Loyalty: A Tale in Three Voices by grey_gazania

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Part I, Chapter III (Tókhesh)

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FA 461

 

The months following Lame Haná's discovery of the miraculous bark were hard, for our dead were many and we were all grieving. My mother, my oldest cousins, and my dearest friend had died while I lay senseless with fever, leaving our house a place of sorrow. Father clung more tightly to me; he forbade me from tending to the few goats who had survived unless I was with an older child, forced some of his rations onto me at mealtimes, and held me as we both wept for my mother.

 

But we were in some ways lucky that year; the winter was mild enough that we could still hunt the rabbits and quick deer and gather nuts and winter berries, which were now our primary sources of food. We didn't eat well, but we didn't starve, either. We'd lost so many that the city didn't seem all that crowded despite the many newcomers, and Grandfather made no move to push people back to the outer settlements. As he rightly pointed out, there was little for most of them to return to. Better to wait for spring and see what could be salvaged then.

 

Father, Grandfather, and my uncles often closed themselves up in the sitting room in the evenings, presumably something to do with the fearful spirit that had appeared at dinner months ago. I wanted badly to know what they discussed, but I did not ask, heeding my aunt Thisí's warning. Do not speak of it, she'd hissed to my cousin and me, making the sun-sign over her chest as she led us from the room. You may provoke its wrath. So I held my tongue and resisted the urge to eavesdrop.

 

I was shocked when one night my uncle Lúrep stuck his head into the room where Thisí and I sat sewing and instructed me to join their meeting. Thisí's eyebrows rose nearly to her hairline, and I opened my mouth to ask why I was needed, but Lúrep shook his head. The message was plain: Not here. I stuck my needle into the small cushion that rested on the table and folded the skirt I'd been taking in beside it; one of my mother's, a deep green with graceful brown leaves stitched around the hem. Then I followed him, curiosity bubbling inside of me.

 

"—thirteen," I heard my father say as we approached the door. "She's still a child."

 

"She'll be a woman in less than a year," my grandfather answered. Then, seeing me in the doorway, he beckoned me in. "Sit," he said, pointing to a spot between my father and Lame Haná. But I made it only a few steps before freezing. The same spirit stood at the foot of the table, its glowing eyes fixed on me, like twin torches in its sickly-pale face.

 

I bowed, trying to swallow my nerves, but my voice still shook when I spoke. "Spirit," I said. "Greetings."

 

It inclined its head and then gestured for me to sit. I did, but I couldn't take my eyes off its strange form. It wasn't until my grandfather snapped his fingers sharply at me that I turned away.

 

"Tókhesh," he said. "Before we speak further, I need you to promise that nothing you hear or see will leave this room. Nothing. You will not speak to anyone of this, not even me, unless we are closed away in here. Do you swear it?"

 

I was not technically old enough to swear a formal oath, but something told me that this went beyond a simple legal agreement, that it was perhaps even outside of our laws completely. "I swear it," I said, fumbling for the proper response. "By— by the blood in my veins and the bones of my hands I swear it."

 

He nodded, and my father squeezed my shoulder.

 

"A brief explanation," Grandfather said. "We are going to cross the mountains to the West. Our lives will be better there — fertile land, no raiders, no failing mines. In exchange for a place to settle, we will be spying on the enemies of this spirit's master. We need to learn their language and," he said, a touch of pride in his voice, "I know that if anyone can do that, it is you."

 

I blushed, flattered, but I also knew he spoke the truth. After all, did I not speak the dialect of my uncle Károt's people flawlessly? Had I not learned the language of our Southern neighbors more quickly than anyone involved in trading with them? And hadn't I worked out more of the Kházad's secret tongue than they themselves realized? I had a mind built for languages, my grandfather often said, and that was a valuable skill. Words could be wielded with as much power as spears or axes.

 

"What is the language called?" I asked, turning my head towards the spirit but avoiding its eldritch eyes, for they made me shiver.

 

"Sindarin," the spirit said. "It is the common speech of the peoples who live across the mountains."

 

"Sindarin," I repeated, doing my best to mimic the spirit's accent. "Sindarin."

 

And thus began our bi-weekly language lessons. The Sindarin vowels felt strange in my mouth and the words were slippery, the sounds clustered at the tip of the tongue and the stress falling in odd places, but as Grandfather had predicted, I made more headway than any of the rest and could soon both form and understand short sentences. The spirit deemed that good enough, saying that it would look suspicious if any of us were fully fluent.

 

The lessons that followed were more difficult — learning to mask our thoughts and feelings, to bury our true intentions deep inside us, for some of the Noldor could know the hearts and minds of those around them. It wasn't a matter of hiding all emotions, but rather of showing only what we wanted to show, and it took months upon months before we had perfected the technique.

 

"That's why so few of us know the truth," Grandfather explained. "The more people who know, the more likely we are to slip."

 

Time wore on. Grandfather announced his plans to lead us westward, to the surprise but not the dismay of our people, for we all knew our future here was tenuous at best. We planted crops and harvested them again, bred the surviving goats, hunted the wild animals and dried their meat, jarred our honey, and gathered berries and nuts to bear with us. We knew precious little about the plants in the mountains, only what we had gleaned from our dealings with the Kházad, so we took great care in preparing for the journey. After some deliberation and a long meeting with Grandfather, Károt decided to do the same. Working together, we were able to triple the rations either of our peoples would have born alone. We even scraped together enough gold and goods that we could pay to cross via the Kházad-Road, an altogether safer route than traveling over the mountains that housed Túmunzahar.

 

Finally, in the spring following my 14th birthday, we left for the land called Beleriand.