A Candle for the Hollow City by Lordnelson100

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Chapter 10 Epilogue

Note: I have come down with a case of Tolkien-Jackson syndrome, in which my story is already ended, and yet I have broken out in an eruption of Epilogue. In which there is breakfast, a ride in the woods, an exchange of views on Thingol, a connection to the Ring, and an Author’s Thanks.

Breakfast

They met in Thranduil’s private chamber for breakfast the next morning; the King, and Elrond, and Celeborn, three Elven lords of tremendous antiquity and power, shaped by victory and loss, having coffee in the world that they helped save. It was changing swiftly all about them now.(1)

It was a winter dawn, with blue-black dark just beginning to give way to late-coming light. Frost traced intricate patterns on the windows of the chamber.

In the center of a round oaken table stood a lamp: its base,  a silver stag so delicately caught that it seemed in the instant of turning its head and listening, lifting one hoof as if it would leap away at the next sound. In its antlers was set a crystal globe, in which soft lamplight played. The globe was etched with small frosted stars, so that the light as it fell on nearby objects held the stars’ shadowy outline, wavering slightly with the flame.

Elrond reached out to it and touched the warm globe with one finger: he could feel a little spell of long-burning and restfulness built into it: a simple, ancient magic.”Yes,” said Thranduil, answering his glance. “An actual Dwarf-made treasure, as it happens. True-silver. The Lonely Mountain folk sent it me as a token, upon the end of the War and the safe return of our sons.”

Celeborn said, staring down into his steaming cup: “That performance last night was not what I expected. I thought it would be just, well, an excuse-making. A mirror image: reversed, with all the wrong on our side, and none on theirs. But that was truly, in its way, a reckoning.”

“I readily admit it was well-worth hearing. There was power in it, and much to move the heart. Even wisdom.”  He gave a half smile aimed at Elrond:  “And it was very cleverly done, if the intent was to interest Elves. We love to have our heartstrings plucked, and they did so movingly. And they provided us also with a great store of history, and language, and music that is new to us. It’s practically bribing Elves to put all that in their way! Your Rivendell scholars and musicians must be in an ecstasy.”

The cold sun was now gleaming through the windows, and glinted on his silver hair;  the Lord of Lórien seemed to study the bare trees beyond the frosted panes.  “And yet—I am still not sure that I can change my feelings towards their people,  or that I should .”

He rose and paced. “Of course, Galadriel’s been after me for a long time to soften my feelings about the Dwarves, and forgive old ills; going back as far as Eregion. She thought she shouldn’t come last night, because it would be, well, putting a thumb on the scale, as the market-people of Dale say.  She said if my mind was going to be changed at all about the tragedy at Doriath, I would have to decide for myself.’

“Not only for the sake of others. “ Elrond came and stood beside him, pulling his cloak around him; the cold was deep, and by the windows, it crept even into the warm chamber. He put one hand on Celeborn’s shoulder.  “She would have this old wound of yours healed, if it is possible.”

“Yet consider!” Celeborn said. “Their telling of history is as unbalanced in its own ways as some of our have been. Did not our historian of those times write, “ In all ways, Morgoth sought most to cast an evil light on things that Thingol and Melian had done, for he hated them and feared them ?” (2)

His face was troubled. “I knew Thingol far better than the Khazâd ever could. Elwë was a great King to his people, and protected them for centuries uncounted, preserving generations of lives in terrible times. His errors were tragic, but his motives were never so dark and bad,  as their story makes him.”

Thranduil, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, said, in a considering tone:  “Well.  My family owed Thingol  much. I owe him much. Here I am, the King of a mingled woodland realm of Sindar and Sylvan Elves. There are a hundred  ways in which I am still carrying out lessons he gave long ages ago. But he also made awful mistakes.”

“In fact, it’s being kind to call them mistakes, and not give them a worse name.” The Woodland King knitted his brow. “It cannot be denied that as things went wrong against Morgoth in Beleriand,  Thingol  began to act like a reckless fool.  Oropher and I both told him so, when he and Fëanorians began going from bad to worse. Which is why my father and I withdrew from Doriath and sought Círdan before the disaster. Elwë didn’t deserve to go down like that, but there were many who sinned less than he, and fared far worse.”

Thranduil brooded over folded hands. “It was mad of him to deal with the Dwarves in that way, and then leave his family to deal with the bloody huge curse of the Great Jewel and the Vow of Fëanor’s sons.  What in the name of the Hunter did he think would happen?  So the Dwarves might have been onto something there about the Silmarils’ power. I think Thingol was out of his right mind in that last year, though we refused to see it.”

