Dry lightning by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 3

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Dawn broke over Ard-galen with the merry tweeting of a flock of lapwings and a clear sky blue as periwinkle. The sunlight brought little relief from the night’s horrors.

Lalwen had insisted on making a final sweep of the area in the light of day, but what she found gave little cause for cheer. Glaurung’s needle-sharp teeth had torn horse and rider to barely recognizable pieces, the latest Elf to be murdered without resistance of any kind. Lalwen turned away from the corpse with a wave of nausea, and motioned for Nandaro and his people to begin raising a mound of earth over it.

Whatever foul sorcery of the mind Morgoth had bestowed on Glaurung was strong enough to wholly overpower even the Calaquendi. In Tirion, Lalwen had perfected her skill at connecting her mind to others for a wordless exchange of images and ideas. She had not realized that all those who engaged in it with her were either Elves like herself or meant her well. This first hostile encounter of its kind highlighted the need to adapt yet another peaceful art for wartime use. She would have to speak with Fingolfin.

Her first notice of their visitors’ arrival was the look of absolute joy that washed over Fingon’s face at the sight of something behind Lalwen’s left shoulder. She spun herself around, terrified that he might be under another spell, and she would find herself face to face with Glaurung once more.

The eight-pointed star gleaming on the banners of the approaching company of warriors was only marginally more welcome.

Lalwen had last seen Maedhros on the day he rode from Fingolfin’s encampment at Lake Mithrim a scarred and wasted shadow of his former self, newly unkinged after passing Fingolfin the crown. His years in Himring had been kind to her eldest nephew: Maedhros had regained his former splendour.

‘The well-formed one’ a breathless Nerdanel had named her firstborn, and even after all that had come to pass Lalwen had to admit her ecstatic sister-in-law had been right. Despite his scars, her nephew looked sleek and elegant as a well-tempered blade. He was garbed as one might expect from a son of Fëanor, all gold-inlaid plate and sparkling red gems, though he did have the decency to swiftly remove his red-plumed helmet and have an attendant pack it away when he caught sight of Lalwen’s banner snapping in the brisk north wind beside Fingon’s.

Maedhros knew that Lalwen had not forgotten the sight of Fëanor wearing that pompous thing within their father’s halls. She could not look at it without hearing the sound -- as of tearing cloth -- of Fëanor’s sword sliding out of its scabbard to come to rest in the hollow of Fingolfin’s throat. A bitter anger flared to life once more in Lalwen’s chest.

In the encampment at Lake Mithrim Lalwen had considered it beneath her to extract vengeance from an invalid. Every one of Fëanor’s sons had felt her white-hot, righteous fury -- for Finwë, Elenwë, all those nameless faces starved into skeletal masks and frozen to stillness upon the Ice -- except Maedhros. From him she received the bitter atonement of seeing him brought so low he could sink no deeper: stripped of his health, his dignity, his kingship. Towards Maedhros alone she had been polite, kind even -- because she was satisfied.

She could not tell whether her contentment had survived the sight of him restored to a measure of happiness. It did not take a loremistress’ subtlety to comprehend the wild joy and anticipation she read in Fingon’s eyes as he watched Maedhros’ approach.

Fingon’s daring rescue had gained his father the crown, and mended the rift that threatened to divide the Noldor against their common enemy. Even so, High King Fingolfin did not care for the motive behind his son’s heroics, and neither did Lalwen.

It was not that she disapproved of love between those of like kind. Her own son had never looked twice at any maid and was no less beloved for it, but Glorfindel had the decency to choose a lover whose hands were not stained with Elvish blood. Nor did he bear the responsibility of providing his House with the heir they needed so desperately to spare the Noldor another potential succession crisis. Maedhros was doubtlessly a man of many talents, but childbearing was not among them.

Lalwen managed to keep her voice down. It would not do for the household guard to hear the House of Finwë squabble amongst themselves like Telerin fishmongers.

“Do not insult me with the pretense that this meeting is mere coincidence. When did you manage to send for him behind my back? Or did you plan this...this assignation from Barad Eithel?”

“Please, Aunt, be civil.” Fingon’s voice was less than a whisper.

She turned to skewer him with the sharpest look she could produce. “I will, if you do the same: nothing beyond what would be considered civil within your father’s halls.”

Anger alighted in Fingon’s face, and for a moment Lalwen saw his mother Anaïre there as she had stood firm before a departing Fingolfin -- tall, pale and immovable as Taniquetìl itself. Grief clenched her throat.

“In matters of lore I will gladly be led by your wisdom, Aunt, but in this I will do as my heart tells me. You may repeat those words to my father. He will not find them anything he has not heard before.”

There was little she could do but look ahead with a straight, detached face as Maedhros approached across the wind-swept plain, surrounded by the knights of his household. Even now it pained Lalwen to look upon them. Beside Maedhros rode Canissë upon a black destrier, mailed and helmed with a broadsword at her side. She was once among the best and brightest of Finwë’s civil servants.

What unspeakable acts did she commit in Alqualondë? Fingon, at least, had leapt into the fray in ignorance, with no other intention than to protect Maedhros. Canissë had known well enough who were the true aggressors and who merely defended what was theirs. What other atrocities would she perform without question or protest, simply because her lord commanded them? Lalwen suppressed a shudder as she watched Maedhros dismount with all his fluid grace of old.

“Hail, High Princess Lalwen, daughter of Finwë, Lady of Hithlum!”

