Across so Wide a Sea by bunn

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Chapter 1

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Possibly, Maglor thought, Elrond had in fact been plotting his revenge for thousands of years, and this was it.

“Are you sure you want me there?” he asked, as they walked along the cliff-top, away from the red tile roofs of Alqualondë below them in the sunshine, along the long path that led towards the white tower with the high windows that shone against the sparkling blue of the bay. Gulls were crying overhead.

“Yes,” Elrond said. “I have no idea what to say to my mother! I haven’t seen her since I was six.”

That was, of course, because Maglor and his brothers had attacked the Havens, driven Elrond’s mother into the sea, and taken Elrond and his brother away from the burning ruins.

“And you think it will be easier to think of something to say if I’m there, do you?”

“No,” Elrond said. He gave Maglor a smile that had, Maglor thought, a very wicked edge to it. “But it will mean that if there are awkward silences, you can fill them with apologies.”

That was of course not something that Maglor could possibly voice any complaint about to Elrond.

“All right then,” he said, accepting the inevitable.

They had left Elrond’s friends, the hobbit-heroes Frodo and Bilbo, with their guardian Maia and Elrond’s wife Celebrían in Avallónë, and taken one of the regular boats that crossed the Bay of Eldamar to Alqualondë.

Maglor did not recognise it. Seven thousand years of sea and storms and peaceful prosperity had changed the old Teleri city. It was much larger now, with white houses running down the coast and up into the foothills of the mountains. The Teleri fleet ranged along the long quays south of the main city, was, of course, different too, though the long elegant lines of the white ships looked unnervingly familiar from a distance.

Even the mountains behind Alqualondë were different: they had been pulled up taller and far more sheer than they had been, last time Maglor had been here, following his father in the wavering torchlight through the dark after the Trees had fallen. All across their massive rocky heights were many tall watchtowers and forts, the defences of the Pelori that fenced the home of the Valar from the outer world.

The towers were empty now. Presumably they had not been needed since the fall of Númenor, when Eru had bent the world and set up his own defence for Aman.

“In the songs, it says her tower is on the borders of the world,” Elrond said. “I was expecting it to be harder to find.”

“Oh well. Songs.” Maglor said, amused. “I used that line myself, and I had no idea where the tower was. It sounded right, it wasn’t there to provide directions! But nobody lives out there on the west coast. Well, nobody used to... perhaps they do, now. But the coast near Alqualondë seems more practical as a place for a real person to live.”

“A real person. Yes.” Elrond gave him a sideways look under his eyelashes as they walked. “I’ve had three ages of the world with them both a handful of memories, a bird, a star, a legend. Now I can talk to her. It feels odd. We might not even like each other.”

“She’ll love you. Everyone does.” Maglor noticed that he was reassuring Elrond, who surely no longer needed any such help, and felt ridiculous. But Elrond did not seem to mind. “Will your father be there too?”

“No, he’s away, sailing the skies. I can see him another time.”

“Well, there’s something to look forward to,” Maglor said, trying to sound cheerful and failing.

Elrond laughed at the tone of his voice. “I don’t think either of them is likely to actually hit you.”

“That’s good.” He looked cautiously at Elrond. “I won’t hit them back, if they do.”

Elrond made a mock-reproving face. “Don’t be so melodramatic. I’ve seen you fight. Just duck if you need to.”

“I’ve seen your father fight, too! And I’m not a dragon.”

“It should be easier for you to duck than it was for Ancalagon, then. You’re smaller. Anyway, he’s not there. You have time to practice your ducking before you meet him.” The laughter faded. “Is the Silmaril likely to be a problem?”

“You asked me that before I got on the ship,” Maglor said, to give himself time to think about it.

Elrond stopped walking. “Perhaps I should have been more careful, if you can’t give me a straight answer now. Last time I let you get away with that, it ended badly.”