He made a gesture of disgust. “Sindar am I, and of this Middle-earth. Not being a Noldo, the whole subject of Fëanor’s gems makes me sick.  Ancient light be damned.  We were well shed of them, and I never understood why the Host of the West wouldn’t come and help us,  till we sent them one of the cursed things . . . I know, I know, blasphemy.   Well,  if the Valar don’t like it, they’re welcome to come and tell me about it. I have a millennium's worth of questions for them.”

“The hour is late for both questions and answers, old friend,” Celeborn sighed.  “It might have been well if this Tale of the Dwarves was shared long ago. Perhaps it would have led to better understanding,  back when both our people held more of Middle Earth’s fate in our hands. But now the Age of Man is arriving. Our people are slowly on our way to depart Middle Earth, both sooner and later.  And the Dwarves will diminish as well. Already they are few, compared to the great days of this history.”

Elrond said: “It is never too late for wisdom. And what does Mithrandir tells us? Even the very wise do not see all ends.  Our sons and our daughters, and your granddaughter, Celeborn, have bound themselves up in these mortal peoples, through love. The Elder Race may be making our ways towards the Sea, but you two at least, are still staying, for a while. I hope you will have many years of joy in this Greenwood the Great restored.”

Then he added, gesturing to the world outside the windows: “And what of those who come after, whether our descendants by blood, or just by virtue of inheriting this dangerous and wonderful world? And even for ourselves, who knows what our needs will be, on the other side of the ocean? We three have never been there. For us, too, it will be an unexpected journey.”

He walked to the table bearing the lamp again, and gazed at it. “I will be glad to carry over the sea, a better understanding of our neighbors in Arda. Who is to say that our peoples will never meet again?”

 

Goodbyes

In the afternoon, the Elven visitors rode out to the edge of Thranduil’s realm to take their roads home. The King, Legolas, and Gimli came with them for a while for the pleasure of riding out on a frosty day.

Legolas rode on the great white horse of Rohan on which he had returned from the quest; as ever, he went without bit or bridle, using merely a guiding hand in Arod’s mane. Gimli trotted beside him had his sturdy mountain horse, Coal.

The Woodland King was in a merry mood, and so he rode his enormous elk-steed, Aras,  with its great sweep of antlers and trappings of silver. Much annoyed were his grooms,  who spent the morning trying to get the bad-tempered thing to take on its saddle. Elrond and Celeborn must have had horses, too, but they are not part of the story.

After a while, Thranduil and Legolas rode somewhat ahead together. Both were looking up with grace and wonder at the soaring snow-covered trees whose arms arched far above. To see Greenwood the Great cleansed of the Enemy’s darkness, Mirkwood no more, growing strong and mighty once again, made them jubilant. Snow flakes were in their white-gold hair, and on their shoulders. For that moment they looked, indeed, like Elves as pictured in the children’s stories of Men: ageless Fair Folk, free of care.

So Elrond thought, and looking to his side, he saw admiration and happiness very evident in the face of the Dwarf riding next to him.

“I think, Gimli, that you have more effrontery than almost any mortal I have met.” Celeborn said this courteously, and without heat.  “You’ve secured the love of this King’s son, and a token of gallantry from my wife, the Lady of Lórien, that she denied to  Fëanor himself, and begun the first new Dwarven colony in an age. Now you want, what, a dialogue among our peoples on our most ancient hurts and resentments?”

He continued: “I was born and raised in Doriath in the days of its beauty. Elu Thingol was my king, and my kinsman. Melian was the mentor of my wife. Elves that died fighting the Naugrim in the Thousand Caves were my friends.  Still, I strive to be just in my dealings with the Dwarves of this day. Need I also like you?”

Gimli looked the Lord of Lorien in the eye.  “I see your point. Your people were killed by those who looked like me. It’s hard to change the heart around that. How arrogant I may seem, if you think I’m trying to plaster over your old pain, or substitute our experience for your own.”

Brushing the snow from his thick beard, he rode on for a minute before speaking again.  “But this event was not made by me alone. The decision to begin this dialogue and share our Teaching on the Nauglamír was made by my people in the Lonely Mountain. I only went and asked the question.”

“It’s true, many were eager to ease their hearts by telling our side of a history that’s been so often held against us.” He continued,  “But quite a few other reasons came into it, many of them practical. This Great War  of the Ring taught us more of what we  discovered in the Battle of Five Armies. That the Free Peoples need each other. We could go on cherishing old hurts.  But many of us are eager to build a new era, in which we emerge from the Mountain far more often.”

