Slight Air and Purging Fire by mainecoon

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Chapter 5

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Much as Narvi had felt the urge to explore the Halls of the Ered Luin, she had not done so until Celebrimbor was absorbed in his forge work for Dís. The recounting of his tale the prior night had brought him a series of violent nightmares, after which he could not return to sleep. Eventually he had taken out his sketchbook to draw, while Maglor continued his eerie harp-play, his eyes unfocused as though they were looking into a world no one else could see. Narvi had felt uncomfortable in leaving them to their own devices, and so she had stayed.

What a bunch of misfits we are, she had thought bitterly as she watched over them, two shabby elf-lords lodging in a sparse chamber that belonged to a descendant of kings. It is not just these dwarves who are a shadow of their glorious past.

The following morning she left Celebrimbor and his uncle in the safety of the small workshop to finally investigate the caves inside the mountain.

There was not much to see.

She had told herself not to expect a second Khazad-Dûm. It had been folly to think that the buildings on the plateau were only an outpost, that the depth of the mountain was home to a splendid kingdom which befit the heirs of Durin. And there were halls, aye, made by skilled craftspeople. There were homesteads and forges, better than the one outside, and mines that held iron and coal. The dwarves who lived here were not less skilled, less dedicated, less dwarven than their ancestors. But the conditions they lived under were appalling.

She had seen treasure in her dreams; where had it gone to? Was there another realm that housed the line of Durin, one, perhaps, with a more direct claim to the crown? Yet even if these lords were a of lesser branch, how could they not even have the most basic standards in tools and forge-craft? Why were their tunnels dark and their quarters humble, why did all their goods look self-made with little evidence of trade, where were the precious metals and gemstones they needed for their craft - and was the small chamber filled with books and scrolls all that was left of Khazad-Dûm's library?

Panic seized her as she wandered the halls, ever searching for a hidden gateway that concealed all the wonders she recalled. She found none. Eventually she had to admit that she was fooling herself: These people were poor, and nothing in their attire suggested otherwise. The glory of Khazad-Dûm was truly gone.

And gone with it were the people she held dear. Every single dwarf she had ever known was long lost. Her parents had died before her own life had ended so suddenly, but there had been her brother Northri with his bright smile and shrewd wisdom, and Nyr, his wife, who had carried the gilded axe of Durin's guard, and their children, barely of age as she last recalled. There was her best friend Jari, who had offered a very decisive opinion on her taste in bedfellows and given Celebrimbor some trouble that was not wholly undeserved. Regin and Vit, who had worked at her side for many decades. Buri, the black-haired healer who had broken hearts both male and female. So many names, so many faces, an entire lifetime of memories.

Their names forgotten, the work of their hands lost, their tombs covered by the dust of four thousand years.

"If the Ring of Durin is in your father's keeping," Celebrimbor asked Dís sometime later in the forge, "then I assume he is his legitimate heir? You are a member of the royal family, are you not?"

"It seems that I am not the only one who takes risks." Dís leant against her workbench and glowered at him. "That doesn't concern you in the slightest."

"Forgive me. It is merely my wish to understand what happened. Khazad-Dûm was dear to my heart, but I know of its fate..."

"In which your people took no interest, as it were."

"I am truly sorry." Celebrimbor looked distraught. Narvi remembered vague images from her death-dreams: Shadow and flame that arose from the depths, warriors who faced it and were trod underfoot, fleeing dwarrows, a dying king. Surely the elves must have done something?

"Eregion was no more, or we would have come to your aid," Celebrimbor said quietly. "But it cannot be undone. It has fallen to the orcs now... and the other one, the golden mountain in the East..."

Dís face darkened, and for a while she stared straight ahead, caught in bitter memories.

"Erebor was my home," she said, shortly. "We lost it to a dragon. This is all we have left." Her lips twisted into a hard, bitter smile. "Our elven neighbours came and watched," she added. "They did not help us. We had lost our home and all our possessions; we needed food and medical aid. But we were left to fend for ourselves."

