Mountains Cold, Shadows Shimmering by Laura Elizabeth

Cold rain drizzle. Chill wind sighing in branches, moaning over open ground, whistling around me.

Grey, sad day hurrying to night. Perhaps my last night. Enemies closing in; I hear the howls, the shouts. They have me. Except, perhaps not. There is a way though my soul shudders in me at the thought. That way is death. Worse, that way is madness. But my fortune has been to live so far. Beyond all hope. Beyond all desire. I will chance the way.

I slip into the trees. Angle the way of Ered Gorgoroth. I must not think or I will not dare. If I pass through then I will come to the lands of the not-enemy. Perhaps even the land of the friend. I have my father's ring as a token.

The terror begins before I fully make it to the Gorgoroth. Fear fills my soul. Shadows flitting. But they are not shadows. Wraiths. They speak. Or do they? They move. Fling themselves upon me. I close my eyes and press forward. They scatter and congregate around me. They do not know that they drive me forward, not back. I am set. I will go forth and find the free air or die in its pursuit.

Go on go on go on. The wraiths were nothing. A spirit of horror lies upon the Ered Gorgoroth like a thick black smoke. I hear the calls of those dead, long dead. My father. My cousins. My friends. I hear their death cries. I know it is false. I know it is false. I will not go to seek them. They are dead. When this resolve is made, they cry out my name. Beren. Beren. Beren, save us. Beren, come to our aid. Beren, I your father command you.

Cobwebs as thick as ropes assail my path. I catch in one and am left dangling for long minutes as I work myself free. All the while the cries come nearer. I cannot cover my ears. I must go on. Doggedly. I must harden my heart to the entreaties of vain shadows. Beren. Beren, do not forsake us. Beren. It is my mother's voice. But I must go on. There is no one here, only terrors taking shape from my dark thoughts.

I cannot stop the thoughts. I cannot stop the phantoms. I go on. They pursue me. Their cries become agonized choruses of screams that last for hours. Days. I go on. Now that I have come thus far I must go on. Beyond hope. I scale steep ridges edged in knives of stone. I stumble down slopes covered in needles of thorn. My skin, clothing, soul, ragged and torn. I go on because I must. To die here would be a worse death than a thousand violent deaths. I will not die with my mother's voice ringing in my ears. I will go on. Though the despair and the horror I can think of nothing but that I will not die here. Songs are blotted from my mind. Courage has no place here. Only one thing I know, I will not, will not die here. I will go on. Perhaps to die, but to die free of shadows and free of horror. I will not die here.

How I stumble out of the grey and sickening shadows of the mountains I do not know. Where I am, what I am doing here, are mysteries. I wander on with only the animal instinct to find something that I need.

A forest looms up before me and I enter it. It is green here. Green, cool, softly shadowed. Birds sing high above me. Breezes sway the light grasses beside a small stream. I stoop and bathe my face. Drink from the water. Slowly I remember who I am. But with sanity comes sorrowing remembrance. I take out my father's ring and press it to my lips. This is all we have for our defiance of Morgoth. Nothing. I go on into the forest. I do not lie down to sleep. Sleep would bring memories best left buried. The air of the forest is like a kind of sleep, too. I feel no weariness nor any urgency.

Then I walk into a vision. A clearing, a glade, open to the night sky, screened all about by hemlocks. From the glade I hear a sound, as of lark singing with human tongue. There is starlight in the glade. I push aside the leaves and ivy and see her dancing with arms upraised to the heavens: a woman half-made of starlight, and half of shadows. She is singing. Clear and pure as running water is her voice. Dark is her hair and yet it shimmers in the light that gleams about her and from her.

I stand transfixed. All that I have suffered is not lessened by this sight, but it is made clear. I know that I would endure a thousand crossings of those mountains for this one vision. And in the light of its memory I will go on.