Slight Air and Purging Fire by mainecoon

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Chapter 14

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It had been folly to come here. Folly! Narvi longed to slam her fist against the wall, longed to feel the pain of the body, so the pain in her heart would lessen. Her home was orc-land now. These creatures were worse than cockroaches, infesting every cave and tunnel with their foul stench. Not even a prayer could be spoken in safety.

But her elven companions were full of surprises, and so they were saved for the moment. Apparently, as it turned out, because they were accompanied by a figure of Dwarrow legend.

Firehelm?, she echoed, incredulous, when Celebrimbor finally bothered to explain who had borrowed his own body to wreak havoc among their foe.

“A name of honour, given to him by your folk.” Celebrimbor grinned and raised an eyebrow at Maglor, who still looked shaken. “His Sindarin name is Maedhros. Your clan, more than the others, holds him in high regard for his friendship with King Azaghâl. Or at least they did in our time.”

Ah, don’t be smug because you know something about my people’s history that I don’t! It is not that I don’t know his name. But how can it be him?

“The dwarves remembered him?” interrupted Maglor, his voice rough. “In a good way?”

Every Broadbeam knows the tale of King Azaghâl and Firehelm the elf-lord! “Of the elven warriors, mighty was he, terrible in battle and steadfast in friendship. Forge-touched, with hand of steel and hair as molten copper, a flame fierce around his head." We have ballads of him, and what victories might have been had, but for betrayal sundering the alliances of his day. Narvi bowed low before the elven spirit, whose fierce light had diminished into a shapeless glow. I am deeply honoured to meet you, and most sincerely at your service.

The light roiled and stretched, becoming slightly opaque for the span of a heartbeat. Narvi could discern the shape of a tall person, the same she had seen once before, when Celebrimbor and Maglor had been captured on the road. Maglor drew a sharp breath, and Celebrimbor instinctively reached out to grab her shoulder. Then it, he, Maedhros, guttered like a damp candle wick and turned back into a smudge of pale air.

“I should like to hear those ballads.” Maglor's eyes were soft when he looked at the spirit. “He is my brother.”

Your brother? Narvi turned to Celebrimbor, wide-eyed. Does that mean that he’s your -

“Another uncle of mine,” Celebrimbor clarified. “We were a large family. My father is in Mandos. He is - he’s doing better than he was in the end, I think,” he added towards his uncles, and Maglor closed his eyes briefly.

Another son of Fëanor, then. Celebrimbor had told her the tale. Among their own kin they were not known as heroes.

The ballads do not say how his story ended, she said quietly. They only say that he was a great leader who fell into tragedy. I thought he had disappeared after the Great Defeat. What happened to him afterwards is lost to dwarven history.

“What a rare mercy.” A bitter smile twisted Maglor's lips. “There are few who remember us in kindness.”

Senseless slaughter, sins beyond redemption. What a bitter fall for a mighty hero! The history lessons about the Broadbeam realm of Belegost had not spoken of this.

Suddenly it occurred to her that Maglor was old enough to be part of the tale. And Celebrimbor, Celebrimbor –

Were you there, too?, she demanded. When the Union of the Free People failed?

They both nodded.

“Unfortunately, yes. It is a bad memory.” Celebrimbor laughed softly. “I had lots of them, even when we first met! It was a strange twist of fate that I survived. I came with the troops from Nargothrond. If Fingon the King hadn't been so happy to see me that he assigned me to some old friends from Hithlum, I would have died like everyone else.” He avoided Maglor's eyes. “It came close enough, as it was.”

Maglor stared at him, appalled. “We never knew you were there. Curvo would have -”

“There was nothing to be done.” Celebrimbor put a hand on Maglor’s shoulder, but he addressed the spirit; the spirit, Narvi noticed now, from whom despair and grief poured like oil from a broken barrel. It filled the cave with a taste of tears and blood. “Uncle Maedhros? There was nothing to be done.”

Firehelm’s light had almost faded, but Narvi could sense his distress. It whirled around her and pulled her in, and then she saw a laughing elf with gold in his braids, saw elves and dwarves and men burned alive or hacked to pieces, wide plains charred black and soaked with blood, a mountain of corpses, too late, too late…

That was long ago, she countered, and against Maedhros’ visions of despair she set Celebrimbor’s smile, music drifting through the gardens of Imladris, Elrond’s hand on Maglor’s shoulder. Good things have happened afterwards. The images faded, and Maedhros’ pain diminished to a dull ache.

He was never quite without it. She had felt Maglor’s aura of unhappiness before she had realized that it came from another being. But lately his ever-present grief had softened a little, in the way a starlit night was softer than the emptiness of the void.