So it was true.

Had her people not suffered enough when a demon of Angband had driven them from their home? The glory of Khazad-Dûm had been crafted for ages beyond count, back in her days when the crystalline lights of the realm had been undimmed, when marvels were forged in the depths and mithril glittered in the mines, and music rang far and wide beneath the mountains. Now all that was left was a handful of caves, sparsely inhabited by a grim and bitter folk.

Celebrimbor opened his mouth to speak, but found no words. He closed his eyes with a pained expression before he looked up and straight at Narvi. Oh, how she wished to be alone with him now! The comfort of his body was denied to her, but to talk to him now, to share the burning grief that must consume them both...

For a moment she believed he would address her without any regard for privacy, but a soft voice interrupted him before he could speak.

"A dragon?"

All turned to look at Maglor, whom they had entirely forgotten, for he had been quietly occupying a chair in the corner of the forge and not uttered a single word all morning. Now he was staring at Dís with wide eyes.

"I remember a dragon," he whispered. "It came in the night. We were not prepared, there was no time to evacuate. Our fortress was engulfed in flames... there is no telling how many burned with it."

Dís drew a sharp breath. "Our tunnels were crushed when pillars on the upper levels were knocked down the greater stairways," she said softly. "There was smoke everywhere, and choked cries, and my father and brother were missing..."

Dust in her lungs and rock crashing from the ceiling, her ears ringing from the explosion - Narvi reeled as a wave of her own memories hit her, then Jari screamed and she tried to run, but...

"The air smelled of burning flesh," said Maglor, "and the beast itself was a living nightmare, worse even than a Balrog..."

"Our guards tried to fight it, but they were burned alive! My mother tried to shield me, but I saw."

"I was the Lord of my people, so I fought among my warriors. I don't remember how I survived... there were so few of us left, and we fled to -."

Maglor broke off with a pained sound. For a moment dwarf and elf stared at each other, not in sympathy but incredulous understanding, while the horror they remembered filled the room with a phantom scent of smoke and char. Then Dís blinked and shook her head, as if pulling herself from a reverie. The metal beads in her beard jingled softly.

"Who are you, kinsman of Silverfist?" she wondered. "You look like a hermit, yet you say you were a Lord."

Maglor's face twitched as though he had tasted something bitter.

"That was long ago," he evaded. "It is better that I am forgotten."

"You never reclaimed your home, then?" There was compassion in her voice, and longing. Maglor laughed, a short, joyless sound.

"No, Master Dwarf," he said curtly. "I have no home."

Dís made a quick, aborted gesture, as if she wanted to grasp his wrist in kinship but thought better of it. Her thick fingers flexed in thought before she picked up a piece of wire which she bent and twisted absently. Narvi was distracted from her own lingering horror by the distress that flooded the room and made her head spin. She heard a voice, wailing, terrible in its anger and grief, and there was a presence - she was sure she had felt it before... Bewildered, Narvi reached out with all of her senses, but it had already slipped away. No one else in the room seemed to have noticed. Maglor had slumped in his chair and buried his face in his hands, while Celebrimbor stood by his uncle's side and was rubbing his back. Her husband was talking in the old language now, urgently, but she could not understand him.

Dís looked from one to the other, clearly pondering the unexpected revelation.

"Better days may come for us yet," she said eventually, but there was no mirth in her words. "For all of us."

A dragon, then. Somewhere the glorious halls Narvi had seen in her death-dreams still stood, abandoned, filled with the stench of the beast and the burned remains of those who had died in its flames. Somewhere at least some of the treasures of her people were hoarded, jealously guarded by a creature of evil.

Tell them about Khazad-Dûm , she bade her husband, when she found the heart to speak. Tell them all you remember. They have a right to know what wonders their ancestors wrought. They should hear the tales we knew and shared.

