Slight Air and Purging Fire by mainecoon

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Chapter 12

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Land of holly, land of silver. Sweet glades where purple heather quivered in the summer breeze, and clear brooks that rippled around pebbles of light brown and mossy green. Caves deep and rich of gems, covered by curtains of ivy and weeds. Rolling hills shone golden in the sunset: on the other side, not far, the majestic profile of Celebdil.

On the slopes around a valley, surrounded by holly trees, there once rose a city. High were the towers upon the hills, so when the weather was fair and the mists had cleared, the view reached all the way to the High Falls of Khazad-Dûm. Fair were the archways and the bridges that crossed the River Sirannon, made of marble and granite in eggshell white, and the little plazas and fountains hidden within a maze of buildings and greenery. In the heart of the city stood the domed rotunda of the House of the Jewel-Smiths, where smoke of white and grey rose from the forges, and elven speech was mingled with deep dwarven voices and the never-ceasing song of metal and stone.

Celebrimbor searched until his hands were bleeding from the bramble thickets and his hair was tangled with burrs. Then he fell to his knees and wept.

Nothing was left of Ost-in-Edhil. There were no ruins, no withered stones carved by an elven hand. Poppies blossomed where once stood the House of the Mírdain, on the very spot where he had fought his last desperate battle. Not a single cobblestone remained from the market place, once filled with voices and laughter, lit with silver lanterns for the midsummer feast. Not far from the guild-house had been his own halls, built in Noldorin fashion that echoed the grace of Tirion; not a fortress, for he had lived too long in those, but airy and inviting and of stunning beauty. He had seen them burn before the end. Now not even the ashes remained. All they had built and worked for was long gone, ravaged and destroyed and then unmade by millennia of rain and wind, overgrown with grass and trees and flowers. Even the river was merely a shallow brook, not the stream it once used to be.

He had meant to preserve that which was loved. He had only helped to unmake it faster.

Narvi stood beside him, unmoving as the rock, wordless in her own sorrow. Long they remained there on the banks of the Sirannon, while the sun sparkled on the water and only the faint call of the kingfisher mingled with the gurgle of the waves.

Eventually Maglor dropped to Celebrimbor’s side and put an arm around his shoulders. “Not forgotten,” he said, answering for the first time Celebrimbor’s thoughts rather than his words. “I hear the lament of stone and water. The Sirannon still grieves for your people. But I feel joy too. The land remembers you and welcomes you home.”

“My home is gone,” said Celebrimbor, and he knew that both Maglor and Narvi understood his anguish because neither of them had a home to come back to.

“The land still remembers,” Maglor repeated. “Let us be on our way now. It does not do to dwell on misery.”

That’s rich, coming from you, muttered Narvi.

Maglor’s eyes widened when he looked at her. Apparently he had not considered what it meant for him to say these words, and he seemed unsure how to feel about it. Perhaps, Celebrimbor thought with a swift sparkle of hope, perhaps the millennia of guilt and despair were slowly losing their grip on his uncle. That was a good thing. It might not be much, compared to what they had lost, but it was enough to make him rise and turn his face once more into the direction of Khazad-Dûm.

“We told the mares to run when it became clear that we would lose,” Maglor explained to Narvi as they made their way on foot through the forests towards the Dwarven realm. “Orcs eat horse flesh. But they will find their way back to Imladris.”

“It is as well, since we can’t take the main road. And we could not have taken them into Khazad-Dûm.”

Celebrimbor tried for an encouraging smile, because indeed it was all for the best. Bumblebee was safer in Imladris. The horses’ return would upset Elrond, especially because they still carried most of the baggage, but there was nothing to be done about it now. And it was certainly better that they had to avoid the great road to Khazad-Dûm, except for the stairs at the High Falls: it would not do to dig deeper into memories he would rather leave undisturbed.

But in his heart, he missed his chestnut friend. All the way from Círdan’s halls she had given him comfort in the steady, undemanding way that only the affection of an animal can offer.

That is as well, said Narvi. I worried about the poor beast. Not more, mind you, than I worried about her master.

Ah. That.

“You saved our lives, Narvi,” offered Celebrimbor. “I do not know how to thank –“

I worried about her master running off like a dwarfling into an unstable mithril mine.

“I thought you were right behind me! Surely you must see that there is reason to make haste.”

No.

“Excuse me?”

No. There was no reason to drop everything and run into Sauron’s open arms. What are you planning to do? Challenge him to single combat?

Maglor drew a sharp breath.

“If I have to,” Celebrimbor muttered, although he did not mean it.

