Beyond the Sunset Leads My Way by mainecoon

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

The autumn wind carries patches of seaweed into the ancient port. It floats on the ridges of foam that crown the waves, and the grey ships rock gently in the docks. There will be no sailing today, and probably not tomorrow: towering clouds on the horizon speak of an upcoming storm.

It is of no matter to the two old friends who watch the scene from the gallery of the guest rooms that will be their last dwellings on this side of the Sea. The rough weather simply means that they will have a few days more in these lands they love so dearly. They cannot stay, and it burdens them both. Perhaps that is why they finally speak of a matter they should have discussed long ago. One of them held it too close to his heart, and the other was patient; now they can delay it no longer.

"I may be half-elven, but my memory is clear," says the younger, watching the deserted alleyways of the old town with a distant look about him. Young, in his case, is a relative term: They have both seen the rise and fall of empires. "I would give a great deal to be able to forget! Perhaps my brother was granted the mercy when he passed beyond the circles of Arda. But even if I could, I must not. Not even now."

“Hmm,” his companion says, and leans heavily upon the railing. A flurry of wind tousles his long white beard. He waits for the other to speak, as he has done for centuries. The half-elf crosses his arms over his chest.

"I must honour my dead kin, so they tell me. Too many to count, too many to name. And I do. I think of them still, and of my mother also."

"I knew your mother in Valinor," says the wizard, who came to Middle Earth long after she left it. "You will meet her soon. I found her company delightful. But this is not what troubles you, Elrond."

"You know me too well."

Gandalf makes a harrumphing sound. His bright blue eyes have not lost their piercing light, even though the loss of Narya's powers has exhausted him.

"Their names are now so rarely spoken," says Elrond, meeting his gaze without reservation. He is not speaking of his kin now, or not the sort he is meant to acknowledge, but Gandalf will understand. “Only tales and songs tell us of them, stories of greed and pride, of damnation and just deserts. They speak of little pity. Tell me, Gandalf: is there truly no hope for them?"

Gandalf does not answer at once. In the pale, sharp light his face looks ancient and very tired. Elrond rarely meets creatures who make him feel young, but there are moments like this when Gandalf allows his companions to see that he is older than the world itself.

"When you think of Sirion," says the wizard after a long moment, "what do you see?"

Elrond considers this for a long while.

"I see Elros and me playing in a courtyard." He speaks slowly, reluctantly, looking through the haze of six millennia at memories almost too terrible to face. "I see a rose bush. It had big blossoms, dark red, very beautiful. We were sitting beside it with a board game. Elros was cheating, but badly." He closes his eyes briefly. "There were shouts in the stables, and then from the house. Screams, the clash of weapons, the smell of smoke. Strange elves in armour came running into the courtyard. Their swords were dripping with blood - red blood, elven blood. We knew little about Doriath at the time, but Mother had told us that some elves were just as evil as orcs, and now they had come for us. We fled into the stables and found Elhadron the horse master stretched out beside the door, his throat slashed, with a pitchfork in his hand. They did not keep weapons in the stables." Elrod takes a shuddering breath. The sight haunts him still, even if he has since seen much worse. "I took Elros' hand and ran. We fled blindly through the streets, through burning debris falling all around us, and then we could run no more. There was an elf. Tall, red-haired, with blood on his armour and helmet. I know now that he was called Amras."

"Pityafinwë Ambarussa."

"There was nothing little about him. He towered over us. We thought he was a demon," Elrond recalls. "But he was not."

He does not say how he knows this; does not, for now, speak of the fading pages he has kept all this time in his private desk. Ancient they are, held together by enchantments and care. They contain sketches of flowers and statues, maps of vast lands now drowned, unfinished poems, songs set in archaic keys, a few strands of hair that still shine like molten copper. Above all this, they contain notes: words written by a long-dead hand, preserving the thoughts of one who is only remembered as a bogeyman from ages long past.

"I am not a monster.

