Northern Skies by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 21

Elrond’s world had tilted in an instant, lurching from the easy ways of peace to well-worn wartime patterns. The night passed in a blur of summoning every warrior left sober enough to stand on their feet, coordinating patrols and sending scores of pale, shocked faces off into the night, the long shadows of horse and Elf leaping before their own feet in the flickering torchlight.

Celebrían had disappeared to the armoury, both she and Erestor lost in the task of breaking open the storerooms, calling for reinforcements and mounting an expedition. 

Elrond did not dare hope their frantic preparations would prove unnecessary. One of the patrols searching the valley proper might yet ride into the courtyard with a bedraggled Elrohir in tow, plucked from some farmer’s hayloft or roadside ditch on the way to Fornost, but it was no more than a theoretical possibility. Elrohir had been gone for hours, and knowing him he had doubtlessly put his time to good use. He was far too clever to run off into ordered farmlands where a fugitive on foot stood no chance against a mounted search party. 

The very thought of Elrohir in the mountains wrapped a cold vice of dread around Elrond’s heart. Danger lurked far too close for comfort: a swift messenger could ride from the great courtyard of Elrond’s house to the horrors that awaited in an Orc-den in a single day. 

Entire tribes of Orcs had dug themselves in deep under the Misty Mountains, breeding like rats in their dark labyrinth of caverns. The gathered skill and experience of all the warriors of Imladris had not sufficed to flush them out. The more Orcs Glorfindel’s patrols killed, the more cave openings they collapsed, the more of the vile creatures seemed to pour out of ever new crevasses. 

Sauron might not have retrieved the One yet, but other Rings of Power would further his designs nearly as well. His malicious will was searching the Three even now. He might not know Vilya was on Elrond’s hand, but despite the greatest possible secrecy he doubtlessly did suspect, and his spies crept close to the borders of Imladris. 

Glorfindel shot Elrond a look of deep concern as he gasped under an onslaught of sheer terror at the thought of Elrohir in the darkness of an Orc den - beaten, maimed, brutalized. 

Few Elves dared to dwell on such dark matters, but healers went without the shield of blissful ignorance. Elrond had felt enough broken bodies writhe in terror under his hands to know what awaited his son. Few survived, and those who did were wrecked in body and spirit beyond what could be mended this side of the Sea. Elrond had seen fearsome Elf-warriors take ship as a hollow-eyed shell of their former selves, their bodies mutilated and minds snapped like brittle twigs beneath inescapable memories of torment. He had often wondered what became of these Elves in Valinor, how much truth was in the comforting fable that Irmo and Estë might heal even the worst of Morgoth’s marring. 

Elrond rose from the council table under the startled gazes of Glorfindel, Canissë and a handful of lieutenants receiving instructions. He murmured something about searching for clues before fleeing his own study as if chased by wargs. 

Elrohir’s room was grave and silent as an empty husk. Save for the unmade bed where Elladan had lain the space was tidy as ever, as if Elrohir had merely stepped outside for a midnight stroll. 

Not since Ereinion’s death had Elrond longed so deeply for another’s smile, their voice, their very being, while at the same time being thoroughly furious with them. Desperate for any lingering trace of Elrohir’s presence he frantically, irrationally began searching the room. At the bottom of the wardrobe lay the battered old saddlebag from Harad, deflated but by no means empty. Elrohir had been ruthless in abandoning anything and everything too heavy or useless to carry. 

Elrond methodically emptied it, spreading out his finds on the bed. Clothes from Harad. Strange insignia stared at him like mocking eyes, bitter reminders of where Elrohir’s first loyalty lay. 

Several sheets of crumpled reed paper, densely covered in flowing Haradi script made for a surprising find. There was no telling whether they were personal correspondence, old dispatches from wars past, or something else entirely. A small, leather bound book was equally enigmatic. Elrond laid all of it aside for Erestor and Lindir to look at, but he had little hope. The only one in all of the North who could have made heads or tails of these writings was gone. 