“And if it is Balrogs?” Maglor’s words were soft, but a gust of frozen wind prickled on Celebrimbor’s face. “What then?”

Celebrimbor stopped in his tracks and looked from one to the other. Maglor had turned pale, and the light in his eyes flared brightly. Narvi watched him as she had first watched Annatar when the traitor had been a guest in their home: unsmiling, distrustful, calculating.

Suddenly he found it very hard to speak.

“I am not my grandfather,” he managed. Narvi’s eyebrows rose. Maglor shook his head, slowly.

“You look like him,” his uncle said in the same soft voice, “and now you act like him as well. I worry.”

“I only wish to –“

To fight the embodiment of evil? To take revenge for the hurt inflicted on himself and his people?

To take back what was his?

He drew his cloak tighter around his shoulders, for he shivered in the warmth of the summer day, and without another word he turned towards the mountain again.

Narvi came to him late one night when they had made a camp near the foot of the High Falls. They hid now more carefully than before, which was why they had retreated into one of Eregion’s many natural caves. Maglor had settled behind a few large boulders that concealed the entrance, looking out under a curtain of fern with an absent look in his eyes. It looked almost like he was in reverie, but Celebrimbor had seen his ears twitch at the rustle of a badger in the bushes.

Deeper in the cave, in a hiding-place that would suit a dwarf, Celebrimbor had wrapped himself in his cloak. They had lost their bedrolls, and though the nights were warm, he found the layer of clothing a comfort. Sleep eluded him, but they would wait for the day to travel again.

Tell me about Fëanor.

Narvi had drifted towards him without a sound. When he looked up he saw her sitting with her back against the rock, running strong but insubstantial fingers across the surface. Her handsome face was calm and very serious.

Celebrimbor closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall.

“He has a bad name among my kin,” he admitted after a pause.

Why?

“Because he went to war.”

Narvi waited, wordlessly. Celebrimbor sighed.

“He was the greatest creator of my people,” he explained, deliberately choosing words that a Khazad would understand. “Morgoth stole the work of his heart and murdered his father. Fëanor swore revenge.”

Any dwarf would have done the same.

“Perhaps. But this was a terrible oath. He condemned himself to everlasting darkness if he should fail; himself and all his sons, in the name of the One. It drove them to war against their own folk.”

Narvi's fingers stilled.

Maglor?

“Yes. And my father, and all their brothers. They all swore with him.”

Narvi looked past him toward the entrance, where Maglor’s shadow was unmoving in the moonlight. He could probably hear them, even if he chose to ignore it. Did they succeed?

Celebrimbor shook his head. Narvi reached out to grab a pebble, but her fingers passed through it, and she frowned.

“I don’t know what will become of them,” Celebrimbor admitted. “I saw my father in Mandos. But they have never been pardoned. Their deeds…” He chuckled, but it tasted bitter on his tongue. “Their deeds will be the matter of song until the last days of Arda. So Fëanor foretold it, and so it has come.” Narvi huffed, and he reached for her transparent hand, pretending to curl his own around it. “I’m sorry. I know Maglor is your friend.”

He is. And I am sorry about your father. But you were telling me about Fëanor.

Fëanor, the Darkening, and how it had all begun: how could he ever find the words to tell her? Why had he not told her already, his strong, steadfast, beautiful mate, who had shared all else of him?

“I wanted to keep you away from this,” he said. “Away from the Doom of the Noldor. To evil end shall all things come that they begin well. The dispossessed they shall be forever!” He laughed without mirth. “And it came true, did it not? I thought it would spare my mortal wife at least! I thought we could begin anew when the war was over and the Silmarils were gone…”

He paused for breath. Narvi did not speak, but she lifted a hand and ran her fingers over his cheek, gently, so he could almost feel the callouses on her palm. Belatedly he realized that she was trying to wipe his tears away.

“I’m sorry, melmenya,” he whispered. “You married a doomed man. It was unforgivable to keep this from you.”

Your family seems to have a record of unforgivable deeds, she said, and rested her ghostly hand on his cheek. Did it ever occur to your lot that you could ask for forgiveness?

He shook his head, unable to speak. She crouched over him and cupped his face in both hands. For a long moment she held him, her face so very close, her deep, dark eyes, her strong nose and cheekbones, the coarse dark beard: all transparent and without substance. But still she leaned in and kissed him. He felt the faint brush of her lips, the memory of a scent, smoke and pipe weed and cedar oil, and his fëa called out for her dwarven spirit, to reach for him as she had once before. Amralizu, he heard her voice, a fierce whisper that turned into a Khazad chant and resonated in the depths of his mind, amralizu, and then he sensed her again, purging fire and echoing caves and ithildin, ithildin, the radiant reflection of stars and moonlight and the silver of Telperion. He let himself fall as she called him, until he drowned in her light, until their fëas mingled as only elvish minds could, never those of Khazad and Elf, not even in intimate union: but now she was strong, and everything she was flowed through him until they could hardly tell which parts were elf and which were dwarf, because they were one.

