When She Was A Warrior by Dwimordene

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When She Was A Warrior

Rampant revisionism.

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Title: When She Was A Warrior

Author: Dwimordene

Summary: Of Aredhel. No, seriously.

Rating: T

Warnings: Revisionism gone wild. I blame Oromë.

 

 

 

Death comes to the Stone-song City.

 

The king’s sister has struggled, in a fierce sweat of fever, to hold body and soul together, but this battle she is losing – has lost already.

 

“Do not let me lose all,” she implores. “My son… my son, you must not…”

 

“He has a place in my house,” her brother assures her, and when she shakes her head, orders her: “Rest, sister!”

 

She will rest – unwilling as ever, and for the first time, defeated.

 

He has not understood her, then – he has never understood.

 

Her son might. The others – Findárato, the Teleri, even yet Tyelkormo, out in the world – might. She will never know.

 

What she knows, is failure: This city shall fall, and who shall ally with such refugees?

 

 

Who would receive the hidden ones, who let others fight their battles in the broad world?

 

The question has gnawed Írissë, a companion constant in these later years as the sunrises, as the blinding presence of white, carven stone that outshines even visions.

 

But the fountains of Gondolin do not all sing in harmony – not even Turukáno can command that. Ulmo’s creature, the blood of the earth, brings report of the world’s members – like a subtle humoral flow. She has listened to the deepest wells, and heard the tearful notes sounding in them. And, Daughter of Oromë, she has heard the hawk-cries and the carrion-crow calls. And so she knows: beyond the circling mountains, Quendi and Aftercomers are under siege.

 

She argues with Turukáno nightly over maps: Should we not at least have eyes in the world? Emissaries in other kingdoms – secret, known to king and queen alone perhaps, but present and ready?

 

Her brother refuses: We are hares against a hound-pack. Here we can stand, here breathe.

 

Írissë, who has wielded blade, bow, and staff against enemies, demands: Stand for what? Breathe what air, that has passed whose lips as he cried out, dying, ‘Where is help? Where Turukáno’s people?’

 

After so many years, she knows what he shall say in the end – hateful words to her: Ulmo sent us to this place – we shall have no more ban-breakers among us after Araman!

 

 

The Hidden City is lovely amid the waters – stone towers vault high and airy, like Tírion, but the gates and ramparts give stone its weight again. Middle-earth is not Aman, where war was long unknown among Quendi, save in the tales of the days before the Springtide of Arda, and in the downfall of the Lamps. Since they have discovered war, Írissë cannot fault the gates, and she walks girt with her long knives, and harries the hares with her bow-work.

 

And with her in these ventures is vexatious knowledge. She knows her people’s weakness, knows the need for a foothold, some place of safety to fall back to so they may weather the storms of war. But she knows, too:  no fastness lasts forever – not even in Aman.

 

And besides, Írissë reasons urgently with her niece and apple of her brother’s eye, what good if fortress Ondolindë lasts forever, if the war be not ended? If Turukáno’s people will not strive to end it, and make fast friends to leaguer the enemy’s lands, and throw down Moringotto? If only they win the war, let Ondolindë shed its walls with its secrecy – better if it does, for they and their city shall then be well-remembered and honored in the songs of unborn sons and daughters!

 

Irildë will nod, and say, ‘Yes, Aunt,’ but she is young yet, and the Crossing and its battles are not even memories to her, babe in fur-swaddles that she was. Her niece follows Nessa, walks barefoot in the Power’s path, ready to answer when Nessa calls – but there are few adepts of that Valië’s following among Turukáno’s host to teach her the Great Dances, which bring such insight. She might better understand then, but Elenwë perished on the Ice, and the best others followed Turukáno’s wife in death in the battles afterward. Orphaned Irildë cannot be her ally in this – teacherless, she is too much in her father’s sway.

 

Írissë needs friends, though, and so she takes her urging elsewhere: to the lords and ladies of the great houses, to the masters of the mines and the harpers, to Tulkas Astaldo’s initiates in especial – Ehtelion, Elemmakil, Laurefindë.

 

They are not unmoved – Ehtelion especially, who came later to Astaldo’s ways and has a harper’s ear. He, too, has heard the discord in the waters, is troubled by it. Laurefindë, she thinks, is more like the Vala’s laughter – fierce and fey and fearless, but also fatalist. Laurë is eager in the fight, but he knows little of subtlety, less of strategy. And Elemmakil, who knows better strategy, is too loyal to his lord for dissent: he understands, but Turukáno has ruled, and he will not contest his king.

 

 

So she has two friends, of greater or less usefulness. Laurefindë will spar with her, and even hunt with her, though he is too forthright in pursuit. Ehtelion, too, will spar with her, and they speak of what they hear in the waters. Írissë is no great harper, but she knows how to sound a man out, to hear to what he tunes.

 

And so she notes he does not love Fëanor’s sons – like most in Ondolindë, he came to Araman for justice, and has all of Helcaraxë to back his loathing of Fëanor’s people.

 

And perhaps because of that, or perhaps because he came late to Alqualondë, he is of Findaráto’s mind. To him, there is no curse in the Prophecy of the North. Only Fëanor and his sons fall under the Doomsaying. Írissë will not argue these things with him, but they may make him less useful in some ways to her. Still, he sees the danger of solitude, and his dreams disturb him: there is a shadow in them, like smoke from a battlefield. It hovers over the waters, which sing their urgent song.

 

Turukáno knows this – Ehtelion is Lord of the Fountains, and the dreams of one such go not overlooked. But neither dreams nor arguments of strategy have moved him yet.

 

 

So she will not rely on dreams or arguments of strategy to move him, but she dons the graven silver band of Oromë, and asks for his hawk’s eyes, that the hunter may tread the narrow way to her quarry and not misstep for want of foresight. For if her brother will not answer dream or argument or heed the wells, where Ulmo’s creature churns unquietly, then she must play the card that all kings fear.

 

Salgant is a creature of many faces and many tunes, but for a price, he will carry hers – to tavern and hall, and say what any shall of him, he can make catgut sing. In the barracks, his discontented harping spreads, and in the fields, farmers sing his words. Her words, truly, and soon enough the lords of Ondolindë learn of them. And some are disturbed, and others agree with what they hear, and Írissë is there to lead these to the well’s ledge, where the waters sing, and to ask them: If this is the word of the world, what say you to it? Shall we sit behind our mountain-fence forever, or must we not to the world and to war?

 

Then some fear the Curse works through her, while others wonder how she, who holds that the Curse has them in its grip, can hope to mend matters in the world, if all must go ill with the Noldor in Middle-earth.

 

The fearful she cows with dread warning: Then do not set yourself against the waves, but submit and keep your dignity at least! To the doubtful, who would have her answer their wonderment ere they speak of the waters, Írissë, with a hunter’s eye, replies: What worth is it to be free, if you will not use such wondrous freedom to end this siege and division? And to the sharp-eyed, who speak first of the need to answer the rumor on the waters, and ask later, she answers: The Doomsayer said also that the history of the world shall be the more glorious for the deeds of the Noldor in Middle-earth – that terrible is our fate, but awesome our feats. Why not, then, break ourselves upon Moringotto, and bring him down? Is that not grand enough for any of the Quendi?