Then Elrond’s searching hands struck a parcel wrapped in hide. Out came his undoing - a small harp of strange southern make. Elrohir must have been a fine harpist, once. The instrument recalled his touch, and his strumming fingers had worn the polished wooden surface smooth and dull. At Elrond’s tentative plucking, strings long untuned rang a jangling dissonant through the bedroom’s tomb-like silence. A vision fluttered into Elrond’s mind -- Elrohir’s face, alight with the pure, unguarded joy of singing. Elrond might never see that expression on his son with his waking eyes, and that fear was an exquisite agony. 

Elrond cursed his own ignorance. He had known well enough how closed and clever Elrohir was. His son’s sharp, unknown mind could be felt, whirring like a fine Dwarvish clock beneath the impassive facade. And yet Elrond had failed to perceive that the present plagued Elrohir as much as did the past. His darkness had been so deep he had left behind even the remembrance of song. Elrond’s view of the discarded belongings littering the empty room grew misty, and when at last he set the instrument aside it was with shaking hands.

He could have wept with the devastating loss, the injustice of it. Elrohir had been home less than a sliver of the endless span of years he should have had with his family. Elrond had been waiting for him turn back towards life and light, patient as only an Elf could be. He had been naïve in believing he had time. Time enough to tease out those small suggestions of wry laughter that broke the surface of Elrohir’s mind at times, and learn what kind of jokes he would make. To get to know his face as he laughed, or slept with easy dreams. To grow familiar with the sight of joy reflected in his eyes. To see what craft Elrohir might have chosen, and the work that would come from his hands. 

That small, restless gesture of his, plucking his sleeve between his fingers whenever he thought deeply about something, the one that was all Elros. 

All that was lost, but the worst of it, the thought that broke Elrond like some soft animal laying in the destroyed remains of its shell, was that Elrohir would never sing again. Their quiet boy would be taken, and tortured, and the only hope remaining was that death would be swift.  Elrohir’s voice would be broken along with his body as he screamed himself hoarse beneath whip and claw and cruel iron. It would never mingle with Elladan’s in Imladris’ silver summer nights, to rise up to the leaves and the stars. Elrohir was gone, and the loss would destroy those who loved him. 

Elrond had lived three ages of war and violence and yet he refused to accept that Arda might hold such cruelty. Once more he found himself chained to Imladris by his responsibility for Vilya, and once more Celebrían and Glorfindel would be the ones to ride out and search for Elrohir in his father’s stead. 

Elrond rose. He might be the prisoner of his own well-guarded borders, but he was far from powerless. For a fleeting instant he contemplated the enormity of the deed he was about to commit, its harshness and the damage it would inflict. Elrohir would be deeply hurt, but he would live to one day understand the difference between cruelty and necessity. Elrond prayed that in doing so he might forgive.   

He turned towards the windows, white-knuckled hands clasping the sill, and sent his thoughts outwards, gathering Vilya’s power. He became Imladris, every whirl and eddy of the high winds jostling between the mountaintops, the living breath of every Elf in the valley, the flight of night birds in the branches of each starlit tree. Far to the south, in a green hollow between towering mallorn trees an answer came, concern and deep dismay. 

Elrond paid it little heed, raising his hands like a weaver upon a loom set with the jewel-bright, invisible threads of the mind.    

-----

Night in the mountains brought a sharp, wintery chill to the air. Elrohir drew his fur-lined cloak tight around his shoulders. Months of gazing at these snow-clad peaks from the safety of Imladris had rendered their shapes as familiar as his own hands. Seen this close they seemed far more forbidding, wholly covering the eastern stars and appearing to bend over him like malevolent, eyeless giants.

Elrohir chastised himself for the thought. He had never been one for superstitions. 

His back tingled with that inexplicable sensation of being watched. He spun to look behind him, seeing nothing but darkness lying heavy over desolate grey slopes, the treeline a shapeless black mass far below. Serdir was long gone. His unexpected guide had wordlessly disappeared the moment they reached the head of the secret trail that wound its way out of the valley, little more than a goats’ path lined with thorny brambles. 