For hours they sat by the fireplace in the underground room where they had first been introduced to Dis, and Celebrimbor talked until his throat was raw: of the founding guilds of Khazad-Dum, of mining lore and the treatment of mithril, of ancient songs and stories long lost in the mists of time. With painful longing Narvi listened as his voice evoked the mighty halls that were her home, ornate pillars that held a golden ceiling almost too high to behold, floors of silver that glittered in the crystalline light of a million lamps, mighty forges in the deep where the hands of her people wrought mithril and ruby and diamond into artifacts of nameless beauty. Lost they were now, but not in memory; it was fitting that he gave them back to their people, so that they knew of their heritage. And listen they did. At first it was only Dís and her kinsmen, but as word seemed to spread, more and more dwarrows filled the room until there was hardly any room left to sit on the floor. Some had brought their craft to work as they listened, others scraps of parchment or slates on which they scribbled down what they heard. A barrel of ale was opened when the hour grew late, bread and dried meat made the round, and someone took a fiddle off the wall to play again an ancient tune no-one had heard for thousands of years. Only Maglor said nothing, but sat quietly on his chair and watched his nephew with sad, thoughtful eyes.

The sun had long set when the travellers returned to the dwelling that had been appointed to them. Celebrimbor had been almost cheerful during the gathering, but sobered immediately when the crowd dispersed. Narvi could tell that something was weighing on his mind, and she did not have to wait long to hear his concerns.

"Do you regret that you chose to return?" he whispered when he was curled up in his dwarven bed, hidden under several blankets. Little privacy they were granted these days, and Narvi missed their casual conversations, but lately Celebrimbor had begun to talk to her regardless of Maglor's presence. Maglor pretended not to notice. In turn Celebrimbor ignored his uncle's low mutterings deep in the night, though surely he understood more of them than Narvi.

Narvi took a moment to consider his request.

No, she admitted then. I pledged myself to you, and by that I stand. But I'll admit that I never expected this much ruin.

"Neither did I," he said unhappily. "Do you think it was the ring, Narvi? Do you think they could have..."

Could you be silent about the rings for one moment , she cut him off, irritated by his ever-present guilt in the face of her sorrow. You heard Dís. It was a dragon. There are more demons in this world than yours.

He turned his face away from her, just the way he had when they had been engaged in petty domestic arguments. She fumed silently for a moment, as had been her usual reaction. But this time their battle of wills was cut short when he deflated in a long breath that sounded like a sob. "Forgive me," he whispered. "So much of what we knew is gone. I am not sure of our place in this world. But," and she could hear the smile in his words, "we will see what we can do, won't we? We will find Dís' father. We'll destroy Durin's ring, and then maybe we can..."

He broke off with a frown, digging himself deeper into the blanket. "Find..." he said very softly, "and destroy..."

A prickling feeling of unease itched in the back Narvi's mind. She pushed it away. It was only natural if he was a little preoccupied with those rings right now. There was no reason at all to worry.

They remained in the settlement for a week: seven days filled mostly with forge work, under the scrutinizing gazes of silent and distrustful dwarrow-folk. Narvi had many ideas to improve the settlement's comforts, and under her tutelage Celebrimbor made sketches and tools for the craftspeople to implement. Thus even those who liked him little began to respect him, while Dís, once, remarked in wonder that there might well be a dwarf somewhere in his lineage. His bashfulness at the compliment was very fetching and a slight consolation to Narvi, who had never longed so bitterly to touch the living world with her own hands. Oh, if she could remain here for a few years, to make detailed plans and supervise the work!

At night, Celebrimbor still tossed and moaned in his sleep; and often, when there was not work nor tales to distract him, all cheer faded from his soul and his eyes became haunted and empty. But being in the company of a folk he loved dearly lifted his spirits, if only temporarily. He basked in the goodwill of those who were forthcoming toward him, especially Varli, son of Borli, who bore little resentment and great curiosity for his teachings. "For a dead man, you have a damn steady hand, Master Elf," he told Celebrimbor once in the forge. "How did you say you get that steel so thin?"

