so it must have been all Maitimo’s fault. No, Uncle, the Nirnaeth was very much a mistake Maitimo and I made together. It wasn’t even, strictly speaking, a mistake, except in hindsight and except for the obvious flaws in execution, of course...  I know that Turukano and his family never gave up hope of rescue by the Valar, but you must admit that at the time we had no real reason to expect such a thing and Turukano’s attempts to appeal to Valinor hadn’t been exactly crowned with success...’

He notices my slow, reluctant wince. ‘Oh, Uncle—you know I’m not reproaching you in any way!’

I know he isn’t. None of them has ever uttered the least reproach. Even after all this time, it still gets to me, every time one of them is reborn. ‘If I was so obviously right, as you all pretend to believe now,’ it makes me want to yell, ‘why didn’t you listen to me then!’

Because Findekano is conscious of having unintentionally hurt me, he relents in the matter at hand and, with an anxious frown, consents to fetch Maitimo. I sit back on the garden bench and try to get to the bottom of my own concern, without much success. Findekano returns, followed by a tall, silent shadow: Maitimo the famous diplomat, like a bashful overgrown adolescent trying to conceal himself behind his cousin’s back. He’s even hiding his face in his hair like a schoolgirl.

Maitimo sits down opposite me, and still all I’m seeing is red hair. I know it makes me sound ridiculously like a teacher, but I say it nevertheless: ‘I can’t see your face, Maitimo. Look at me.’

He hesitates, lifts his left hand and sweeps back the swath of hair from his face.  We look at each other, and I gulp. I was wrong about the bashfulness. None of the newly reborn has been easy to look in the eyes, but Maitimo is something else. I have to remind myself firmly that I am absolutely certain that Tirion is not going up in flames behind my back.

‘Findekano says my presence in Tirion worries you. I’ve pointed out to him that any responsible king would be worried at having Maedhros the Kin-slayer within the walls of his city, but he appears to think that is not really the problem.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ I agree, realizing that, however shaken I may be feeling just now, this is true. ‘It is because you killed yourself.’

He waits patiently for me to continue. His eyelids are lowered now. His hair is beginning to drift back over his face.

‘When the War was over, you sent a message to Eonwe, demanding the Silmarils. Why did you never send any message of any kind to me? Everyone was ready to tell me terrible and damning tales of the deeds of the sons of Feanor, but the most terrible and damning thing of all was your silence... You had done all that, and you seemed to feel you had nothing at all to say to me—or to any of us!’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’re sorry? You launched a suicidal attack on our camp and then, when Eonwe allowed you to get away with it, you committed suicide anyway. I know they say it was the Silmaril...’

‘It was, in part, the Silmaril.’

‘Maitimo...!’

‘I’m sorry, Uncle.’

‘Are you, Maitimo? And will you forgive me for not having come to find you before, wherever you were hiding in the woods of Beleriand?’

Those eyes are now looking straight at me again. Whatever terrible things they are conveying, accusation—of me or anyone beside himself—isn’t one of them. He would be puzzled by my question, if it were in him to be puzzled. It is also evident that he will readily and sincerely apologize for just about anything I might challenge him with because he thinks he is guilty of so much worse. It makes him oddly impervious to any particular charge.

I remember how I stumbled across the camp that night in Beleriand, half-dressed and confused, only to find that my nephews had come and gone, leaving another small pile of corpses behind them—and nothing to explain how these desperate killers, the notorious sons of Feanor, could possibly be the Maitimo and Macalaure I had known.

I still don’t understand. This devastated revenant is somehow both the dreaded kin-slayer and my eldest nephew, who I thought I loved. It’s a relief that at least I’m not required to judge him, for it has already been done.

‘All right then, welcome home, Maitimo.’

‘Thank you. I’m not sure I’ve still got a home, except wherever Findekano happens to be.  But I’ve been wrong about this kind of thing before.’

‘Except where Findekano happens to...? Oh.’

Findekano flushes and takes Maitimo’s hand.  Maitimo, for the first time, seems a little disconcerted. It shows less in his face than in his back and shoulders.

‘Sorry—you hadn’t realized? I thought that his coming to Lorien to pick me up like a strayed dog would have been a dead give-away, but apparently not. Are you worried all over again now?’

This is a scandalous affair, socially quite inacceptable. I find it wonderfully reassuring.

‘No. Actually, no... Although I would appreciate it if you kept it quiet. Some people in Tirion remain easily shocked...’

I take my leave. They stay sitting on the garden bench, cousins holding hands. Decorative reeds tower above them, hiding a water feature. From a dozen paces off, they look absurdly innocent.

 Even the terrifying eldest son of Feanaro has absolutely no interest in blaming me for anything.

III

Fingon:

‘I’m sorry, it looks absolutely hideous’, he says, frowning.’ I’ll have to undo it and try again... I’m not tweaking it, am I? ‘

‘No.’

‘Who would have thought it? Sometimes it seems almost as difficult to learn to use two hands again, as it was to get by with only one.’

Carefully, he pulls the gold thread out of the misshapen braid as it comes undone, trying not to let it catch. He has become so engrossed in this small task that, maybe for the first time since he came here, his face fully reflects the present moment. He has finally permitted himself to escape the ruin and destruction of Beleriand to sit with me in a sunlit room in Tirion and braid my hair. And he seems to be making a thorough mess of it, too.

‘Are you sure you’re happy to sit through that again?’

‘All afternoon, if you like.’

He raises his eyes from his clumsy fingers and looks at me.

‘Thank you for your patience with me.’

It’s our first kiss in Valinor. I’m careful not to attempt to deepen it. After a moment’s hesitation, he does.

IV

Maedhros:

It still scares me, this reincarnation of the Tirion of my youth.  It seems so fragile—solid Noldorin architecture, all granite and marble as it used to be, but I’m afraid I might accidentally punch my fist through the walls. And the people! I keep wanting to hold my breath around them, as if even the most ephemeral contact between us might eat gaping holes in their bodies like acid.

Death seemed much safer. But Findekano wants me here, and I have always made exceptions for Findekano. So I consent to exist, for his sake, and every day it becomes a little easier.

V

Fingon:

Every morning, once he has begun to venture out into the streets of Tirion again, he climbs all the steps to the top of the Mindon and leans out, looking east. As always, after our long time apart, I’m at his side.

‘What are you looking for now?’, I ask him when we’ve been doing it for a week. ‘You used to look north to Angband, but Angband is drowned deep, and so is all of Beleriand.’

‘I’m waiting for Macalaure,’ he answers me. ‘I long for his coming, because I would give almost anything to see him again.’

He gently covers my hand with his.

‘And I fear his coming, because...’