The snowfall began to deepen. The woods were still except for the sound of their steeds’ feet and the faint jingle and creak of their tack. Gimli went on.  “And as for me,  perhaps what our critics say has a grain of truth in it. I am a stiff-necked, arrogant Dwarf, or at least an ambitious one. What are the Elvish words on us: quick to resentment, stone-hard, stubborn, steadfast in enmity? (3) I am no perfect Dwarrow; those faults are mine as well as any other’s.”

He cocked an eye at Celeborn: “Well I  remember the day the Fellowship came before you in Lórien. Your guards singled me out among the Company for suspicion, and would have handled me different than all the rest, had not Aragorn insisted we be treated alike.”

“We were all weary and heart-broken over Gandalf’s death. I was sick with seeing the bones of my dead kin in Moria, and the ruin of our ancient home.  And you threw on my kind, the coming of the Balrog to Khazad-dûm. By the dust! To be charged with the Balrog , that had murdered my forefathers and destroyed our great home!”

His glance was exasperated, even now. “You said we woke it by digging too deep.  Dwarves delve , it’s what we do! You might as rationally say that Elves of Mirkwood caused the monster spiders to attack them by dancing in the woods!”

“I hated you right then; hated your people, hated you all. I remember wanting to throw aside the Quest even, and rush blindly back into the wild to find my way home alone.” He shivered at the memory.

“But at that moment, when all hung on a knife’s edge, your Lady, the great Galadriel, spoke to me words of kindness that softened my heart. And then Legolas came to me after, with his hand out in friendship, and my life changed indeed.  And I have not forgotten that you yourself did after all host me, despite your own history in Doriath, of which I then knew nothing. It is hard to be patient and courteous, where there is disliking; and so I thank you.”

Somewhere in the winter woods, a raven cawed.  The Dwarf’s gaze was off among the endless aisles of frosted tree trunks, his expression serious.  “It was at that time that I recognized  the voice of Sauron’s Ring in my own mind. Trust them not , it said. They despise you.  They are using you, and will throw you aside when you are done. As other peoples have always done to your kind. You are alone here. “

“The Ring may be gone from this world, but ever since, I’ve found myself still hearing its echoes in the world. In myself, even. And  when I hear it, I try to—well, go the other way? Talk  back?” He shrugged.  “I don’t have a great plan, as it happens, for to make all Elves and Dwarves understand each other. I just keep doing things, feeling my way in the dark.  Trying to build if I can a new door—an echo of that which Celebrimbor and Narvi made—through which we both can walk and meet one another in friendship.”

They came to the parting of the roads. The Dwarf bowed to Celeborn and Elrond, as best he could from the saddle,  and turned his little horse. Legolas went with him.  They could hear the Prince singing as the pair rode away through the snow-silenced forest.

Celeborn said.  “Oh very well, he’s a fine fellow, for a Dwarf. My wife can say, I told you so. Again.”

Thranduil said: “He’s a great deal more than that, and you know it. My son chose him, and Legolas does not make wrong choices, not in the important things.”

Elrond looked at the Woodland King and began a retort, but then closed his jaw with a snap and smiled.

Chapter End Notes

1 - Coffee, or whatever the Arda equivalent was.

2- “In all ways, Morgoth sought most to cast an evil light on things that Thingol and Melian had done, for he hated them and feared them.” The Silmarillion, “Of the Ruin of Doriath.”

3 - “Since they were to come in the days of the power of Melkor, Aulë made the Dwarves strong to endure. Therefore they are stone-hard, stubborn, fast in friendship and in enmity.” The Silmarillion, “Of Aulë and Yavanna”; “For the Dwarves were secret and quick to resentment . . .” “Of the Return of the Noldor.”

Author’s Thank You Note

The seed of this began with the wonderful Silmarillion writers who have taken on its mysteries and margins and contradictions, and made worlds out of them. I’m a total stranger but I wanted to celebrate how just the richness of their work helped spur me to an epic meditation on Dwarven antiquity and cultural memory.

There are more great  examples then I can cite,  but I wanted to thank these in particular who gave careful examination to those whom the text itself does not redeem. Arrogentemu and Emilyenrose and Prackspoor and Bunn And also, for the great chronicler of the Third Age Dwarves, whose work helped me identify my urge to take up the First Age Khazâd, Determamfidd

The Dwarves in the chapter “The Ruin of Doriath” are among the damned of The Silmarillion. None escape alive; they are assigned no viewpoint and no dialogue;  and all the fascinating threads that weave through the rest of the book and suggest a complex, vivid people and culture are simply cut short. And then there’s this:

Then Beren gazed in wonder on the selfsame jewel of Feanor that he had cut from Morgoth’s iron crown, now shining set amid gold and gems by the cunning of the Dwarves; and he washed it clean of blood in the river.

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