He meant the guards around the Silmarils. Maglor met Elrond’s eyes. “No, Elrond. I will not try to take the Silmaril your father carries. I threw the one I had into the sea. The Oath no longer speaks to me. Is that good enough, or do you want me to swear it?”

“Good enough for me,” Elrond said and set off up the green path that ran through the yellow-flowered gorse again. “You can’t blame me for double-checking.”

 

 

Elwing was tall and pale-faced, dressed very simply, in loose cotton trousers and a tunic. She looked like Elrond, but a slightly stretched copy of him that missed some of the beauty in his face, with a long bony nose and dark hair caught back in a pony-tail.

She greeted Elrond warmly, with an embrace. Then she turned to Maglor in silence and looked him up and down with an expression of distaste. He introduced himself, with careful words of apology.

“Yes, I remember you,” she said. “You were more bloodstained then. You can wait outside.”

Elrond put up a hand, wincing. “Better not,” he said. “He still has a lot of enemies in Alqualondë.”

Maglor realised with a sinking feeling that this was probably the real reason why Elrond had insisted that Maglor should come with him. Elrond didn’t want him recognised while Elrond was not there to intervene. Or, possibly, for him to be unsupervised.

“Hmph. I suppose we can’t have him being beaten bloody on my doorstep.” Elwing said, unenthusiastically “Or killing someone.” Apparently Maglor was considered a random killer, like a biting dog. “Come in then, if you must.”

Well, he had been prince, singer, king, captain, murderer, thief and wanderer. The role of Elrond’s untrustworthy dog should not be beyond him. It made a change from wandering alone along the shore, at any rate. He bowed politely and followed Elrond in.

The round, white-walled room that filled most of the bottom floor of Elwing’s tower was set with four tall curved windows, looking out across the bay. It was full of clutter: piles of wool in every colour, feathers, sketchbooks and odd pieces of wood that looked as though they were probably something to do with a boat were piled on the low seats scattered around the room and on the heavy oak table by the window. Tall frames of pale wood, each filled with a bright felted hanging in various stages of completion, were propped here and there against the wall. There were hangings, brightly coloured scarves and hats suspended at odd angles from the spiral staircase in the middle of the room, too, and more puffs of coloured wool piled on some of the steps.

Elwing looked around a little vaguely, piled some wool into a heap to free up some seats and began to collect brightly coloured mugs scattered around the room. Maglor recognised the symptoms of the artist at work, although it had been a very long time since he had seen them.

“Shall I wash up?” he offered. Elwing stopped and looked at him dubiously. He shrugged.

“Go on then,” she said, pushing the mugs into his hands. “The kitchen is in there. I don’t keep a household, now,” she said to Elrond. “I prefer the independence. I meant to tidy before you got here, but the time slipped away.”

Maglor found his way through to the small kitchen, where he discovered a heavy black kettle, filled it and put it on the stove, then washed up all the mugs he could find, and also several abandoned teapots in various stages of decay. By that time the kettle had boiled, so he made tea, took a deep breath, and took it back through to the main room.

Elrond was telling his mother about his children. She knew a little about them already, presumably from Celebrían. It was clear that Elrond’s mother and his wife had met a number of times before Elrond himself had come into the west.

“But they didn’t come with you?” she asked.

“No. Elladan and Elrohir may, one day,” Elrond said. “But not Arwen.” It was not the first time he’d had to explain Arwen’s choice, of course, and telling Celebrían must have been worse, but it was obvious that it still hurt. Elwing, at least, seemed to understand without too much explanation, and she put her arm around him.

Maglor silently provided tea, and retreated to the other side of the room to admire the view. After a while he moved on to look at the various works of art upon the frames. Most of them showed birds, or flowers, bright wool colours threaded with feathers. They were finely made, with a rare energy and a humour to them. He found himself liking Elrond’s mother from them, more than he had expected.