We have been called thus ever since Alqualondë: Villains, they say, no better than orcs, who paid with their elvish nature for the blood they shed. It is one of many lies that are told about us by those who were not there and can never understand. Does a monster repent its deeds? I was horrified at Alqualondë. The screams of my kin ripped me apart even as my blade dripped red in the torchlight, and among the clash of weapons and shouting I only knew I had to keep close to my family. The Oath, fresh and raw, scorched a bleeding wound into my young mind. I killed. I maimed. I will find no excuse for myself. But it was a terrible mistake, not wilful murder.

(Amrod raged at Father, at himself, at us all when we woke from our blood-soaked nightmare on ships we had no right to sail. He feared that the deed had destroyed our souls. My father laughed, as one laughs who tries not to scream. But Maglor soothed them, Maglor with his haunted eyes and blood-stained hands, whose voice brought hope like starlight that glimmers on water. We will make up for it, he said. We will free Arda from the forces of darkness, and then we will be forgiven.)

It has not always been easy to hold onto hope in the long, bleak years since Fingolfin the King was slain. Each of us has his own way to cope. For my twin brother, it is rage, and it worries me, for I fear that one day it will run dry, and then he will give in and accept our doom. The day may not be far; I felt it once, though he tries to hide these thoughts from me.

It was on one more patrol in woods where the shadows sleep, through sunlit groves that are only beautiful if one does not look too closely. One more village of the local Sindar we found ravaged: the huts burned, the inhabitants carried away or slaughtered, their decaying bodies left for the wild beasts. Amrod was the first to dismount and walk among the carnage. I caught up with him when he crouched beside a white-haired woman who wore a circlet of wilted summer flowers. Her chest was crushed into a bloody mass, her dead eyes wide open, and the curved sword beside her was stained with orc blood.

Amrod gazed up at me with eyes that looked older than the Trees, and very tired.

"Brethildis," he said. "She was their spokeswoman. Perhaps you saw her when she came to Amon Ereb."

I had not. It was Amrod who led the trades and negotiations with the locals. But in his face and mind there was no grief, no horror: only the emptiness of one whose capacity for compassion has been drained to the last drop. It made my stomach churn.

This morning my soldiers reported that six thralls from Angband had sought refuge within our walls and subsequently, still in Morgoth's throes, attacked and killed two of my guards. I ordered their execution. Amrod looked at me as if he was waiting for something, but I will not give in. I did grieve their death. I am not yet unfeeling.

I am not a monster. If I was, what point would there be in holding on?"

"When I think of Sirion," says Elrond, "I see their flag against the pale blue sky. The Havens burned all night. When morning came, the ruin was there for all to see. We were kept in their camp, as prisoners, as far as we knew. The flag was black, with a tarnished silver star. It could have been an orc flag. We had always been told that they were no better than orcs, and I believed it then."

His eyes are focused on the coast, as if he is looking for something too far away to see. Too far away, perhaps, both in miles and in centuries.

"They were no orcs," he adds, defiantly.

"Even orcs were elvish once."

A crease appears between Elrond's brows. "You can trust me to know the difference," he retorts. It comes out sharply, more sharply than he has ever spoken to the wizard before. Gandalf's words were unkind to Elrond in particular, but they are nonetheless true, and Gandalf often finds this difference very hard to see. Not all who have fallen can be saved. After so many years in Middle Earth Gandalf questions the wisdom of punishing crimes with little pity, at least when there is repentance. But even pity could not save Curunír and Sméagol.

"I did not know them," Gandalf admits, quietly watching his friend who is still watching the coast. "Some of their victims I counted as friends. The enemy wielded them like sharp blades, and it cost us much."

"You speak as they all do." Elrond's voice would sound level to one who does not know him well. Gandalf hears the disappointment in his tone, and a fair bit of anger too. "I know what it cost us. But tell me, Gandalf, who of us ever stood in their place and made a different choice? Did you not feel the power of the Ring, and were you not tempted by it, protected only by the knowledge of its evil nature? And you were free to choose for yourself. Love and loyalty drove you away from it, not into its spell."

