The Fairest Vessels That Ever Sailed by Lindariel

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Chapter 1: Opening to the Light

This chapter is set about three months after the first rise of the Moon.

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Alatáriel turned the corner, leaving the private wing of Círdan's house. One large door, currently open, marked the halfway point of the wide pale stone corridor that ran between the private and the official wing. The smell of stone dust and freshly sawn wood greeted her as she approached and entered the door into a room that was being renovated. Ahh, it's just like home, she winced. Her adar was an inveterate renovator, constantly making changes to wherever he dwelt. She was used to avoiding stonecutters fitting a stone, or glaziers transporting windowpanes, or sawyers cutting new paneling to length right in the middle of her pathway, not to mention the stone-painters' piles of brightly colored sardi or the ladders of plasterers and muralists. 

Dragging her thoughts away from home, she cast a practiced eye over the room. Her adar's habits had taught her how to look at construction projects with the eye of a builder. Círdan had been willing to take her advice, and this room was shaping up nicely. She had identified several rooms in the buildings down by the harbor as well suited to have large windows installed, but Círdan wanted to start small by trying it in his own compound first.

Now that there was so much natural light shining on Endor it made sense to let the light into parts of the building. This idea was very foreign to the Falathrim, but she had lived in constant awareness and management of natural light levels for most of her life. While they were still confused about the new lights after two complete cycles of Ithil, she was relieved and ready to get to work. Once the windows have been installed, she thought, they will understand what I'm talking about. There would be plenty of light in here for reading, writing, designing, and drafting new ship plans -- at least when the windows were open. Maybe by the time she explained glassmaking sufficiently well to the Falathrim, Círdan would be ready to try installing glass panes in the muntins instead of the small panes of horn they used with lanterns. She hoped he had already commissioned the worktables.

"Rodel?" fluted a voice right behind her.

Alatáriel stopped contemplating the windows. She hadn't heard anyone come in. These Falathrim are so stealthy, she thought. They move like Teleporno, as if everything were a dance. And so quiet, too!

"Did you bring Anor with you from the Blessed Land?" continued the voice.

Alatáriel turned to look at her questioner, who turned out to be an elleth. She was still a child, but she had reached the stage of rapid growth that meant she would be considered an adult soon. She was wearing a heavy ink-stained apron. Her arms were full of parchment, neatly cut but badly stacked. Alatáriel could see the Certhas Daeron closely covering the pages.

Had she brought the new golden star with her? Alatáriel scarcely knew what to say to a question that was just as earnest as it was ridiculous. Most of the Falathrim were Nelyar although they called themselves Telerrim. They knew nothing to do with Aman beyond whatever Elwë and Olwëhad shared while they and Elmo and Nowë had been leading the Telerrim westward through Endor. How could she most simply bridge the gap between what she knew and what this child and her people knew?"No," Alatáriel finally replied. "I did not bring Anor with me. I am just an elleth, not one of the --" she paused to remember the right Falathrin word, "the Belain. Why would you ask?"

"Your galad, rodel," stuttered the elfling, looking at the floor. Alatáriel frowned. She stored away the unfamilar word "galad" to ask Teleporno about later. But if she were not mistaken the child was calling her "high lady."

Alatáriel was used to being thought of as a high lady. Was she not a descendant of Finwë himself, King of the Noldor and leader of the Tatyar? But she hadn't thought the Falathrim knew who she was; she had been ashamed and reluctant to reveal her kinship with the Fëanorians. While Círdan knew, she didn't think it was common knowledge. "Why do you call me that?" she asked the elfling.

"Your eyes, rodel. There is a light in them. My friends say Elu Thingol and his queen have such a light," explained the elfling, eyes still on the floor.

Alatáriel wasn't sure who Elu Thingol and his queen might be. Elu might be Falathrin for Elwë, she reasoned, the lost Nelyar king, but she had never heard anything about him having a queen. And unless her Falathrin was faulty, the elfling seemed to be using the present tense. I will have to ask Teleporno about that too, she thought. But she knew she had to say something to the elfling to keep her from spreading the idea thatAlatáriel was one of the Powers.

"Anor came as a gift from the Belain," she said gently. "It just happened at the same time I arrived here. I was as surprised as you and everybody else."

"But your hair!" blurted the elfling, risking a peek at Alatáriel's head. "It's golden! And it looks just like Anor! The Edhel don't have hair like that."

"Some Edhel do. The mother of my mother and her family are Minyar," she replied, struggling to get the grammar right because she didn't know the Falathrin word for grandmother. She also thought the old tribal name for the Vanyar might sound more familiar to the elfling. "They all have golden hair. So have my father, my three brothers, and my nephew."