One was definitely an image of the Havens of Sirion, that sprawling refuge-port-town among the reeds and willows at the rivermouth with its one squat stone tower by the quayside. The ship tied up at the quay was, presumably, Vingilot.

Elwing saw him looking at it.

“So,” she said heavily, to Elrond, sitting back. “That is some of the family news at least. Now, explain him.”

Elrond went still and remote, the way Elrond always did when he was upset. “He is part of my family too.”

“A distant cousin of your father’s. And a traitor and a murderer.”

“All of those things,” Maglor said to her. “But your son, for some reason I cannot work out, still seems to be fond of me. Believe me, it’s a mystery to me too. I can only assume it’s because he is a better person than most.”

Rather to his surprise, Elwing let out a harsh laugh. “I didn’t ask you,” she said.

“No. But it is not fair to ask him. They were six years old. Would you prefer that they had had nobody to love, and nobody to love them?”

“Of course not,” Elwing snorted. “I would have preferred that you had not attacked my people and stolen my children.”

“He didn’t have much choice,” Elrond said. “I don’t think you understand their oath.”

“Elrond,” Maglor said, distressed.

“Well, she doesn’t understand. I saw what it did to you. She didn’t. You think I shouldn’t say so? I should pretend it was all your choice?”

“It was my choice,” Maglor said, looking at Elwing, not her son. “I could have refused to fight at Alqualondë. I could have refused to swear the Oath. I could have gone to Angband and died, like my father and my uncle. I should have done. I’m sorry for what that did to you and yours.”

Elrond said, “I’m not talking about Alqualondë. Don’t pretend you knew what the Oath meant when you took it. And ‘I could have tried to kill Morgoth instead’ is just absurd.”

“I’m glad you find my absurdity amusing,” Maglor said, lightly. “You did tell me to apologise.”

“I did.” Elrond looked away. “Apparently, now you are doing it, I find it hard to listen to. You were a singer, not a hero. It’s not everyone who can be.”

“I know that now. The understanding came a little late.”

“Your oath was tearing you apart.”

“It was tearing me apart, and so I tore your family apart, as our Oath had already torn mine,” Maglor said. “That’s not an excuse.”

“Morgoth used your oath against us all. If it hadn’t been you he sent against the Havens, it would have been his orcs. We would all have died. No Númenor, no Last Alliance, no Gondor. Very likely, no fall of Thangorodrim, even. Only the Enemy.”

“That’s not an excuse either.”

“If someone I love is standing in front of me with a gaping wound, I refuse to pretend it isn’t there,” Elrond said. “And neither you nor Maedhros would have done, either.”

“Isn’t that what we did, when we lied to you and stole the Silmarils? I have no claim on you.”

“Pity. Friendship. You were kind to me, can’t I do the same?”

Maglor laughed, with some difficulty. “All right,” he said. “You win again. “

Elrond looked at Elwing’s baffled face and explained. “We used to have this debate regularly, at one time. I always win.”

Maglor said “Maedhros and Elros were better at it. Elrond forgives me too easily, and I lose track of all the reasons he shouldn’t.”

A thought crossed his mind and he looked at Elrond. “Didn’t you leave out the part about making amends?”

“The wars are over, we are in Valinor, and I just made you apologise to my mother,” Elrond said. “It seemed unnecessary.” He gave Maglor a grin. “Also, you did make the tea.”

Elwing stood up, abruptly. “All right,” she said. “Enough of that, both of you. Elrond — not you,” she said, giving Maglor a quelling stare, “Is he still a threat?”

“Would the Valar would have let him come here, if he was?” Maglor gave him an incredulous look. In his opinion, the record of the Valar on identifying who was a threat to Valinor was not a strong one.

Elwing seemed to share his doubts. “My understanding is that they acted on your recommendation.”

“Not only mine. But, yes, I suggested they pardon him. He had a Silmaril. He threw it away. Morgoth can make no use of his oath from beyond the world, and Manwë and Varda declared it void anyway. And it’s been a very long time.”

