Agley. by hennethgalad

Chapter 1

  Gildis stood abruptly, her ears ringing with disharmony. The turmoil in her heart expressed itself in the sound of her harp; she was playing a storm, indeed, but it was not music. Their rooms were empty, still and silent in the quiet afternoon sunlight. He had gone out again, doubtless to Fingolfin...
   She needed the comfort of speech, perhaps even laughter, if she was fortunate. And with that thought, she knew where to go, and whom to seek.

   Írimë and her students worked in a high room as far from the living quarters as could be found within Barad Eithel. Gildis found herself in halls she had never seen, surrounded by busy Elves, and strange scents, of brewing, dyeing, distilling and other, stranger crafts. There was a solid murmur of sound, hammers and saws, clangings and clinkings, as though the city were a living beast, a bear in a cave, rumbling and roaring as it woke from its slumber.
   The door was locked, but voices could be heard within, and Gildis, anger overcoming her reticence, took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

   Írimë looked at her as if she had never seen her before, an uncharacteristic frown on her fair face. Gildis was abashed; Írimë was so amiable and kind, and so jolly, that it was easy to forget that she was a noted thinker, counted among the Wise, an authority on the substances of the very rocks and stones of Arda. The bright room seemed made of windows, not only all along one wall, but half of the ceiling. It would make a fine studio for an artist, thought Gildis, but no artist would endure the stench that the grinders of stones had created. They were wearing thick canvas smocks, and masks of glass, as they bent over the long table by the windows, intent upon their scales and samples, vessels of glass and clear flagons of strangely coloured liquids. The air was acrid, as though some dreadful smith had thrown his things into the Fen, setting light to the fume. Gildis coughed, and Írimë straightened with a sigh. She murmured to her assistants, who turned back to their work, and crossed the room to Gildis.

   "Dear Gildis, how is it with you ? I presume that you have not come here to learn of rocks ? No ? That is a pity, for today we have found a third lode of tin, in samples from East Dorthonion. Ah, I see your polite smile ! But though tin may lack the glamour of diamonds and gold, it is a most useful metal, and less easy to find than you might suppose. But there, you have not come here for lectures. Is all well ?"
Gildis shook her head but could not speak, one or two of the others at the bench turned and looked at her without expression before going back to their work. Írimë frowned and laid a hand on her arm.
"Come then, let us walk in the gardens and find the path of wisdom together."

   They walked through the High Garden, already cast into shade by the peaks of Ered Wethrin. There grew the mountain plants, among the piles of broken rocks and stones that Elves had brought or sent from across Beleriand to be studied by the experts. But so old now was Barad Eithel that even the small, slow-growing life of the heights had made this seem a natural place, cloaked in greenery after a fall of the hillside had laid bare the flesh of the earth.
   Írimë did not trouble her with questions, merely waiting in silence until shy Gildis felt able to speak.

   "Oh my lady Írimë ! What can I say ? You know what troubles me, you know that there is naught to be done, you need say nothing; but merely by your presence you comfort me."
   "My poor Gildis, what unfortunate fate set you between my brother and his love ? The determination that led us across Helcaraxë is undiminished within him. But Hador is Hador, and I believed him, as you did, when he agreed that he must be free of Fingolfin, free of the Elves, in order to take up the seat of his father.
   Be patient, dear Gildis, and soon he will chafe, and yearn to be lord himself, not the pet of another."

   "But he loves Fingolfin. He spoke his name when... No, he called his name, at the moment when..."
   But Írimë had wrinkled her nose and turned away, and Gildis recalled that it was her brother they were discussing. "Forgive my coarse speech, my lady, I would not speak distastefully."
   Írimë shook her head "No, no, do not trouble yourself, I am not offended. I am concerned though that you are offended, by the dreadful insult my brother has given you, stealing your husband from under your nose, so soon after your wedding.
   They both look at me as though they were helpless children, but I cannot speak, either to blame nor to forgive, for I do not know what to say."

