Lingering in the Hither Lands by bunn

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The Dispossessed

In the end, everyone is kind.

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A wild windy day on the jagged empty shores that had not so long ago been part of Thargelion, clouds scudding fast across the pale blue sky and waves rushing against the rocks that were still blackened in places by the smoke of old burning.

Elrond rode North up the coast, skirting the water’s edge with his company of the Edain. A pleasant ride, a fine horse and friends by his side, under the streaming clouds that fled across the pale blue sky. A sky that was blue even in the North, winds not tainted with the sharp smell of sulphur or the foulness of rot; which was something still a little new and all the more joyous for it. A faint shadow lay on Elrond’s mind because of his mission, but at least he had made his decision at last, and was doing something about it.

It had not, in the end, been so hard to find Maglor. After they had ridden North for many days, into the colder lands where nobody lived any more, they came up at last to a place where they came out of rough new-grown scrub beside a stream. Above, a hill looked out over low cliffs, and on it was a single figure sitting looking out to Sea, and the faint sound of a distant voice singing. It might have been any wandering fisher-elf of the Falas, from that distance, but it was not.

Maglor got up when he saw the riders coming down the hill, and Elrond could just see the small, revealing sideways turn of his head, that meant Maglor would prefer to be somewhere else. But the rocky hills above the coast were bare and it was too late for him to run, as it had been too late for the people of the Havens to run.

He stood waiting, his face stern and unreadable.

He had not looked like that when Elrond had last seen him, standing at bay with a bloody sword, when Eönwë had told the Host of the Valar to let the last two sons of Fëanor walk away with their stolen Silmarils. He had looked desperate then, and miserable, but now there was a veil over his thought. Unusual for Maglor, that. Usually he was easy enough to read.

Elrond asked the Edain to wait, dismounted and walked on, alone.

“Why?” Elrond asked him, when he came up to him at last.

Maglor straightened, and his chin went up. “Because that’s what Maedhros decided we had to do,” he said. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Try me,” Elrond said, and there was power in his voice. Maglor rocked back under the shock of it, and for a moment, Elrond thought he might draw his sword. But if he had considered that, he thought better of it.

“Go back to Elros and the Edain, Elrond,” Maglor said, and his voice was golden, and the strength of it was like a mountain, although his face was sharp and strained. “Go on. Go back to Gil-galad.”

It was hard indeed not to turn away. After all, what was Maglor to him? A distant cousin, who had turned his hand against his kin long ago, again, and again. He had killed Elrond’s people, had driven his mother into the Sea, and if he had not left two children behind crying in the rubble, that hardly made up for the rest of it.

“No,” Elrond said, and his thoughts like waves ran back into their own channel, away from the path that Maglor had tried to push them into. Thunder snarled in the distance, away across the Sea to the west of them. The wind was rising, though Elrond had not meant to call it.

“Go home, Elrond,” Maglor said. His golden voice was almost kindly, and it was hard, so hard to ignore, but the words, those were a mistake: a fault in the dam. Elrond gathered his thought like the tide that shapes and softens even the rock, and as the waves roared behind him, he pushed back.

“I have no home,” Elrond told him. “You took our home and you burned it, you and your brothers. You didn’t leave us much. Then you took our love, too. And now you want me to walk away without even that?”

“You should not be here, Elrond,” Maglor said, head still up and face implacable against the darkening sky, but Elrond knew the blow had landed hard.

“What else will you take from me, kinslayer?” he said, deliberately.

Maglor shut his eyes for a moment, his right hand cradled in his left pulled close to his chest, and Elrond knew with a sense of bitter grieving triumph that he had won.

“Elrond, I,” Maglor said, and stopped. “What do you want of me?” he said plaintively. “You can sail west to Valinor now, to your parents. Why are you here?”

“I don’t want to sail away to Valinor,” Elrond said. “I’ve never been there. It’s not where I belong. I haven’t spoken with them since I was a small child. The people I know and love best are here, upon the hither shore.”

Maglor made a face and looked away without speaking, up towards the tumbled, blackened hillside where smoke rose from the sharp-edged torn black rocks.

“Answer me,” Elrond demanded, and he reached out with his mind and pushed at Maglor’s with a fierce and burning anger. He was in no mood to be ignored. The waves hissed, insistent, and the white foam was flying. “Tell me what you did, and why. Here, and now, in Middle-earth. No lies; no excuses.”