Elwing gave her son a half-smile that seemed very familiar. “Your grandfather Tuor will probably approve of that, at least. He always says the Eldar live too much in the past... I take it you haven’t been to see him and Idril yet?” She picked up a ball of sea-blue wool that had escaped under a seat and sat down again, pulling at it.

“No. I came straight to you, once I had seen Celebrían and Gil-galad.”

“And you brought him with you.”

“Yes.” Elrond looked at her gravely. “I didn’t want to leave Maglor behind in Middle-earth.”

Elwing’s dark eyebrows came together in a hurt frown. “You blame me for leaving you?”

“No. Of course not,” Elrond said unhappily. “You were at war, with responsibility for your people. I know what that is like. You thought we would be killed, whatever you did, and you had every reason to think that. But still, when I was seven years old in Beleriand under the hand of Morgoth, Maglor was there, keeping away the orcs and spiders and wraiths. Don’t ask me to forget that.”

He paused and looked at Maglor, standing silent by the window. “When you are seven, and the world is dark and full of giant spiders, you’ll take a living singer with a sword and harp to stand against the darkness over any distant hero. And in the years since, too. When I heard that Elros had died, when his descendents fell into darkness. When Celebrimbor was killed, when Gil-galad and Elendil fell, and before we had even mourned them, we lost Isildur and his sons too. When Celebrían was hurt and I could do nothing for her, and she had to go across the sea without me. There was Maglor, still alive. I could go and speak with him, sometimes, and listen to him sing, and pretend for a day that everything was all right. Even knowing exactly what he had done.”

He turned back to his mother. “No, I don’t think Maglor is a threat. But if he is, I take the risk on myself. You know, in Imladris, I had kinslayers who fought for me, refugees of Eregion. Yes, and dwarf-slayers, and dwarves visiting me. Men of the West who escaped Numenor when it fell, Elros’s many descendants. They didn’t always have clean hands. But they were not doomed to do only evil. If nothing is evil in the beginning, how can it be wrong to offer another chance?”

Maglor said, touched, “Elros would be proud of you.”

“Some would say he has had more than enough chances,” Elwing said.

“People who did not see his oath torment him, and how he fought it, might say that, yes. I don’t agree.”

“Very well then.” She looked at Maglor. “I know what you did at the Havens. Now tell me what you did to my brothers and my parents, and I will consider letting you apologise for that.”

Elrond looked at Maglor with some sympathy. “I’ll go and make some more tea,” he said, ignoring Maglor's unspoken appeal.

“Sit down,” Elwing said to Maglor. He looked at her cautiously, then crossed the room and sat.

“You must know all about Doriath,” he said. “Surely your parents and brothers returned from death long ago?”

“My parents did, yes. But not my brothers. We still don’t know what happened to them. Tell me the whole thing.”

Maglor put his hands over his face. The attack on the Havens had been hard to forget, and an unexpected sound or smell still sometimes brought it back, but he had succeeded in not thinking about Doriath for a very long time.

“Well?” she said unsympathetically.

He sat up straight, and gave her a careful report, as he might have reported to Maedhros, long ago, of the attack on Menegroth, from the first assault on the gate, to the moment when he had come down into the hall of the thrones, and found the bloodbath that had happened there. His three brothers, dying and dead. Dior and Nimloth’s bodies, and their people dead around them. He didn’t mention the smell, though it came back to him clearly. There was no poetry to his report, and very little feeling. It was fact, as accurate as he could make it.

“You weren’t there when my parents were fighting their last battle?”

“No. It was the Thousand Caves. A maze.” he said, flatly. “We all led our own people in different directions, to search and hunt the defenders through the tunnels. We had a plan, but not a complete map. Curufin and Celegorm were together, because they had left most of their people in Nargothrond. That’s why Maedhros sent them with Caranthir. I checked the hall for survivors and for the Silmaril, and found neither. Then I went back to find Maedhros and report to him. ”

“My mother thought she saw you.”