"Indeed. But had I given in, it would still be my guilt to carry." Gandalf turns his gaze towards the harbour, where a handful of sailors are securing the grey ships against the upcoming storm. The thick ropes are already moving in their hands as the ships lift to meet the waves. He thinks of the last decision he must make before these ships will take him home. No Vala assigned him to this task, but it has come to him and he cannot turn it away.

"A shadow creeps through the woods, more with each passing day. We cannot hold it off forever. Our forces are too few, and swords serve us little against the rotten malice that leaks from the ground and poisons the streams. It twists the branches of the trees and makes their leaves turn pale. There have been no fawns, no nests, no young rabbits in spring. The spiders are spreading; those, at least, we can kill.

Word has reached us that Thingol's daughter has stolen a Silmaril.

We should rejoice, as it means that the Black Foe is not untouchable. Maedhros told us to take heart and wait for his orders, and Caranthir believes that he means to go to war. If this is indeed so, he will tell us soon.

Since we heard of the Silmaril, I have found little rest. Even awake I see its light wherever I turn my eyes, bright and blinding, and if it calls to me then I must obey. It is a cruel call. It follows me, wraps around me and will not let me go. I see reflections of it in the mind of Amrod, but we have not spoken of it, for it feels like the acknowledgement might make it stronger. Instead I have turned my attention to our mother's trade once more, which soothes me better than hunting in poisoned woods. I made statues of all my brothers and am very pleased with the result. Rarely have I felt so inspired, and so my chisel and hammer formed each of them into truly unique shapes: Maedhros is surrounded by a halo of fire, as it suits his nature, and Maglor, barefoot, crowned by a circlet of seashells. Nightingales settle on the shoulders of Celegorm, Caranthir and Curufin. Amrod and I stand together at the edge of a cliff, looking at something beyond our reach.

When I showed the statues to Amrod, his hand curled around his dagger. He finds them unsettling, though he cannot give me a reason. Caranthir stood long before one of my other works, which depicts a faceless body tied to a pole, with arrows sticking from the torso. He demanded to know what gave me the idea. I do not remember: the statue simply evolved under my hands. Is it not natural for the artist to express the sufferings brought by all too terrible experience?

There has been no word from Nargothrond of my brothers and my nephew.

We all fear an awakening of the Oath. If it happens, I dread to think what we might do."

Neither of them would have minded the cold in all the centuries they have known each other. But now they are tired, and the enchantments of their Rings have waned. Elrond shivers in the gust of wind that creeps under his robes and makes them billow in the upcoming storm. With a last wistful gaze towards the shore he turns and retreats into the cosy warmth of Círdan's guest room.

Gandalf follows him and pours two goblets of wine from a decanter that is placed on a small round table in the centre of the room. "I hope you realize that it is only the consideration of your sensibilities that prevents me lighting a pipe," he sighs. "It would be most welcome! But I must ration my pipe-weed. The last Longbottom Leaf I will ever taste: nothing in all Valinor compares to it."

"You could grow it upon the green hill of Tuna, now that we have defeated Sauron at last," suggests Elrond and drops into a velvet-cushioned armchair beside the table. He receives the goblet with a weary smile, and Gandalf raises his own.

"Let us drink to that - and to all we lost along the way."

Elrond swirls the wine in his goblet. Candlelight glitters blue and green in the coloured glass. "Celebrimbor," he says, because the memory hurts like a fresh wound. "And Gil-Galad." They are only two of many casualties in a long, exhausting fight. But they were among his closest friends, and they were with him here in Lindon, long ago when they built their world anew after the War of Wrath. He did not think, then, that he would be the last one left.

Casualties of war. It is a small comfort that his children are not among them, whatever choices they might make. Elrond respects them, however much it hurts, and so will Celebrían; with her, at least, he will be reunited, so they can make a new beginning. But he has lost too much already. There is one who might still be saved, by fate, or a miracle, or the will of the Ainur: Elrond does not particularly care which of these it is. He will not let go of the last thread of hope until the shores of Middle Earth vanish behind a veil of mist.