“You know what we did,” Maglor said wearily. “You saw it. We killed the guards and took my father’s Silmarils, as we were sworn to do.”

“You were sworn to the Silmarils,” Elrond said. “Did you have to kill for them? Again?”

“In war, people die,” Maglor told him. His voice was quiet, no power in it anymore. “I’d prefer they didn’t, but that’s how it goes. ”

“They died because you chose to kill them. Cullassion and Teldien.” Elrond said, angry, and the thunder answered him, though Maglor did not. “Say their names. Cullassion. Teldien.” Maglor closed his eyes again, and Elrond reached out with his mind and voice and pushed again. He was stronger than Maglor now, and both of them knew it, for all that Maglor was by far the older, and born in the light of the Trees of Valinor.

“Cullassion and Teldien,” Maglor said quietly, without trying to push back. “They were wearing Finarfin’s badges.”

“They were Noldor out of Tirion,” Elrond told him, still coldly furious. The wind was whipping sand off the beach, and gusting towards Maglor. “Cullassion wasn’t born when you left. Teldien would have been a small child: his father was among Fingolfin’s people, and died upon the Ice, and his mother fell upon the Anfauglith, when the winged dragons came forth. Finarfin wept when he saw them dead: for them, and for you too. Cullassion’s wife went home to tell their daughter that her father had fought all through the war to die upon your sword. But I don’t suppose that troubles you at all.”

“Of course it does,” Maglor said unhappily, standing dark and tall, a rock against the gale. “I remember all of them. Every one of my kin that I have slain, I remember, and Cullassion and Teldien among them. Nor do I have any reason to wish Finarfin grief.”

“Yet Maedhros told you to kill, and so you did. Again. Where is he?” Elrond demanded. “Bad enough that you’ll kill for him without question. I thought better of him.”

“So did your mother,” Maglor said and sat down abruptly on a rock as if his legs had suddenly got tired of carrying him. “Maedhros is dead, Elrond. He killed himself. He took his Silmaril and threw himself down into a chasm in the earth with it, up there where the smoke comes out. There’s a deep cleft up there that goes down to the fire in the heart of the earth.”

“Oh.” Elrond said and sat down on a rock as well, feeling as if he had been punched. The wind fell, and there was a moment of quiet. He rubbed at his eyes, which were somehow unaccountably wet, with the back of one hand.

“I am sorry,” Maglor said, very gently, as if he were talking to a weeping child. “Sorry for everything, Elrond. I was too slow to stop him. But I’m not sure if I even should have tried.”

Elrond stared at him, appalled.

“The Silmarils burned us when we touched them,” Maglor said. He held up his right hand for a moment. It was red and scarred, the skin torn and cracked across his fingers, blackened around the raw red palm. “They were blessed by Varda long ago. They endure no evil. They would not... Well, you can see. So, you should go. You might as well have come looking for orcs.”

Elrond made a wordless protesting noise. Maglor held out his hand again in answer.

“I don’t need a Silmaril to tell me that you and Maedhros have the Shadow over you,” Elrond said. “We could hardly have failed to notice that! But if you were orcs then neither I nor Elros would have lived. Elros would not be leading the Edain, and I... We spoke of this. I thought you were taking another path.”

“There was only one path open to us,” Maglor said, looking down so that his face was half-hidden by his dark curling hair, but Elrond could see that he was weeping. “We thought it would be a short one, and end upon a sword. But then Eönwë ordered them all to stand aside. So I followed Maedhros.”

“You always do.”

“Not any more. I looked into the fire and... I could not. The Silmaril has told me clearly that I deserve to burn, but... I can’t make myself choose that.”

“Good!” Elrond said. He got up and went over to Maglor to kneel on the rock beside him, and carefully took his hand by the wrist to look at the burns. “When did you do this?”

Maglor looked at him, silent, for a long moment, but he did not pull away. Elrond raised a pointed eyebrow.

“Years ago,” Maglor said, giving in again. “Just before Maedhros... When the Valar lay their judgement on you, they make sure you notice it.”

“It looks bad.” It looked agonising: charred raw flesh that did not seem to have healed at all. The Enemy had fought with dragons, with Balrogs and the savage fires of the earth at the end: it was far from the first time that either of them had seen burns,yet he could feel his own hands curling in sympathy. “How could you think of throwing yourself into the fire? Morgoth is fallen, and evil is ended!”

Maglor looked sideways at him and made a face. “The Silmarils disagreed.”