These elves were so different from the Khazad: ancient, mythical beings that should be as remote as the stars. And yet Narvi loved and was beloved by one of them, had shared his life and bed and body, had quarrelled with him over forge work and mildew-covered objects in the pantry. Considering the strangeness that was her life, the fact that she was travelling Middle-Earth as a ghost did not seem so surprising. To Dís and Thorin and their kin, she too was a figure of legend. It was an odd realization.

I am not a minstrel, but I will teach you what I can remember of these ballads, she promised, and Maglor’s eyes lit up.

Khazad-Dûm was full of ghosts. Oh, not literal ghosts, not wandering souls like Narvi or Maedhros. Through the darkness she saw things that once were, here a flicker of torches on the walls, there the shades of people passing by. Now and then a familiar face nodded to her, “Mahal bless your beard, Master Narvi, will there be construction works in the district again?”, but when she turned towards them, they were gone. From afar came voices, the sound of metal on stone, deep humming songs. They vanished when she paid attention. The glorious realm of the Khazad – the golden roofs and silver floors, the endless wonders in ever-changing domes of rock, the home of scholars and warriors and artisans and kings -–

It was gone. It was all gone.

And it left a bottomless void. She was not of this day and age, had never been made for it. In her darkest moments, she yearned for the Halls of her Maker. At least they had not come across the site of her death; that had happened far from here, in the upper districts, bless the small mercies. She wondered what one would find beneath the boulders that had crushed her. Not her bones, surely, unless they were mummified. A few items of her gear, perhaps. The iron plates on her boots. Her wedding bead of mithril.

A wave of strength and affection soared through her undead spirit, and with it came a strong suggestion to not think of it, not quite in words but close enough. You are here, conveyed the not-words, and I with you. Not gone.

She looked up to meet Celebrimbor’s eyes, and he smiled. Hear the stone sing.

And it sung to her. The silver light of Celebrimbor's fëa bound her to the living world. His presence was a constant sparkle at the borders of her mind, much closer since their spirits had mingled and become one. Sometimes she could even hear his thoughts. It was not quite enough, not here where she longed for her family and her friends and her craft, but it was something.

“You chose to hook up with an elf lord,” Jari would have said. “Now take the cake and eat it. Whining doesn't suit you.”

Always straight to the point, Jari. They must be dead for many an age now. Narvi felt a brief surge of guilt for walking these halls while her friend was buried, but Jari would have brushed the thought aside. "I'm long dead and gone. Guilt won't bring back a burnt coal or relight a forge. Get on with you, lass, and do what needs doing."

The empty tunnels were like the bones of a rotting skeleton: Moria, they were called now, the Black Pit, and it was a fitting name. This place was stripped of all life but that of orcs and cockroaches. But still it was sacred. Still it called to her.

Narvi would not admit it to the elves unless she absolutely had to, but they had long since left the tunnels which were familiar to her. And not just to her, it seemed: no spoor of orc or other vile being had been seen for some time. Perhaps they had not found much to ransack, here in the depths; or perhaps they had been held off by some power beyond mortal understanding, for here beneath Khazad-Dûm lay the entrance to the Deep Caves, where even the Khazad did not tread.

It was plain and narrow, this entrance, and Narvi had never seen it before, but she knew it at once. The stone-song changed, became louder and deeper, even before Celebrimbor ran a hand over a sequence of plain runes on the wall.

“What do they say?”, asked Maglor into the silence.

Narvi opened her mouth, but Celebrimbor spoke first.

"Here lies the edge of Khazad-Dûm, then something I can't make out - the runes are odd and the words unfamiliar -"

They were carved in ancient times, when Khazad-Dûm was young, perhaps even by Durin the First. Narvi placed her hand beside Celebrimbor’s. They say: These ways are not for dwarrow feet, nor the stone for dwarrow mattocks, for its true shape shall not be marred. Turn back, wanderer, and leave the sacred silence of the stone undisturbed by your footsteps.

Celebrimbor frowned when she met his eyes. “We cannot turn back. They are searching for us. No doubt they have already blocked Durin’s bridge and both the East and West Gate, so -” He smiled, but it looked like a grimace. “No way to go but forward. Do you think the Mountain will forgive us, if we do not ‘mar its true shape’?”

I cannot tell. It does not feel right to disturb this place. But it is the only path we have available, so let us hope for the best.

If it was sacrilege to walk these halls, then surely Mahal would understand that they were out of options. But even if their presence was tolerated, they might still find a dead end - or a fiery one in Durin’s bane.