“It’s possible. She would know Menegroth much better than I. I did not see her. Or she saw Caranthir or Curufin, and thought one of them was me. We were all wearing helmets.”

The rocks that had come crashing down the long elegantly-curving stairs, through hidden holes in the high vaulted ceilings. Hearing friends in battle, calling for help, and not being able to find a way through to them. The defenders who had seemed to be able to vanish into the walls.

“I found my brothers and your parents dead, and went back to Maedhros: he restructured the plan to take into account the casualties, and I went back out. We were mapping the caves as we went, making a record of which had already been searched, and where resistance was strongest.”

The screaming that had come through the high-ceilinged, finely-carved caves, echoing. Blood running down through the rock, catching the light from the huge golden lamps that lit the halls of Menegroth. She would not want to hear about that. How old had she been? Two, or three? With luck, she had been too young to remember.

Elrond brought more tea. Maglor took a gulp, and wished for something stronger.

“We searched the whole of Menegroth twice for the Silmaril, before Maedhros realised that Dior’s children had not been found. Someone said that my brother Celegorm’s people had been seen with them, but it took us some time to track them down. When we found them, they said that they had not seen the girl — had not seen you. They had taken the boys and left them alone in the woods. It was midwinter. There were no border defenses any more, and Morgoth’s beasts were roaming through the land. Maedhros sent me back into the caves to look for you, and he went out to look for the boys himself. Neither of us was successful. That’s all I can tell you, I’m afraid. I don’t know what happened to them.”

“Why? They were little children. Why would anyone...” There were tears on Elwing’s cheeks.

“My brother’s people took revenge for the death of their lord. One of them said it was best to kill the wolf pups before they were large enough to bite.”

“Children abandoned in a frozen wood. You can say those words with that calm face!” Elwing said. Her hands were doubled into fists.

“Maedhros... was not calm. He said it was orc-work, to make war on children. Then he killed Celegorm’s servants,” Maglor said, and that was the thing he had particularly wanted to not remember at all. Not in front of Elrond, who could see at least the images at the surface of his mind.

He put the mug down carefully and stood up. “I’ll go, shall I?”

“No,” Elrond said. “Please don’t.” Maglor did not want to look at him, so he kept the calm face in place, looked at Elwing, and waited.

“You knew that already,” Elrond said to her.

Elwing heaved a deep breath, and sat up. She was strong. Well, she would be, of course. She had been the leader of her people. “Yes, I did,” she said. “Almost all of it, anyway. But it’s different, hearing it from him. He doesn’t even look upset. As if it hadn’t touched him at all.”

“I think it has,” Elrond said.

“I could make a performance of it,” Maglor said, still not looking at Elrond. “I could weep and tell the story in any of six different ways, and make you believe each of them had moved me deeply. I thought it would be better to be as honest as I can. I don’t know what happened to your brothers. I am sorry.”

“And you believe him, do you?” she asked Elrond. “And you still think he is not dangerous?”

“He is a son of Fëanor,” Elrond said. “Yes, he’s dangerous. But not to you. And anyway, there are more important things than avoiding danger.”

“Hmph,” Elwing said. She sounded unconvinced.

“I’m sorry,” Maglor said again. He tried for a lighter tone. “I believe that children bringing unsuitable and dangerous things they’ve found home to their parents is not uncommon.”

“Arwen brought home a bear cub, once,” Elrond told them, with a flicker of amusement in his voice. “It grew up very large and strong. It was a terrible thief, too. We had to have all the storeroom doors reinforced. Much worse than Elrohir’s eagle chick. At least the eagle slept a great deal and was unable to open doors. ”

Elwing laughed. “And did you do that when you were young? Go out and come back bringing unsuitable and dangerous things?” She paused. “To him?”

“Not quite like that,” Elrond said, carefully.