But he has searched for centuries, and found only gulls and driftwood.

Gandalf nods, looking thoughtful. "You will see them again." It sounds like a promise. "Gil-Galad may await your arrival in Avallónë even now. Ah, Celebrimbor, the last of the line of Fëanor! He suffered a terrible fate, but I hope that he, too, will return soon. I look forward to meeting him at last. And I wish to thank him for this." He makes a gesture with his right hand. Narya is plainly visible now; the glow in its heart has faded.

"So he is not held responsible for his failure of judgment? That would be a mercy." Elrond hesitates. "But you did not answer my question. Is there no hope for the others?"

"Celebrimbor's mistakes were made in good faith, and he paid for them many times over," Gandalf reminds him. "When he realized his error, he took the consequences upon himself. He stood in the front line and did not harm innocents to try and save himself."

"They stood in the front line for centuries! They failed, and failed, as it was foretold. We have fought the long fight too, Gandalf. If we had been doomed from the start - if all our sacrifices had been for nothing - can you be sure we would not have broken?"

Gandalf traces the rim of his glass with one finger. It looks wrinkled and pale, more so than it used to, though the dirt under the nails is familiar. Elrond wonders what Olórin's true form looks like. Suddenly he has the overwhelming feeling that this is not merely a chat with an old friend, but a struggle for invaluable stakes: eight souls hang between them in the balance. It is not for Olórin to judge them, but his word carries weight before the Valar.

"They were not monsters," Elrond says defiantly.

Gandalf raises one bushy eyebrow. "We were talking about Sirion."

"I would have made a tombstone for the High King Fingon, had I possessed the means. Amrod gave me a horrified look when I said as much, and claimed it was a small mercy that I could not. He would not tell me why. He even shielded his mind against me, so I could get not past a muddy surface of anger and grief. I do not understand, for I make excellent tombstones. Mother would be proud.

But there were no tombstones for the fallen, no memorials for shattered hopes and slaughtered dreams. When I was young, I believed that history runs forward: From worse to better, from destruction to rebuilding, from tragedy to hope and healing by the kindness of fate. But fate has never been kind to us. Do not talk to me of the Valar: we do not mention their names anymore.

I wonder today if I should have shared Amrod's rage when Celegorm first spoke of Doriath. We all curse the day we swore the Oath in madness and folly, not knowing what darkness truly means, but when did we truly pass beyond redemption? I believe it was when we deliberately chose to raise our weapons against our own kin, and with painful clarity I remember the moment that planted the idea in our hearts. I should have spoken out against it, raised my voice in unity with my twin, to banish the thought the moment it was born. But Amrod was the only one who did, and he has been talking of doom ever since Alqualondë. Yet he did not refuse to follow when it mattered. I wonder who is more to blame: the one who finds excuses, or he who walks into his own damnation with clear sight.

"Doriath, at least," said my brother Celegorm that evening in early autumn while the seven of us were cramped in Caranthir's study, "Doriath still holds a Silmaril."

We all looked up at the word. It was an unspoken code to rouse us; even Moryo dropped his pen, then cursed softly at the ink blot on his notes. Maedhros gave Celegorm an unimpressed stare. Nothing impressed Maedhros those days, save Maglor, sometimes.

Maglor turned away from the map he had discussing with Amrod and shook his head. "It might as well be in Aman."

Celegorm leant back in his chair. There has always been a casual elegance about Celegorm, and this particular pose was carefully chosen. One hand dangling loosely over the armrest to express confidence, but the right foot resting on the left knee, thigh muscles tensed beneath his breeches: dynamic, ready to spring into action, Mother would have said and illustrated her point with a quick sketch. It was not lost on us. We were all hungry for action, for a way to fight a war that was, even then, long lost.

"Why?" Celegorm's eyes glittered in the way Amrod's do, sometimes, when he opposes me or anyone else. There's rarely hatred in it from Amrod, though. But Tyelko's wounded pride ran deep; that, and the hurt he would never admit. "There is no Sea between Amon Ereb and the Thousand Caves."