 

Some one of them, or more than one, shall go to her brother – they cannot but. For, if her words are fair, to draw others to them sits neighborly with treason.

 

Twice treason is rectification, she tells uneasy Ehtelion; Moringotto loves our division from others who would work against him – the root of his conquest. A king knows this.

 

Turukáno knows this, when at length he has her brought before him to rail at her for breaking his council. Her brother’s rage is a living thing, and she lets it wash over her, ‘til at length she tells him: Would you spent half so much outrage on the enemy.

 

That cools him – enough that he can be crafty, too. A king has coin, and a king has power, and since Alqualondë, the two are held together with a blade. He will use coin and power to cut the cancer from his kingdom: he will make Salgant chief of regimental harpers, and buy his silence with coin – and with a few soldierly beatings in the yard from Elemmakil, who will not have a man who cannot be a boon in a tight spot, that Salgant learn a little fear of Turukáno to back his loyalty to gold. And Turukáno will send his sister forth with Ehtelion, whom Turukáno has seen too much in her company to believe he is not part of her bid, to a brotherly exile. Laurefindë he gives her because few can stand against him in arms, and because Laurë is, in the end, more dangerous as a pawn in others’ schemes than he is in himself, for in himself, he is too honest for conspiracy even if he is bold enough to joust with a king.

 

And he will send a third to watch them all – Egalmoth, who is staunchly Turukáno’s, and whose title marks him as Manwë’s: the lord of the Heavenly Arch has such keen sight, his gaze breaks even sunlight. Such is his insight into the thoughts of others, he has but to look at a man to see through him.

If the dread of another Kin-slaying does not hold among the treacherous two, he shall be the first to know it, and Írissë knows he knows his blades. She saw that at Alqualondë.

 

Thus Turukáno, wise king, shall be rid of his rebels, and gain a little time to purge the hornet’s nest they – she, in the main – have stirred. And he shall send her to their brother, whom he trusts best to hold her.

 

She wonders how many believe he is sending her forth because she pines for the woods – not that it matters.

 

 Truth does out, she warns him. And I am your sister, not your servant – all know this. The truth will out.

So also treachery, he tells her. I hold Ondolindë’s fate in my hand – that is dearer to me than blood!  Do not try me further in this, sister!

 

~0~

 

The world beyond the mountains is broad as she remembers it. Though her brother would send her from confine to confine, however well-cushioned the walls, at least there is the journey, and she lets her spirits lift like the winds – if only to blind Egalmoth a little, though she hardly dares think so. Her brother is more cunning than she had credited him.

 

Egalmoth rides behind his wards, and she feels his keen and tireless eyes. His courtesy is unfailing, but Turukáno could have picked no better guard. His very presence pits them against each other, as against themselves – she can see the strain in Ehtelion, feel it herself. They dare not even look long at each other, for Egalmoth is last to sleep, and she wakes to find him ready before her – perhaps he does not sleep at all. Without his gaze upon her constantly, she might as easily bear sleepless nights, but self-vigilance, lest a stray thought bring reprisal, is wearying.

 

Yet she cannot help herself: as they ride, conviction grows ‘til she cannot help but think: Findekáno is gracious and shall make detention light, but bars are bars. She shall not accomplish her ends behind them. Tyelkormo would suit her better – he is a son of Oromë; whatever his faults, she can trust he will not hide forever behind a wall.

 

And neither, she realizes suddenly one day, shall she. Worn out striving to think nothing, and harried by Egalmoth’s ever-watchful eyes, it occurs to her: she cannot hide from him, so why try?

 

I will not go to Findekáno, she tells her companions. I will see my cousin, Tyelkormo. Come south with me, or go back to my brother – or slay me here, but I did not leave the Stone City to be caged by my other brother.

 

Then Laurë is confused, and Ehtelion, astonished and – from the darting of his eyes towards their minder – fearful. Egalmoth is silent, staring at her, and she feels it like a hot needle, that look.

I may not disobey my lord, he says at length.

 

My lord and brother sets himself against the warning of Lord Ulmo, she answers. He is between the soil and the sea, but he may not serve two masters, nor save his people by making rank-breakers of them in this war!

 

And she turns her horse from their path.

 

~0~

 

The wind flows freely, flows like a river. The world, too, flows about her in a blur of color – there is the Telerin forest beside her, a band of running green; there, the mountains beyond in a storied blur of grey. Her horse snorts, blows flecks of white froth that the wind snatches away.

 

Somewhere behind her ride the others, but she cannot falter – all her thought is turned southerly, toward Tyelkormo’s realm, like iron towards the lodestone, and her ears are filled with the pounding of hooves, with the whistling air. Both day and night she rides, but especially nights, now walking her weary mount, now racing, and she knows no sleep, nor dares to dream.

 

For her head throbs – she feels as though she is underwater, deeper and deeper. Egalmoth, she knows, and fears, for so long as he has her in his sight, he will be as Manwë’s eyes: keen as a blade. His mind fixed on what his eye sees, he shall slow her, day by day he shall drag at her like a net, sapping strength until she falls within his reach once more. The day comes when she hears the neighing of other horses behind her with the dawn; then in desperation, she calls to Oromë and turns her mount towards the trees. For she will gamble her years riding headlong in the Power’s train through fen and forest, with nary a misstep or mishap, against the horsemanship of Egalmoth, who was never a lover of the hunt, and hope that the Teleri may finally prove less hindrance than her brother’s loyal servants.

 

The forest eaves close over her. In a heartbeat, she is plunged from depths to deeps – this forest is under the sway of another! In the clash of wills and minds, Egalmoth fails – his presence grows faint, like voices through a heavy gauze, but in the grip of the enchanted forest, she can hardly see, can hardly sense the way forward. Habit guides her – sends her horse careering one way, then the other, dodging brush and trees, jumping fallen trunks and uneven ground, unknowing of whither she is bound, save away from her pursuers.

 

There are shadows in the corners of her eyes – living shadows, she is nearly sure. But ere she dares stop or call out, Egalmoth is upon her again: sudden, swift – thinner, desperate with the knowledge that in the forest, where so wild a will holds sway, he cannot but lose. Manwë’s disciple can make sight a weapon indeed at need, and her mount squeals, falls to earth, bearing her with it, and she sprawls senseless for a moment, dizzied by more than just the fall. Then she lurches to aching hands and knees, scrambles but cannot rise. She buries hands scraped raw in the fall in the hair near her temples and tears – Out of my thoughts!

 

She does not know if she cursed Egalmoth and her brother then; she cannot remember what came out of her mouth. But she knows she has struck something true, for he recoils, even as someone grasps her arm, hauls her up.