“Hm,” Elrond said. “I don’t take counsel from jewels.” He sat back on his heels. “I wish Maedhros had waited.”

“So do I.” Maglor said. His mouth curled a little at the corner although his face was wet. “Did you have so many things to shout at him, too?”

“A very great number,” Elrond said, controlling his voice with some difficulty through his own tears. “And Elros does, too.”

“You’ll have to settle for shouting at me,” Maglor told him. “It’s only fair. If I had said to Maedhros before the Havens that I would not follow him, he might have changed our path. I think.. I think he would. I should have been strong enough to say it. His heart was shadowed by his pain. I could see it, yet I made him be my conscience... I knew that mine was not much good. It was too much to ask.”

“Yes,” Elrond agreed and wiped his face on his sleeve. Maglor put his left arm around his shoulder, then remembered he was supposed to be sending Elrond away and tried to take it back, so Elrond put an arm around him and held on fiercely.

The news that Maglor had thought of throwing himself into the fire had shaken him. Bad enough that Maedhros had done it. They had always known that shadows stalked Maedhros,and that the past haunted him. But that Maglor, who had always found some light word to say despite the darkness, should fall also into despair was even more terrible.

The joy of victory over the Enemy still shone for Elrond, but there was sorrow layered over it now, so that the memory of bright banners and the great hosts were coloured brighter by the shadows that lay about their feet. He looked sideways at Maglor and felt strangely old, as if they were both the same age. There was no relying on Maglor to be the one who was in charge any more.

“I should never have left Maedhros to lead,” Maglor told him, looking tired and ashamed. “He wasn’t well.”

“Nor are you,” Elrond told him.

Maglor looked at his hand, stretched it a little and winced. “It’s not so bad. I’m used to it,” he said, with transparent dishonesty. “It’s there to make a point. I did say you should go.”

“And I told you that I will not,” Elrond said. “If I had never met you before, still I would not leave someone hurt like that alone and walk away.”

“Isn’t that the point? What I did to you and Elros, just as much as Cullassion and Teldien, and all the rest? I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted revenge. I am not some innocent stranger.”

“No. You were our foster-father and you are our cousin too, and if there is one thing I’ve learned from that, it’s that meeting revenge with revenge is useless... Have you tried singing that hand back to wholeness?”

“Once,” Maglor said, and gave Elrond that quick, guilty sideways look, the way he always had when someone mentioned the attack on the Havens of Sirion. “It didn’t help. I think it’s not supposed to.”

“Perhaps,” Elrond said, and thought about it. “I‘d prefer not to believe the Valar deliberately cruel. That’s the Enemy, surely, not the Valar.”

“I’d prefer to think that too,” Maglor said although he sounded doubtful.

“Well, If they are not cruel, then there must be something that can help. Elros and I would much prefer you not to be hurt. Elros sent you his love, by the way. To you and Maedhros too...”

“Oh.” Maglor said.

“Will you let me try?”

“I don’t think...” Maglor said, pulling away.

“No, you don’t think!” Elrond said, aggrieved. “We are the chiefest of your victims still alive, Gil-galad said. Neither I nor Elros is a torturer. What possible good does it do anyone for you to be burned, now?”

“It won’t bring back the Havens, or the Thousand Caves of Menegroth, I know,” Maglor admitted. “It was just that... Maedhros...”

“Maedhros was unwell, you said so yourself. You have taken the Silmarils at last, so now...”

He looked at Maglor’s hand and a horrible suspicion came to him. “Where is it, anyway? It’s not that... you haven’t touched it more than once?”

Maglor coughed a humourless laugh, and shook his head. “No. Once was enough. I threw it into the Sea.”

Elrond stared at him. “You could do that?”

Maglor shrugged, helplessly. “Apparently. No more holy light from the years before the Sun, for me. Makes the whole thing seem oddly pointless, don’t you think? The tale would have more symmetry if... never mind. I threw it into the Sea. It’s gone.”

“There are more important things than narrative symmetry, Maglor,” Elrond said and if his laugh was closer to a sob, then Maglor did not mention it, but only tightened his arm around Elrond’s shoulder for a moment.

“One in the sky, one in the Sea and one in the fires of the Earth,” he said. “Enough symmetry for any tale, there.”

“You don’t... You won’t chase the star?” Elrond asked, because he had to know. The image of a shining ship high and distant above the battlefield came into his mind, and like a faint shadow behind it, the image of Eärendil’s face smiling down at his sons, before he left on that last voyage.

