Ondolindë by Kenaz

Ondolindë

He was summoned, and he went forth. Out of his bed, lifted as if by unseen hands, light as a child… barefoot padding down cold stone corridors, the rush of the sea pounding in his ears, drowning the frantic rhythm of his heart… careering down rocky paths oblivious to the sharp stones and broken shells that cut his feet… and then to the sand. And when he reach the sand, he fell, went to his knees, and the cold waves broke around him, reaching up the shore as if to gather him in a mighty fist of foam and brine. With each breath the tide drew back, lured away the sand beneath him, drawing him closer and closer to the embrace of dark waters.

Before him, the wake rose, the currents pulling upward, climbing to the sky, and as they stretched above, a figure formed within them, and he cried out and bent his head in the towering presence of Ulmo, gleaming in his mantle of mist, his majestic countenance alight with seafire’s flicker. And forward the Lord of Waters strode from his swirling home, forward to meet him on the sandy shore, and the mighty hand came down upon his head, drenching him in the salt of the sea.

Look to me, came the voice both inward and out, and he looked up, up into eyes more ancient than even the sea of which he was master. But in their fathomless hyaline glow he saw not the churning depths of wakes and tides, but rock and stone, a mighty circle of mountains with an island in their midst, and on that island rose a city great as Tirion with spires of white rising to the sky and dazzling with all the colors of the setting sun.

Go.

The charge filled his heart with triune shivers of glory, fear, and fate, but ere he could speak, the Vala released him and receded into the waves until all that was left of his presence was the whisper of the tide against the sand, beseeching him. The gulls reeled and cried overhead. He stumbled to his feet and ran.

Turgon woke in a tangle of bedsheets, his brow damp with the sweat of dreams, the brine of his mind and not the sea, his breath fleeing him in the tight gasps of one who has run long and hard. He threw back the counterpane and leapt from his bed, dressing hurriedly in the dark, and from thence to the stables with nary a word. On the fleetest stallion into the night he did ride, ride as if Morgoth chased at his very flank, to Nargothrond.

And, oh! How his cousin did laugh at his folly, bidding him to rest and break his fast, but Turgon would have none of it. Come, he bade, his voice pitched high with desperate excitement, and indulgently, Finrod followed.

They rode north, pursuing the gentle curve of the Sirion until they reached the mountains, and Finrod laughed again.

“Have we come all this way to look at stones? The Lord of Waters bade you lay your claim on rocky wastes? Perhaps this was no dream, friend, but a bit of poorly digested roast which has filled you with visions!” But his words were as light as his heart: he doubted Turgon’s dream no more than he had doubted his own when Ulmo had shown him Nargothrond and bade him build.

Still they rode, long into the day, Turgon’s eyes staring hard before him as if he could force his gaze to penetrate even the hard, bleak mountainside. As the sun cast long shadows at their feet, he saw it.

A riverbed, parched and cracked without the burden of water, led into the hills and vanished. He set his mount to the trail and rode on, Finrod riding silently behind. When the horses could go no further, they walked, noiselessly treading the rocky stair etched in earlier days by the constant tumble of water over the stones. Through the cool darkness of the cavern, they followed the dry river until at last they saw the light beyond.

When they stepped at last into the valley in fading daylight, it was Finrod who gasped. The mountains formed an impenetrable girdle, an inviolable ring, around an island of rock. The son of Finarfin saw his cousin’s vision then with his own eyes, a glorious city rising from the stones of Amon Gwareth, an image of Tirion as it stood on Túna, spiraling upward, here, from the mighty cliffs of Beleriand.

In silence, he embraced his cousin, but Turgon did not shut his eyes once enfolded in that iron clasp. He focused his sights on the dream of the city as the music of water sang to him from the rocks beyond.