 

Had she been less dazed, she might have lashed out. The face that confronts her she does not know – he is not of the Noldor, and his speech at first is strange to her. She is slow to grasp his words, still reeling herself, but she hears then Egalmoth’s voice, speaking in fact now, giving his name – and hers. The Sindar – she remembers, now, the tongue of Elwë’s people from bygone days when her brother favored her roving new lands – she gathers that the Sindar suspect Egalmoth and the others. They know of the Kin-slaying, recognize a hunt when they see one.

 

What would you with the lady? they demand.

 

And Egalmoth, all doleful courtesy, replies, To guard the lady against herself, for she would go to Celegorm, the son of Fëanor.

 

Treachery in truth-telling is an art. In a heartbeat, mistrust swells, and catches her in it – the hand on her arm tightens. Then the Sinda says, I would hear her say so herself. And he leads her a little aside, and looks her eye to eye, so that she can see the ages of this middle-earth mirrored in him, and he asks her: How say you, lady?

 

The trap of words and history are well-laid: she can lie – hopelessly, futilely – and say no, or say yes, and condemn herself. What she will mean is neither of these, and the words come almost ere she thinks them in the flashing of insight and memory: Arawion, help me!

 

And then she flees: tears herself free and deer-swift flees into the woodland depths, calling to her horse. Behind her, she hears shouting Telerin and Noldorin voices. Egalmoth’s mind rakes hers, a last effort, ere she passes from his view, even as the march-warden’s voice rises and in answer, the forest groans and bends –

 

How long she wandered, bloodied, bruised and dazed, her loyal mount trotting along with her, she does not know – even afterwards, the days escape the net of numbers. If the tree-spell of this forest defeats Egalmoth, it defeats her forest-craft, too. The ways shift and bend, the shadows are all misleading, and betimes, she hears – she thinks, believes – the laughter of the enchantress, or sees her in the knotty eyes of the trees, that dissemble a face. This is a different art, a wilder art than she knows, and she begins to fear her escape from Egalmoth is but a leap from one imprisonment to another. She ends each day exhausted, worn out by shifting strangeness, and if the forest and its wardens guarded her flight, ‘tis clear to her: she is not welcome here.

 

Or anywhere, it seems: when at last, following the rivers, she finds the trees thinning along her path, the forest spills her out from under its enchanted eaves into a brown and sickly vale. A thick and noxious fog hangs over the land in patches, beneath which lie shadows so deep, ‘tis as if the Void had opened. Her horse snorts, and the sound is lost in the stifling misty shade.

 

But she has the pathless mountains to the north, her enemies to west, and the forest at her back: there is no retreat. The sun rises watery beyond the trench of a valley, and sunward lies the land of Himlad, where her cousins hold sway. So she wraps hands scraped bloody in the fall with cushioning bandages cut from her bedroll, wincing as she pulls the laces of her braces tight. Then she unslings her bow, settles it across her lap, with an arrow to hand, and urges her mount forward.

 

~0~

 

The land is damp and dank; it lies prostrate beneath the evil, shifting fogs, exhaling despair. Stunted trees and brush stand bent and twisted, as if they had tried vainly to find the sunlight, or at least escape the deepest nightshade. Ragged old webs ghost among the branches, dry and wispy at times, sticky at others, and Írissë feels the watchfulness of hidden eyes – the hunter knows when she is being hunted, and her heart speeds.

 

But the spiders will not strike yet; they are cautious creatures, who would rather wait and lure prey deep into their domain ere striking. This she knows well, for she has been the bee in the silken spider bonnet before: in Avathar she hunted in the desolate vales and learned their ways long before any knew there were worse than they in that empty place.

 

When worse came, spewing a darkness different from the night, a Darkness of an unworldly and jealous time, she had gone upon the hunt in Nahar’s train. Ungoliant had fled before them, leaving ropes of thick and sticky dark-web in their path. Írissë it was who had ridden first in Oromë’s company into the thick of that Darkness, lest their enemy escape. Yet to no avail:  they had not captured Moringotto’s ally, and her eyes filled with the shadow of Ungoliant, Írissë had groped her way home, blind and desperate for days afterward.

 

Though children of Ungoliant are lesser evils than their mother, the wise hunter is wary of entering their shadows. But she has chosen this path for want of others, and as before, she will not shrink from it – she did not come to Middle-earth to shirk the duty of a just vengeance, even if others in their error should shirk it.

 

A heavy burden, duty, and it comes with costly choices: her horse snorts, whiffles nervously, and through the fog-shroud comes an answering whinny. Her blood runs cold, as suddenly, she feels once more the groping of another’s mind – Egalmoth again, seeking her. He must fear her brother greatly to return without even a corpse, if he has sought her even here, where darkness hinders Manwë’s gifts.

 

The depths of the Dark exude a chittering, hissing sound – it passes about the vale, as the creatures of that night call to each other, sensing weakness in the division among their prey. The long stalk is ending – and either she or her freedom may end with it. Between the spiders and her would-be captors, Írissë has no time, and no good choices, but she strings her bow and makes one. Oromë’s war-cry on her lips, she knees her horse towards the other riders, but a little ahead of where she heard them.

 

The chittering grows louder – the Dark-pierced fog is moving swiftly, in patches where the spiders hunt, trailing webs. To her left, she sees the shadowy shapes of riders, and keen-eyed Egalmoth calls to her – with mind and mouth. Írissë flinches, shutters her mind tight as she can, grits her teeth against the paralyzing thought he sends against her: Halt! But she needs him in her train, as she swerves east again, then south, and wills her mount onward despite its terror towards a pair of Shadows. And just ere she reaches them, she looses her arrow into first one, then swift as thought sends a second into the other.

 

An unworldly shriek goes up, and she passes in a heartbeat between a hundred horrifying limbs and clusters of dark-glimmered eyes… as Egalmoth’s party rides into the attacking spiders’ midst, unable to halt. She feels his fear like ice, and then his focus wavers, fails.

 

Then she must make room to run, for the spiders close swiftly. She draws her knife, calls to Varda, Lady of Light, as she slashes at spider silk strung out, net-like, and trailing the spiders to catch the unwary prey. Her horse’s eyes roll white in its head with fear, its step falters in the dark and in the face of clinging webs, whose tremors tug at the gut-strings of hungry foes, which begin to turn...

 

She cuts her mount free of the last thick cord of webbing, then in desperate determination, Írissë thrusts her arm between bow and string, tangles her fingers in her horse’s mane between its ears, and sinks her mind like an anchor into the poor beast’s terror – Move with me!

 

She shall have no defense should Egalmoth attack now, but she trusts to the viciousness of Ungoliant’s spawn. Egalmoth cannot split himself in two to mind her and his own back, and besieged by unlight, even he is blind behind her.

 

Thin strands of silk stretch taut, then tear as she throws her mount’s weight against it. Behind her, blades ring against armored legs, and spiders shriek – the glinting eyes turn from her, drawn more to the sounds of conflict and promise of easier blood behind her.

 

And so she and her mount pass like moths through the Dark-shrouded valley, ceasing only when the sun rises clear of the fogs.

 

Írissë’s eyes and head ache, and she slips from her horse’s back. The horse staggers, drops its head, panting and utterly blown, and there is a white sheen over its eyes – the Darkness, she knows, and counts herself fortunate. She can still see.