“It wasn’t safe for children to wander alone, in Beleriand under the hand of Morgoth,” Maglor told her with a grimace. “I am afraid that Elrond and Elros went everywhere with an armed escort and didn’t get much chance to bring home bear cubs or eagles.”

“You kept them as prisoners?” Her voice went sharp again.

“No!” Elrond said.

“No more prisoner than I was myself,” Maglor said hastily. “There were orcs and spiders everywhere by then.”

“We didn’t see many at the Havens. It was safe when I grew up there. Safe for my sons too. Until you came.” Her voice was defiant.

“Well, yes, I’d hope so,” Maglor hesitated. “We were still holding the Andram Wall and Amon Ereb, in those days, before the attack on the Havens. We were between you and Angband.” She must know that. She had been very young, but she would have had strategic advisors.

“You claim that our peace at the Havens was your work?” she asked. Her voice was high with incredulity.

Perhaps those strategic advisors had never, in fact, seen a map, Maglor thought. Then, embarrassed, hoped that Elrond had not seen that thought.

“Well, the river Sirion helped too. But we tried. Not much of a recompense for what we did in Doriath, I know.”

He thought back to how it had been, in those distant days, after the attack on Doriath. “Maedhros forswore the Oath, after Doriath. We set ourselves to holding Morgoth’s creatures to the line of the Andram wall. Amrod and Amras on the Andram, Maedhros and the remnants of the Himring garrison with Caranthir’s people at Amon Ereb, and me and what was left of my horsemen, here and there in Ossiriand and dodging back across the rivers into East Beleriand... We held that line for twenty-six years. Not easily. There were too few of us, and it was getting dark. The fumes of Thangorodrim were reaching across the skies, carrying the darkness over us, a little more every day...”

“You fought no battles on our behalf,” Elwing said, rather coldly.

Maglor shrugged. “That depends what you call a battle. But no, no great battles, no bright companies with banners. Very few victories... Morgoth did not send armies or dragons against us, only raids and wraiths and creeping dread. Our own people, sometimes, with their minds broken. And then...then we couldn’t hold on any more. Not against the Oath. Or that was how it seemed at the time. Afterwards, we didn’t have the people to man and supply a stronghold, and we’d abandoned our forts, anyway. We were on the run, really, after the Havens. That’s why we couldn’t leave Elros and Elrond there. We knew the enemy was coming in behind us.” Nobody had forgotten the children lost in Doriath. Even with the blood fresh on their hands, none of them wanted to do that again.

The memories were nudging hard at the corners of his mind now, and he paused for a moment and deliberately thought about how a particular song he had once heard in Hithlum could be transposed to a better key for playing on the flute.

“We lived in the forest for a while. Taur-im-Duinath.” Elrond was telling her. “It was quite exciting, for two small boys, living in the woods. We got very good at climbing trees and lighting fires.” It had been uncomfortable and terrifying for them too, but perhaps it was kinder not to mention that to Elwing. “Then after a while, we went to Belegost.” His voice warmed as he spoke the name of the ancient dwarf-city. “It was safer there. Warmer, too. Still no chance of bear cubs, though. ”

Elwing stared at Maglor in horror. “Belegost? You took Thingol’s heirs to a city of the Naugrim?”

“The last allies they had,” Elrond said. “They are steadfast in friendship, the Dwarves. They prefer the name, Dwarves. Or one can name them Khazâd.”

“They sacked Doriath and killed our king!”

“The Dwarves who sacked Doriath were from Nogrod, not Belegost,” Maglor said, troubled. “The people of Belegost, compared with the Sons of Fëanor, were eminently respectable, and doughty warriors. It was the safest place your sons could be.”

“You could speak to Galadriel, about the Dwarves,” Elrond suggested. “She came back with me. She knew them too.”

Elwing put her face in her hands. “I need to think about this,” she said, a little indistinctly. Then she pulled her hands down, and folded them in her lap, her face calm again.