Maglor shook his head. “It doesn’t call to me. One was enough, perhaps.”

Elrond looked at him, and Maglor met his eyes. There was no lie in them that Elrond could see, and yet...

“Oh, I wish I could be sure,” Elrond said miserably. “I wish I knew you would not turn on me.”

Maglor winced and pulled his arm away from Elrond’s shoulder, and this time Elrond let it go. “You can’t be sure,” Maglor said. “You can’t trust me. You know that.”

“Yes, you were very clear about it, always. If we had forgotten, you gave us a sharp reminder recently. Oath and Silmarils first, everything else a distant second. And yet.”

Maglor said nothing and looked away.

“Oh, don’t!” Elrond said, feeling angry again, this time less with Maglor than with the entire world. “Try again. Try again until it sticks and I can trust you. You owe me that.”

“I suppose I do,” Maglor said reluctantly. “But you and Elros are the one thing left that I haven’t yet ruined. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Too late for that, and not your choice but mine,” Elrond said. He took a long calming breath, then, deliberately, grinned at him. “Anyway, I doubt you could. I think I could take you, even with two hands.”

Maglor taken by surprise, laughed. “You might be right. With a sword at least, though perhaps not yet with a harp.” He thought about it. “Your father is my kinsman, though I doubt he’s keen to acknowledge it. That should count for something. ‘...not Doom itself,shall defend him from Fëanor, and Fëanor's kin...’” he broke off suddenly. “Or so we swore. I should try to leave those words behind me.”

“Yes,” Elrond said, determined. He stood up. “We’ll leave all that behind and start anew. There are all sorts of remedies for burns, I think. It comes to me that I know a good deal more about how to make wounds than to mend them.”

“Cold water, honey, comfrey, aloe... only I don’t think they have that kind of aloe in Middle-earth,” Maglor said absently, looking out over the sea. The wind had sunk, and the clouds over the Sea, released, were fraying away into pale thin streams as the sky cleared again. “Or at least, I’ve never seen any of it here. Amrod would have known... but never mind that. There must be someone left who can teach you the whole rhyme and how to use it, if you want to learn it. One of Turgon’s people, maybe, or Artanis. ”

“Cold water and honey, at least, we have in Mithlond.” Elrond told him. “Probably some of the other things, too. Come and teach me the rhyme yourself.”

“Elrond, it... this isn’t the usual kind of burn. Not the kind of thing you get from simple heat. I doubt any of that will make much difference. It is... well, you know how Orcs don’t like to touch Elves, or eat their food? How they hate and fear the Amanyar in particular? That’s because they are bent out of the shape of the world we live in. As if they were a note played out of key and jarring, made of some substance that is at war with Arda. I have twisted myself out of key with my own father’s work, and with the world of light as it should be. That’s why we were burned. Death upon death... it leaves a mark. And even setting oath aside, that’s why I should not come with you.”

Maglor was holding the wrist of his burned hand with the other now, and rubbing at it absently, in the way that Maedhros rubbed... used to rub at the wrist of his missing hand. It occurred to Elrond that if Maedhros had burned his left hand as badly as Maglor had his right, they had been left with only one hand to use between the two of them, and silently cursed himself for not having followed sooner. The thought of Maedhros left helpless, in pain and without defence made him wince.

Elrond rubbed at his face, despairing. Then he thought about it, turned and met Maglor’s eyes. “So whose theory is that, then, about the Orcs? It’s not yours. You were fighting on the front line most of the time, not making theories and anyway, it doesn’t sound like you. You didn’t know about Orcs before you came across the Sea, so you can’t have had it from the Valar.”

“Finrod’s mostly, I think,” Maglor said, a little taken aback. “And Curufin’s. They worked together on the idea. There were a number of arguments, but that was what they settled on, more or less. All the details were probably lost with Nargothrond and Himlad.” He waved at the ocean, now blue-green and dappled with cloud-shadows, that hid the lands where fabled Nargothrond had been, where Curufin’s workshops and libraries had stood in Himlad.

“I think the theory’s incomplete,” Elrond said. “There’s not just light and darkness and nothing in between. We’re told the Edain cannot go to Valinor. They can’t even go as far as Tol Eressëa: they aren’t made for it. The light is too strong for them to live there, we’re told. That’s why the Valar offered Elros the Land of Gift: a half-way place, within sight of the hallowed lands, but not within them.”