 

And so, after a time, she rakes cobwebs from her hair, unstoppers the waterskin at her hip, and drinks deep. Then, one guiding hand upon her poor mount’s neck, she walks east into the waxing day.

 

~0~

 

Himlad is a fair sight for sore eyes. The forest spreads about the hilly plain, and the keep sits atop the hill, a few wisps of smoke rising from its fires. All about, fields and homes spread orderly from that spire in a spiral that moves out to fill the gap between the keep and the walls, and beyond the walls lie other homesteads, though they are sparser.  

 

At the waystones, she finds sentries, and they are swift to challenge her – a stranger in torn and dirty buckskin, with silver on her arm and webs in her hair, walking a blinded mount. Írissë gives her name, and watches eyes widen, as whispers run through the guard. Their captain, though, peers closely at her, and at length, he sends an escort to bring her to the keep, and to the steward of Tyelkormo’s house.

 

Who remembers her, at least – Ammirë has long seen to Tyelkormo’s affairs, and has welcomed him and his guests home after many a hunt in Aman. Here in Middle-earth, she has done well by Kementári’s teachings, and made the grain grow, and tamed the trees to give fruit. She exclaims over Írissë’s ragged appearance and promises to amend it, and she does have the servants draw water to heat and seek out clean clothes. She also sends a healer to tend to her and another to her horse, and apologizes many times that Tyelkormo is not at home to receive her.

 

He has business to tend to elsewhere in Himlad, Ammirë tells her. And though she would rather speak with her cousin now, frustration brings nothing good, and so Írissë assures the loyal steward that she will wait.

 

And wait she does.

 

The days become weeks, and the weeks become months. Írissë’s wounds heal, and she but rarely knows headaches. Tyelkormo remains afield, though where, none know – or none will tell her. She roams the city, where weapons-smiths are busy, and the fields, where farmers raise bountiful crops, and she wonders at the source of ore in this place, where mountains are far distant, under the shadow of the enemy.

 

Tyelkormo could tell her, if only he were here. His household assures her that he is in Himlad, only elsewhere – ever elsewhere, and incurious, apparently, as to his cousin’s purpose in his domain…

Írissë has not come so far to fail now, though doubt has settled in her heart. What keeps her cousin afield? And though Ammirë and the whole household are courteous, their too-solicitous care wears upon her – and feeling the pressure of invisible bars, she begins to test her limits.

 

She begins with hunting hares in the fields, and then mallards and other water fowl that lead her farther. Then she gains company – other hunters of the household, who steer her east or north, to other hunting grounds.

 

So and so. She misses the south – and thus begin her circuits. She departs in the morning, bow in hand, seeming eastward bound, but when she is out of sight of long-sighted guards, she goes to ground, turns south and west, where lie the forests and greater game – perhaps more cunning, too.

 

For there are soldiers to south and west: small bands, laid out like a shield wall, she judges.      

 

And as she crawls, she can feel the ground beneath her shifting: the earth lies disturbed, there just beyond the reeds of the river – and it lets off an odor… She puts a hand down, sinks it into the soil, and finds… cloth. Cloth, and within it, a hand.

 

There are bodies beneath the turf. Elven bodies. She feels the shadow of the Doom-sayer loom, and Írissë’s blood runs cold as the hand she clutches with the realization:

 

There is some war in Himlad.

 

Yet none have said aught to her of it, and she mistrusts such silence, and her cousin’s absence. So she does not show herself to the companies, but carefully scouts them out, day after day, ere she circles back about to catch the evening rabbits farther north. It would not do for any to wonder at empty-handed returns, and hare’s skins make a fine coat – good for walking unseen among shadows and in dusky hours.

 

And so one day, she takes her bow and a pack with food, and donning her coat, disappears into the twilight, bearing south to slip through sentry nets, heading for the forest her cousin’s men are guarding.

And if the woodlands are not the same, not so wild and willful, as the trees of Doriath, she knows, as soon as she passes beneath their eaves, that Nan Elmoth is likewise bespelled, and not by any Noldo. Never has she walked in so dark a glade – dark not with the lack of sun and moon and star, though the close-woven boughs hide them, but with a concealing and uneasy glamour whose kinship with that of Thingol’s kingdom is the only clear thing. The whole land, she thinks, lies watchful from within its shadows – the forest itself is on guard against intruders.

 

Beyond the mistrustful eaves, Himlad men stand fencing the forests in, and she feels the Oath weigh heavy on her hope for wiser, wider warring against the enemy:

 

What have you done, cousin?

 

Days she walks the forest ways, by every craft she has learned of Oromë. She lets herself be turned again and again ‘til at length, she discerns how her path has bent in on itself. Whoever has laid this net has laid it well, but Írissë has a hunter’s patience and a herald’s boldness: when she is sure of herself and of the watchers, she casts off her coat, and her white shows like a beacon in the darkness.

 

The going then is still hard, but straight, and in but a few days, Írissë, weary with her journey, finds herself upon the threshold of a strange hall, well-hidden and wreathed with the smoke of a great smithy. Írissë holds up her hand, in hail and parley, and is answered by the man who steps out of the shadows. Eöl, he calls himself, and would know her purpose.

 

“To devise the downfall of the Dark Lord,” she tells him.

 

“The Dark Lord holds no sway in my domain,” he answers, sharply, “and while the stray traveler has a seat in my hall, I do not suffer Kin-slayers to mock me or enter.”

 

“Arawion’s daughter neither strays nor mocks. I have seen the hidden dead in their ditch-grave,” she answers. “I mistrust what passes in these lands, that Golodhrim guards turn their backs on the Enemy to harrow the people of this land, our sundered kin.”

 

Then Eöl is silent a time, and his gaze is heavy, measuring. “If you would learn,” says he, at length, “then bide a time and I shall tell, and if you have the stomach for it, then you shall see, lady. If not…”

 

Behind him, and about the darkened glade, Írissë perceives others standing by, listening: elven-folk like tattered shadows themselves. But some shadows are deadly: some are mail-clad, and some, she perceives, nock arrows.

 

“All things I can bear, save that the Dark Lord sit in peace in his hall for want of friendship among us who oppose him,” she tells him, and Eöl lifts a brow, sweeps an arm toward the doorway.

 

Írissë bows, and steps within.

 

 

There was long ago no hall in Nan Elmoth, only nightingales, who sang for Melian under the ageless starlight. Then Eöl dwelt in Doriath, a prince among princes, kin to Thingol. But when Thingol forsook forest and field for caverns of stone, then Eöl and his folk fled to freer fields, where the stars shone clear and the land gave forth its bounty, for surely the Dark Lord could not care for so few, who tended their fields and forests and sought no dominion elsewhere.

 

War, however, leaves no quarter:  there came the sons of Fëanor, whose people too must eat. They drove Eöl’s folk from the rich fields, and would have cut into the forests, had not Eöl the ancient friendship of the trees and knowledge of the craft of Melian and the elders of Doriath.

