In Empty Lands by StarSpray

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Chapter 1

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Eluréd had just settled down with his flute in the Hall of Fire, into the most comfortable position on a pile of cushions, when Erestor appeared in front of him, looking harried. "There you are," he said. "Where is your brother?"

"I have no idea," Eluréd replied. He lowered his flute to his lap as he looked up. "Is something wrong?"

"Yes," said Erestor shortly. "But Elrond will tell you more. He's in his study with Glorfindel and Lalwen." And then he was gone, vanishing into the flickering shadows of the nearly-empty hall with only the softest rustle of fabric. Eluréd sighed, looking mournfully down at his flute. He set it aside and heaved himself up.

Elrond was pacing the length of a bookcase when Eluréd arrived at his study door. Glorfindel sat by the window, and Lalwen was sprawled out on a sofa across the room. She lifted her head to peer at Eluréd. "Which one are you?" she asked. "I can never tell; you're worse than Elladan and Elrohir."

"Elladan and Elrohir try to make it easy," said Glorfindel. "Eluréd and Elurín try very hard not to."

Eluréd grinned at them. "Eluréd," he said. "I don't know where Elurín's gotten off to." He spoke lightly, but the look on Elrond's face made a shiver go down his spine, and he cast out for Elurín in thought, finding him full of thoughts of baking bread and teasing old Bilbo. He responded to Eluréd's summons quickly, arriving as Elrond at last ceased his pacing.

"I've just had word from Gildor," he said without preamble.

"Isn't he on his way to Mithlond?" Glorfindel asked.

"They are passing through the Shire. Near Woodhall they met three hobbits." Elrond paused. "One of them was Frodo Baggins. He is carrying a great burden—coming here, or trying to. But he is alone and without a guide, for Gandalf is missing."

They all exchanged glances. Lalwen sat up. Gandalf often disappeared for a time, and whether he told anyone where he was going was never certain. But that was not the same as missing. "What do you mean, missing?" Lalwen demanded.

"He was in the Shire earlier this summer," said Elrond. "He told me himself that was where he was going. But it seems he has since left, and according to Frodo he was meant to be back by September 22nd at the latest. Yet that date has come and gone and there is no sign of him. But that is not the worst news."

"Sweet Elbereth, it gets worse?" Elurín said.

"The Nine are abroad," said Elrond.

Eluréd did not shudder, but it was a near thing. Memories of a cold night on a riverbank and a creeping dread hovered in the back of his mind. Elurín pressed his shoulder into Eluréd's. "Are they certain?" Lalwen was asking.

"There is no doubt," said Elrond. "They are—or were—in the Shire, and they were looking for Frodo."

"What is it that he bears that the Enemy would send the Nine to find it?" Glorfindel wanted to know.

"Does it matter?" Lalwen replied. "What do you want us to do, Elrond?"

"There are few who can ride openly against the Nazgûl," said Elrond. "I would have you ride out, to the north and south and west, in case Frodo has strayed from the Road in an attempt to lose his pursuers. We must find him before they do, and bring him here, he and what companions he may have."

Glorfindel stood. "I will take the road," he said, eyes flashing with a fierceness that would make, Eluréd thought with grim satisfaction, even the Witch-king pause.
"I will go north," said Lalwen.

"That leaves the south to us," said Elurín. "Elrond, what is this burden that the halfling bears?"

"I do not know for certain," said Elrond after a long pause. "Gandalf has kept close counsel in this matter. It is best, I think, that we await Frodo himself."

"If he knows," Eluréd muttered to Elurín as they left the study. Elurín snorted. Their mirth, however, was short-lived. The list of things that Sauron would want badly enough to send the Nazgûl all the way across the world to fetch it had to be quite short.

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They followed Glorfindel as far as the bridge before turning south, following the Mitheithel. They met one band of travelers, a ragged family with three squalling babies and all of them with fear behind their eyes. They shied away from two elves on horseback, but Eluréd and Elurín stopped to give them spare blankets and some extra food. They were lost, with the road being broken up and at times difficult to find, and they'd strayed far from the Greenway while still going more or less north.