“Did they?”

“Oh. I suppose you wouldn’t know... They gave us the choice: which kindred we should be counted with. Elros chose Men, and I chose the Elves, and they offered Elros a new land to lead the Edain to, under the protection of the Valar, out there, somewhere, near Tol Eressëa. He hasn’t gone yet though. Círdan is still building ships for the last of the Host of Valinor to go home in, he hasn’t begun to build them for the Edain yet. It will be a good few years, I think, before they leave.”

Maglor blinked at him, looking shocked. “But...”

“Yes, I know, we’re very young to make such a choice,” Elrond said, very used to this particular conversation. “Particularly Elros, for some reason, though they have said he can choose his time, which is more than most Men can. I’ve heard it all from Finarfin, Anairë, Ingwion, Círdan, Galadriel and Celeborn... Come on, you, of all people, know that we are neither Elves, nor Men. That’s why we had to choose. None of the Edain who are our age will go to the Land of Gift; probably none of them will live that long, and if they do, they will be too frail. The Gift will be for their grandchildren.”

He pointed down into the valley, where the Men who had ridden out with with him were taking their ease beside the stream. None of them were old enough to remember the fall of the Havens of Sirion. They knew about it, of course. Elrond had made sure of that before they set off; had explained what he meant to do and won their agreement to it. That was why he had brought only Men with him, not any of the Sindar.

“That’s Halfdan, with the white beard and the blue scarf. I met him thirty years ago, on Balar when his hair was as dark as mine. He isn’t going with Elros; he says he is too old, already, though he was born on Balar after the Havens fell. The boy talking to the chestnut mare, that’s his son, my armour-bearer Hundor. He’s seventeen, and thinks I’m impossibly ancient.”

“I can see you have rehearsed the arguments.” Maglor said wryly. “ I am certainly not in a position to lecture you on choices. Mine were unwise.” He wrinkled his nose, and looked thoughtfully at Elrond, standing poised upon the hilltop. “Most of them, anyway.”

“Anyway, my point is that Men are not Amanyar, and never can be,” Elrond said, pacing, as he worked out his argument. “They can’t live in Valinor: I think that’s half the reason that Elros refused to go there, though he has other reasons for his choice too. Nor are there any Dwarves in the land of Aman. But Men and Dwarves are not Orcs or servants of the Enemy; not by their nature, anyway. They are free to choose their path: towards the Enemy or away from him. Perhaps you cannot be Amanyar any more, but why should that mean you cannot make other choices? You can make a song in more than only one key. Sing the song like a cry of triumph, a merry dance or make it weep: the song is still music.”

Maedhros would have found three holes in that argument without blinking but Maglor was not his brother and he had never quite given up hope.

“Give up the light — I suppose I’ve done that rather finally already, in every possible sense— and join the Moriquendi,” Maglor said. “My father would be appalled. Hardly the first thing I have done that would appall him. But will the Moriquendi have me? I can’t imagine why they should.”

Elrond laughed. “We might be more inclined to, if you could avoid calling us Elves of Darkness!”

“I didn’t mean you! But you’re right of course: I should know better than that by now,” Maglor said, rueful.

“If you want a way to make amends, don’t stay here alone with your hand... like that. Come back with me.”

“To Gil-galad.” Maglor’s eyes fell and he bowed his head.

“With me. But Gil-galad isn’t a torturer either! Or a kinslayer, for that matter. He’s a king with a kingdom filled with people who have been terribly hurt. We have so many of the thralls released from Angband there, you know that; many of them were of your House. And the remnants of the Edain who were enslaved and ruined. Soldiers troubled by the darkness of the war.”

Maglor looked at him doubtfully under dark frowning eyebrows. “Surely my presence will only make that worse.”

“They are people who lived in torment for long years in the dark. They are trying to escape the endless weary fear that the Enemy set upon them,” Elrond said. “I don’t think they are afraid of you, Maglor. Some of them followed you from Tirion, yet you abandoned them to chase after Silmarils. You owe them something, surely. And Gil-galad said he would consider... everything... a private matter between us, as long as you don’t break the peace we fought for.”

“You can have my word on that, for what it’s worth,” Maglor said. “I am weary of war. I can honestly say I feel no wish to break the peace.”

“I knew you’d say that. I’ll take your word — no, I haven’t forgotten I can’t trust you, but I’m going to hold you to it anyway. Try, Maglor. Oh, and there might be a weregild, if anyone comes to ask for redress. But I don’t think they will.”