Amralizu, sang the one. Nalyë melmë cuilenyo.

Not all of it was light; there was the taste of metal and screams in the dark, the long weary grief of loss after loss after loss, and a faint brush of something slimy, like poisonous algae in the emerald mines and that thought felt familiar. But it was all part of the whole, swirling shadows in a pattern of brightness and silver and bittersweet joy.

But they were still separate souls, and so eventually they drifted apart, each slowly drawing back into their own self. Celebrimbor blinked and clenched his fingers experimentally. He felt light-headed. This was what his elven friends had praised – Galadriel mainly, but Erestor as well – and they had pitied him, even though they never said so, because the experience would be forever beyond his reach. But now it was not, and he wanted to sing with joy. Beside him Narvi’s form shone fiercer than he had ever seen her, a vibrant echo of the light that still pulsed through his being. For the first time since her death, her smile was radiant.

For a while they rested side by side, quietly reveling in the wonder of what had been given to them. Then Narvi placed a hand on his heart.

Tell me all, she said. About Fëanor.

For a long time she was quiet when he had spoken. Finally, finally he had found the words: not always the right ones, and some were near impossible to speak, but now he had draped the whole tapestry before her like the weavings of Vairë, a picture of horror and despair, of cruelty and doom and shattered dreams – and yet of beauty, somewhere beyond all that, of unfulfilled longing and a hope that could never be broken. Now she knew it all, and he felt strangely relieved.

Narvi leaned against the rock, as she always did when in need of comfort, and her thumb drew touchless circles on Celebrimbor’s wrist.

I do not understand it all, she admitted. But it feels like before, all I could see was the glimmer of ruby in a wall of granite, and now I am holding the gem in my palm.

“It is not a precious gem.”

It is ruby. Red as blood. She ran her hands across her face. I never heard the full tale of the Cursed Necklace of Tumunzahar. My folk tells it in a different way.

“If you want the full tale, you will have to ask Maglor. But it would not be kind on him.”

I see why he did what he did. Narvi met his eyes, calmly studying the surprise that must be showing on his face. To my folk, the work of our hands is sacred. We do not forgive its theft. The Silmarils belonged to Fëanor.

“Yes. They did.” Celebrimbor frowned, suddenly feeling that he was treading on very thin ice. “But my people know no greater sin than kinslaying.”

Oh, do they not? Narvi watched him thoughtfully. Dwarves have often made war on other dwarves. What do you think would have happened if someone had stolen Durin’s greatest treasure from a thief and claimed it as their own?

The question was frightfully easy to answer. It was ill-advised to come between a dwarf and their property, even if the dwarf happened to be one’s own wife.

Of course, Narvi continued without waiting for an answer, if Durin had made war on them first to steal their treasure, there would have been a demand for wergild. A proper demand, mind you, not another theft in return. In severe cases, there might have been a revenge expedition.

“Alqualondë.” Celebrimbor sighed. “I know. My people were desperate, but that does not excuse what they did.”

They stole the other elves’ treasure…

“… and killed them!”

Well, of course, people die in a battle! They stole their treasure, and then they destroyed it. How could they destroy it?

Celebrimbor could only shrug. There had been reasons, but none of them were easy to explain; especially not to someone whose cultural values differed so wildly from his own. Perhaps it was best that they had met in times of peace.

“Do dead people matter less to you than treasure?” There was no way to put this gently.

She watched him for a long, silent moment.

We set boundaries and demand of others to respect them. This is why we have so many laws and regulations. Yes , she nodded decisively, I see why Fëanor was a problem.

So apparently his family’s vilest crimes were not the Oath and the kinslaying, but the theft and burning of the swan ships? Trust the Khazad to turn the plainest truth on its head.

“The effect remains the same,” he said, rubbing his neck where his muscles started to ache. “We were doomed. And we are not Khazad. Things are different for us.”

Apparently. It was a cruel judgement, cruel and useless. It made matters worse, not better. How many innocents died because of it? She gave him a short, barking laugh. And you say we don’t place enough value on actual lives!

“I never said that. And incidentally, I agree with you.”

I know. Forgive me. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the stone again. I never imagined the Valar as merciless. Certainly not Mahal. I still cannot believe he is.

