Song of Souls by Raiyana

Chapter 2

From this side, the Doors were not that impressive, though the trading and guard posts surrounding the entrance to the Dwarrowdelf were well-manned and lit by the soft glow of crystal lamps. Narví sent a friendly thought to their grandfather, the inventor of the lamps, but the thought vanished in an instant, swept away by the wave of worry that washed over her at the sight of the Master Warden of the Door.

“Uzbad Durin!” the dwarf called, seemingly relieved to see them.

“What’s happening?” Durin called, raising his double-bladed axe in ready defence. Worried, Narví loosened her own axe from the harness on her back – she had carved the dark jade shapes herself, though the blade had been made by Khalebrimbur for her Name-Day almost two decades before; the weapon was a curious blend of their styles, but it fit her better than many others she had tried.

“Err…” the dwarf – Jara, Narví suddenly remembered – hesitated, uncertain in the face of their instant readiness for battle, but Durin nodded patiently, moving his axe to a slightly less threatening position when it became apparent that they were not under attack. “We don’t rightly know, Uzbad. We can see down to the Elves, from here, and there’s a mighty disturbance. I sent young Haki to investigate.”

“Open the Doors,” Durin commanded. “I will look upon this ‘disturbance’.” Narví nodded, her heart still beating frantically. Was this what Khalebrimbur had tried to tell her? She was no longer worried she was losing her marbles; the long journey through their vast network of tunnels and holdfasts had convinced her that she was no different in her own mind than she had been before she began hearing Khalebrimbur’s voice where his voice ought not exist. She had not yet admitted – even to herself – what she feared was the true reason behind her auditory hallucinations.

“As you command, Uzbad,” Master Warden Jara bowed, turning back to the underlings controlling the mechanism that opened the Doors from this side and barking orders. It had been kept in pristine condition, Narví noted, a distant part of her pleased with the smoothness of the opening of the Door, proof of her long labour and the ingenuity of its makers; Narví might have done the actual carving of the stone, but to her eyes, Khalebrimbur’s hand was evident everywhere in the completed project – not just the ithildin he had put on the outside.

Stepping outside, glancing at the small lake that they had constructed as a natural looking fortification – there was space for one wagon by the gate, but little more than that – Narví felt her sense of unease growing. Striding to the small promontory that overlooked the hillside and allowed her to see the trees and roofs of Ost-in-Edhil in the distance, Narví felt quite pleased with how natural her work looked, their work, seemingly a part of the landscape that had naturally formed with the raising of the Misty Mountains even if it was created only a scant counting of years ago. Patting the holly beside her – one of the elf’s crazy ideas; a way of marking their work as theirs symbolically that Narví had originally scoffed at but ended up silently pleased about – she looked down. Raising her looking glass – a recent invention by the Jeweller’s Guild and the Glassworker’s Guild that they were now squabbling over; arguing about the rights – Narví focused on the beehive of activity below. Her eyes might not be as sharp as an elf’s, nor even as good as those who manned the watch towers, but even a simple miner would have been able to see that something was wrong in Ost-in-Edhil.

“Does that look natural to you?” she asked, surprised by the tremble in her voice. Handing him the looking glass, she waited in silence until Durin had looked his fill. Her brother shook his head; his eyes were slightly better than hers, but he, too, would have been squinting without the glass.

“No, nana’, that does not look natural,” Durin sighed heavily. Pointing to something Narví couldn’t see with her naked eyes, he added, serious as a mountain-slide, “That looks like a people with little hope of victory getting ready to make a stand. They’re building fortifications.”

“Save them,” Narví whispered, “that’s what Rathukhbatshûn said; what he begged of me. Save them.”

He heard his name in Narví’s mellifluous voice. Rathukhbatshûn. She had called him that, named him in her tongue; an honour not bestowed on any elf since Finrod Felakgundu. Man with hands of ancient silver. Where Finrod’s name had been easily sindarinized, however, his was made the other way around, taking his name and turning it into a Khuzdul phrase.

Of course, she had called him other things in her tongue, too, mostly before she realised how keen his ears were, he admitted, chuckling to himself. He liked Izgilê the best, he had decided over the years they worked together. In the beginning it had been meant as a teasing nickname, the word being the Orocarnish dialect for Moon, but also meaning ‘bright silver-coloured one’ and Narví had used it first to call him blank-faced and foolish. Later, however, it had become something he didn’t quite dare name an endearment, delivered in her usual dry brusque tones but with the glimmer in her blue eyes that spoke of fondness and friendship. Now, however, he stared wildly around him, seeing only more nothingness, and wondered if he was simply dreaming her voice in his ear, dreaming to escape the tortures inflicted on him by clinging to memories of good things, memories of laughter and friendship and home… memories of love.

“I have wondered, you know,” Durin replied quietly, “but… the Eldar are not like us; they do not return to the Maker’s Halls upon leaving this life… do you think Khalebrimbur is dead?” Narví stumbled, ignoring the words as she strode back towards the mountain. Durin gazed after her for a minute, before following silently in her wake.

Khalebrimbur. This time, it wasn’t Narví, but her brother, Celebrimbor thought. He had not known the King as well as he had his Narví, of course – and still there was so much of her he didn’t know, so much he wished he had though to ask while there was still time – but he recognised the softened tones Durin only ever used with his sister. Khalebrimbur is dead? The question seemed to fill the nothingness around him, and made his non-existent heart jump into his throat. Durin had never said that; he had no reason to remember how his voice would shape those words. Staring blindly into the nothingness, Celebrimbor hoped for some clue, some way out of wherever he was. Some way back. Back to her. Even if he would spend the rest of his eternity staring at Narví, only able to speak to her in drips and drabs, he would take it over nothing.

“I want three gangbûh ready to march immediately,” Durin ordered upon their return to Khazad-dûm’s interior, his words sparking a flurry of activity as runners were sent to the nearest garrison; the Doors did not have more than a maznakkâ of permanent defenders. “We may not know what’s going on down there, but it didn’t look like happy tree dancing to me. Make sure we get an extra maznakkâ of battlefield engineers, too, I want ballistae constructed all along the Great Road.” Narví felt her spine stiffen; Durin sounded like he believed they would be at war within a week.

“What do you think is coming, nadad?” she whispered, hoping that he would chuckle and set her fears at ease.

“Whatever it is,” he replied brusquely, “if it tries to turn on us, our enemy will find that the teeth of the Mountains will break him long before he can get a taste of our axes.” Durin gave her a speaking look, and Narví knew what he did not say. If we close the Doors, seal off our Kingdom, we can be besieged for decades without feeling the bite of hunger. Winter is coming outside, however, and anyone trying to attack us then will find our Three Fathers very unfriendly. She nodded. They would save whomever they could, and then they would weather the storms as Dwarrow had done so often before; battening down the hatches and remaining within their mountains, using the cleverly disguised tunnels and watch-points to defeat their enemies, picking them off one by one.

“I’ll set extra watch posts along the road while we wait for reinforcements,” Master Warden Jara – tasked with the protection of this gateway to their halls since its first inception – replied, efficiently organising their underlings.