“It would take some nerve, to do that before you and Elros,” Maglor said. He was wearing an odd expression that Elrond could not quite understand, and his mind was folded very firmly closed again, as it had not been earlier. Still, he had given his word to keep the peace. It would have to do.

“If they do, we’ll find some way to pay it.” Elrond said. “We have cities to build, and so much more than that. You studied with Aulë, you lived in peace in Tirion. You know so many things that neither I nor Gil-galad can know; we who have known nothing but the war. Come and give us your help.”

“Very well,” Maglor said, and stood up. “I take it that I am under arrest.” He drew his sword awkwardly, left handed, and held out the hilt.

Elrond looked at him uncomfortably, and did not take it.

“Cullassion, Teldien,” Maglor said softly and meditatively, almost to himself. “So many other Men and Elves. Do you know how old she is? Cullassion’s daughter?

“About my age,” Elrond admitted unhappily.

“Thirteen years old when her mother and father marched out to war, then. I don’t mean to make you my conscience, Elrond. But you did tell me I should remember their names.”

“Oh, very well, then!” Elrond said, feeling, somehow, that there must be a better way around all of this, but unable to see one. Probably this was what Gil-galad would expect, anyway, and Maglor seemed quite confident this was how it should go. For all Elrond knew, this was the kind of thing, like the theory about orcs, that everyone had agreed upon before the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, before the old world had ended.

Probably even Gil-galad had been taught about it, in the kind of lessons that there had never been enough of, what with the interruptions of war, and the urgent need to practice with sword and bow. Elrond’s war had rarely included such niceties as honorable surrenders by people who could be trusted. Well, more or less trusted, anyway. Evil was ended, and there was a new world to build. Trust had to start somewhere: he and Gil-galad had decided that already.

He took the sword, and put it down on the rock so that he could help Maglor take the familiar sheath from his belt. Then he sheathed the sword and put it on his own belt. It felt odd and out of place there, and felt strange to see Maglor without it, too. No matter.

“Now will you let me try a charm to lift the pain from that burn?” he demanded.

Maglor shrugged. “I am at your command,” he said, and held out his hand.

Elrond took his wrist again, and said the words carefully, as Maglor had taught him long ago, setting calm upon the jangling mass of sharp disordered edges he could feel scraping at the edge of Maglor’s pain, almost as if he were calming one of the Enemy’s landslides.

He could feel the hard bones of the wrist sharp against the skin. Maglor’s face, now he looked at it more carefully, was odd, too, eyes sunken deep and dark, and cheeks sharp, although his thick padded gambeson and leather overjacket hid his form.

“Maglor, are you ill?” he asked, then realised what a foolish question that was. “Never mind. What have... have you been eating anything at all?”

“Oh, this and that,” Maglor said. “Rabbits, mussels, seaweed; I have not had much to do save for hunting. My thanks; it feels easier now.” It was clear even to Elrond, who had rarely hunted anything but orcs or giant spiders, that this bare coastline still scarred by the war would offer little even to a hunter who could use both hands and had a bow.

“No wonder this hasn’t healed, if you have been going short of food,” Elrond said, annoyed and worried at once. He could feel the pain still jarring through Maglor, and wondered if it was easier, or if Maglor had only said that because Elrond had wanted him to. “I thought you seemed far too easy to push about, earlier.”

Maglor gave him a sideways glance that had more than a hint of the old wry humour to it. “I decided to turn over a new leaf and admit when I’m overmatched.”

“Come on,” Elrond said. “We brought plenty of supplies with us: Let’s go down and have a meal.”

******

Probably, Gil-galad had set watchers out to send the word ahead if Elrond returned with the last of the sons of Fëanor. He came out of the Hall of Swallows’ Flight before them, wearing his blue starred cloak and his silver crown, as if for a formal audience.

The High King’s crown of Hithlum had been lost with Fingon, and the crown of Gondolin with Turgon, but Celebrimbor had saved the crown of Nargothrond from the field of Tumhalad, where Orodreth had fallen, and had carried it west to Galadriel. But when Gondolin had fallen and Gil-galad took up the kingship, Galadriel had brought the crown to the young king.

Though there was leisure now for making jewelry, and more than enough smiths expert in jewel-craft to make a new crown, Gil-galad had kept the crown of Nargothrond and wore it when he was giving judgement, in memory of Finrod and of Orodreth.