Elrohir’s own steps were as silent as he could make them, but the unnatural absence of the  night sounds of the wilderness -- small animals skittering amidst the grasses and the hoot of hunting owls -- made each footfall stand out like a drumbeat. Elrohir’s fingers closed white-knuckled around the hilt of his sword. He had lost sight of Elrond’s house when he scaled the valley rim hours ago. He imagined it lit for the feast, golden light spilling from its many windows. 

At the very edge of hearing rang the silver tones of the belfry far below. The tolling bells went on far longer than usual, and Elrohir tried his utmost to remain calm in the knowledge that he had been missed, and now the hunt would begin. He should devote all his attention to that, rather than the raw wound in his mind where Elladan should have been, empty and painful, a gaping hole of his own making. Had their ruse been found out, or betrayed on purpose? Elladan was undoubtedly in Elrond’s study now, either helping to draft search plans or being questioned.

Elladan’s tortured expression as he handed Elrohir his weapons had been a pain beyond any Elrohir had felt before. Elrohir now knew for a fact that his marvel of a brother was the kindest, most generous creature in all of Man- and Elfkind. Elladan did not weep, rage or beg for Elrohir not to leave him. He could so easily have betrayed Elrohir to one of their many guards, either overtly or in stealth. Instead he had embraced his brother. 

“Don’t die.” 

Elladan said nothing more. Elrohir had taken his hand, and that simple gesture meant more than the direst oath he had ever sworn. Whatever fate awaited in the wild lands, Elrohir would live. 

To achieve it he should keep his attention on his feet where it belonged. Elrohir swore under his breath as he narrowly avoided causing a noisy rockfall. Once more his frightened thoughts turned to the mountain Orcs. The subject had been studiously avoided by any Elf he ever asked. From what disjointed snippets of information Glorfindel had revealed, the creatures were noisy, smelly and utterly without skill at stealth. His advice had been grim. 

"Never travel alone. Never travel at night. Jump off a cliff before letting them catch you."  

Elrohir had failed to heed two of Glorfindel’s counsels. He prayed Eru there would be no need to compensate with the third.

In the cold, thin mountain air the stars blazed like a field of jewels almost close enough to touch. Here was Menelvagor, there the Remmirath, and rising above a remote mountain rim cloaked in snow, Eärendil. 

The sight of the Valacirca, seven stars gleaming white and cold in the northern sky, flung Elrohir back to a night when Elrond rescued him from the darkness haunting his dreams by showing him the observatory atop the belfry towering over the library. For a moment memory carried him back unbidden. They had sat in one of the carved stone benches, surrounded by bronze astronomers’ instruments shaped like alien sea shells, the many lights of Imladris at their feet. Elrohir sat wrapped in layers of fur while his father delivered a fascinating lecture on Elvish starcraft in nothing more than his robes. The midwinter frost stung Elrohir’s face like a knife, but the stars of the North in their splendour had chased the shadows from his mind. 

Elrohir came back to himself quickly enough, but panic struck hard at the unexpected return of his memory spells. He had stood still during this one, thank Eru, and on the surrounding slopes nothing appeared to have moved. Every warriors’ instinct he possessed was screaming in alarm. He did not know why, or how, but he had to get away from this exposed place and the uncanny way the wind whistled across the barren slopes. 

Even as he walked the looping whirls of his thoughts took on a life of their own, and focus rapidly eluded him. His mind ran unmoored as an abandoned boat whipped to and fro, straying to memories of Imladris whenever his concentration wavered from his steep climb. 

Celebrían singing with delight as a summer shower drenched horse and rider to the skin. 

Elladan’s face, his mind, his presence and the agony of lacking it. 

Elrohir froze abruptly. He stood looking at a cliff face he was sure he had seen before. His planned trajectory climbed up, towards the jagged peaks surrounding the pass to the Gladden River, but now the terrain appeared to steadily drive him down. All paths and footholds descended towards the valley, every step up led to nothing but an endless circle back to his starting point. 