 

But Eöl does not trust only to such arts – illusion is not boundless. Those who pass its limits must still be met, and so Eöl had built his hall nigh to the Dwarf path, for Celegorm and his folk are not shadow-stuff: they will not fall to tree-mazes, nor even to hard stone, but only to steel…

 

 

Eöl has learned much of steel since he was driven into the forest depths – as much, perhaps, as he has learned of injustice, and he has learned to hate as well as he loves. So Írissë perceives, as his tale unfolds: he had lost many in the war between steel and stone, which led him to the Dwarves. If he does not encourage his folk to raid the Noldor, he is not content to hide from the enemy only – that lesson he has learned. And though she grieves for another kin-slaying, this one silent as shame, hope springs anew, for here is one high-hearted, who may be moved, if only she can sway him to see Moringotto more the enemy than the Noldor.

 

And so she stays. For the dark is coming, she tells him. And I would save my people and yours.

You know still nothing of my people, he answers.

 

Then teach me, she demands.

 

Thus he sends her forth, and thus she learns: she roams the forest, listens to the trees and the birds, to the grim soldiers in their dark mail – her watchers, who are her teachers, too. They show her their hovels and speak bitterly of the generous, star-canopied fields lost to them. Then Eöl brings her to meet the Dwarves who pass at night along the road, and hears of their secret trade with Eöl’s folk, for let Tyelkormo’s people catch them, and they may lose the grain-gold he pays for their ore and all their long labor in the mines – if they do not lose their lives.

 

As for the Teleri of Nan Elmoth, they have nothing to trade with Tyelkormo’s folk: they cannot barter their grievance over lost land, and the trade in lives gains them little, though it keeps them their place in the forest. Írissë hunts with the people of Eöl, both fair game and foul, for mouths must be fed and the enemy who dares the woods bled white and out. Her brother would warn her against this, but she knows: war leaves none upon the byways, and she will have no more of pretense. Pretense falls as swift as the Noldorin guard she fells, and she rips the dagger free for the next woodland raider. That proves her at last to Eöl, who grants her freedom within his realm beneath his laws, and removes the guards.

 

The Teleri raise her from ‘that woman’ to ‘Noble One.’

 

She will wear that praise as a name, as she fletches her arrows by Eöl’s forge. For if the Oath has doomed her to spill the blood of her own people, then she will not hold back where there is hope that she may turn kin-slaying hands to spill as much and more of Moringotto’s blood.

 

And as she fletches, she watches him cast swords and mail, helm and hammer, and other things, not of war, but for use in hall and glade. Not many, for metal ore is precious and they have little to trade to the Dwarves, unless it be roots and leaves, which elven lore distills into bitter medicines, or hides. Such is the price of futile, self-defeating strife.

 

But what choice has he had? Eöl had led his people forth to hoped-for freedom, and for a brief time they had had it. ‘Twas the Noldor who brought war to his people and stole their homes, he says, and since then Teleri grievance has grown long as a river, long as the years themselves.

 

And though her heart burns with the desire to defend the Ondolindalië, hemmed into the rocky fold of mountains and who never took aught from his people, she cannot. So long as Turukáno will not stay Tyelkormo’s hand, she knows too well: there is no defense. Words have no weight where action is wanting. So Írissë bites her tongue and in battle against Tyelkormo’s people, she is first among captains in ruthlessness. And between battles, when they sit outside his smithy, resting and worrying at little things – an archer’s brace, a tricky rivet – when they can speak, then she tells of the warning in the waters of Gondolin, of the need to end Morgoth, who sows the seeds of division, and she urges: This war wins us nothing. Let us bury the hatred of Noldo and Teler in enemy flesh!

 

If Eöl hears her, he gives little sign, but she feels his eyes on her at times, and wonders whether ‘tis outrage or approval that burns in his gaze.

 

 

One day, he casts her a set of arrow-tips – war-heads, well-barbed to lodge deep and tear the flesh out of the wound should any try to pull them.

 

“They suit you,” he tells her.

 

“Once they fly, they shall not come easily back,” she notes.

 

“They are of a kind with you,” says he, and now she hears him differently than she has before. She tilts her head at him, at the brightness of his eyes, and he takes her hand, with the arrow-head in it. “Will you not stay, Aredhel?”

 

“I came not to stay, but to bring war to the Dark Lord and free our people,” she warns.

“You came also to bring peace between kindred.”

 

She had come for allies, but never looked to forge such allegiance as heart and hand desire. The ages of elven life might wish for more time to consider, but time runs swift in Middle-earth, and Moringotto is moving.

 

That night she teaches him to say her name to her – Írissë Nolofinwiel, not Aredhel – and break his law against her native tongue. Such ban-breaking is hard-taught, but at length he surrenders, and afterward lies exhausted in her arms.

 

And she conceives – in hazy thought and hope that the hemorrhage of elven blood wrought by elven swords and arrows may end – she conceives that a child of their blood may speak to her cousin and to her brother, and so salvage both. For the child of Írissë and Eöl is claimed by both peoples: born of two kindreds, he may in turn claim to speak for both and – she hopes, she prays – lead them together against Morgoth-Moringotto.

 

And so she names him Lómion, for he is the Telerin night and the Noldorin light together, though she will not call him so before Eöl. Love knows few laws, but love is but part of what binds them, and it lives between them and behind closed doors, between sheets – its ways are not for the world without.

 

~0~

 

The world without lies divided, and the lines of division are drawn in blood – so much of it their own.

Wolves and worse are on their borders – trying them, breaching them. Rumor comes to them of the Dark Lord on the march, harrying the north, so that the shadows of the forest hold new terrors to drive folk from their homes – if they are so fortunate as to live to leave them. Such foes are not Tyelkormo’s guards: the refugees huddle in Eöl’s hall, whose air is thick with bewildered mourning, and a new and staring horror that looks out of anguished eyes.

 

And it strikes Írissë then, like an arrow to the heart or a thunderclap’s lightning: Eöl’s people have never met the Dark Lord’s creatures so before! Absence is hard to mark – though he had told her, she had not grasped the shape and sense of the absence of Moringotto’s servants in the tales of Telerin woes. Her husband’s bitter feud with the Noldor, his hopes that Moringotto must surely o’erpass his people – she sees them now, like scattered potshards put back in place together to make a strange and startling whole. Their chief enemies have always been others of their kind – Thingol’s forced resettlement underground, or Tyelkormo’s land-thieving warriors.

 

Eöl’s hopes, though, are rootless as her brother’s that Ondolindë may forever escape war’s ravages. And if Tyelkormo’s people are content to drive the most fearsome of the Enemy’s creatures into the forest, that has not made the Noldor more merciful to ‘trespassers’: the war among Elves grows fiercer in measure with the invasion of Moringotto’s creatures. For Eöl’s people, more afraid now to hunt in their own forests than to dare the familiar enemy, more often raid their lost fields, and for hunger’s sake they will not retreat when Tyelkormo’s folk confront them.

 

They’ve a need for more weaponry, for the ore that can arm them. Yet the Dwarves come less often: the journey is long, and fraught with these new perils – and Tyelkormo can pay as Eöl cannot.