"There is a proud young ruler in the Thousand Caves." Maedhros' gaze never left Tyelko. "A ruler who is unlikely to consider us friends, thanks to you."

Curufin, who had been watching his guards from the window, turned around and scowled. He looked ready to defend himself, but we had been over that often enough. There was no apology, no undoing the damage, and no winning back the two souls whose loss broke my brothers more thoroughly than any public disgrace.

I suspect that Curvo still wrote letters to his son, back then. But he did not send them. Not after Nargothrond fell.

"Young," Celegorm said now, "and inexperienced."

"Irrelevant."

"They have no right to the Jewel."

"Irrelevant."

"The Naugrim have sacked the place once." For a long moment none of us spoke. From the courtyard outside came the sharp call of Curvo's captain urging his riders to leave for patrol.

"Khazad," interjected Moryo, his dark brows drawn. He had a very fine brow-line, my brother Moryo.

"What exactly do you think you're suggesting?" Amrod stepped towards Celegorm and gripped the backrest of his chair so hard that his knuckles turned white. “Was Alqualondë not enough?”

Tyelko narrowed his eyes, but did not reply. For a moment they held each other’s gaze, calculating, two hunters waiting for their prey to make a move. The rest of us watched them, while the terrible idea grew crystal-bright tendrils that wrapped around my thoughts.

I should have spoken then.

"Enough," decided Maedhros, impartial as before. He did not elaborate which of them he meant. Maedhros has been distant ever since Thangorodrim, but the Nirnaeth forged him into dwarven steel, unyielding and unforgiving and unreachable to any of us.

Save Maglor, sometimes.

Maglor walked over to him now and placed a hand at the nape of Maedhros' neck. They did not speak aloud. Sometimes they are irritating like that, retreating into the private council of their thoughts and leaving the rest of us outside.

Well. It is only Amrod and I, these days.

After a moment Maedhros nodded, a short, irritated gesture. He refused to say another word on it. He wrote a letter that day. But Tyelko's suggestion remained between us, unspoken, festering in our hearts.”

"I spoke of Sirion with your mother."

Elrond stares at his goblet for a long moment, then, very slowly, raises his gaze to meet Gandalf's eyes.

"And what did she say?"

He does not truly want to know. Gandalf can tell as much from the hesitation in Elrond's eyes, so unusual for his steadfast friend. Elrond is eager to meet his mother at last, but he also fears her judgment: fears to find little pity for his loved ones in someone he wishes to please.

"She says she does not truly understand what they are, or what they wanted."

"They made that clear enough."

"I do not believe Thingol's people ever truly understood the Oath. There were false ideas about it, about the Silmarils. Confusion, half-truths that seemed whole at first glance. Melkor spread his lies even among his enemies." Gandalf pauses, considering. "Your mother was far too young when this decision was forced on her. She had lost her home and family in Doriath. Her people believed the Silmaril to be essential for a safe new beginning. If she had given it up to their enemies, what would they have thought? Even if she had trusted Fëanor's sons, her advisors would never have allowed it."

"But when they attacked…"

"By then it was far too late. She said it was the horrors of her earliest memories returned to life. The people in the Havens were fugitives. They panicked, there was no way to keep them organized, and the Fëanorians came upon them with fire and blood. She searched for you but only found the body of the horse master, and Fëanorian soldiers. They came after her. She had a sword, but they were too many to fight, so she ran until she could run no more. Much as you did." Gandalf watches Elrond, who is staring out of the window now. Rain is gathering in puddles on the marble railing. "They were running towards her with their swords drawn. There was no way to negotiate. So she jumped."

"I never blamed her for that."

"Oh, I know."

Elrond is no fool; he knows well enough who carries the blame. And yet he learned to love the murderers, and loves them still. Something about them he deems worthy: of pity, of mercy, of love. Gandalf needs to know what it is. He spoke of this to Elwing; she was silent for a long while, then bade him to find out if he could. She might not find it in her to forgive, she said, but she would like to understand.