   She sighed, and turned to look up at the tips of the mountains, blackening into silhouettes against the light in the West, as the warmth of the afternoon cooled into the mildness of the summer evening. At times she was reminded of the heights of Taniquetil, where she herself had studied, under Aulë and Mahtan, on the shoulder of the mountain, where the scholars gathered.
   How joyful it had been, the lively rattle of conversation and debate, forgetting to eat or sleep, engrossed in the bright sparkle of new ideas, testing their minds against each other and the world. She frowned, the Trees were dark, the Mountain lost beyond all finding, and here she stood, in Beleriand, with a Mortal, a fleeting scrap of life, whose whole existence had barely registered on many among the Eldar.

   Mortals ! Absurd that Eru had created such life, only to snuff it out instantly. They were like the flames of the Fen, no sooner found than vanished. Fingolfin had fallen to madness, just as their brother Fëanor had done. She looked within herself, wondering if such a fate would befall her in her turn. She thought of Finarfin, and smiled. Nothing disturbed Finarfin, he was steady as the mountains. He had always kept far away from the squabbling factions, spending most of his time in Alqualondë with Eärwen and her family.
   She laughed softly, amused at herself; she wished Finarfin were here, but he would not be Finarfin if he had come.

   But Gildis was looking at her, troubled and anxious. She sighed, and laid her hand on the arm of the Mortal.
   "Fingolfin is enthralled. Love has consumed him. There is... You have heard the songs, you know of the... the madness of our brother Fëanor. I fear that the same intentness, the same intensity of purpose is within all my family. I am driven to the study of rocks, Fëanor was driven to the study of making, and Fingolfin, who was always so amused and amusing, has become driven by love. I hope you can forgive us."
   " 'not though all whom ye have slain should plead' ?" Gildis quoted the words of the Doom, and Írimë clutched at her heart, recalling the darkness, and the terrible voice. They were here, now, doing yet more damage, dragging down these fleeting Mortals into the darkness with them, like a blight on the land. The guilt overwhelmed her, laughter failed her, she bowed her head and wept.

   Gildis threw her arms around Írimë and patted her back, softly reassuring the Elf, and finding that the act of offering comfort lifted her own heart, and eased the pain. But Írimë laughed, and stood back, and smiled at Gildis through her tears.
   "Forgive me ! And thank you for your kindness. I think I was feeling homesick for my youth, there is a garden, where I studied, a little like this. But my life has taken a very different path to that which I expected. And indeed, though to all Barad Eithel I seem contented, for rocks are rocks, here as in Valinor, in my heart I miss the life of Tirion. I miss my mother, my brother’s wife Nerdanel, and, oh, so many fine people, left behind, or lost on the way. Dear Elenwë, crushed by the ice..." She paused and frowned, Gildis thought of the great age of the Elves, and the long, long centuries, and all those lost ones, and of how it must be to endure the pain of loss until the very ending of the world.
   The Gift of Death suddenly became a thing she could possibly come to understand, she thought. The wounds of time ran deep in these Elves. For though they never became ill, they were yet scarred beyond all healing, as a tree with metal bound around it, growing awry. Marred, like Arda itself, yet still as beautiful.

   "My lady Írimë, the perfection in the mind of Eru is beyond all knowing. You yourselves cannot say what should have been, were it not for the Enemy. It is beyond my small wit to imagine !
   Yet here is the world, and it is fair; the beauty of the garden, the song of the birds, the flight of the butterfly, the wine by the fire in the evening, and music. What wrong have you done, that you would seek forgiveness ? It is I who must beg your forgiveness, for opening your wounds. I did not mean to burden you with my troubles, I only sought your laughter, to lighten my heart."
   "And instead I gave you tears ! Come, let us seek wine, and a fire, for the shade deepens, and I have laboured long today. I know what troubles you, you need say nothing. And alas, I have no comfort to offer, save perhaps a little laughter, and companionship. But if you can forgive me, perhaps in time you can forgive Fingolfin. And one day, even Hador himself ?"

   Gildis sucked in her breath hard, here was the wound in her own heart, that nothing could heal. She thought of the tree, growing around the metal, burgeoning like the flame, and knew that her life, though not the life she had dreamed of, could yet offer her joy and happiness, she need only take each day as it came, and make the finest music she was able to conceive.