Both elves were guests in Varli's home on the last evening they intended to impose on the hospitality of the dwarrows. The Broadbeam blacksmith was no Erebor dwarf, but native to the Ered Luin. His family owned small but cozy chambers in the living areas inside the mountain. Usually, he explained to Celebrimbor while he led his guests through the tunnel system of the upper levels, he shared them with his younger sister and her partner, but both were away to trade their wares. The dwarrow was a cheerful soul who knew many a tale and song; and some of those, as Narvi noted when the first tankards were emptied, were not intended for polite company. Celebrimbor appeared to enjoy himself immensely, while Maglor sat on his bench, stiff as a mattock, until he spotted a fiddle in the corner and asked to be shown its use. Not much later Dìs walked in without knocking, kicked off her boots and demanded an ale. She gave the fiddling elf a doubtful look, but refrained from commenting.

"I can't convince you to stay longer?" she asked instead.

"Your hospitality is greatly cherished," said Celebrimbor, "but no, we must be on our way. I told you about the purpose I have... it's a quest, if you will. I shouldn't abandon it so soon."

"Everybody is going on quests these days," Varli grunted, carelessly dunking a piece of bread into the honey pot. "Except for those who have to keep things going around here."

Dís shot him a withering glare. "Some of them don't know when to keep their mouths shut," she growled.

"Aye, aye." Varli shrugged, not looking particularly apologetic. "Just sayin'. Could have gone on a quest myself, if it hadn't been for the stubbornness of…"

"Give our guest another ale, will you?" Dís shoved Celebrimbor's tankard at him. "And don't bore him with stuff that doesn't concern him."

There was a story behind this, Narvi knew, and not one the elves were meant to hear. The uncomfortable silence that followed was broken by a sharp snapping noise.

"I am terribly sorry," Maglor said in his slow, accented speech. "I seem to have broken a string."

Varli jumped to his feet to help him, while Dís stared into her tankard and slowly shook her head.

Both dwarves proved great stamina when it came to dwarven beverage. Narvi had only slightly begun to worry about Celebrimbor when Maglor dragged him off to bed, mumbling about elflings who couldn't hold their liquor, and how no one should expect him to clean the consequences off the floor, he'd done that often enough. Perhaps Celebrimbor's drunken poetry had offended his uncle's artistic sensibilities. Varli, on the other hand, had been delighted. Back in the days of Khazad-Dûm, Narvi thought morosely, he and her dwarf-loving husband would have been fast friends.

They departed the following morning, well stocked in supplies and fed with a generous breakfast. Dís awaited them at an entrance to the caves that connected the settlement to the outer world. It was not the same they had used before, so they hoped to slip away without alerting their foes.

"Farewell, Silverfist," she told Celebrimbor, "may our paths cross again." And she gave him a scroll, which, when unrolled, revealed a detailed map of the lands between the Ered Luin and Erebor. It also provided an overview concerning present-day borders and alliances, including the human settlements with which the dwarrow had traded. "Should you be captured by fell things," Dís said with a gleam of humour in her eye, "I shall expect you to either eat this or bleed thoroughly over it to obscure our paths and ways."

Celebrimbor grinned back and affected a flourishing bow of old. "With my heart's blood, master dwarrow!" he affirmed. "And we shall do our utmost to find your father. Until then, may your mines be rich and your beards be blessed."

She nodded and turned to Maglor, who had been watching silently. "Take heart, Lord from the West," she said. "Our story is not over, and neither is yours."

Maglor blinked a few times, clearly at a loss. Narvi began to suspect that he had not received such friendly words in a very long time. When he found no reply, Celebrimbor put an arm around his narrow shoulders. "I should hope so," he said. "But now we must be going. Farewell, my friend." And he took his horse's reins to follow their guide into the tunnel.