"They need a guide," Eluréd murmured to Elurín as one of the mothers fussed over the older children, wrapping them up in the blankets, as a grandmother slapped another child's hand away from the food before it could be distributed. "They'll never find Bree from here on their own."

"We cannot abandon our task," Elurín replied.

"Of course not. But there are two of us."

Elurín frowned. "I don't like that," he said. "Splitting up when there are Nazgûl about?"

"Glorfindel and Lalwen went out alone," Eluréd pointed out.

"Yes, but they're Noldor. How many lone Noldor have survived their heroic encounters with the Enemy?"

"We aren't going up against Sauron himself," said Eluréd. "And it will only be for a few days, just long enough to get these people back to the Greenway." They both looked back at the group, at the children and the old women and old men, all of them afraid, but defiant and hopeful in spite of everything they had been through—both in their homeland, wherever that was, and on the long road north.

"Oh, all right," said Elurín. "I will take them to the Greenway. You continue south. Just be careful, Eluréd!"

They camped with the travelers that evening, giving them all a full night's rest as Eluréd and Elurín kept watch, with both their eyes and ears and other senses, though neither of them felt anything amiss. All that moved in the wood around them were the usual night creatures, and not far away the river flowing steadily along south towards the sea. In the morning Elurín offered his services as a guide, and the travelers happily accepted. The children especially were delighted with the chance to take turns riding on an elf horse.

Once they were on their way, Eluréd tidied up the campsite, and set off on his own. There were very old paths through this part of the world, aside from the old roads, if you knew where to look. Small hamlets and lonely farms had once dotted the landscape from Bree to Tharbad. Some of those old houses could still be seen, crumbling now and overrun with moss and vines. That night Eluréd took shelter in one such small house, where three of the four walls still stood reaching up to his shoulders. In the summer they would be invisible beneath a mound of honeysuckle, green and yellow and white and filling the air with sweet fragrance. There was an old tree nearby that in years past Eluréd and Elurín had discovered a beehive in, and collected jarfuls of honeysuckle honey to sweeten their meals while traveling, or to trade. Dwarves especially were always happy to have honey.

October, of course, was far too late in the year to harvest honey, even if he weren't on a more urgent errand. But next summer he would have to remind Elurín about the old honeysuckle house. As he lay staring up at the stars and listening to his horse's breathing and the soft crackling of his campfire, Eluréd wondered about the people who had once lived there. Had a farmer's wife planted the honeysuckle, once upon a time? She would have had to keep after it every year, keeping it trimmed back. He was glad that it had survived whatever had befallen this place and its inhabitants—war, most likely. Sauron had ravaged nearly all of Eriador in his quest for the rings.

The night passed quietly, and in the morning Eluréd bade farewell to the sleeping honeysuckle and went on. Several days passed in this way, and all the while he neither heard nor saw nor sensed another soul, living or otherwise. After several days he turned around to return north; Frodo would not have made it so far south on his own, and he did not think any of the Nazgûl were lingering in this part of the world either. If they came back this way it was most likely that he and Elurín would meet them on their way back to the north—hopefully they would be empty-handed.

He reunited with Elurín not far from where they had parted. "They are safely on their way up the Greenway towards Bree," Elurín announced. "Did you find anything down south? I met Halbarad and his sister, and warned them, but they has seen no one either. But it seems that Estel was on his way to Bree when last Halbarad saw him; perhaps Frodo met with him."

"I hope so," said Eluréd. "I've seen nothing either. No Halflings, certainly."

They agreed to make their way towards Imladris, hopeful that they might encounter Frodo as they drew closer to the east-west road. Instead they found a dead horse washed up on the river bank, and a little farther upstream a scrap of black cloth. There were other signs of a recent flooding: Elrond had raised the Bruinen. Eluréd was not sure whether to call that a good sign or a bad one.