“There is no way for us to tell.” Celebrimbor remembered the Vala of Earth and Fire, remembered the wonders he had seen and the skills he had learned. The memories awoke a deep longing in his heart, a longing that was the very reason why Annatar had charmed him so easily.

Narvi spoke no more after this. She remained at his side but lost in thought, and he followed the path of his own musings until the night ended.

Dusk fell again after a long day of travel when they finally ascended the stairs at the High Falls – old stairs, broken stairs, but at least they were still there; unused for millennia, but hewn into the rock by dwarven mattocks in places were soft earth was too sparse to cover it. When Celebrimbor had last climbed these stairs, in the company of Khazad who were now long returned to stone, of elves who died under orcish blades not much later, the rock had been well-kept, the path flanked with lanterns that had sometimes been lit at night and painted a glowing pattern on the mountainside. The lanterns were gone now, as were the people he remembered, and the mighty falls now trickled in rivulets down the rocks.

From the top of the stairs, a shallow valley led towards the towering walls of Khazad-Dûm. It was now mostly filled by a lake, but not a crystal mountain lake as Kheled-zâram: dark and sinister it lay in the shadows. A foul smell arose from its waters: algae, perhaps, but likely something more sinister. Only a narrow, slippery edge of stone was left to walk upon along the side of the mountain. Across the lake, the ancient holly trees still marked the location of their gate.

Narvi stood still as a statue when she saw it and would not move for a long while. A wave of guilt made Celebrimbor’s stomach turn. In his determination to cross the Misty Mountains, he had decided that they would enter her lost home, the desecrated realm of her people, where the dust of her own bones lay scattered under tons of granite. She had accepted it in silence, but he should have known; he should have known! For the valley in their times had been a bustling place that saw traders and fighters, craftspeople and musicians. Elven jewel-smiths with the traditional braids of the Mírdain would walk beside dwarven goat-herds returning from their labour with their packs full of fresh hides, smoked meat and cheese. The trumpets would sound from the gates to greet guests and citizens of status.

In dim light of dusk, the valley now lay abandoned: no trumpet sounded through the evening breeze, no elven song brightened the eerie call of the crows.

Maglor shuffled his feet and broke the silence.

“I have never been here,” he said, “and I wish no offence to you, Narvi: I should have liked to see this place in the times of Khazad-Dûm’s glory. But evil has befallen it now. It cannot be trusted.”

The orcs overran the valley when Eregion fell, she snapped. The doors were never opened again.

Celebrimbor closed his eyes and tried not to picture the scene.

For a moment he considered turning back. If they walked along the dwarven path, they might reach Imladris undetected. They could hold council with…

… with one Maia whom he did not trust, and one who was clearly hungry for power.

He needed the rings. No one else must get to them first.

“Come,” he said. “Let us open the gate.”

Speak friend and enter.

The ancient metal hummed under Celebrimbor’s hands. He called it to life with long-lost words, and it answered him, him and the light of the moon that had risen over the peaks of Celebdil. For the first time in four thousand years the threads of ithildin flared up brightly, more radiant than the crystal lamps in the Halls of Khazad-Dûm.

The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria.

Speak friend and enter.

I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Eregion drew these signs.

She stood at his side with a hand on his arm, as she had when they beheld their creation for the very first time. Ithildin did not fade with the ages. The metal itself was broken in places, but not the picture of light it shaped. The crown of Durin and the stars of Kheled-zâram, the hammer and anvil, the Two Trees; and right between them, the Star of Fëanor.

A hand rested on his shoulder, a living hand, more tangible than the brush of Narvi’s presence. Maglor offered no words, knew that none were fitting; but his mind touched Celebrimbor’s for a rare, fleeting moment, awe and grief and wonder merged into an intricate melody. It took Celebrimbor a moment to realize that the music was not only in his thoughts. Maglor raised his voice in song, and it was a wordless lament for the Khazad, for Celebrimbor and Narvi, and for the House of Fëanor.

When the last echo had faded, Celebrimbor looked at Narvi. She met his eyes, and though she looked calm, he knew that if she were alive, there would be tears on her face. Without another word she nodded.

He stepped back to see the gate one more time, to treasure the image in his memory, in all its wonder and sorrow.

“Mellon,” he spoke.

And the Doors opened.

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Chapter End Notes

"Amralizu" means "I love you" in Khuzdul. Translating the same into Quenya was more difficult than I thought, since apparently there are multiple translations which aren't interchangeable. "Nalyë melmë cuilenyo" appears to mean "You are the love of my life". If someone knows better, feel free to correct me.