As they descended into the Deep Caves, the stonework became less refined, and there were no torch holders on the walls. Steep, uneven stairs led down into the darkness, until there were no stairs at all. The tunnels they walked opened into a system of caves more glorious than anything Narvi had ever laid eyes upon.

Some halls were so vast that they offered merely a promise of unimaginable wonders in the dark, here the perfect symmetry of natural columns, there the glitter of opal and ruby beneath their feet like stardust. Others were low, so that the elves had to crouch, and Narvi’s light sparkled from the walls and ceiling like a shower of diamonds. Only the drip of water disturbed the silence, as it formed the flowstones, the ever-changing work of ages, and pooled on the floor meanwhile. Shapes of foreign beauty rose out of the darkness wherever Narvi turned, frozen fountains of calcite, flower fields of delicate crystal, fine honeycombs of alabaster that may have begun being laid down when Celebrimbor was a child. For a while they walked beside a lake, black and silent beneath a high, echoing ceiling. Below the surface, luminous eyes reflected her light as pink and green gems, then quickly darted away.

True shape that should not be marred, indeed! It was not the way of the dwarrow to change that which the Maker had already completed, and surely no rock could be worked into a finer form than these.

The irregular dripping of water on stone became a familiar, almost comforting sound that accompanied them for over a day. It was Maglor who first noticed the change; he stopped in his tracks and gripped Celebrimbor's arm, ears twitching and eyes slightly wild. As they stood and listened, Narvi could hear it too, very faint, but clear: the rhythmic clonk-clonk-tap of a hammer on metal.

“Do Balrogs work in a forge?”, Celebrimbor attempted a joke, but his face was bloodless.

Maglor shook his head.

Orcs had forges. But there should not be orcs this far below the mountains. Not here, in this sacred place!

Maglor drew his sword. It did not flare blue as it did in the presence of orcs, which was a small relief. He went ahead, gesturing for Celebrimbor to keep behind. The pale blur that was Maedhros vanished from sight, but his presence followed Maglor like a shadow.

The hammering grew louder as they approached, until they reached the end of a tunnel, where wisps of smoke floated in the air and the flicker of oil lamps painted moving shadows on a rough deerskin. The entrance looked strangely domestic, misplaced in this realm of stone and silence. And someone was behind it, someone who was crafting metal – and humming with it, Narvi realized. It was the warm, deep hum of a dwarven voice.

Let me go first -, she started, but Maglor had already sheathed his sword and drawn back the skin.

The domed, circular chamber was lit by many lamps, and a large forge fire glimmered in a niche to the left. Tools and blueprints were cluttered on rough wooden tables. Beside the anvil in the centre of the room stood a burly, soot-covered dwarf.

He lowered his hammer when he saw the elves in the doorway, and his eyebrows rose, thick, ginger eyebrows that matched an impressive beard.

“Visitors are rare these days,” he greeted them in flawless Sindarin.

Maglor blinked, and blinked again.

“I can imagine,” said Celebrimbor, who had quickly recovered his wits and pushed past his uncle. “You live a bit off the road! Celebrimbor Curufinion, at your service, and this is my kinsman Makalaurë.” He bowed deeply.

The dwarf pulled off his gloves.

“Lofar,” he said, without offering his service. “Well met! Come in, you must be hungry, or two of you at least.”

Narvi and Celebrimbor exchanged a startled gaze.

Narvi Norisul, at your service, she introduced herself. I beg your forgiveness. There are few who can see me.

“Aye, but some can.” Lofar's eyes were twinkling. “And your shadowy elven friend, too. Welcome, welcome, daughter of Khazad-Dûm! Your name is familiar to me. Do you like my forge?”

It is very nice. Not the most glowing praise one could give a dwarven forge, but this forge was not particularly impressive, clearly meant for one person only. It was, for the lack of a better word, cosy. What do you craft here?

“Whatever needs crafting.” He gestured towards the anvil, and the half-finished shape upon it that looked like a small shovel. “But come now, be my guests. This way!” He drew aside another deerskin curtain in the back of the room. Celebrimbor looked from Maglor to Narvi. His smile had dropped, and now he was frowning. Narvi shared his bewilderment. No dwarf she had ever met would have welcomed a disturbance of their work by unexpected strangers. No dwarf would have been this careless and allowed them into their home.

Perhaps he was very lonely. But he had not even asked where they came from, here in the darkness below Khazad-Dûm.

The back room was as simple and cosy as the forge, but to Narvi's surprise it held a table with three chairs, and two beds with striped linens and soft, clean furs.

You have a companion?