She was brave, but then, that had never been in question. She might have made a great queen, if they had been able to give her more time. But then, Maglor thought, considering this quiet, private room in a distant tower that looked out at the white birds that cried over the bay, perhaps a queen was never really what she had wanted to be.

She spoke again to her son, head held high. “Elrond, this is a great deal of news you have given me. I’m very glad to see you again at last. But I can’t help feeling that... as if he stole your childhood from me. Now you’ve come back at long last, a stranger. We will have to get to know one another all over again.”

“I would like that, and I am very glad you want to,” Elrond said gravely. “But I didn’t want to pretend to be someone that I am not.”

“I can see that. I can see that you are fond of him, too. I can even see why, but...” She sighed. “You will be careful? He’s not a bear cub. He’s something much darker.”

Elrond’s grey eyes met hers. “I have fought the darkness for a very long time. I think I know who my enemies are, by now.”

“I hope you’re right.” She turned to Maglor. “For Elrond’s sake, then, I accept your apology. For the ruin of Doriath, for the attack on my home, and, Valar help me, even for the loss of my sons. Don’t make me regret it.”

- - - - -

 

Outside on the cliff again, afterwards, Maglor looked at Elrond. “Well, that went well,” he said. “Nobody tried to hit me, nobody died. I’m counting it a win.”

“I suppose it could have gone worse.” Elrond ran his fingers through his hair. He looked tired.

Maglor looked at him speculatively. “Do you really think people from Alqualondë will try to throw me off a cliff if you aren’t there to stop them?”

“Honestly, I have no idea.” Elrond shrugged. “ I don’t know this land or most of these people... It has been such a long time, for us.” He smiled. “I’m used to being thought old and wise, and here I feel very young. This is the land of living memory. Time is different here, or so Galadriel says. Gil-galad said I should keep an eye on you, but then, he’s not from Alqualondë, either.”

“You don’t think he meant, in case I...”

“Perhaps. But that isn’t the only reason I wanted you to come. I meant what I said, that I didn’t want to pretend to be someone else. If you had not been there, it would have been impossible to explain.”

“I see that.” They went on down the path a little way, but the images were still there behind Maglor’s eyes, and would not be dislodged. “He wasn’t well. Maedhros. When he killed Celegorm’s servants. Or at the Havens, when our people turned on us.”

“Neither of you were well,” Elrond said, patiently. “That was very clear. No, it’s not an excuse, let’s not do that discussion twice in one day. But it is an explanation. Do you think they’ll ever let him return from death?”

“It’s you that speaks to the Valar, not me! I don’t know. Or if he’d want to. I hope he would.”

The sky had clouded over now, and a grey October rain was drawing in across the bay below them as they made their way down along the cliff path.

Elrond said, “I could ask them about Maedhros, once they have had a chance to get used to you. If you are here and alive, there seems no reason not to pardon him.”

“Perhaps. That seems rather logical thinking, for the Valar. But who knows, if it’s you that asks?” Maglor hesitated for a moment, then decided to be bold. “Amrod and Amras would want to return, I think. And Caranthir. You’d like Caranthir. He’s rather Dwarvish. He can be grumpy, but he’s a good friend in a pinch. ”

Elrond smiled. “All your six brothers? Really?”

“I remembered Bilbo’s story about Gandalf, introducing dwarves to the skin-changer, Beorn,” Maglor said with a grin. “I was leaving two of them to mention later. And my father.”

Elrond laughed. “I can see that the Valar will very soon be tired of hearing from me. I’ll think about it.”

“I wasn’t going to ask. It seemed unfair. But you did offer to ask for Maedhros.”

“I did,” Elrond said thoughtfully. “‘And find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you.’ Those were the words, weren’t they?”

“Yes,” Maglor said. Nobody who had heard the Doom of the Noldor pronounced was likely to forget it.