 

The Teleri cannot win this doubled-up war. Nan Elmoth must have help against one or the other enemy, or a truce at least. Írissë argues passionately with her husband, begs him to let her be his herald to her cousins or go to her brother in Gondolin to demand help from those who have faced Morgoth’s onslaughts before, but he will not hear it.

 

I beg nothing of the Golodhrim, he tells her, and instead arms himself and some few brave others to go and beg instead from the Dwarves in their mountain fastness, and sell his labor for long weeks at their bellows. Sometimes, their son goes with him. Lómion, whose eyes grow keener, sees reason in her words. Yet he is young: he errs in his eagerness to move his father to take her advice – and ends banished to the hearth.

 

There he takes his father’s place at the forge, for what little he can make with the ore Eöl spares, and he arms himself to accompany his mother when Írissë goes on the hunt.

 

For, she tells Eöl, if you will have naught from the Noldor, I will have naught of the choice between starvation and kin-slaying.

 

Then you will need steel all the more, her husband tells her, and she cannot disagree.

 

But neither will she wait for Eöl’s labors to pay: her people are hungry for more than bread. They need victory that they can taste and that fires the heart to greater deeds.

 

And so she takes the bravest of Eöl’s people, who have the most skill in the hunt, on demon drives, forcing Moringotto’s servants from their forest haunts. ‘Tis hard-driving: the enemy’s creatures go down bloodily, and stone-tipped spears and arrows pierce less deep than steel, but she will not sit in the hall and lament, like Makalaurë. She calls even the birds of the air to aid her, and in echo of her outrage, they fly at the enemy, seeking eyes and throats to peck and claw at, shrieking their hatred.

 

And when Nan Elmoth has vanquished, she shows her hunters a different butchery, and they dump the bodies, dismembered, into the fields for Tyelkormo’s folk to find – warning and marvel, both, that if the Noldor of Himlad will not exact the price from their common foe, the Teleri  of Nan Elmoth shall, and because she remembers the shallow graves by the river. Let Tyelkormo’s people hide their disdain beneath a layer of earth, she will have her people flaunt theirs.

 

Indeed, she decks her warriors in warg-pelts and the horns and claws of their enemies, and mounts white-fanged heads on pikes near the waystones – foolish risk, some might say, but one that shall gain some consideration from Tyelkormo.

 

And whether he reads in such gory trophies a challenge and a taunt – Send worse, see what we shall make of them! – or whether he reads in them a subtle truce, such daring serves Nan Elmoth well: her people walk taller, and the meat on their board is theirs by valor clean of kin-strife.

 

Lómion acquits himself well in such endeavors – her son’s eyes pierce the shadows, and he has kills to his credit. More, he leads in posting their bloody signs by the stones, and he fashions for her a necklace of warg’s teeth and jet, and bracelets of copper and claws. Írissë is pleased – and especially that he comes to her to ask about the Noldorin captains who have learned the way of war against such foes, and about the city where they dwell. For her son must not live in a halved world; he must live in the whole, and in love with that whole – fired with love fierce enough to fight for that broken whole, and wise enough to win. So Írissë tells him the stories of Ondolindë, and of the plight of her people – sealed within the mountain realm, their valor stunted, their craft constrained – to counter her husband’s too-narrow hatred, unforgiving as it is uncompromising.

 

I would see the white city, Lómion says, and she smiles, tells him:

 

Perhaps.

 

~0~

 

That ‘perhaps’ is a hedge against other knowledge. For the valor of Nan Elmoth comes of necessity with losses – losses that they cannot too long afford, and if a people roused and ready for war against all – whether Moringotto’s creatures or the Noldor of Himlad – is better than a people despairing, that readiness brings its own dangers. There is such a thing as brashness: a restive people may be drawn more readily into a war they cannot win.

 

And Nan Elmoth cannot win against Himlad; it cannot win alone against Moringotto, even if the Dark Lord’s creatures learn to fear the forest-dwellers, for Moringotto can raise armies for every one of his servants that they slay.

 

“We need allies,” Írissë insists, when she and Eöl lie alone in their bower. Her husband’s arms tighten about her, and he sighs.

 

“What other cares aught for Nan Elmoth?” he demands.

 

“I care.”

 

“You are one.”

 

“Then Doriath.”

 

“Where were our kin when the Golodhrim seized our lands?” Eöl demands, bitterly. “They prefer the bounds of their forest to the bonds of their blood!”

 

“Yet their enemy is our enemy. I will go, if you will send me to them.”

 

“Why should I send you? They will see that you are of the Golodhrim, and turn you away.”

 

“Then send me whither they shall not refuse me – send me to Ondolindë!”

 

Futile plea. Eöl will not hear of it. Even should he consent, what use, he demands? The king of Gondolin is likewise Golodh – he will choose his own kin over the people of Nan Elmoth.

 

“Then let him choose his sister,” she urges. “Let him choose me, and the bonds of blood, for I am here.”

 

Her husband touches her face, and she turns her head to look askance at the chill note in his voice, “Do not use our need to save him – he cast you out! I will not place my hopes in such a one.”

 

Then Irissë presses his hand, there where it lies against her cheek, and says, “My love, you married for want of peace between kindred – this you said. Did you wed in vain, to surrender that bridal gift before ever it can be given?”

 

He makes no answer, but silence is telling: there’s a kingdom between them, and Írissë sees a cross-roads looming. Perhaps Eöl does, too – there is an anger in his embrace henceforth, a fierceness that feels like fear, and when next he dares the Dwarven road, she notices the guard who tails her.

 

Yet, as she looks out from the forest eaves at the treacherous, sunlit fields, her husband’s words – He cast you out, I will not place my hopes in such a one – gnaw at her. Eöl may be too narrow in his hatreds, but his mistrust is not misplaced: How indeed should Turukáno receive her, should she go?

 

Surely he must receive you well, her son says, innocent of understanding, for unlike his father, he does not know her road to Nan Elmoth – not all of it.

 

Twilight you are, she says, yet hopeful of dawn! But the night your mother gave you is deeper than you dream!

 

This, she tells him, is the night and its depths: it is the night of her failure to rouse Ondolindë, of her failure to turn her cousin’s warring against the Enemy, of her failure to move her husband. She speaks of the Oath, of the Prophecy of the North, and the Doom of the Noldor. Lómion listens, his eyes shining, and when she has done, says:

 

I do not know the ways of the Valar, but I know the way of princes. Your brother must mistrust you unless he has surety of your good will. He takes her hand, and pledges: I will be that surety.

 

Then Írissë looks upon her son, amazed. Speak not hastily, she rebukes. You do not know what you say!

 

But Lómion avers: I know enough. I know that my uncle Turgon, whose sister has brought us such wisdom in war, can help us. And if he can save Nan Elmoth, and stay the hand of Celegorm or lend us strength of arms against the rógrim then how can I withhold?

 

He is right in that – if he is right that it shall mean aught to Turukáno that she lays her son in his hands.

 

Terrible thought, that it might mean nothing.