“Oh, no.” Lofar's beard twitched. “Or not here, at least, I should say. But it is always wise to prepare for guests. You would not want to take your meal standing, would you?”

“When you say not here,” Celebrimbor said slowly, lowering himself upon a chair as if he expected it to disappear under his backside, “do you mean you come from outside? Do you know a way out?”

“A way to avoid the orcs? Yes, there is one, and I will show it to you. But first you need to rest.” He placed a tankard of ale in front of Celebrimbor, then offered a goblet of wine to Maglor.

Both elves stared at him, and Narvi’s bewilderment grew into alarm. How had he guessed their preferences?

“Sit down, Master Elf, I'm not trying to poison you. And frankly, you look half a ghost already, so we must take care that you don't become a proper one… well now. Have some bread and cheese.”

Maglor sat down gingerly and reached for the bread. Celebrimbor’s frown deepened.

“I'm not hungry.”

Lofar shook his head, a slow, deliberate gesture. “Oh, I think you are. But you won't take food from a too-friendly hand because you expect it to strike, poor creature.” He reached out and put one of his large hands around Celebrimbor's; and Narvi, who had expected her husband to draw back, felt to her surprise that his breathing slowed.

He looked at the stranger with large, uncertain eyes.

“How do you know?”

“Merely from experience.” Lofar patted Celebrimbor's hand before he let go. “What brings you here, Narvi Norisul, with your elvish companions?”

A quest, but I can't speak of it to strangers. She, at least, would behave like a dwarf. We meant to pass through Khazad-Dûm and emerge in Azanulbizar. But we had a run-in with orcs.

He nodded, unsurprised. “Sauron's filth is all over Middle Earth these days. But you're safe here. Tonight, you can sleep in this room, and tomorrow I will show you the way out.” He chuckled when he saw Celebrimbor's expression, but his eyes were solemn. “Your spirit friends will keep watch, so you don't have to trust me! But I mean you no harm. I am merely an inventor who comes here at times, for the atmosphere. I find it inspiring.”

An eccentric genius, then? That explained a few things, if not all. Maybe he had been expelled from his clan and was now a homeless wanderer like Maglor. If so, it would be unacceptable to ask after his kinfolk.

Celebrimbor eyed the cheese with a wistful expression. Lofar was right; after the strain of the last few days, he needed food. But there was no way Narvi could persuade him to take it from a suspicious stranger. Annatar had seen to that.

Maglor dipped a bread crust into his wine, though he was hardly more at ease. Perhaps he had learned to take food where he found it. For a while they lingered, undecided, while Lofar spoke with passion of the Deep Caves, mostly undiscovered, as he said - no doubt thanks to Durin’s bane, which he had heard of but never seen. He was highly interested in the technical finesse of Narvi’s work, since he was an expert on the field of mechanics and engineering. By the time he sketched the draft of a mechanical airship onto a piece of parchment, Maglor’s head had sunken onto the table. Celebrimbor’s eyes were drooping, and Narvi…

Narvi felt at ease. All their troubles and woes were meaningless, and she floated on a pool of light with the stars of Kheled-zâram in her eyes. Airships. How ingenious. Someone should try to put this theory into practice, but she had already forgotten exactly how it was supposed to work.

“You must rest now,” said Lofar’s voice, and there was power in his words but Narvi could not bring herself to care. Celebrimbor rose with unusual obedience and stumbled towards a bed, where he collapsed. Maglor was slumped over the table, succumbed at last to total exhaustion. Their host gathered him in his arms and carried him to the other bed. It should have been a strange sight, but it was not, for Lofar had grown large and strong like a boulder, or maybe Maglor had shrunken into the form of a child. For some reason this did not unsettle Narvi at all. Airships. The stars of Kheled-zâram. A voice older than the mountain itself.

The last thing she remembered was how Lofar brushed a hand over Maglor’s brow and covered Celebrimbor’s sleeping form with a blanket.

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Chapter End Notes

Papertigress helped me shape this chapter into its "true form", or at least something that resembles it far more than the first draft I sent to her! Special credits to her for the little excerpt from a dwarven ballad, and for the honeycombs of alabaster. (I love the image.) At this point I made a little change in an earlier chapter, namely chapter 10. I decided to make Narvi's best friend Jari nonbinary, because they refused to be categorized and suddenly it was a very obvious choice. (Less a choice than something I discovered about the character.)
But it seemed a bad cliche to have them die in the plot that killed Narvi. I groused about this, and papertigress pointed out that, since I'm the author, I could simply not kill them off like that. So I didn't. But since Narvi mentions their death in chapter 10, Celebrimbor now points out that they survived.