“I think the Valar have learned a thing or two since then, judging by what Gandalf tells me, anyway. I should meet my grandparents though, before I start to think about that.”

Maglor recoiled in alarm. “You aren’t going to insist I come with you to Dior and Nimloth are you?”

“It wouldn’t do you any harm,” Elrond said, chuckling. “You’re tough. But no, I don’t know much about Nimloth. That might be cruel. Perhaps later, once I’ve met her. Will you stay with Gandalf and keep yourself out of the way while I do that? It would be annoying to come back and find you floating face-down in the harbour, after all this time.”

“Oh well, we can’t have that. I’d hate to be annoying,” Maglor told him. “ I’ve had some practice at staying out of the way, by now.”

“You can come with me to Tuor and Idril though. They’re Noldor. Well, Idril is, and Tuor by adoption. They should be able to cope with kinslayers.”

“Idril will certainly want to hit me. I’ll start practicing ducking,” Maglor said, resigned.

They came down onto the coast road that led into Alqualondë as the rain began to fall in earnest, and turned off towards the quay where the boat to Tol Eressëa was waiting. There were not many people travelling back to the Lonely Isle on that wet afternoon, but there were a few, bundled up in cloaks and hoods. Maglor wished he had thought to bring a thicker cloak himself. The sea had turned a steely grey, reflecting the clouds, and the waves were louder now.

Elrond turned to Maglor thoughtfully once they had got onto the boat and found a place that was more or less out of the wind. “I should arrange to talk to Finrod, I think, if you really want me to ask the Valar about all your brothers. I’ve always wanted to meet him anyway... So has Bilbo, though I don’t want Bilbo travelling again until he’s had a chance to rest. Perhaps we could get Galadriel to invite him to Avallónë. “

“If I know Finrod, he’s probably on his way already,” Maglor said, rather loudly. “He’s very nosy. And he writes terrible poetry.”

“That is very unfair,” one of the cloaked and hooded people complained, turning towards them. “Anyway, you haven’t heard any of my poetry in thousands of years. How do you know it hasn’t improved?”

“Instinct!” Maglor told him, smiling warily. “Hello, Finrod.”

“Nobody told me that they’d let you back in,” Finrod said. “Mind you, if they finally decided to allow Galadriel to return, clearly they have opened the doors to the most appalling riff-raff.” He smiled, and Maglor relaxed.

Finrod flung his arms around him with a grin. “It is good to see you again,” he said.

“Really? I have just been apologising to Elrond’s mother, and Elrond has been considering lists of people who don’t want to see me again and wondering who to inflict me on next... I am glad to see you, too. This is Elrond, by the way.”

“Celebrían’s husband, at last! We’ve heard so much of you. This is good fortune. I have collected a long-lost cousin and a new nephew just on the journey to Tol Eressëa.” He embraced Elrond as well, and Elrond hugged him back, looking surprised and pleased.
“I can think of at least one person who will be more pleased than I am to see you,” Finrod told Maglor. “Your mother still speaks of you often. Have you not even sent her a message? She didn’t mention it when I saw her in Tirion, and she knew Galadriel had come. She sent her a greeting with me.”

“I hadn’t sent any message, yet,” Maglor said. “I wasn’t sure how she would feel, or what to say. When I left, I had five little brothers to look after. I didn’t do it very well.”

“She’ll want to see you. You can trust me on this,” Finrod said. “Send a message back with the boat, and then go and see her once you’ve introduced me to these new hobbits.”

Maglor smiled and turned to Elrond. “Since you are keeping an eye on me, would you like to come and meet my mother?”

Elrond gave him that surprising, delighted smile that lit up his face. “All right then. Am I allowed to count her as an honorary grandmother?”

Maglor laughed. “She’d be so pleased, she might even forget to shout at me. But think carefully! That would give you an honorary grandfather too. I’ll forgive you if you don’t want that.”