Above the Clouds by Himring

Chapter 1

Warning for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Read Chapter 1

The overworked, hollow-eyed assistant healer had asked him: ‘Have you any place to go?’

‘Yes’, he had said, truthfully.

The healer looked relieved and hurried away to some more urgent task. Afterwards, it occurred to Berion that she had probably meant whether he had relatives or friends who could put him up. He had not consciously misled her.

He had no belongings to pack. He picked up his notched sword where it leaned against the wall in its scabbard next to the pallet that was now no longer his and, out of old habit, slung the sword belt around his hips. Then he wandered along the corridor and through the busy atrium of the Halls of Healing and stepped out into the streets of the Hidden City, where he had never expected to come.

He blinked. Gondolin sparkled in the sun. A shimmering fountain played in the square before him. Brilliant reflections bounced off a golden weather vane, a glazed window, burnished metal railings…

He walked forward and blinked again to drive away the shadows that seemed to want to interpose themselves. No, there were no corpses lying in the streets of glittering Gondolin; there was no blood spattered across the paving-stones or dripping in the gutter. Not yet.

He chose a crowded thoroughfare that he thought might lead north and, after a while, he nerved himself to stop one of the many passing citizens and ask:

‘Excuse me—could you tell me the way to the tomb of Fingolfin?’

‘Why? What for?’ the stranger he had stopped asked in his turn and followed that up with a string of questions that Berion did not even want to think about answering, so he ignored them and simply asked again: ‘Could you tell me the way?’

The stranger was kind. He stopped asking questions and gave simple, straightforward instructions, pointing Berion towards the right gate.

‘Thank you very much’, said Berion politely and went on until he passed out of the city down into the valley of Tumladen.

Out among the green fields, he met a woman herding a flock of geese and asked for directions again. She asked fewer questions—merely for his name, which he told her—and insisted that he have a drink of water from her water skin and a bite of bread before she pointed him towards the beginning of the mountain path that he sought.

He came to the foot of the Echoriath and found the path leading upwards that Turgon had taken to meet Thorondor when he had learned his father had died in the Battle of Sudden Flame.  Up and up it wound along the mountainside, higher and higher, and gradually the valley of Tumladen fell away below, as Berion climbed. He went on steadily, slowly, but without stopping. Vegetation along the path grew sparse; increasingly, he was passing over scree and around boulders, among bare rock.

He rounded the shoulder of the mountain where the path led through scraggly bushes. A small tree with twinned trunks stood as if guarding access to the higher regions. He saw he was above the clouds now where the eagles roamed. The weather remained dry but the air was cold up here and quite thin.

He was moving very slowly now. If he had thought about it at all, he would have realized that his lungs hurt and his feet were sore and the wound in his side that had not finished healing was on fire. But there were clouds in his brain, also, and he did not think about it, but moved on unstoppably at a snail’s pace, further up, further up.

And then he was there, he had found it: the place he needed to go, the place he had chanced to overhear some of the Gondolindrim talking about as he lay waiting to see whether he would die of his wounds or heal. The enemy will not come that way, for the old King guards the north still, even  from his tomb. And so--lonely among the clouds, on a mountain-top looming high above Tumladen--Berion came to the tall cairn that Turgon had erected on the spot where Thorondor had left the body of Fingolfin, carrying him away when he was slain before the Gates of Angband.

For the first time Berion was aware of weariness and stumbled and almost fell. But he lurched forward with both arms outstretched and sinking to his knees in front of the cairn, he said: ‘My lord, my lord, I have found you again!’

And pressing his forehead against the stones, it seemed to him that he received some kind of answer or greeting and he wept with gratitude.

‘I tried, my lord, I tried,’ he said, ‘but the forces of Morgoth came between and I was swept away southwards. I could not make my way back to his side…’

His voice died away. He went on leaning against the cairn. He had lost his king, twice over, had lost all his friends and relatives, his home—all that remained was this rocky tomb.  Yet there was a kind of peace here.

He knew he was unable to get to his feet again, but he failed entirely to be worried by that fact. His lips were blue, bitter cold crept up his limbs, but he went on pressing his face against the stony surface of his lord's tomb and lost all sense of time.

***

‘Berion!’

He could not make out who was calling him and why.

‘Berion!’

Whose voice was that? Where was it coming from?

‘Berion, by the loyalty you owe the house of Fingolfin I command you, open your mouth and drink!’

Obediently, he swallowed. The liquid burned his tongue and throat. He coughed.

When he grew more conscious again of his surroundings, he became aware that he was lying on the ground, swathed in fur and blankets. He was also hurting all over. A small fire was burning nearby. Someone was crouching beside it. It was Idril, in a hooded cloak and mittens. He had not seen her for such a long time, not since she had left Vinyamar.

‘You have grown up,’ he mumbled.

She smiled, tiredly, in response.

‘Why did you bring me back?’

Her expression grew stern.

‘My family has not released you from your service, Berion.’

‘What use am I? I failed your grandfather and your uncle... And I heard that your father himself said that there is no hope that Gondolin will now remain hidden for long.’

‘That may be so, but the more need we will have of you…  And I do not believe you failed either of them.’

He was too weak and in too much pain to argue.

‘Rest a while and grow warm,’ said Idril. ‘And then we will go down again.’

He closed his eyes.

‘Do you remember’, he heard Idril ask, ‘how you once bought me a slice of cherry pie in the market at Eithel Sirion?’

He had seen her cast a discreet gaze of longing at the cake stall but suppress the urge as her father was deep in serious conversation. Berion had feared she might consider him forward, but how her face had lit up at the simple treat!

‘I remember’, he said.