A familiar pain gripped her heart. Where was her darling Ataryo now? Had he taken the Oath and followed Fëanor along with her brothers? And what had happened to her Amilyë, who had so many family members on both sides of the fight at Alqualondë! But in the rush to launch Canyalqua before she was stolen, Alatáriel had completely lost track of her family. She looked down at her right hand and waggled her thumb, remembering when she was a small elfling and he would play finger games with her. "That's your ataryo thumb," he had told her after one rhyme. "I will always be as close to you, and as important to you, as that thumb." She remembered kissing that thumb, and how her father had smiled.

"They must be very beautiful indeed, rodel," asserted the elfling.

"Yes, they are," Alatáriel smiled. She kissed her thumb again now, as she did every time she worried about how far away her adar was. And I miss them all very much, she thought. "But you must call me Alatáriel," she added. "What is your name?"

Alatáriel heard steps in the corridor. From the sound of it, Teleporno and Círdan were on their way here. The noise also startled the elfling. "I am Paurbrêgeth, rodel!" she called back over her shoulder as she darted out of the room.

Alatáriel could hear her voice in the corridor, exchanging a few words with Círdan. Shortly Círdan came into the room, holding the now somewhat neatened stack of parchment Paurbrêgeth had been carrying. Behind him trailed Teleporno, his eyes lingering on the woodworking station near the door as he came.

"Círdan, who was that child?" Alatáriel inquired. "She asked me something very strange."

"Paurbrêgeth? She is my finest copyist," replied Círdan. "Fastest, neatest scribe in all my lands. I'm training her to be agolodh. What did she ask you?"

Alatáriel noted the unfamiliar word, adding it to the list to ask Teleporno about later. "She asked me whether I brought Anor with me when I came here, because it's the same color as my hair. And she was serious!"

Círdan smiled fondly. "Ah, the young ones! I expect that all her friends probably believe that too. Two exciting new things appearing at the same time must be linked, at least in their young minds. Did you tell her you were entirely responsible for it?"

"No, of course not!" Alatáriel replied, a little shocked at the suggestion. "I told her the Belain sent it, as a gift to us all."

"Perhaps if you had arrived a little earlier they would be asking Teleporno if he brought Ithil with him, for the same reason," suggested Círdan. He was still smiling.

Teleporno snorted, then laughed, abandoning his scrutiny of the woodworking tools. He came over to Alatáriel and took her hand, raising it to his lips. She squeezed his fingers very gently and smiled. "Are you ready to go see the new drydock now?" he asked after she reclaimed her hand.

"Yes," she replied, "But mostly I want to see the rope walk next door. Can I see that today, Círdan?"

"After the drydock? Certainly. I can take you there and introduce you," he replied. "Just let me put away these documents and we can go." He bustled out of the room.

Alatáriel took Teleporno's hand and slipped back into speaking Quenya. "What were you looking at over there?" she asked. "Did you see a strange tool?"

"No," he said, "not so much strange as old." He led her to the workstation where the absent workers had neatly arrayed several basic chisels, mallets, saws, and small planes. Gesturing to them, he went on "the Falathrim are using tools we improved on many yéni ago in Aman. I think before I teach them how to shape a prow I shall first have to make them some better tools."

"That sounds like a splendid idea," Alatáriel said, smiling. She was relieved that Teleporno was having much the same reaction to spending time among the Falathrim artisans as she was. The Falathrim were talented and willing craftspeople but relatively inexperienced outside a narrow range of works. She was sure they would benefit from being shown some new tools and ways of doing things.

Once Círdan had discovered Teleporno's background as a Telerin shipbuilder he had let Teleporno think of little else besides teaching Círdan and his top shipwrights the secrets of the swan-ship. Between the two of them Teleporno and Alatáriel had acquired almost every skill needed to create a swan-ship worthy of Alqualondë; but Círdan's sights were set on a less lofty goal. For the moment at least, heonly wanted larger, more seaworthy vessels than the Falathrim were already able to produce. Teleporno had begun to consider it a sacred obligation topass along his knowledge in this fashion, and he had encouraged Alatáriel to do likewise. With the right tools and raw materials, using Canyalqua as a prototype, the work would take some time but be easy and pleasant for them both.

Círdan's feet echoed in the corridor. He called from outside the doorway "shall we go now?"

"Yes please," Alatáriel said in Falathrin. "Show me to the new workplace!"

 

 

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Chapter End Notes

sardi = small stones, in this case tesserae (Q)

rodel = high lady; especially relevant given Alatáriel's height (S)

galad = brilliance; shine (S)

Ataryo = daddy; also "thumb" in a Quenya finger-counting game (Q)

Amilyë = mommy (Q)

golodh = lorekeeper (S)