For a moment Lalwen was struck silent, unsure whether she felt relieved or galled that Maedros had regained his courtly airs. Her nephew gave an elegant bow, exactly deep enough to be respectful without fawning, as if a thin veneer of politeness might hide the Oath-driven ruthlessness underneath. Lalwen was unimpressed.

“Maedhros, son of Fëanor. You look far better than the last time we met.”

“Thank you, Aunt. I wish I could say the same, but you appear to have won a most perilous battle.”

Only then did Lalwen stop to wonder how badly burned the sore skin of her face and hands must look, how singed her surcoat.

Maedhros bowed once more, slightly less deep. Pleasantries concluded, he turned towards the true purpose of his unexpected journey into Ard-galen. Both he and Fingon knew better than to stir up a public scandal in full sight of their troops. They did nothing but clasp each other’s forearms in a perfectly honourable warrior’s salute. The look that passed between them nonetheless thrummed with a sensuous energy that made Lalwen want to avert her eyes in embarrassment.

“Cousin.” Layers of meaning hidden in a single word.

She had intended to step closer, force them to break up this hand-clasp going on slightly too long for comfort, but all of a sudden a great wave of bone-deep cold washed over her. Her ears were filled with a thrumming as of the pulse of a heart the size of a mountain. All her mind froze and turned toward the touch of a Vala. The hand of Irmo Lórien, master of Visions, was not gentle when it descended upon a mere Elf.

The place where Lalwen stood seemed unchanged. The low, sloping hills surrounding her had not moved, but they were suddenly frighteningly bare of their lush grasses. Choking, whirling dust black as Thangorodrim covered all as a battle raged around her. Banners bearing the Winged Sun of Fingolfin’s House flew high. Bizarrely, the High King of the Noldor commanding his troops beneath was not Fingolfin, but Fingon. A stab of grief at her beloved brother’s loss nearly choked Lalwen, but the vision swept her onwards, unstoppable as a river raging downhill. Fingon raised his helmed head to give her that same hopeful, ecstatic look, and once more she spun around to see Maedhros approach under the banner of the Eight-pointed Star. But this time Glaurung was also present, despite the broad daylight, placing himself between them. He, too was changed. No watcher would now think to compare him to a horse. Glaurung had grown to an absurd, unimaginable size, like the very hills sprung to life, breathing fire, and behind him sounded the whips of Balrogs.

 

Lalwen returned to the present cradled in Maedhros’ mangled right arm while his left hand bathed her face with a wet cloth. With astonishment she looked up at a tent-roof billowing where she had expected the sky. By the sting of salt in the burns on her cheeks she had lain crying in the kinslayer’s arms for some time.

“Where is Fingon?”

Maedhros gaze was harsh.

“I made him leave.”

Lalwen shuddered. A whole battle-tale lay within those four words.

“Princess, what did you see?”

His question came too late. Lalwen was once more in control of her faculties, and she would not give intelligence to any son of Fëanor for either kindness or threats.

“Nothing.”

Maedhros grew frantic.

“My Lady, I am no fool. I know what I just witnessed. You were touched by Irmo himself. You have spent the past hour insensate, sobbing in my arms while calling out your nephew’s name. I beg you, speak. Fingon need not be burdened by this, but in the name of what mercy is left in you, warn me of whatever danger is coming for him, that I may avert it.”

Lalwen raised herself to sitting upon the camp-bed beneath them, then stood, shaking on her feet.

“I must speak with Fingolfin before any other.”

Maedhros sagged as if she had slapped him, and the look in his eyes was more sorrow than she could bear to witness. She broke at the sudden realization that, unlike in Aman, time was a finite resource for her nephews.

“Some visions will not come to pass if we divert from our path to avoid them. Others cannot be averted without altering the very weave of the world.” She breathed deeply. “Fingon must be crazed with worry for both of us. Go and comfort him.”

Maedhros rose obediently, then cast her a questioning look.

“I will not stand in your way, son of Fëanor. Go. Make him happy.”

Lalwen found no peace that night. A lone wolf’s forlorn howling rose to the sky as she wandered the hillcrest overlooking their encampment on one side, empty plains under a sky of stars marred by Angband’s blood-red glow on the other.

She could not decide what to tell Fingolfin. It was one thing to suspect what went on between Fingon and Maedhros when they rode out on the plains maintaining the Siege of Angband, but quite another to know beyond any possible deniability, to be rendered complicit by her silence. But how could she deny Fingon what short happiness his ill-starred affair might grant him? The memory of her horrific vision throbbed within her mind like a fresh wound.

Later, she dreamt of a memory - a pair of gangly boys she had once caught deep in Finwë’s hunting domain. Both of them had been asleep in Telperion’s silver light, long-limbed bodies entwined beneath their cloaks. She recalled the sight of their hair on the folded saddle blanket serving for pillow, mingled streaks of dark and red.

She almost managed to remember the image without seeing a field of blood-streaked mud.

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Chapter End Notes

"But even as the vanguard of Maedhros came upon the Orcs, Morgoth loosed his last strength, and Angband was emptied. There came wolves, and wolfriders, and there came Balrogs, and dragons, and Glaurung father of dragons. The strength and terror of the Great Worm were now great indeed, and Elves and Men withered before him; and he came between the hosts of Maedhros and Fingon and swept them apart."

(The Silmarillion, Quenta Silmarillion, Ch 20, Of The Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad)