Northern Skies by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 20

Elrohir slipped inside the house while Elladan saw to his stealthy errand. Without lighting lamps that might remind onlookers on the greensward outside of his existence he made a circuit of his rooms with a merciless efficiency he had not been capable of since Harad, sorting his belongings into two piles. The larger one consisted of anything too heavy or impractical to be carried on a long, lean trek through the mountains. His bulky saddle bag from Harad was discarded in favour of an oilskin rucksack. Food and gear left no room for keepsakes. 

Elrohir did not let himself wonder whether he grieved for his possessions from Harad, or was relieved at leaving behind the memories of darkness and sorrow that weighed them down. He unceremoniously piled everything into the saddle bag and hid it in the back of the wardrobe in deliberate avoidance of the question what would become of his cast-offs. 

Of all the fair and artful Elvish objects in that room, Elrohir took only warm winter clothes. His discarded mithril hair-clips made an accusing sight in their lacquered bowl on the washstand. No doubt Elrond and Celebrían would feel grieved by his disappearance, and a sudden pang of shame left him incapable of compounding the offence by stealing valuables. His own face in the polished silver mirror looked strangely Elvish, framed by his unbound hair. He tied it back with a simple leather tie, leaving the colourful silk ones behind. 

His weapons from Harad gave him a strange comfort. Their shapes were wholly manmade: stout, honest and reliable against the ethereal Elvishness of the house. Elladan looked on with something between awe and concern as Elrohir deftly reassembled and strung his crossbow, the motions so deeply ingrained his hands could even now perform them of their own accord. His fears that Elrond might have had the weapon sabotaged proved unfounded. The bow’s metal mechanism was still well oiled and clean, without a trace of rust. When he pulled the trigger the string released with a telltale sound that was music to Erohir’s ears. His blades, too proved as sharp as when he handed them in. His Umbarian scimitar in its plain leather sheath went on his left hip, and his hand found the hilt’s well-worn smoothness as naturally as if he had last drawn it yesterday instead of in what now seemed another lifetime. 

Fear showed in Elladan’s eyes. 

“Should you not wear mail?”

Elrohir contemplated it. In Harad he could never have afforded so precious a thing as a shirt of mail. Here in Imladris armour was in seemingly endless supply, enough for even the lowliest warrior of the guard to have their own.  

“Can you get me one without being seen?”

Elladan shook his head, dejected. 

“The armoury will be guarded, even on a festival night.” 

An idea like a glinting silver fish darted into Elladan’s mind. 

“Father keeps his armour his study!”

Elrohir swore at not having thought of that himself, but his enthusiasm cooled on a second consideration. Elrond’s gold inlaid cuirass was a priceless, irreplaceable masterpiece. Elrohir had heard the tale of how Celebrimbor and Narvi wrought it together, imbuing the mithril-coated steel with secret Dwarvish Songs of warding. If stolen, such a valuable object would unleash a manhunt in its own right.

Elrohir shrugged, disinclined to fret over what could not be changed. Elladan was concerned, but there quite simply was no mail to be had, and in the end he let the matter go.

“I have checked the stables. The grooms are at the feast, and well in their cups. You can take Rochael.”

Elrohir gave his brother a look of stunned disbelief. Surely Elladan understood the folly of his words. 

“Rochael is useless, for this.”

Now it was Elladan’s turn to be baffled. It dawned on Elrohir that his brother truly had no inkling of how gilded, how set apart from the mud and grime of everyday life Imladris was. A fresh wave of outrage struck him. Elladan deserved better than to be smothered in the silk wrappings and blinkers of a gilded cage that would eventually, inevitably fail to shut out reality.

“She stands out, Elladan. Outside Imladris only the well-to-do keep horses, and few can afford one as fine as Rochael. She is fit for a prince. I have no hope of going unnoticed riding her. Even if the Northerners prove honest enough not to waylay me for her, they will remember us when the Elves come asking questions. Unremarkable people go on foot.”    

The shock in Elladan’s eyes made a painful sight, but to his credit he quickly righted himself. 

“Where will you go? Harad?”

Confronted by the question he had not dared answer even to himself, Elrohir felt lightened. Setting the unvoiced desire to words made it seem possible. 

“No. Harad is full of ghosts. I need … someplace new, a blank slate. I know not yet where, but I will write to you, if I can.”