Several of Gil-galad’s lords and ladies were with him; four from Hithlum, three from Nargothrond, two of Círdan’s people from the Falas. None at all from Gondolin. Probably it was a coincidence that the people with him today were those who had never owed allegiance to Eärendil, but only to the High King of the Noldor. Perhaps it was because he had not brought anyone who had been at the Havens.

“Elrond. I see you found what you were looking for,” Gil-galad said, serious-faced, once they had come clattering through the gate and dismounted before him.

Elrond gave him a smile that was not returned. “I did. Well, in part, anyway. Maedhros...”

“Maedhros son of Fëanor is dead,” Maglor said, his voice very clear, to be heard right across the unfinished courtyard.

“Ah,” Gil-galad said. “Elrond, would you find Celebrimbor for me and bring him here? I think he might be down by the quayside with the builders.”

“Of course,” Elrond said, and turned to his armour-bearer. “Hundor, would you...”

“If you would fetch him personally, please, Elrond,” Gil-galad interrupted. “Your men need not wait; they can see to your horses. Leave Maglor here; I have a matter I must discuss with him.”

Elrond’s eyes flew to Gil-galad’s face, and then briefly to Maglor, unarmed and standing stiffly beside him, and he hesitated. Gil-galad waited, looking at Elrond expectantly.

Gil-galad was hardly likely to ask Elrond to run his errands for no reason. Anyone could fetch Celebrimbor. There was nothing visible on the surface of the king’s mind, either. Surely there would be if he meant to...

Trust.

“He’s injured,” Elrond said. “I’m telling you because he won’t mention it himself. His right hand is burned.”

Gil-galad nodded gravely, and Elrond turned, without looking back at Maglor, to tell his people to take the horses to the stables, and then remounted his own horse to ride down to the quays.

It took him longer than he had expected to find Celebrimbor, who was in his small untidy workshop strewn with plans and devices near the Southgate, not at the quays at all, which was something that Gil-galad could not possibly have known.

Gil-galad had said that Maglor’s crimes were a private matter, and that he would not intervene.

Had he? What exactly had Gil-galad said?

“Fëanor’s sons are long-lost to darkness, and dangerous,” he had said, and “The blood of their own kin ran red beneath their swords” and something about how Maglor and Maedhros would not hesitate...

The unaccustomed weight of Maglor’s sword upon the wrong side of his belt was a nuisance as he dismounted.

He had to make an effort to force his mind back to calmness before speaking.

Gil-galad was not a kinslayer. He was not. He would not be.

Celebrimbor, thankfully, was not inclined to linger when he heard the news, and they went back to the Hall of Swallows’ Flight at a speed that was very nearly a run.

The Hall of Swallow’s Flight was tall and light, in the style that people said recalled both Gondolin and Tirion, with tall pale pillars shaped like birch trees. And there, to Elrond’s great relief, was Gil-galad with his lords around him, and Maglor before him, with his head still on his shoulders. Elrond slowed abruptly, and managed to walk the last few feet with something approaching dignity.

“Maglor has given me his word to keep the peace,” Gil-galad said to Elrond. He nodded to Celebrimbor. “He tells me that he does not wish to return into the West, but will linger here upon the Hither Shore. That choice is open to all the Eldar. Eönwë himself allowed him to depart freely with the Silmaril, and I take that as my precedent. We have agreed that it would be best if he live for a while as one of the Released who were thralls of Angband. It will make it clear to all how we regard the matter of his oath, and all that came from it.”

Elrond let out his breath in relief. “Thank you, my lord,” he said, and his voice could not hold the gratitude he felt. “Thank you so very much.” He could feel it reflected in the surface of the king’s mind, with a depth of kindness behind it.

“That will leave you to continue in command of the people of the House of Fëanor, Celebrimbor,” Gil-galad went on. “Do you agree?”

Celebrimbor looked at Maglor, opened his mouth and then seemed to think better of what he was about to say. Instead, he let his usually solemn face break into a smile, and bowed deeply. “Of course,” he said. “And if there is anything more that the people of Fëanor can do to aid you and the land of Lindon, we offer it freely to our king, with our most grateful thanks.”

Gil-galad smiled at him, then his face became serious again. “There will be people who will believe my judgement in this matter is wrong,” he said. “It may be that some of them will try to take their own revenge. I therefore judge that Maglor son of Fëanor should have guards, for his own protection. The Edain would be most suitable, since they are all too young to remember the past, and yet they are not of his own House so all can see they can be trusted and impartial. Do you wish to take command of that guard personally, Elrond?”

