A Candle for the Hollow City by Lordnelson100

Chapter 3 The Speaker and the Chorus

It was a winter evening when they met once more in Halls of the Woodland Realm, as arranged, to hear the telling.  For the performance, they had had settled on an old hall, deep under the roots of the forest. It was paved in great river stones and vaulted with dark beams carved into intricate patterns of knotty branches; an enormous hearth flanked by marble stags took up an entire end of the hall.

In the hallway outside the hall waited Elrond and Thranduil. The King, it seemed, had dressed to honor the event: he wore the Woodland Crown of silver thorns and branches, intermingled with fir-tree sprigs wrought in red gold, and a long cloak lined with white lynx fur. Just as the appointed time was nearing, they were joined by Celeborn.  

“Galadriel sent you by yourself, did she?” asked Thranduil. “As you see,” he answered. Clad in grey travel clothes and with his silver hair tied tightly back, Celeborn, who generally seemed grave and reserved, looked doubly severe.  Elrond thought: He is unhappy to be here . The Lord of Lórien, out of all of them, had the closest ties to those who died in the battle between Elves and Dwarves at Doriath long ago.

Elrond brought with him a few of his household who he thought might most benefit: his learned archivist, a musician with a passionate taste for beauty,  and several of the more idealistic Elves who had not exhausted their love of Middle Earth, and still cared for travel and the company of other Peoples. Thranduil had gathered a select few of his court, too, chosen on some principle of his own which he (characteristically) did not state. Celeborn was alone.

They filed into the hall. The group of Dwarven visitors were seated on the floor, cross-legged in a semi-circle; about a dozen of them. Several more stood in back, assistants of some kind, it appeared. The hall was dark, the only light coming from the crackling fire on the great hearth, and from crystal candle-bowls of oil, lit with floating wicks, placed by each Dwarrow. To Elven eyes, the row of stony faces seemed unreadable, sternly set and mask-like amid their beards and thick eyebrows and long, elaborate braids. Their eyes glittered in the gloom.

The troupe all wore like gear, dark cloaks with deep hoods, trimmed with black fur, the hoods cast back over their shoulders. Otherwise, their garb was starkly simple: leather tunics that left bare their muscular arms, wound with elaborate inked designs; plain leggings or long skirts of deerskin, and high leather boots. They wore no elaborate gems or ornaments, only the most simple of jewelry: there the glint of nose stud or earring; here, beads fasted in braid or beard; the small, essential markers of personal identity, marriage or mourning.

On their laps were musical instruments. But these were not the famous, beautiful make of present day Erebor: no silver harps and viols inlaid with mother of pearl. In their place were simple objects that might have been carried by their earliest fathers and mothers in the Days of the Stars: a primitive lyre and bow, carved flutes, wooden claves, thin hand drums made of stretched skin, the curved horn of a mountain ox, a rattle carved from yellowed bone.

An open space seemed to be left in the very center of their little group.

Legolas and Gimli were there, seated likewise, but a little to the side. A few tall chairs were set along the wall, but Elrond waved away the court esquire who made to set one for him. He seated himself easily on the floor, cross-legged like the visitors. Celeborn accepted a chair, sitting tall and quiet with his hands on his lap, gazing downward. Thranduil, after a moment’s assessment, seated himself on the flagstones by folding his long legs to the side, and spreading his white cloak in a graceful pool around him.

All at once,  one dwarf began to work the claves, a solitary, hollow tock of wood on wood. From the shadowed back of the hall came a final figure, an old dwarf led forth on the sturdy arm of a younger. They saw that she was a Dwarrowdam, with iron-grey hair gathered in a pile of small braids on her head and woven in a thick queue that hung down her back nearly to the ground. Her wispy beard, trimmed close, was woven with tiny jet beads. Innumerable wrinkles creased and carved her face; but her brows were still dark, and her eyes were black and piercing.

Her cloak, alone of the band, was trimmed in ink-black raven feathers; so likewise, her long skirt;  earrings shaped as a chain of ebony feathers trailed from her ears almost to her shoulders. She took her place in the center of her people.

The quiet percussion ceased.

Gimli said: “These come now from the Lonely Mountain, as the Speaker and the Chorus. While they do so, no personal names are given. For they speak as the Durinul , the Sons of Durin, and not in their own voice.”  The visitors stood as one, bowed deeply, and sat down again. One of the assisting dwarves circled the room and placed a wooden goblet by each listener and performer, and filled it with dark ale.

The sturdy dwarf who had given her arm to the eldest now spoke. She had rippling red hair, and a mellow, carrying voice like a bronze bell; elaborate tattoos of serpents wound down from her jaw to the low neckline of her tunic and between her breasts.

“Hear now the voice of the Speaker. This is the way that our great Teachings of old are delivered.  She will give voice to the Tale in our own tongue, the sacred Khuzdul, created for us by Mahal, in the words that do not alter, but are passed down from generation to generation, and so are not lost. I will render it into the Common Speech.”

Ifridîzun! Make ready!

Kult!  Listen now!!  

At first, it seemed strange to Elrond, to listen in this mode; first, the phrases one language and voice, and then the other. But he found that quickly his ear and comprehension adjusted, and he began to enjoy the style, for the Speaker had a voice of surpassing power, husky and expressive. The words in Khuzdul flowed: enigmatic, harsh, vivid, like the shapes of mountains.

She delivered the story standing, often pacing, and she seemed to shape and illustrate each line with gesture of hand and wrist, neck and face. She paused frequently, and the interpreter with sweeter voice followed after.

“Mahal made us.”

Here, the Chorus echoed the Speaker as one in their deep voices, agreeing: Mahal made us .

“Making is our nature. Our nature it is also, to treasure and defend those things which we have made, and into which our spirit is poured.

But there are things that are greater even than treasures of the hand. For these things come from the First Gifts, of our bodies and our hearts and our free will, and these gifts cannot be made at the forge. Nor can they be destroyed or unmade by hand, or hammer, or sword.

And these are our children, and the parents’ love for them. And friendship,  loyalty and honor, such as we give to our truest friends and to our chosen rulers. And such is the love that true heart gives once, and only once, in a lifetime, to the One which their heart recognizes. 

The defense of these is the heart of honor, greater than any gold.”

The Speaker halted, and let silence hang in the air. All breathed.  

The Chorus made then a tune on ancient strings; they beat the hand drums, and sang with deep voices, first thrumming in their throats, voice without words;  then their song rose into whisper-singing, and slid finally into language, lyrics of primitive joy and strength that were not translated for their Elvish listeners.  

Such was the music overheard by the earliest Quendi, echoing among the feet of the great Blue Mountains, when their people first met the Khazâd in woods long vanished. But the Elves had not understood what they heard, and those mountains were ruined long ago.