The wild apple trees were in full bloom when they reached the river Baraduin, which would lead them North-East towards the gentle hills of the Shire. Narvi had not paid much attention to the passing of the seasons before she had met Celebrimbor, but being married to an elf, even a Noldo, meant regular exposure to lyrical talks about nature and the beauty of creation. Celebrimbor had loved the fresh buds on leafless trees, the first crocuses painting the glades of Eregion yellow and blue, and the birdsong that heralded the end of winter. They were a reminder, he used to say with a distant look in his eye, that new things can grow from a world that is barren. Now he hardly paid any heed to it. Perhaps it was hard to think of renewal with memories of torture still bleeding into his mind.

They followed the river upstream through rolling hills and ancient forests, across wide open plains and sweet sunlit glades. Never in her life had Narvi travelled so far, nor had she seen such a changing landscape as she beheld during their journey. It was not the way of the Khazad to find beauty in the things that grew, but even she would admit that some of the views were inspiring. Strangely neither of the elves seemed interested in their surroundings. Celebrimbor's joy was little more than a mask, even if his demeanor might have fooled one who did not know him intimately; Maglor did not even try. Narvi was not inclined to force a conversation on her moody companion, so what might have been an instructive journey turned into a string of oppressively silent days. It did not help that they were still striving for secrecy. The wraiths had not attacked again, but their shadow loomed over them and snuffed out the sweetness of springtime.

One evening several weeks into their journey Narvi and Celebrimbor were resting by the fire, alone for once, though Maglor was likely not far. Celebrimbor had unrolled Dís' map and was scribbling on it in a way that would have made Khazad-Dûm's resident librarians sharpen their axes.

"If my calculations are correct, we should reach the ford tomorrow," he mused. "We'll cross the Baraduin here -" he circled the spot, ignoring the blotted ink, "- and travel north of ... that is to say, we'll cross the Downs on our way to Imladris. If we make good time, we might reach it in a month. We have to take care, though," he added, chewing on the end of his pen.

Narvi leaned over his shoulder to study the map.

But Dís said her father was seen in Dunland, she remarked. That's here - many miles south of Imladris.

"It's only a rumor. I'd like to speak to…" Here he paused and quickly looked around before he continued in a much lower voice, "I need to see Elrond. If anyone can help us in this, it is him."

Narvi gave him a sharp look. And what do you think you'll invoke if you speak his name aloud?

Celebrimbor chuckled softly. "Let's just say I'm not going to tell Maglor. But I'll drag him there bound and gagged if I must. I owe an old friend."

Not a mutual friend, I gather?

"Very much a mutual friend, if he would allow himself to have friends." Celebrimbor returned his attention to the map, frowning slightly as he added a few notes in the region that was named Mirkwood (" Elvenking" - Oropher or descendant? Proceed with caution! ). Narvi noticed that his left hand covered Eregion and Khazad-Dûm with a carelessness a little too casual to be coincidental.

They would have to cross Celebrimbor's former lands if they were to travel from Imladris to Dunland, but there was no need to point it out, for he already knew. They would face that problem when it presented itself. So instead she fell silent and watched him as he pored over the parchment, deep in concentration, chewing on his lower lip, twirling a thin black strand between his long fingers. She rarely saw him so unguarded these days. The Ered Luin had been a welcome distraction, but since they had left, his memories seemed to plague him anew.

At least Narvi hoped it was only the memories.

He tried very hard to mimic his old, cheerful self, but the attempts were wasted on Narvi. She could see the fragile shards of his soul in the way he curled into himself, the way his smile was too bright when Maglor was watching and mostly absent otherwise, and it never reached his eyes. Maglor could likely see it too, in the way one damaged soul sometimes recognized another. Perhaps, Narvi thought as she ran a translucent finger across his arm - insubstantial, but one could at least pretend - perhaps there was something Lord Elrond could do for them. He was, after all, a healer of renown.