Elladan’s flash of unexpected joy at the prospect of a letter soon passed to sorrow.

“If you write me where you are, Glorfindel will arrive there faster than any return letter could.”

“Fear not. I will be more careful than that.”

Elrohir embraced Elladan one last time, willing his body to retain every detail of the touch, to somehow keep hold of it.    

“What should I do now?” 

The sight of Elladan’s misery, the knowledge that he left his brother utterly lost and in tears was almost enough to make Elrohir reconsider. To step back and break up the embrace took all his strength of will.

“Lie down in my bed. If someone should check the room before morning they will think you are me. It may grant me a few more hours.”

-----

Elrohir landed with an embarrassing thud, and for a moment he could only be grateful that no one would witness him gingerly scrabbling back up and rubbing his sore, mud-soaked knees. The steep, wet rockface of the valley’s eastern wall seemed to glower over him. He had lost his hand- and footholds in yet another promising spot on its crumbling grey stone, and slid back down the almost vertical slope, dragging a glaringly obvious trail through the green carpet of wet ferns and saxifrage covering the ancient rock. 

The Elves maintained a path out of the valley and into the Misty Mountains, smooth for horses’ hooves and marked with white rocks. Elladan had helpfully pointed it out, along with the silent sentinels guarding the entire length, from the valley proper to the high pass into Rhovanion. Elrohir had set out from the house in a more southerly direction under the mistaken impression he might climb his way out of the stronghold that was the cloven valley in some remote and unguarded place. The folly of that idea was beginning to sink in.

From the dark crown of a nearby oak a hunting pine marten called for its mate, a high and forlorn sound. Cold night winds fell down from the snow clad peaks above Imladris and Elrohir shivered from more than his wet clothes alone, before turning south to search for yet another place to attempt the hard and weary climb.

When the acute sense of presence came over him he first believed this was the end, that he had already been missed and tracked down. In the next heartbeat Serdir’s slim, dark shape materialized, sitting cross-legged on a mossy boulder. The Green-elf gave Elrohir a look between fear and contempt.

“Hard to find the way, is it not, my Secondborn friend?”

These woods were Serdir’s undisputed territory. Elrohir was truly alone with the dark Elf, with even Elladan unaware of his peril. His eyes came to rest on Serdir’s bow, tucked safely inside his quiver for the time being. He straightened his shoulders and filled his voice with false bluster.

“What do you want?”

It did nothing to hide his fear from Serdir, who was ancient and clever. The Elf smiled, and the perfect white of his teeth made an eerie contrast with his shadowed face.

“Not what you are thinking. I am no kinslayer. I came to offer you a bargain.”

Elrohir was all too familiar with the kind of bargains one struck with one party at arrowpoint. For a moment he cursed his own sentimental naïvety in leaving the mithril hair clips behind. A handful of them might have satisfied Serdir. 

“I have nothing to give you.”

Serdir’s fox-like smile grew even wider.

“Quite the contrary. I know the way out of this valley, and we both want you gone from it. A fine agreement can be reached from that.”

Elrohir knew well enough that something was very wrong, and he would come to rue whatever arrangement Serdir would propose. Even so, this night’s point of no return had passed when Elladan broke into Elrond’s study to retrieve Elrohir’s weapons. Elrohir could not turn back, and the way forward would lead past Serdir. 

“You, of all the Elves in Imladris, would lift a finger to help me?”

Serdir laughed, a sound like the wind through bare branches.

“True, I am no friend to you, but I want you gone before you can do my people harm. I am more than willing to help you remove yourself to live among Mortals, where you can no longer threaten us.”  

Despite his intentions to leave the Elves of Imladris far behind, the remark somehow cut Elrohir to the quick.

“What harm could I possibly do you?”

“The Golodh may choose to forget the lessons taught by the evil days of old, but the Lindar remember. The darkness returns no one, unless with a purpose. We know the tale of your kinsman Maeglin, and how he betrayed his city of stone. Such traitors came among our own folk too before we learned better than to take them back in. You only look Elvish to eyes clouded by parental sentiment, and you will grow even more dangerous if our lady’s misguided attentions should turn you into something resembling us.” 

Serdir delivered the cruel barb with casual ease. Elrohir needed all his strength not to grant the Elf the satisfaction of seeing him flinch.  