As they approached the ford they found it calm and clear, except for one man standing on the bank looking lost. His clothes were finely made, but stained with long travel. He wore a large round shield slung across his back, and a sword at his side, along with a large silver-tipped horn. As he turned at the sound of their horses Eluréd could see that he had the look of Númenor about him, with dark hair cropped at his shoulders, tangled and unkempt now, and clear grey eyes in a face drawn with weariness. He was not one of the Dúnedain of the north kingdom, clearly—which meant he could only have come from Gondor, and that was almost more surprising than hearing that the Nazgûl were abroad in Eriador. And he was no mere soldier or trader, judging by those clothes, and by the silver collar about his neck. He was a member of Gondor's nobility, from Minas Tirith—or perhaps from Dol Amroth.

"Well met!" Elurín called out as they approached. "You are a long way from home, Man of Gondor."

If he was surprised that they had guessed his origins, the man did not show it. "I am seeking the valley of Imladris," he said. "I have met few other travelers in these parts, but and none could tell me where it lay."

"I'm surprised you met any other travelers at all," said Eluréd. "But Imladris lies just beyond the Bruinen here; we are going there ourselves, and can guide you." He glanced skyward; it was moving towards evening. "We can press on a little more today, and come to the valley early tomorrow morning, if you do not mind sharing our camp."

"I would be grateful," said the man. He followed them across the ford, splashing up onto the opposite bank with no trouble. Eluréd could feel the slight change in the air that marked their entrance into Elrond's power.

Eluréd and Elurín dismounted to walk beside their new companion. Elurín's attention was on the ground ahead of them, leaving Eluréd to make conversation. "I am Eluréd," he said, "and my brother is Elurín."

"I am Boromir, son of Denethor Steward of Gondor," said the man. Elurín glanced over his shoulder, raising his eyebrows.

"You are far from home," said Eluréd. "What brings you to Imladris, Boromir son of Denethor?"

Boromir pushed his hair out of his face. "I come seeking counsel from Master Elrond, and the unraveling of a riddle." He did not offer more, and Eluréd did not press him.

"It must be a strange riddle indeed, that you must travel so far to solve it," Elurín remarked from ahead of them. "Eluréd, I believe Lord Glorfindel has completed his errand. And it seems our friend from the west was not traveling alone, if I read the signs aright."

They made camp beneath a copse of pine trees that evening. Eluréd went hunting for small game, and came back with some squirrels that he and Elurín skinned and cut up to stew with some dried vegetables. "Tell us what goes on in Gondor," said Elurín as he washed the blood from his hands and knife. "It has been some years since we were last down that way."

Boromir peered at them curiously. "It has been many years indeed since the elven folk walked in Gondor," he said.

"You need not give us your land's whole history," Eluréd laughed. "Only the most recent happenings—for something must have happened to send you north, besides a riddle."

The news was not good. Boromir spoke of a new captain or creature come out of Mordor to join the assault on Osgiliath that Eluréd and Elurín recognized immediately as one of the Nazgûl—most likely the Witch-king himself. It must have been after Osgiliath was retaken that Sauron sent the Nine into the north.

Sauron was moving in Gondor. The Nazgûl were abroad. A halfling was carrying something so important that Elrond would not speak of it even to his closest advisers. And Gandalf was missing. Eluréd looked at Elurín, whose expression was grim. They had felt this shift in the world before, more than once. "I hope that Elrond is able to help you find the answers you seek, Boromir," Elurín said finally, as he dished out the stew. "You will find out tomorrow. In the meantime, you can rest without worry. No ill crosses the Bruinen without Elrond's knowledge."

In the grey hours of the next morning they came at last back to Imladris. Boromir halted as it opened before them, his eyes going wide as he took in the house and the silver river splashing down from the hills, and the mountains stretching up towards the pale sky, wreathed in clouds and mist. Elurín smiled at him. "Welcome to Imladris, Boromir of Gondor."