 

Can she, who had courted rebellion to break Ondolindë’s isolation, bear to think it, or afford to offer less if she would sway her brother now? Such choices she has wrought beneath the sign of Námo’s Doom!

And so she chooses: lays her hand to his cheek and kisses his brow, tells him: Child of two houses, division is your heritage, but you are our hope! If you will do this, then I shall go.

 

Lómion hesitates not at all:

 

I will it. For Nan Elmoth!

 

~0~

 

They shall go together, then, but, she insists, they shall go as honestly as such endeavor allows – she tells her husband’s household of her errand, that she will not deceive but trust to them to do as must be done for the succor of their own people.

 

I take my son and my arms, my hopes and my leave – nothing more, she tells them. And addressing the guardsmen, she says: You swore to protect Nan Elmoth. Do your office, as you see fit.

 

And so they depart, she and Lómion, shadowed by the guards all the while, and she half-expects to fall to Nan Elmoth’s archers ere ever they reach the forest eaves. But though she knows they follow, they do not loose – she and her son walk out of the trees and into the fields unscathed and unhindered.

 And she teaches her son a new art: how to talk to horses, who love best Oromë’s Children, even above their other masters. Tyelkormo’s people shall miss them, but all have lost more and worse in the kin-strife than horses, so she will not regret it.

 

Whither wends our road?  Lómion demands, for between Ondolindë and Nan Elmoth lie many perils, Nan Dungortheb not least. That, she judges, they should not dare again, which leaves only the fences of Doriath.

 

There, I am a hindrance, she tells her son, for they do not love Golodhrim, and the forest turns against me.

 

Then let me be my father’s son, Lómion answers, and takes her hand in his. “Maeglin” indeed, her son rides straight and bold-faced, unafraid, unswayed by the tree-spell, and if the watchers wonder, they do not halt them.

 

Thus they pass among the forest eaves.

 

~0~

 

Even as Turukáno had once, they will follow the river, in which she discerns the music of Ondolindë’s far-off founts – rumor borne by proud and playful waters to one who has dwelt in the secret vale and knows them. Their horses, good beasts that they are, hear that song, and add their voices to it, though they understand it not.

 

But Irissë will not bring them to the Song-stone city – they were born to freer fields, and she will not deny them.

 

For she knows she gambles, and that her hand is weak: she is not as she was in this homegoing – the guards at the gates give testimony to this, in their caution and their doubtful looks. Her brother, too, is doubtful – he has Egalmoth at his side when they are brought before them. And he rises to greet her, but does not touch her, and she knows he seeks his sister, rebel though she be, in the wild-woman cloaked in wolf’s skin, with her warg’s tooth necklace and claw-and-copper bracelets. Her son, equally arrayed in the trophies of war, stands with her, proud enigma before the king’s throne.

 

We had believed you lost to us, her brother says at length.

 

Whereas I have ever kept Ondolindë and its people in my heart, she tells him, and taught my son to do likewise. See, brother, here is your nephew, and heir to Nan Elmoth – if you doubt me, then weigh mistrust against my trust, for I place my son in your hands.

 

Lómion stands forward then, and bows low before his uncle, as the murmurs run round the court.

 

And since it does her no harm to end such bold public scenes gracefully, and she’s no desire to stand beneath the pointed gaze of Manwë’s servant, she pleads: Lómion and I are weary, brother; there is much to tell. Will you not hear it when we have rested?

 

This he can accept easily, and so the guards lead them to chambers not far from the king’s, and when they have washed and clothed themselves in the garments that the servants bring, then Irissë calls her son to her, and takes his hands.

 

Sharp Glance, be your name, she urges. Fix your eyes ever upon the end we must achieve: we must bring Ondolindë to defend Nan Elmoth, for only thus is there victory for either of our people, or any redemption. And beware: there are illusions here strong as tree-spell, and stronger, for they are less visible.

 

Illusions?  Lómion asks.

 

Aye, says she; they work even upon the king, my brother, who in all this affair is the key. Keep your eye close upon him, for we must win him to us, but he loves little else as he does this place.

 

Which does not mean that Turukáno loves naught else or that he cannot greet his unlooked-for nephew heartily – when they call upon the king at his bidding, he clasps Lómion to his breast, and calls him ‘kinsman,’ and introduces him to Irildë and others of his household. Egalmoth is notably absent. And when they sit to eat, he listens closely to their tale, shakes his head over Tyelkormo and the wars in the east.

 

But he will commit nothing, and defers the matter – on account, he claims, that they are weary and should rest.

 

Lómion looks to her, and Irissë knows she cannot tell the bitter truth – that she would be less weary, if only he would pledge his aid. That waiting on help that does not come is in truth the most wearying of all enterprises. Turukáno will not hear such things – not now. Not, perhaps, from her.

 

Mayhap he shall hear me, Lómion says later, when, having rested, they walk the white-stone ways.

 

Mayhap, she says; if he comes to trust you – if he comes to love you more than the work of Noldorin hands.

 

He loves his daughter so, her son says. Irissë thinks of her niece, firmly in her father’s sway, and lays her arm about Lómion’s shoulders, draws him tight against her, and says nothing. Ondolindë is so fair, stone belying its nature in its vault skyward – if only she were deaf or loved it less than the pleasure it gives her! But she can hear the waters churning in the fountains, and she knows that beyond the mountains, there is war in the fields and forest of Nan Elmoth…

 

A guard turns a corner, spies them, and comes swiftly to meet them, for he bears word: One named Eöl has come, who claims to be the lady’s husband. Shall he pass the gates?

 

He must pass the gates, for else he will pass to Námo’s realm, though mayhap he would prefer that, she thinks, and is filled with dread. But she cannot commit him.

 

He speaks but the truth. He is Eöl, and I am his wife, and he is the father of my son. Slay him not, but lead him hither to the King’s judgment, if the King so wills, she tells him, and urges: Send to my brother: let him pass!  

 

And to her anxious son, in the language of Nan Elmoth, she says, There is trouble in this, and great danger. Do nothing – say nothing, but remember and hold to our purpose! As Noldor and Teleri are united in you, so must be the might of Ondolindë with Nan Elmoth – or both shall perish! You must not permit it! Whatever passes, will you promise me this?

 

And Lómion bowed, and said, For this, I followed you, and shall do as you bid – whatever passes.

 

~0~

 

They come to the king’s high hall, where the court is gathering. Írissë moves swiftly forward, beneath the eyes of the councilors, gauges the mood, finds it troubled, eager – the fountain of the king sings in tune, and even Laurefindë seems uneasy. Egalmoth is once again in view, surveying the court and she feels his eyes upon her. The king her brother beckons her, and when she and her son come to his high seat, she can tell he mislikes matters. And though he bids her son to stand at his side, he tells her: Stay! You say that his claim is true, and so I shall take his hand, as he is your husband. But this is fruit of your adventuring, and you must make answer for it.

 

I reject nothing that is mine, she tells him; But tread carefully, brother, think you well on what you say – for you receive one who has fought long for his people, and he counts not the Noldor among his friends.