“If you think me a traitor, why waste this splendid opportunity to put an arrow through my eye? Instead you alert me to your presence to debate ancient history and offer your services as a guide?”

Serdir shook his head. 

“Why should I unleash the hatred of all your House upon mine, when I can simply point out the way to the inevitable doom you seem to wish upon yourself?”

He slid down from the boulder to stand before Elrohir, lean and lithe as a willow-wisp.

“What shall it be, Half-elf? Will you continue to blunder through this forest like a herd of blind trolls for what remains of the night, until your father sends his lackeys to fetch you? Or shall I show you the path?”

“I do not care to wind up in your debt.”

Serdir scoffed. “Your continued absence is payment in full.”

Elrohir held out his hand for Serdir to shake, but received only a look of deep suspicion and contempt before the Elf turned around and broke into a supple run.

Elrohir was a fraction slower, and to his great annoyance he could no longer track Serdir’s stealthy movements between the dark pillars of the surrounding pine forest.

“Do try to keep up!” 

The mocking, disembodied voice whispered somewhere to his left. Elrohir withstood the temptation to turn the other way.

----

Elladan spent the longest hours of his life in Elrohir’s bed. His brother’s darkened rooms offered no distraction from the waves of grief that washed over him in between what brief stretches of tortured sleep he could eke out. Elrohir had deliberately dulled and dimmed their connection the instant he left the house, and in its place once more gaped a familiar wound, an amputation. The pain ground Elladan down far enough that he wondered how Elrohir remained capable of walking. Time flowed unbearably slow and thick. By the liveliness of the singing voices down by the river dawn was hours away still. 

The sounds of a door opening and quiet footsteps in Elrohir’s anteroom brought a perverse relief. Once Glorfindel or Ardil resumed their watch over Elrohir, Elladan’s suffering would at least serve a purpose. 

In the next heartbeat cold horror congealed his blood. The door to the bedroom itself was opening. Outside stood not Ardil, but Elrond.

Elrond needed no explanations of any kind. The sight of Elladan in Elrohir’s bed confirmed whatever nightmare or foresight had driven their father to this unusual nighttime visit. All colour drained from his face, jaw slack with senseless misery in an expression that etched itself deeply into the bedrock of Elladan’s nightmares. 

Outside the window lay a wholly different universe: the golden shimmer of the lamplit greensward, where Glaeriel played the violin as Glorfindel’s sonorous voice rang out in praise of Tillion’s rising over the valley rim.

“How long?” Elrond’s voice was an unrecognizable croak.

Elladan leapt from the bed to touch his father, embrace him, do anything to ease this floodwave of suffering that threatened to swallow Elrond whole. The brusqueness with which he was held off, and the gleam of anger in Elrond’s eyes seemed to belong to some fey stranger. 

“Ada, I ...”

Down by the river the music rose and jubilated in triumphant celebration of fallen Telperion’s last flower.

Elrond’s tone was clipped. “Not a word from you, save to answer questions. How long has he been gone, and in what direction?”

Courage is found in unusual ways. Elladan saw Elrohir as he had been in Glorfindel’s accounts of Far Harad. A small, forlorn figure dwarfed by the vast emptiness of a barren land, standing firm before an army of evil Men baying for his blood. Elladan found he could do nothing less.   

“He does not want me to tell you.”

His father’s eyes were blazing pools of anger. Elladan had always held a vague belief that the tales of Elrond’s fury in battle concerned some hypothetical other by that name, rather than the kind and soft-spoken father he knew. In that instant he learned better.

Men were said to beat their own children, a cruelty unheard of among Elves. For an endless,  stretching moment Elladan believed that in his rage Elrond would follow the call of his Mortal blood. Instead he drew a shuddering breath. His voice was low and dangerously calm. 

“Go to your own rooms. You will not step a foot outside them until I send for you. Do not dare disobey me.”

In a whirl of festive silk robes Elrond was gone. From the hallway sounded hasty summons and running feet. Elladan closed his eyes against burning tears. 

Glorfindel’s distant song gave him some small comfort, until a moment later it broke off mid-sentence, leaving fractured silence.

Chapter End Notes

And so Elrohir finds that escape from Imladris is not without its difficulties.

Welcome back everyone, and thank you for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts about this chapter. Comments make me a very happy writer!

See you next week, when both Elrond and Elrohir take decisive action.

Idrils Scribe

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