With the sinking feeling of sheer terror Elrohir understood. Glorfindel had whispered the secret one fearful night while trying to ease his terror of being hunted by the Ringwraith. 

“To those who seek this valley against your father’s will, the mountains will become trackless, and feet and mind both ensnared in the maze.” 

Whatever power Elrond held over Imladris and the surrounding foothills was now set against Elrohir leaving. It twisted and knotted the mountain paths into an impassable labyrinth while luring, beckoning, enticing him to give in to the steady pull downwards, to turning back.

Panic sang through Elrohir’s veins for the briefest of instants before it was cut off abruptly.  

There would be no fight, no pain, no hardship, coaxed an eerie voice that a moment ago had been nothing more than the wind whistling among craggy rocks. 

All he needed to do was give in, succumb to the pleasant heaviness in his legs, the warmth softly cottoning his head. 

Suddenly night in the high vales was no longer cold at all, and some distant part of Elrohir’s mind recoiled in horror. 

All would be well, if only he heeded that voice, so soft-spoken, kind and reasonable. It would lead him home.

All would be well, if only he let it steer his leaden feet downhill.

All would be well, down in the valley. 

Elrohir shook his head like a horse beset by flies in his desperate struggle to dislodge Elrond’s grip. He fought to to think of anything and everything but the warm languor pouring into his mind thick as honey.

He remembered nothing, except that he needed to go up, his face towards clear, cold wind and stars instead of down. 

Down, to warmth and golden light.

Elrohir would have howled with frustration at feeling himself take a step downhill, if only he could recall why up had once seemed so important. 

Surely it could not hurt to let his willing feet carry him down just a little. 

Elrohir staggered like a drunk on the narrow path, had already turned around when the ground under his feet gave way. A churning mass of falling rocks sucked him in, allowing a single thought to cut through like a clarion call over the din of battle. 

“Scree!” 

Time itself slowed as he tumbled down within the rockslide, the pain of the pummelling stones a vague and distant occurrence. His body remembered what to do even if his mind did not. With a groan he rolled aside onto firm ground. 

He must have lost consciousness for some time, because when he next looked up the stars had wheeled further in their sweeping arc across the sky, and the eastern horizon was lightening. 

Sitting up was agony like another beating. Elrohir hissed in pain as he inelegantly rolled to his knees to survey his scattered belongings. 

With clinical detachment he felt himself shiver, chilled to the bone. A warm trickle of blood slowly seeped into the collar of his tunic from a plum sized bump on his head. He briefly had to close his eyes against another wave of pounding, venomous headache, but his mind was all his own, and the path uphill right before him where it had doubtlessly been all along.

----

Elrond swayed, and Glorfindel reached out to keep his lord from falling out of his chair. Once righted the placid Peredhel brusquely struck the council table with both fists and a let out a muffled groan of agony. Vilya was briefly unveiled, catching the light of the Fëanorian lamps overhead in an angry flash of sapphire. At first Elrond’s eyes were dazed from the deep trance. A moment later they held nothing but terror. 

“I drew him in too deeply. He lost his footing on a scree. I had to let go.” 

Elrond’s breathing was heavy as he buried his face in his hands while the remainder of his war council looked on in horror. After a small eternity of silence he regained his clarity. 

“He is in the mountains, as we feared. Send riders after the search parties on the western road. Redirect them.” 

Erestor ducked outside, and from the hallway came an echo of whispered orders.  

Celebrían sent her husband a scathing look. Glorfindel knew how she abhorred the very idea of Vilya touching her sons. Elrond and Erestor both had words with her before she agreed to stand aside and allow Elrond’s act of despair to unfold. Even if this whole disaster somehow ended well there would be a harsh reckoning between the lord and lady.

“How is he?”

Elrond sighed, his face wan with exhaustion. “Concussed, but about to regain consciousness. I drew him into danger. I will not risk doing so again. He needs his wits about him.”

Celeborn rose. 

