The Work of Small Hands by Dawn Felagund

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Alqualondë

With apologies for the delay in updating this and gratitude to all who have been reviewing it nonetheless!

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I know I need my rest, but I cannot sleep, and so I rise early to draw my bath.

Anairë is also awake; I hear her rustling in the kitchen downstairs. Descending the stairs carefully in the dark--I no longer need to press my palms against the wall for guidance--I find her in yesterday’s clothes, making a pot of tea, and I know that she never left last night.

Her fair face is marred by shadows beneath her eyes. She has abandoned her proud, upswept hairstyle, and her normally luxuriant black tresses are knotted and clumped by oil and tied back with a bit of yarn. I do not need a looking glass to know that I look much the same.

She turns at the sound of my footsteps and smiles weakly. “Sit,” she commands. “I have made you some bread and jam and lemon tea.”

I force myself to eat, sick with the memory of the hollow-cheeked woman and her fussy baby who surely need the food more than I. As though sensing my thoughts, Anairë says, “This is an important mission. You need your strength.” She places a paper-wrapped package on the table. “I have given you the best of what bread and fruit we have left. It should be enough to get you to Alqualondë. They will have food there.” I nod and nibble my bread and jam. With the sour-sick feeling in the back of my throat, I cannot taste it, and it is hard to swallow against the rising bile. Anairë lifts my chin and forces me to look at her. “Do not give it away, Eärwen. You will do more good by hording this tiny bit of food with intentions of providing for all than to be slowed in bringing help to our people. Do not give it away.”

She releases me.

I take a long bath, using the lavender-scented oils that Anairë gives me, soaping my hair with a foamy white conditioner that will restore its silver sheen. Anairë has laid out a set of silken undergarments, and after drying myself, I put them on and go into my bedroom, where she waits at the vanity to brush my hair. Her warm fingers are soothing against my damp scalp; each languid stroke of the brush draws a degree of tension from my shoulders. If I squeeze my eyes shut tightly, this might be a happier time. My wedding day. Anairë brushed and plaited my hair then, too. I squeeze my eyes tighter. That tight, sick feeling in my belly is for an entirely different reason. Arafinwë waits downstairs for me, probably just as nervous as I am. I could come downstairs with no hair at all, and he would still love me. I do not know why, then, I am so nervous.

And when I open my eyes, there will still be light.

Anairë sets the brush aside, and I open my eyes to the throbbing, orange candlelight, a tiny speck within endless dark.

She plaits my hair in a simple style that will wear well for the two-day journey and will not look shabby as it begins to deteriorate. I put on the best of my gowns and drape around my neck the pearls that Arafinwë gave me after Artaher was born. Anairë tightens the laces at the back, accentuating what slender curves I possess; this was the latest fashion among Noldorin ladies before the Darkening. I remember sitting in the parlor with Fëanáro and Nerdanel while he complained of the impracticality of it, sketching in the air with his wine goblet. And I’d envied Nerdanel’s ample curves, so lovely in such fashion. How petty the stuff of our conversation was then.

On my quivering hands, I slide silk gloves. Anairë drapes my shoulders with a velveteen cloak, arranging the hood to protect my hair. Catching a glimpse of myself in the looking glass, I laugh bitterly, for I am one of them now--a Noldo. We have no food but we have silk gloves and sweet-smelling bath oils. I array myself as though to kneel before the Valar, not to visit my father in the place of my birth.

Anairë’s deft, competent fingers smooth wrinkles that I do not see, shift the pearls differently at my throat, as though they will remain so over the two-day journey. “You are beautiful,” she says. “Dignified. He cannot refuse you, right? You are his daughter.”

My throat is too tight to speak, so I just nod, not quite sure: to what am I agreeing?

~oOo~

The dark streets are strangely empty. In front of the house, a farmer’s cart was overturned. He’d been bearing stores of jarred pickles; in the people’s hasty greed in tipping his cart, most were broken in the street, the pickles ruined amid the broken glass. Nonetheless, Elves pick among them, brushing slivers of glass from the pickles with bloodied fingers.

