God, I Pity the Violins by StarSpray

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Chapter 16

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Maglor had the pleasure of five house guests for the rest of the week, before another call came from Copley to send them to another strange corner of the world. This time Quynh went with them, after extracting a promise from Maglor that he wouldn't sail away into the West without at least calling them first. It was an easy promise to make, since Maglor hadn't been planning on doing otherwise. And then they were gone, and Maglor was left entirely alone in his cottage for the first time in just a few weeks but which felt like much longer.

He did not immediately start setting his things in order. There was no hurry, not really, and with no one hunting him and no guests to be considered, Maglor wanted nothing more than to sleep for a full month. So he did, more or less, getting up only to change the location of his dozing—from his bed to his garden to the beach. When he wasn't napping he played music, idly at his harp or on a flute or one of the other instruments scattered around his home.

But after he passed two months in that manner his dreams began to turn westward again, and he dreamed again and again of the sea, of standing at the prow of a ship watching mountains rise up from the horizon, their snowy peaks blushing pale pink with the dawn, and of fair voices carried on a breeze that smelled of flowers that he had not seen since the days before the Darkening.

"All right, all right!" he called out of his window towards the sea after waking from one such dream with a longing so strong that it almost physically hurt. "I'm coming!" Below his house, on the beach, he fancied that he heard laughter.

The problem with having lived so long among Men, however, was that most of his worldly possessions needed to be gotten rid of. He could, Maglor supposed, have just bought a boat and sailed off into the sunset, but that would leave other people with unforeseen headaches. So he made dozens of lists (Daeron had his spreadsheets, but Maglor preferred the shorthand that he'd used long ago while guarding the Gap, and that did not translate well to a computer), and he called up law firms that had forgotten he was even one of their clients. His flat in Paris was very easy to sell, and most of his money and the more significant objects he owned were also easy to donate to various organizations and museums. News stories popped up in a few places about mysterious and anonymous benefactors. Nile sent them to him along with a string of emojis that Maglor did not even try to decipher. Less easy to get rid of was all of the other stuff that had somehow accumulated in his house and in a few storage lockers scattered around the globe.

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Eight months into that endeavor, Maglor arrived home from a longer-than-anticipated trip to Canada to find Daeron playing fetch with Norindo in his garden. "Please tell me nothing else has gone wrong," Maglor said.

"No, nothing is wrong," Daeron said, laughing. "I did break into your house, though."

"Did you break anything?" Maglor asked. Daeron only arched an eyebrow. "Of course not. What brings you here, then?"

"I heard the fish and chips was delightful," said Daeron, following Maglor inside.

"How…?"

"Nile somehow got Hathellas' phone number, and then through her got mine—and probably a dozen others as well. She's a delightful correspondent."

Maglor looked at his own cell phone, which had ten unread messages from Nile, and one from Quynh, who had been introduced to photography and was very excited about it. "She's certainly prolific," Maglor said. He dropped his bag to the floor and then dropped himself onto the sofa. Norindo jumped up onto his lap. "Yes, hello, Norindo."

Daeron also sat, his expression growing more serious. "The fish and chips are, indeed, wonderful," he said, "but that is not the primary reason I came. I did think I would find you at home."

"It turns out selling property in western Canada when you don't use the same name that you did when you purchased it almost a hundred years ago is something of a headache," Maglor said. Daeron laughed. "So if not the food, was it merely my company you sought? Or Norindo's, perhaps?"

"Actually," Daeron said, "I wanted to know if you would like my company." Maglor blinked. "When you depart. I would like to go with you."

"Oh. Really?"

"Yes. I think it's time."

"How could I say no? You would be most welcome, provided you don't intend to bring an entire orchestra's worth of instruments. I've worked out a budget and it won't allow for a boat that big."

Daeron laughed. "No, I shall be much more economic in my packing. Your harp will be the biggest instrument on board, I think."