“Ardil is readying the horses. We ride out.”

“And where will you ride to, my lord?” Erestor’s voice was sharp as a dagger. “He could be beside any one of hundreds of screes. Do you envision taking a grand tour of them all without drawing the attention of a single Orc-scout?” 

At the mention of Orcs, Elrond crumpled. His body folded with a soft gasp as if an unexpected blow had winded him. Glorfindel knew what haunted his lord, because the same horror was beating at the doors of his own mind.

On a clear frost day cold enough to bite mortal skin, a dark embassy of Men of Dunland rode to the Elvish encampment. Black banners snapped in the icy wind as they dismounted, horse and rider knee-deep in the snows of Eregion’s bitterest winter. 

Elrond Peredhel, commander of High King Gil-galad’s forces, received Annatar’s envoys flanked by Glorfindel and Celeborn, the forlorn captain of what sad remnant of Eregion’s former troops escaped the wholesale slaughter of its fall. 

The Elf-lords were summarily handed a mahogany chest. An exquisite mother-of-pearl inlay marked it as plunder from Ost-in-Edhil. Inside lay Celebrimbor’s namesake, crudely sawn off, its blackening fingernails painted with silver. Glorfindel tried not to remember the accusing sight it made on its cushion of dark hair pulled out at the roots.

Even though it nearly broke Elrond and Erestor both they made no terms that day, no surrender, and Celebrimbor’s torment had lasted all winter. Not until spring, when birdsong and shockingly yellow gorse flowers made a mockery of their abject despair, did they witness the raising of Sauron’s grisly new banner.  

Glorfindel knew Sauron desired the Elven Rings to preserve his mutilated spirit until the One might be recovered, but his hunt for Vilya was not the Dark Lord’s only unfinished business with the House of Eärendil. Sauron voraciously lusted after Elrond’s blood since the Last Alliance, desired to take and torture and destroy the architect of his downfall like he had Celebrimbor. 

The fallen Maia could achieve just that without setting foot near Imladris, should Elrohir fall into the clutches of the mountain Orcs. Perhaps the suffering of the son would be even sweeter to Sauron than the father’s, knowing Elrond would gladly have gone to torment himself if it might have spared his child.

Whether Elrond and Celebrían would be sufficiently unmoored by their grief to believe that Sauron would honour any terms they agreed upon in exchange for Elrohir, Glorfindel did not dare predict. He hoped he would never have to find out. Erestor would not be fooled -- not after Maedhros -- and neither would Celeborn. If the worst came to pass the unlikely pair of them might be all that stood between Imladris and surrender.

Celebrían rose, the motion brusque and wooden, and opened the door to speak to Ardil in the halway beyond.

“Send for Elladan.”

She spun back around.

“Enough, Elrond! Elladan is bound to his brother. Once he understands the stakes he will aid us. Elrohir cannot hide from him.”

Elrond shook his head. Even in this room, the very heart of Imladris, Vilya was never mentioned aloud. 

“Elladan cannot know. Even if his judgement were sounder than what he demonstrated tonight, he cannot keep such a secret from Elrohir. The pair of them might doom all Elfkind!”

Celebrían cut him off.

“There is no need to tell all. We did not raise a halfwit. Faced with reality, Elladan will see reason.”

Glorfindel recalled Tuor standing tall and straight before Turgon’s throne in Gondolin’s Great Hall, the unwelcome message of a Vala on his lips. He imagined Elwing, who took the last hope of Eldar and Edain off a cliff rather than relinquish it. Ëarendil, turning Vingilot’s bow due west as if the Doom of Mandos were a mere suggestion. 

Faced with reality, the scions of this House tended to see unusual things, reason rarely among them.  

Chapter End Notes

And so Elrohir gets in trouble, Elrond takes a big risk, and Celebrían takes action. Of course I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter. Comments make a fanfic writer's day! 

Wondering who Canissë is? Check out my First Age stories to meet her in her Fëanorian days.

See you next week!
Idrils Scribe

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