Maeglin. by hennethgalad

Chapter 1

The City was wondrous; the fountains, merely the fountains would have brought endless travellers to Gondolin, were they permitted. The tall white towers and shaded courts, the glittering mosaics; every path seemed to lead to another, fairer world. But most wondrous of all were the trees, whether crafted by Turgon or another of the multitude of artists, or by Yavanna herself, which filled every nook, overhanging each stair and street, each garden or square. Every building was unique, yet each had its own beauty; a charming fresco, coloured glass windows, windows of lovely shape, a high roof, a flat roof, a roof of thatch... The ordinary houses of the elves of Gondolin each made him wish that he lived there himself. But the Houses of the great Lords were palaces that even his father would have envied; mighty spires or domes, great arches of gleaming marble, and more fountains, and trees, and sculptures, until he was overwhelmed, and returned to his room, gripping a familiar book in his hands.
   But all the time smiling, grinning to himself at the marvellous fortune of his birth. For his mother was Aredhel Ar-Feiniel, the sister of the King of Gondolin, and that made him, Maeglin son of Eol, of Nan Elmoth, a prince.

  That made him The Prince. There was no other, nor ever could be. It was known everywhere that Turgon had loved Elenwë more than the stars, as the songs said, and that he would never marry again, as his grandfather had done. There would be no other prince. If misadventure should take the life of Turgon, then he, Maeglin, would take up his seat. His knuckles cracked as he gripped the book, and he sat back and breathed calmly. The change in his fortune had been so sudden, and so shocking, that he could not grasp the enormity.          

  He wished that his father were there to see, and to share in the joy of the white city, but Turgon had been in the dreadful battle at Alqualondë, where the kindred of Eol had been among the slain. Eol would not forgive, and a part of Maeglin grieved with his father for the kin he had been born too late to know. But Turgon was also kin, his uncle, his mother’s brother, and the front line of the battle was within his very blood, within his heart.

  But he could not think such dark thoughts in the city of light and lights. Oh, the lights of Gondolin ! Riding home at night, bone weary on a spent horse, and seeing fair Gondolin glitter through the branches until the trees thinned and the full splendour of the fantastic construction towered over them as a mountain made of gems, glinting in many rich shades of green, and blue and gold and deep red, or pale rose, or violet, or colours for which he had no name.

   He looked at the book, it was a theory of numbers; his father was fascinated by numbers, which came to him with the ease of breath, and sang to his tunes. For Maeglin, the understanding was there, but he saw something deeper, or felt, perhaps. The vigour of the Noldor had come to him in his mother’s blood, and her spirit sang to him of the great Music, which had called the world into being. It seemed to Maeglin that his father would himself call things into being, with his obedient numbers, but what things ? Wholesome things ? Things of beauty and harmony, to enrich the great Music, as all elves should ? Maeglin thought of the locked shelves of books, and the locked desk in his father’s study, and the secret signs and symbols that were to be found throughout his father’s elegantly written volumes, notes within notes, secrets within secrets...

   But there were no locks in Gondolin save on the seven mighty gates, each one a marvel. The library was vast beyond imagining, and no part was locked, or secret or in mysterious code. Indeed, the writers and thinkers of Gondolin were eager to explain every last detail, with reasons and references !

    Maeglin gripped his fingers and squeezed his own hand with excitement, staring unseeing at the richly furnished chamber. His whole life lay ahead of him, and he had arrived in the city of his dreams, to learn all that he had ever hoped to learn, to see if perhaps there was some true music, some echo of the Music itself, that would find a faint echo in the numbers. Deep in his heart, he hoped to find such an echo, to show to his father, and perhaps bring the old elf more into harmony with the world, with other people, and most of all with his mother. It was awful that he had been left behind, Maeglin knew that he himself would have been heartbroken to be abandoned so, and longed for a time when he could show the worth of Gondolin to his father, and perhaps, even, one day, to bring him here himself.

   The hope surged within him, the burgeoning life within him paid no heed to the wounds that time and fate had dealt his father, his uncle and almost every elf in Gondolin. Even Idril Celebrindal, his lovely cousin, who seemed the very epitome of joy, had lost her mother to the ice. But in his youthful enthusiasm he swept such carping from his mind. How could anyone be unhappy in this marvel of a place, when every corner revealed a new sight of such beauty that the only thing to do was gasp.
   And every corner had an artist, sketching a window, or the shadow of a tree, or the sunlit view down the long stairs, or the endless swirling crowd, bright as the birds of Irmo as they sang; though privately Maeglin thought it looked more like a fruitbowl, scattered with petals of every flower known, and sprinkled with gems. After the gloom of Nan Elmoth, and the sombre garb of his father, these elves were dazzling, and Maeglin caught his breath and shook his head, trying to imagine himself garnished with spangles, in richly coloured robes, and began to laugh.

   He walked over to the window, the book forgotten on the table, and gazed out across the rooftops. The Prince had been given the finest rooms, his mother had returned to her old quarters, nearer the stables and her beloved horses, but Maeglin had been given a tower to himself, the tower set aside for the theoretical visit of the High King, though that seemed increasingly unlikely as the war dragged on. He sat on the soft cushion of the window seat in the fathom-thick wall and watched the sunlight glint on windows and statues and sparkle on the fountains and glitter on the streams and falls which coursed through the streets, sweetening the air and keeping down the dust. He found that he was grinning still; he could almost dance, did he but know the steps, any steps, and he smiled then, not with joy, but with purpose. For here was a lesson that he could learn at once, which would be appreciated by the gay people of Gondolin, who loved to dance, and to watch as others danced.

   He sprang to his feet, the impetuous eagerness of his youth driving him on as a leaf in the wind, and he hurried to the door, grinning again. For in Nan Elmoth, there had been none but his mother to teach him, and she had not cared to dance in the house of his father. But in Gondolin, it would not be a question of carefully seeking a dancer in a forbidding tower, but of asking the very first person he saw, who would put aside whatever they were doing for the joy of the dance, and, he drew himself up to his full, (though still rather skinny), height, for the pleasure of serving The Prince.