"Oh good. I had visions of you arriving at the dock with a grand piano, or perhaps an organ…"

Daeron departed after a week, in which they went together to purchase a sailboat suitable for their purposes—big enough for them and a handful of instruments each, none larger than Maglor's driftwood harp, and with room also for Norindo. They were given the option of having the name painted for them along the side, but Maglor declined and did it himself in elegant, looping Fëanorian script, and on a sunny afternoon he and Daeron took the Earcale on her maiden voyage just out of the harbor and back.

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Six months after the purchase of the boat Maglor looked at his lists and realized that he had crossed off nearly everything he'd set out to do before leaving. All that was left was to hand his seaside cottage over to someone—he had been putting it off for obvious reasons, but also he did not want to just put it on the market for anyone to snatch up. So he emailed Copley, who surprised him by coming out in person. It was the matter of a few minutes to hand over all of the relevant deeds and paperwork for Copley to take care of. "I also thought you might like to know," Copley said, as he tucked the paperwork into a briefcase, and as Maglor got up to pour them both some lemonade, "that Dennis Newman is dead."

Maglor paused with his hand still outstretched into the fridge. "How?" he asked.

"Heart attack, I believe."

"Mm." Maglor breathed a sigh. "Well, Daeron did say he would not find what he sought."

"I'm still not entirely clear what exactly that was," said Copley.

"The same thing that Merrick wanted. Only Newman fancied it his birthright."

Daeron appeared a few days after Copley arrived, and on his heels were Quynh and her friends, and—to Maglor's complete surprise—Princess Hathellas and Prince Lumorn. "Well of course we must see off Daeron," said Hathellas primly, even as she leaned in to kiss Maglor's cheek. "And my mother was delighted by the excuse to make lembas—it's been ever so long—so she made far more than I hope you will ever have need of."

"Please give her my deepest thanks," said Maglor, accepting the basket of leaf-wrapped bread.

"When do you leave?" Nile asked over Quynh's head when Quynh hugged him.

"Sometime this week, I think," said Maglor. "I didn't know when Daeron would arrive."

"I would have been here sooner," said Daeron cheerfully, "only I had second thoughts about the grand piano—" He ducked under Maglor's swing, laughing as he easily stepped out of reach.

It was a cheerful, lively group. Maglor and Daeron played music together while Hathellas and Lumorn competed to make the silliest rhymes in the songs they made up on the spot. Norindo jumped from lap to lap, demanding and receiving all the scratches and belly rubs that a little dog could wish for. Storms rolled in and it rained for almost a week; but at last the skies cleared, and dawn came clear and bright. Maglor was alone outside when the skies began to lighten, and he greeted Arien with a song that he had written long ago after the first sunrise—or, less poetically but more accurately, after the fourteenth sunrise when they were truly assured that the light was truly there to stay. They had been used to the moon already, but Tilion was ever a wanderer and wayward, and that caused many, Maglor included, to doubt whether the moon would remain—or the sun, when Arien leaped up to join Tilion in the skies.

But it sounded better to say it was written after the very first sunrise, and he had had that particular sight in mind while composing. That had been a horrific and dark time for the Noldor, with Maedhros captured and no one sure whether he still lived. That first sunrise had been, literally and figuratively, a bright moment that had rekindled more than just the life that had lain for so long under Yavanna's Sleep. It had been red and gold and orange, the clouds on the horizon seeming to have caught fire from within, and then the sky had turned from inky black to purple and then to blue, pale and then bright and vivid as the petals of the forget-me-nots that grew along the roads in Valinor. And flowers had burst into blossom all around them in the emerald-green grass, and the trees had stirred to life and put forth leaves and flowers of their own, so the whole world was a riot of color to rival those in the sky. As the moon was but an echo of Telperion, so was the sun but a memory of Laurelin's glory—but even the memory was glorious indeed.

As he finished the song, the sun was fully free of the horizon, and his last day in Middle-earth had begun. Quynh came out of the house and sat down beside him. Nearby grew the athelas plant; it was well on its way to dominating that entire corner of the garden, and in the morning breeze it released a fresh, sweet smell. "Are you leaving today?" Quynh asked after a few minutes of companionable silence.

"Yes. This evening, I think. When the stars are out."

"I don't think I ever thanked you," Quynh said abruptly. She did not look at Maglor, instead reaching out to scratch Norindo behind the ears. "For helping me, when I washed up on your beach. I would have been—very lost, I think, otherwise."

"You are welcome," said Maglor.

"Weird that of all the beaches I could've washed up on," Quynh said after a little while, "I ended up on yours."

"It isn't weird if it was on purpose," said Maglor, remembering Lady Uinen rising up out of the waves to speak to him—a startling event even without dead-bodies-that-weren't lying in the sand at his feet. "But I am glad that I could help." They sat a little while longer in silence; inside Maglor could hear stirrings in the kitchen, the clinking of dishes and quiet voices.

Maglor had been giving a great deal of thought to some of the artifacts that they had recovered from Turralba. The copy of the Red Book had been left in Thranduil's care, alongside Maglor's own. The palantír he was taking into the West—there was little use for seeing stones now, with satellites and cell phones and the Internet, but even so it was not a thing to be left lying around—but there remained the Elessar stone. It was not like the rings of power that Celebrimbor had made—the Elven rings had been meant to prevent decay, to keep the world preserved and unchanging, which in the end even the most Wise had had to admit was not the great good that had been intended. But the Elessar was for healing and renewal, and as far as Maglor could tell it did not take the same toll on its user that Vilya and Nenya had. He pulled it out of his pocket; it shone gently in the morning light, nestled in his palm. The silver eagle brooch had been dark and tarnished when they found it, but Maglor had polished it back to gleaming, so every small, intricate feather shone.

"Your mission is to make the world better," he said to Quynh. "But though you are all warriors, you do not always have to use violence. This may help you." He held out the brooch. Quynh took it with a quizzical look. "My nephew made this, long ago. Its power has not waned, and I think he would like to know that it remains in the world, doing what he intended for it."

"You never mentioned a nephew before," said Quynh. She turned the Elessar over in her hands. "What's this, here?" She had found the maker's mark, small and unobtrusive on the back.

"A C glyph, for Celebrimbor."

"Thank you," Quynh said, as she tucked the brooch away into a pocket. "And thank your nephew, when you see him." She paused. "I assume he is alive?"

Maglor laughed. "If my father has been released from Mandos, then I think Celebrimbor certainly has."

They remained in the garden until Nicky poked his head out of the window to call them in to breakfast. And after passing the day quietly and uneventfully, their party made their way down to the little harbor. Twilight was settling over the world like a soft blanket as the sun finally sank fully beneath the western horizon. The stars winked into view one by one. Gil-Estel gleamed like a beacon in the west, as though Eärendil himself were waiting to guide the Earcale to the Straight Road. The fishermen had already come in, and the harbor was otherwise deserted. Even so, Hathellas and Lumorn sung a quiet melody that shrouded them from any curious eyes.

Daeron jumped on board without hesitation, followed by Hathellas and Lumorn, already making laughing judgments of the boat, but Maglor stopped on the dock. Norindo sat down by his feet and scratched his ear before looking up expectantly. This was it. Until this very moment it hadn't seemed entirely real—he had been able to talk of it and think of it, but it was always before him, in the future, there was always one more thing left to do before it really happened. Only now the only thing left to do was to take one more step, and then he would leave Middle-earth for ever. Against his collarbone his father's pendant felt very warm.

"You okay?" Andy asked, bumping her shoulder against his arm.

Maglor smiled down at her. "Yes," he said. "I'm going home." And if his voice wavered just a little on the word home, no one mentioned it.

They all moved in at once, and if Maglor weren't more than a head taller than all of them he would have been buried beneath the collective hug. He laughed, and once they released him he found it easier to scoop up Norindo. Quynh darted in for one last tight embrace, and then Maglor stepped off of the dock for the last time. Lumorn and Hathellas jumped off of the boat, and Daeron reemerged from the cabin. There was a flurry of activity as sails were raised and ropes both secured and released, and at last the Earcale began to drift away from the dock.

"Farewell!" called Hathellas as Daeron and Maglor returned to the stern. "May Elbereth light your way!"

"Good bye," chorused all the rest in varying languages.

"Namárië!" called Maglor, to them and to Middle-earth. Over their heads the stars blazed in the clear sky; it was fully night now, and the waters were smooth enough that the sky was reflected in them so that it almost felt as though they were truly sailing into the skies rather than toward the Atlantic.

"Don't fall off the boat this time!" Quynh shouted just before they slipped out of earshot. That was followed by a burst of laughter echoing across the waves, before distance swallowed them up.

Daeron took out his flute and as he played the wind picked up, and sped them along westward. Gil-Estel was already sinking toward the horizon. Maglor glanced over the side of the boat and saw, briefly, Uinen rise out of the waves to raise her hands to them in greeting, before sinking back down and vanishing like sea foam on the surface of the water.

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Maglor did not count the days of the voyage. He and Daeron passed the time singing and managing the sails and playing careful games of fetch on the deck with Norindo. They talked of ancient days and of their wanderings throughout the wide world. Maglor spoke of Valinor as he recalled it, and they both speculated what it might be like now.

They both felt when the boat found the Straight Road. There was no visible change, no sudden difference in the sky—for it was the middle of the day and there were no stars to judge by—nor in the water, but something shifted in the air, a difference not to be put into words. As the afternoon came on clouds gathered and a soft rain fell, light and cool and refreshing rather than dreary. It continued for some days. Neither Maglor nor Daeron spoke much; Maglor could feel his heart pounding like a drum beneath his ribs as he strained his eyes to see through the rain-haze into the distance.

And then, as the sun rose behind them the rainclouds parted like a curtain rolling back, and mountains could be seen rising from the faraway sea, cloud-wreathed and snow-capped, blushing in the dawn. They rose, and rose, and rose, until at last beneath them came rolling hills glowing emerald green in the morning light. Maglor's breath caught as across the waves bells could be heard—and then the sound of many fair voices singing a welcome to the new morning. Beside him Daeron exclaimed in wordless delight.

Dolphins leaped out of the water as the wind picked up, bearing them eagerly towards land. Norindo jumped around the deck, barking with the same excitement that had both Maglor and Daeron laughing. Soon the white towers of Avallónë could be seen, and the clear turquoise waters of the Bay of Eldamar where the ships of the Teleri darted or drifted about, their sails as bright as butterfly wings. As they drew closer Maglor saw the colorful city of Alqualondë with its rainbow beaches, and beyond the Calacirya, and a glimpse of white, bright shining marble that was Tirion upon Túna.

Then they came into the harbor of Avallónë with its bells all ringing, and an escort of Telerin sailors all about them crying greetings, their long hair flying in the wind that filled their sails. Maglor busied himself with their own sails and steering into the dock that someone waved them toward. He did not allow himself to search the gathering crowd for faces, until others jumped onto the deck and ushered him away from the sails. "Go, go!" they laughed. "We'll take care of this. Go! You are awaited!"

Maglor nearly tripped over Norindo on his way to the gangplank. The little dog was running in circles in his excitement at arriving in a new place, and vanished into the crowd the moment his feet touched solid ground; Daeron had already disappeared, embraced by old friends from Doriath perhaps. But Maglor wasn't worried about finding him again—and as he stepped off of the gangplank himself he ceased to think of Norindo at all, because the crowd surged forward, proving itself to be made of all familiar faces. All of his brothers were there, and Celebrimbor and Nerdanel and he even caught a glimpse of Elrond—but at the forefront was Fëanor, and he caught Maglor up in a hug so tight it made his bones creak.

"My son, welcome home!"