There was no way to understand amid the horror that was the dusk of the First Age. It was this insight that made her and Eärendil carry the cursed gem to the Valar: if no one knew friend from foe, all hope was lost and the Dark One would win.

And the Valar listened. But for some, all help came too late.

"How can they think it a blessing? It is a curse. We did not know this when we followed our father into bloodshed and doom. It will kill them. It will kill us. We must do its bidding until the last of us is gone.

I tell myself that none of us is going to live either way. Morgoth's victory is near complete. His hordes have overrun Beleriand. His minions will slaughter every sentient creature who opposes them. What differences does it make, then, if it is elven blades that do the killing? Perhaps it is more merciful. At least we do not torture.

Sometimes I almost believe my own lies.

When did I turn into a monster? For now there can be no doubt that I am: all else was burned away by years after years of horror and defeat. We are beyond redemption. Hunters they call us, Amrod and me: but it was no deer we hunted in Doriath, and still our dead brothers shall be lost to darkness if we do not conquer the Silmarils.

Maedhros' strength put us all to shame, but even he gave in at last.The Oath prowls our steps and there is no place to hide. We will attack. We will kill again. Maglor follows Maedhros, as he always did and always will, save that one time when it mattered most; but he is ill and tired and hates himself almost as much as he hates the Silmarils. Like him, I have fought for every shred of hope; like him, I must now face defeat. To Amrod I have not spoken since that night he walked away in anger. But he, too, will follow.

They know us as the Ambarussa, alike in body and mind, both hunters, ruling together in the vast forests of East Beleriand. No stranger, they say, can tell us apart. Do they know that few can quarrel as bitterly as those who are closest to each other? My twin wants to march against Morgoth, rather than attack the Havens. I argued that he might as well slaughter the few followers we have left before he throws himself into his own sword. We shouted and cursed. Maedhros listened to us both, cold as he always seems nowadays, and decided that suicide was not an option. Amrod glared at me the way Celegorm used to, and slammed the door on his way out.

He is very much like Celegorm, my twin brother, driven by passion and hunger for freedom. But unlike Celegorm, he argued against the Oath and not in favour of it, and thus he could not sway us. He might have swayed Maglor, perhaps, if Maglor had in in himself to refuse to follow Maedhros. But he will never do that again.

And so, once more, we will ta ke up our tattered banners and march against our own kin. I think of my statues, and I begin to understand why Amrod loathed them. There is no hope left, and yet we are condemned to try. The true blessing, for us, lies only in death.

We will leave at first light."

(No more entries follow after this one. Only the withered remains of a dandelion, carefully pressed and conserved millennia ago, crumble on the parchment below. The flower was placed there by a different hand.)

There is no sunset on this rainy autumn day. Slowly the light begins to fade, and in the docks below the lanterns are lit, a few scattered flames only in what used to be a large and bustling town.

Elrond rises to lighten the candles that are placed in iron holders on the walls, in curved, flowery patterns that speak of an origin in Lothlórien. Then he walks over to the chest that contains his private belongings and retrieves something from it: something that looks like a stack of crumbled pages, pressed between two boards of wood. He holds it in his lap as he sits down again, gently, as one holds a thing of great personal value.

“There was no excuse,” he says. “And they gave us none. If they had, I might not feel now as I do. When I think of Sirion -”

He pauses, running his hand along the side of the wooden board.

“I think of battered fighters, ragged and thin. Their armour was rent from long use. They were tough and ruthless. I know now that they were desperate, but that does not justify what they did. I think of people attacking them with kitchen knives, being slaughtered with longswords. It was a bloodbath.

When Amras found us, I thought we would die. His eyes shone with the Light of Valinor, and never before had we seen it so fey and wild. He did not know who we were, but he sheathed his sword and told us that he would bring us to safety. We were too afraid to fight – not when he said that we would live. He gave us to one of his soldiers and ordered her to lead us to their camp. They were not warm towards us, but they knew mercy.” His face twists briefly before he controls his features. “They both fell that night, Amras and the soldier. We saw their bodies the next morning when the Fëanorians buried their dead.”