Anairë gives me a leg up onto her horse. The beast snorts and shifts beneath my meager weight; we are not the only ones hungry, tired, and scared. I stroke his neck and whisper to him of fairer days to come, if only--please, please--he will bear me safely to Alqualondë.

At my side, I again wear a sword, at Anairë’s insistence. She kept Arafinwë’s sword and gave me one smaller and lighter, better suited to my size and strength. “It is my blade,” she said. “Nolofinwë insisted that I keep it, never knowing that I might actually need it.” Beneath my cloak, tucked safely away, is the paper package of food that Anairë made for me.

“May Oromë guard your road,” she says, as I take up the reins. It is an old Noldorin blessing, from the time of the Journey, one that was oft-repeated as a casual salutation in the Bliss of Aman. “May Oromë guard your road!” Arafinwë and I would call, as Nolofinwë and Anairë departed down the path after a night of wine and supper, waving, our arms twined around the other’s waist, kisses dancing upon laughing lips.

“Anairë?” I ask, and she looks up at me. “Will you look after Arafinwë?”

She glances back at the street when she answers, “Of course.” She smacks the horse’s backside and sends me on my way, without farewell.

Which I hope I do not regret.

~oOo~

When I was small, my father used to sit me in the safe circle of his arms and tell me tales of the Outer Lands.

“The darkness was so heavy that you could feel it,” he would often say as way of beginning, ghosting his hand in front of himself as though he could still stroke the darkness, even in the Land of Light.

“What did it feel like?” asked I, the clever daughter, unable then to comprehend “darkness” as anything more threatening than a band of shadow beneath the wardrobe door. The Light of Valinor was persistent, seeping into every corner of our lives eventually: through cracks in the curtains, between the door and the doorframe, even squeezing between the threads of the blankets that I tugged over my head in an effort to replicate the darkness of which Father spoke.

He sighed; pondered. Finally, he spoke.

“It had a life unto itself. It was thick and warm, like the pelt of a beast, but yet it yielded to your touch, like water. You would hold out your hand--" he stretched forth his hand, fingers reaching as though seeking again that feeling--“and your fingers would disappear into it, like you’d dipped your arm into oil.”

In Tirion, there is still light: flickering patchwork-squares stretch down the street on either side of me. A few have erected lamps in front of their homes, but in the chaos, some have been overturned, and the hedges bear the scars of flame. The streets are mainly empty, and those who walk do so with the wide, vacant eyes of the wraiths in the scary stories my father once told me, those that were always preceded by the palpable darkness.

My horse’s hooves ring against the cobblestones; some of the patches of light in the street ahead of me are obscured by faces; curtains are hastily drawn. A few children run into the street, thinking me a farmer with a cart, and they follow the horse with their small, pale hands fluttering in the darkness like moths. “Lady? Lady? Have you any food?” I keep my eyes trained on the road, resisting the urge to nudge my horse into a trot. The neat squares of light in the houses smudge and run like smeared paint as tears burn my eyes. “Lady?”

In the lower circles of the city, the light lessens. Windows are shuttered tightly, as though the inhabitants are trying to horde and keep the light for themselves. In some places, gates are broken and broken carts force me from the road.

I approach the gate out of the city, dread seizing my heart.

Do not pass into that!

Thick, humid darkness looms past the gate: the darkness of my father's stories. My horse has stopped in the road, his ears pinned back, tossing his head. I tighten my legs on his sides; I urge him forward.

I squeeze my eyes shut tight.

~oOo~

Father was right. I can feel it.

I can feel the darkness drift upon me, worming into my nose and ears and pores, making me sick with it. The sky is covered by a canopy of black clouds, blocking even the starlight. Once, I lay upon my back in the grass with Arafinwë, his fingertips resting in my palm, and we watched the clouds billowing overhead, dancing on the wind like the banners atop our fathers’ palaces. I asked him to find me a shape, and he hesitated for a long moment before pointing straight up and saying, “Pliers?” and I laughed until my sides hurt. “How Noldorin you are!”