Her brother looks long at her, but then schools himself to the task, for the guards come, bringing with them Eöl in clothes stained not only from travel. There is dust in his hair, and blood on his face, and his knuckles are scraped raw.

 

Turukáno rises, holds out his hand, tells her battered husband: Welcome, kinsman, for so I hold you. Here you shall dwell at your pleasure, save only that you must here abide and depart not from my kingdom; for it is my law that none who finds the way hither shall depart.

 

And Írissë, who listens with many years of war between Elves in the fields and forests of Nan Elmoth, feels those words as a knife to the heart. For a moment, the world seems to blur, and she sees again, she thinks, among the councilors, the dark-robed figure pronouncing Doom in Araman, walking with a smile.

Not like this, she implores the apparition silently; It cannot end like this!

 

But matters move in the world, beyond her reach or will. Eöl recoils from the hand outstretched like one stung by a serpent, and his outrage, as he looks from Turukáno to her and to their son, like a fox in a trap, boils over in bitter words: I acknowledge not your law. No right have you or any of your kin in this land to seize realms or to set bounds, either here or there. This is the land of the Teleri, to which you bring war and all unquiet, dealing ever proudly and unjustly. I care nothing for your secrets and I came not to spy upon you, but to claim my own: my wife and my son. Yet if in Aredhel your sister you have some claim, then let her remain; let the bird go back to the cage, where she will sicken again, as she sickened before. But not so Maeglin. My son you shall not withhold from me.

 

And to his son he turns then and demands: Come, Maeglin son of Eöl! Your father commands you. Leave the house of his enemies and the slayers of his kin, or be accursed!

 

But Lómion stands silent as promised, and it is Turukáno who answers, as all pretense of kindred love drops away: I will not debate with you, Dark Elf. By the swords of the Noldor alone are your sunless woods defended. Your freedom to wander there wild you owe to my kin; and but for them long since you would have labored in thralldom in the pits of Angband. And here I am King; and whether you will it or not, my doom is law. This choice only is given to you: to abide here, or to die here; and so also for your son.

 

It could not go otherwise – for indeed, she had pledged her brother Lómion as surety, and if Eöl did not, no matter. That is war and hostaging. But she knows her husband’s mind – knows it as well as Egalmoth, though she need not touch his thoughts to know them. Would that she could raise a veil between Egalmoth and Eöl, but she cannot, and so she moves instead.

 

The pain of the dart-strike she welcomes, for it bites less deeply than others. In the uproar that follows, as hands clasp her, try to press her down, she hears her niece urging her to rest, to sit at least, as Irildë tries to staunch the wound with a kerchief, but she has no ears for that. She calls instead to Laurefindë, who has his knee to her husband’s back: Do him no harm! The fault lies not in him – do him no harm! Laurë!

 

He hears her – looks up and catches her eye a moment, then nods.

 

It will take more than that to move her brother, for however wroth he is with her, Turukáno will put her above her husband.

 

It will, as her son perceived, take Irildë to persuade her father, and Írissë is only grateful that her niece has much of kindness to her, and nothing of knowledge of her husband’s good aim. Her husband would not miss Turukáno – not when he stood so near.

 

Be grateful, Egalmoth tells her, when he comes to see her. I have saved your husband’s life.

 

You care nothing for my husband or our people, she replies, in pain. You love the law that will strangle Ondolindë and him!

 

I love the duty I was given, to secure us, Egalmoth tells her, and goes where the healers have set their potions. He pours her a cup, hands it to her, and she, resigned, drinks. Egalmoth watches the while, and when he takes the cup, he says: You love your freedom more than you love him or Ondolindë.

 

Írissë rises, looks him in the eye, though it sears her mind and makes her reel to do so, he is so intent upon her. The lord Egalmoth misjudges, despite his famed eyes! she says. If you knew aught of love, you would know: in allowing love to stretch no farther than the mountains, you have pronounced a word of Námo’s prophecy. When this city falls to Moringotto, it shall be a part of your doing.

 

Egalmoth bows to her, then. I am your brother’s servant, lady. What I do, I do for the house of Turukáno. But I think you should rest, he says, and touches her hand. See Írissë, you tremble. You are not well. Perhaps you should think on how well your husband loves you – you will see him perhaps sooner than any but him believes.

 

Her hands are shaking; and though he looks away, the ache in her head worsens, and she feels quite suddenly faint – she, who has suffered battle wounds before, crossed the Ice, hunted Ungoliant, and driven raukar from their lairs.  What have you done to me? she demands.

 

But Egalmoth does not answer, unless it is to call the servants to come and put Lady Írissë to bed. Her mouth is dry, and her tongue feels suddenly swollen. What have you done to me?

 

What has been wrought comes clear soon enough. With evening, the light fades, as she labors in a sweat to breathe. Her brother comes to see her, and sits beside her, and though she can feel herself failing, still, she perceives his mood is perilous.

 

I should not have come, she laments.

 

Better you rest here than in the hands of one who would slaughter his own wife! her brother exclaims.

 

Írissë shakes her head – or tries. If she could but tell him the truth – but she has run out of words. She has run out of breath, though she will try for the sake of Nan Elmoth.

 

“Do not let me lose all,” she implores. “My son… my son, you must not…”

 

He cannot stay here, and leave his people as a body without a head. But she can speak no more, and Turukáno in the end cannot understand. Bound by a curse and a prophecy, his mind and loves have narrowed so, he will not see beyond the mountains, not even beyond the walls of this room. He will hold Ondolindë aloof until it is too late, and he will without pang kill his kin, his unwanted brother – for her sake, as he sees it.

 

And what shall his words and acts work in her son, who must abide here or follow his father and mother?

 

She does not know, and she yearns to see him again.

 

But the dark is rising, and she is drowning in it.

 

“Írissë!”

 

Her brother is calling to her, but she will not answer now – not now. She pulls in a breath, and swift child of Oromë, who knows the mercy of the hunt, she cuts the silver cord and the night sweeps her away…

 

~0~

 

They tell him that his mother has fallen to the poison on his father’s dart. They tell him that it was over swiftly once it took hold.

 

His uncle is much aggrieved over his sister’s death, and looks to the dawn for vengeance.

 

And who, wonders Maeglin, will avenge his people in Nan Elmoth, who must surely die with his father and mother and all their hopes?

 

Who, but their son?

 

And so he says nothing when Turgon murders his father. And he says nothing when they bury his mother and lament Lady Írissë. But in the twilight, he draws her name upon the tree by her grave in the signs the Teleri had fashioned, and vows:

 

Lady Aredhel, this I swear and shall not fail: even as Nan Elmoth, Gondolin shall know war!

 

 

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Chapter End Notes

Notes

I am your sister, not your servant – “Of Maeglin,” Silmarillion 156.

He speaks but the truth. He is Eöl, and I am his wife, and he is the father of my son. Slay him not, but lead him hither to the King’s judgment, if the King so wills – “Of Maeglin,” Silmarillion 164.

Everything that Eöl and Turgon say to each other is from “Of Maeglin,” Silmarillion 164-165.