“Fëanor’s sons knew very little mercy in Sirion.”

Elrond nods. “There was no triumph that day, only guilt and tears. I understood this much later, when I had learned that evil is not always what it seems. Maglor and Maedhros tried to give us all we needed, even though they had lost all hope for themselves. Perhaps it matters little compared to the ruin they left in their wake, but still they gave us kindness and love.”

In the long pause that follows, Gandalf takes a closer look at the book in Elrond’s hands. Painted on it is a map of Beleriand, but not by a masterful hand, and the drawing is much newer than the pages within. Perhaps it was made by Elrond himself.

“What is this?” he inquires, for surely Elrond has retrieved it for a reason.

Elrond hands it to him. The old pages nearly fall apart under Gandalf’s gentle touch; they are far more ancient than the oldest scrolls in Imladris’ library.

“I have copied it multiple times, but this is the original,” explains Elrond. “Maglor showed it to me when I asked him about the Ambarussa. I asked him if I could keep it when they sent us away.” He shakes his head. “When he allowed it, I should have known that he was preparing for the end. He wanted to save it.”

Gandalf touches the red lock of hair with a reverent fingertip.

“Which of them wrote this?”

“Amras. The one who saved us. We were nearly grown when Maglor showed us the aftermath of Sirion. His song called it into our minds, as if we had seen all of it: smoking ruins, puddles of blood, bodies in the streets and floating in the water. Our home was burned to the ground, like most other buildings. Too many dead to bury in the little time they had.” He looks up, and his eyes are calm despite the gruesome memory. “He also showed us the horror and shame of his own people. In the cold light of day, awoken from the frenzy of the fight, they saw what they had done, and they wept. But they had done it before, and they would do it again.”

“Do you think it was this knowledge that killed Maedhros?”

“That, or the Silmaril’s rejection. But I think it killed the Ambarussa.” He gestures at the book. “Maglor thought their fate was kinder than his own. He did not mourn for their sake, only for his own loss. Amrod, he said, was slain by his own men – he who had resisted the most! Amras was found with a spear-wound in his throat. I do not think they hoped to survive.”

Gandalf turns the pages with the utmost care. The tengwar letters are blotted in some places and faded in others, but the voice of the dead man is still woven into them and echoes faintly in Gandalf’s mind.

When he looks up, he finds Elrond watching him.

“You are one of the few who truly understand pity,” says his friend. “I have seen you look in sorrow on the bodies of slain orcs.”

“That may have happened once or twice.”

“If we can hope for mercy from anyone, surely it is you.”

“We?” Gandalf smiles as Elrond simply raises an eyebrow. “But now you have told me this much, I can answer your question. Yes, there is hope. Even for those who have fallen into despair and cannot see it. We must hope for them instead.”

Elrond reaches out to run a finger along a brown page. “Hope alone will not save them.”

“It might.” Gandalf’s eyes are twinkling. “If it is followed up by action. You have helped me a great deal today. It will not be easy, but I believe it can be done.” He returns the book reverently, with hands that much prefer to heal than to wield a sword.

“The Oath?”

“I did say it would not be easy.”

Elrond rises abruptly and walks to the window. The shore is only a vague outline in the dimming light, hidden behind a curtain of rain. He looks into the right direction, Gandalf notes, and wonders if the cause of this is Elrond’s famed intuition or a bond that never quite faded.

“I will ride out tomorrow,” Elrond informs him. “One last time.”

“You will not find him.”

“He is not dead,” Elrond says fiercely, which is answer enough. “I might.”

“If he concealed his presence from you for all this time, it is unlikely that you will find him now.” Elrond opens his mouth to argue, and Gandalf chuckles. “But he cannot hide from me.”

Elrond’s eyes widen in understanding, and though he is not of the Calaquendi, for a fleeting moment they shine in a way that almost reminds Gandalf of the Trees. Then his friend’s gaze drifts towards the coast again, and finally his face lights with a smile full of joy.