I suppose that the clouds are the same, but in the darkness, they become menacing.

It is hard to see the road, and I understand now how Arafinwë came to be injured. I wonder about my own fate, about the wisdom of this quest.

And yes, I feel a whisper of bitterness toward my husband, who should be here. Not me.

~oOo~

We would take this road often, between Tirion and Alqualondë, between Arafinwë’s family and mine. I never paid it much mind then, riding in the back of the carriage, safe in the half-circle of Arafinwë’s arm, our children darting between windows to point and ogle at the sights. “Aikanáro, really. Please stop kicking my feet. Artanis, keep your gown over your knees. You are not a boy.”

I long to have back that time.

I pass the orchards outside of Tirion. It used to be that the farmers would meet us in the streets with plums for the children. Now, the trees are stripped bare, the streets sticky-sweet with trampled plums. Flies buzz in annoyed clouds around the horse’s legs, settling again in our wake, dining on the feasts of our folly.

I stretch my arm in front of me and, shuddering, watch the darkness devour my hand.

~oOo~

There are small towns between Tirion and Alqualondë, but I dare not stop, although I linger in the meager orange light that they provide, glancing behind me with regret when I must step into the darkness once more.

The horse knows the road, and so I sleep astride his back, dreaming strange dreams where I arrive in Alqualondë and Fëanáro sits upon the King’s throne, smiling sardonically while I beg him to tell me, Where is my father?--crushing plums in his fist and his hands and mouth bloodied red with the juice.

I awaken with a start that upsets me from the horse’s back, and I slide to the ground, striking my knee on a sharp stone and hissing in pain. He stops and waits for me, turning to regard me with complacent, patient eyes. I decide that I will leave him in Alqualondë. Such a loyal beast does not deserve the torment that is Tirion.

At times, we must pass through stretches of forest and primitive fears awaken in me then as I dissect the shadows, frantically searching for movement--almost wanting to see it so that I have something from which I can run--cringing against the horse’s neck when an owl calls out in the night, swooping low over me to scoop something from the shadows beside the road, something that keens with the fear of death as it is carried off.

Tree branches, lost to my eyes in the dark, occasionally grab my hair, and I scream, at once feeling foolish when I discover that the skeletal fingers upon my scalp belong to a tree, but unable to calm my racing heart. Like a drum, it thunders in my chest. I imagine that it is drawing dark things near to me with the brilliant efficiency of a beacon. I press my hand to my chest and a whimper wriggles from between my lips, not unlike the sound made by the small animal carried into the night that is probably now dead or dying.

When we pass out of the forest, I sob with relief, my quivering hands covering my face with the shameful puerility of a small child. This is still Valinor! Yes, but if the Light could fade, then what else is possible?

~oOo~

Shortly, a feeble glimmer appears on the horizon in front of me.

Valmar.

By the time I think to nudge my horse into a canter, he is already loping awkwardly on the dark road, in the direction of the light.

And so we keep Valmar in our sights.

We pass through the Calacirya. “Pass of Light”--I shudder at the irony of it, for the mountains on either side clench against the road, and I do not want to pass between them. The clouds overhead have rent and a meek scattering of stars lights the road. In the Calacirya, though, the helpful sky is reduced to a weakly sparkling ribbon overhead.

I keep my neck craned, my eyes on Valmar, until the stone sides of the Calacirya block even that from view.

Findaráto once loved the Calacirya. Sitting upon his father’s lap, no more than four years old, he stared open-mouthed at the pale rock walls rising beyond our sights on either side. He wriggled to be free of Arafinwë’s grip, strangely belligerent, whining until Arafinwë slid closer to the window and let Findaráto grip the lower sill, tilting his head out of the window, staring raptly at the contrast of gray stone against the jewel-bright sky, nearly tumbling from the carriage in his eagerness to stretch and let his baby fingers brush the rock, while Arafinwë laughed nervously and clutched his legs to keep him from falling.

For Findaráto … I think, and I let my fingers brush the coldly luminescent stone. For I hope that Death does not hasten his return, as Light no longer awaits.

~oOo~

The last time I was in Alqualondë was for my brother's wedding less than a year ago, and the city had been in celebration, for it was not often that we rejoiced in the wedding of a prince. Arafinwë's and my marriage did not seem so far away then, nor did our promises to my parents that we would not become distant, though I had chosen to follow my beloved to Tirion. But time and ever-increasing obligations warp the best of intentions, and the last I had been to the city of my birth--my inheritance--was almost a year ago. Had I known that my next return would be under such circumstances, perhaps I would have made greater effort to keep that promise made to my parents centuries before. I realize now that even the simplest delights of Alqualondë, taken for granted, will now live only in my memory--the tracery of silver light upon the peaks of the cottages at Telperion's zenith; the tattoo of golden light upon a cobalt sea--and the darkened city will never be the same again.

But had I known of this--of Darkness--many of my choices I would have changed.

I am glad to leave the Calcirya behind me. Overhead, the sky widens again and pale starlight lights the road in front of me. Clouds race endlessly now across a once-cloudless sky, dark and ragged like uncombed wool, and the stars are blotted out, then emerge again. Then darken … and so it goes: light to dark to light, ne'erending. The way of the world--even Valinor now--I suppose.

And down the narrow road paved with bits of crushed shell, lined with marble and adorned with pearls, that winds down from the hills to the beach is Alqualondë. Always has Alqualondë lain within the dimness, made bright by the multitude of colored lamps lining the streets and strung high upon the masts of our ships. But those ships are gone, and the streetlamps strive alone against the darkness. Alqualondë is a small pulse of light against a sea that no longer bears any trace of light. It is as black as the horizon, as the mountains piled behind us, even the sky overhead, when a clot of clouds skims silently across the face of the stars.

The horse's hooves are too loud upon the road, though he--like I--is draw to the light. My heart pounds for a different reason now, and I realize that I stand at the brink of a quest fulfilled or failed, and that the fates of the people of my husband rest in my small Telerin hand. How did it come to this, I wonder? And had I known when I gave my hand to Arafinwë that one day I would seek my father, not for consolation or to share in grief, but with my hand outstretched for alms, still would I have spoken the Name and sealed the bond? To lose my children to the fey and the dark and my husband to the slow death of his own cowardice? Tears sting my eyes and the hundred points of light from the hundred lamps of the city become a single fuzzy glow upon the brink of Valinor, suddenly precarious, as though that light stands to drown in the darkened sea.

Alqualondë was once a beautiful city, and though it filled my gaze from the day of my birth until the day of my marriage, never had I tired of emerging from the Calcirya and--hand pressing my chest--gasping at the sight of it on the brink of the waves: one thousand cottages carved from soft pink stone and each with lanterns gleaming within. The Noldor had taught us that: how to carve from rock and move the stones upon boards laid upon the beach; how to delve foundations and raise homes upon them that kept out both the heat and the rain. From the sands of our beaches, they made glass as flawless as the air itself, and our silversmiths twisted tiny cages to act as lanterns for the lampstones the Noldor wrought and so generously shared, and the city was spangled with lights of every color. The city itself became like the sea, hard to look upon when illumed in full glory, yet it was impossible to turn away.

I remember once returning from Tirion to Alqualondë with Fëanáro as my escort, for he was wed by then and already a father, and so it was appropriate for him to accompany me upon the road. Years before, we had been friends in childhood, each the eldest child and heir of a king, and I was surprised how after long years of his absence to the mines and villages in the north, my ease with him rekindled as though those years had never been, and the two-day journey passed like naught. And we came laughing through the Calcirya that day--the cause of our mirth, I do not remember--and he stopped upon sight of Alqualondë, for it was near to the Mingling and the lamps of the city were very bright. "Do you know, Eärwen," he said, and his eyes had become dark and mirthless, and I forgot again the childhood friend and recalled only the prince who had defied his father and King, "that the mingled Light of the Trees is in fact every hue of light known to creation, mixed in equal measure? It is all that is and all that shall be, and so it is perfect. And when I gaze upon your city--" how he'd said it: my city!--"then I think of that light, for Alqualondë and its lamps look like that light broken into its various hues, each brought to its fullest splendor." And never again had I come through the Calcirya and caught sight of the city--my city--without thinking of this, of Light broken and beautiful, and of him.