“Of course,” Elrond said smiling.

Maglor, who had stood silent and expressionless till then, looked sideways at him and frowned. “It’s hardly fair to Elrond, to give him such a duty,” he objected.

“No, it’s not,” Gil-galad agreed readily. “But since he won’t trust the task to anyone else, with the possible exception of Elros, who is a king himself, I am giving it to him. My judgement is complete.” He made a gesture to show that he was finished, and stepped down to stand next to Elrond, as the other Elves in the hall turned away.

He said to Elrond in a quieter and more ordinary voice, “And now you have seen that I really am not going to execute him, perhaps you can bring yourself to trust me.”

“I do!” Elrond said. “It was only that...”

“The lesson of mistrust was well-learned,” Maglor said. “Give him time, Gil-galad!”

“We have time, now,” Celebrimbor’s deeper voice said. “Time to build the world anew. But Maglor if you ever...”

“You could give him a little time, too,” Gilgalad said to Celebrimbor. “Maglor, do sit down before you fall over, on the step since we have no chairs in here yet. I’m sure Elrond has already said it, whatever you wanted to say, Celebrimbor, and there’s probably a limit to even Maglor’s endurance. Ah, here is Hithaer. I sent her for the seaweeds to treat that hand. The Falathrim have some very effective remedies for burns.”

Maglor looked at him wearily and folded down rather abruptly to sit on the step. “Where do the released thralls go?” he said. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to...”

“They mostly have quarters within the walls now,” Elrond told him, and gave Gil-galad a grateful look, as he took Maglor’s right hand carefully by the wrist and began to layer dark green weed onto it from a scallop shell, with an air of stern concentration. “Not very different from everyone else, really. It’s only that they — that you aren’t permitted in the armory, or the smithies, or to use weapons, boat-hooks or knives longer than a hand. Or to go near the lifting equipment for stone: there was an accident with that that we... think may not have been an accident. Most of them don’t want to, anyway.”

Those who had lived under the terrible shadow of fear in Angband had very little trust left for themselves, or for others who had endured thralldom with them. The fear still returned to them, though the Enemy was gone, and they feared what they might do with weapons.

“Oh,” Maglor said. “Good. All those things sound like a great deal of trouble and hard work. Am I allowed to keep my harp?”

Elrond and Celebrimbor looked at Gil-galad, who tilted his head and looked back at Elrond, eyebrows lifted enquiringly.

“If it’s my choice, yes,” Elrond decided, ignoring the qualm at the back of his mind that said that a harp in the hands of Maglor son of Fëanor could be a weapon that could do more harm than any sword. His voice could be a weapon too. They could hardly take that away from him. That was the kind of thing the Enemy had done to his thralls. “I’ll put your sword away safely, until... I mean, I know your father made it, and it’s important.”

Maglor shrugged. “You can keep it. I hope I won’t need it again.” Elrond was fairly sure that the sword, made by Fëanor, and worked on since by Maglor’s brother Curufin, was far more important to Maglor than he would admit, but he smiled anyway.

Gil-galad leant forward to say words of healing in the dialect of the Falathrim over Maglor’s hand, frowning fiercely. Then he met Maglor’s eyes and to Elrond’s surprise, let a slight sardonic smile pull at the corner of his mouth. “You told me once that glaring at it wouldn’t make it work any better.”

“So I did,” Maglor said, wryly. He stretched his hand cautiously, and then, clearly finding less resistance than he had expected, a little more, as if plucking harpstrings. “Long ago, when you were a fierce little child in Hithlum... Perhaps I was wrong about that, too. Thank you for your aid... my lord.”

Gil-galad straightened up and gave him a long, thoughtful look. “And I thought it was strange the first time Círdan called me that.”

Maglor looked deliberately around the tall white hall of Swallow’s Flight, at the heart of the new city. "They would be proud of you, in Hithlum, he said. “Your mother, Fingon, Fingolfin. Not that it’s for me to speak for the House of Fingolfin.” His eyes went to Celebrimbor. “Or even Curufin, for that matter. But still, you have pulled something worth keeping out of the flames, the three of you. I thought, after Nirnaeth Arnoediad there was no hint of hope left for Middle-earth.” He laughed, and the laugh was clear and had an infectious joy to it. “Perhaps one day I shall run out of ways to be wrong.”