As I think of him now, with a tightened throat and a tongue that tastes of the metal that he'd adored, with which he'd murdered my brother.

The city still looks as white light broken, yet too feeble to be healed anew, and alone against the darkness, it is not splendid as it once was but sad. As I ride carefully down the road from the hills and draw near to the gates, I see that many of the lanterns in the windows have been extinguished, and I know: as the blood of my people pounds through my body, I know that each lantern extinguished is a life lost in that house, and the city--as my people--is dimmed by it, and some houses stand in complete darkness.

Alqualondë once was a city filled with mirth and music, and a harper on the wharfs might sing a tune that catches in the ear of a messenger, who hums it on his way to the palace and infects one hundred others, who carry it to the farthest corners of the city, until all of Alqualondë is loud with song. Or the calls of street vendors, the bright bells upon their carts, the shouts of the fishermen to each other as they pass, one going in and one coming out, beneath the arch. The slap of waves against the side of a ship and the endless susurration of the surf upon the beach: I ride through the gates--and they are guarded now, by guards wielding blades they don't know how to use and with eyes hooded with suspicion--and the voice of Alqualondë has been silenced. I pause at the gates. "I am--" and I am curtly interrupted. "We know who you are, Princess. Hurry along," and they are already scouring the road for the next to emerge from the darkness, imagining it as the harbinger of more hurt and death. For that has happened already, has it not, and why not again?

The city is silent, but the streets are not empty. There is too much to be done, and people hasten to task with heads lowered and lips pinched tight to withhold voices once wont to rise in song. I ride through the crowded streets, and the people stop, all but those bearing the dead upon carts we'd once used to take fish from the wharfs to the market. There is no time to spare to curiosity for them, and Vanyarin healers wearing white cloaks to mark their station hustle amid them too, cloaks parting to reveal bloodstained clothes beneath. But the others stop and stare. Empty eyes lift to find my face. I see a little girl's lips form the words Princess Eärwen before her mother jerks her into silence.

Suddenly, I am painfully aware of the silken gloves, of my hair twined tightly into braids. I am aware that I come not as one of their own but as a princess of the Noldor, now the Queen, they assume. A few women dip their knees to the dust as they curtsy, but they quickly rise again, eyes lowered. Upon the faces of my people is etched plainly the pain of the deeds of the people whom I have come to save. Voices have forgotten how to sing and lips have forgotten how to smile. Hearts are too tired to hope.

I dismount from my horse, and with a pat to the flank, I dismiss him. Someone will find better use for him, and in the meantime, he can feast upon the last gardens to succumb to the darkness. I catch the hand of the woman nearest to me. Darkness dims a face further blurred by my tears, but I know her voice, when she speaks, though it is roughed by grief: "My husband was--you do not remember--"

"But I do," I whisper. "I was but a girl, and my horse had a stone in the shoe that I could not dislodge and he--"

"Yes," she laughs in a voice that burbles with tears. "Yes he loved to tell that tale, like it was still the days of the Journey, and he had saved you from the Shadow--"

And I laugh in answer, "Perhaps not, but certainly my father's wrath," and in such half-thoughts and interruptions, I know that her husband was one of the murdered, and her son too, and she is alone, like so many now in this city. One by one, I move between them, beneath the lanterns that dim and are long in being rekindled--but we have grown accustomed to the darkness. My husband's people behind me, my heart has momentarily lost room for them, and they will survive for yet another night while I heal the hurt their kin has caused in Alqualondë.