Nothing but Dreams by Unsung Heroine

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Nothing But Dreams

Nothing but Dreams

“The sons of Ulfang the Black were Ulfast, and Ulwarth, and Uldor the accursed; and they followed Caranthir and swore allegiance to him, and proved faithless.”

Quenta Silmarillion, Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin

 

Mt. Dolmed, the late autumn of FA 472

There remains nothing at all.

The fortress of Dolmed is a tower of living ghosts with empty eyes and silent steps, its halls lie half in ruins, damp and desolate vaulted rooms through which the wind hisses sharply, and even the numerous fires lit in the grates cannot keep the chill from creeping into the thick black walls.

I have no idea how long we have been here since we retreated – or rather fled – from Anfauglith. No idea at all. I am measuring time in drops of rain and gusts of wind, for in this place the days are nearly as dark as the nights, dark storm clouds towering incessantly overhead, blocking out the light of the Sun. I sit by the window, contemplating the abstract patterns in the sky; swirling shapes of dark-blue in a world of grey, torn by lightning every now and then. There remains nothing else to do and I fear I am slowly losing my mind. And I hear the whispers, and though I know that they are not meant for me to overhear, I know other people think so, too.

“He is going mad.” A hushed voice behind an oak door half off its hinges and I press against the wall, hands scraping roughly against bare stone and when I become aware of my surroundings again my nails are broken and my knuckles bleed.

“Caranthir is a wraith,” my brothers say and perhaps they are right. I have been known for hiding in dark corners or walking the echoing hallways at night, when no one else is awake. I can see the dark shadows under my eyes reflected in splintering window panes and I am always cold these days. People approach me warily – if they approach me at all, that is – like one would a wild animal, carefully stepping around me and shying away from the look in my eyes.

It began after Dagor Bragollach, they say. Whispered variations of “I’m fine” and a wrong place, a wrong mountain, too far to the South and no lake nearby to mirror snow-peaked walls of stone.

It was there where I began staring out of windows for hours, unseeingly into the night, drawing idle patterns upon fogged, cold glass.

One river running north to south.

Another east to west.

A row of mountains to the east.

Another one high up north.

And there, slightly to the west, a single height, reaching further up than the rest.

“You have to let it go,” they said back then.

But how could I? How could I let go? Thargelion had been home to me and it was nothing I could have simply banned from my mind.

I could have loved it less, I guess now. I could have been blind to the play of sunlight on the lake and shut my eyes to the sparkle of the mountains’ peaks. I could have turned my back on the swelling green hills and not heeded the way that the clouds cast shadows upon the wide expanse of land around me.

I could have never even thought so much as to climb the mountains to behold lands, wide and wild, stretching far into the East.

But I did, and dwelled in sweet pretence of the fact that I might live there forever and that things would always remain this way.

I know now that this was nothing but a dream.

The day we had been forced to flee had been grey and pale and cloudy and afterwards never again should the longing leave me to have seen my land just one more time lying drowsily beneath a blue sky’s sunshine, one more glimpse of a late summer’s afternoon on the foothills of the Ered Luin. With a breath of snow already in the winds descending from the passes and the scent of dried grass and wildflowers lingering heavily in the air. The surface of Lake Helevorn sparkling in the slowly dying light like shards of diamonds and the peak of Mount Rerir set aflame in the setting sun.

If I could go back to those times I would, without hesitation. I still miss it. I miss my land beyond the rivers, my mountain refuge on the shores of the lake, its waters shining like polished black glass.

And I miss the one whose memory remains so closely connected to this all. I miss Haleth. Now in this place of rain and storm and darkness I find that I miss her more than ever.

 

I dreamed of her that night after we came here. That cold and lonely night after I had practically collapsed upon the threshold of a tower that adorned the borders of a land I had once called my own; when I was resting in feverish dreams, tightly wrapped in a mass of blankets and trying in vain to suppress the violent shudders which ran through my body.

And then suddenly she was before me, as if she just had appeared from thin air, looking just as ever. The same storm-cloud eyes, the same smile playing upon her lips, the same sway of slim hips as she moved closer, a tumble of unruly hair falling over her shoulders. Quite mortal and quite beautiful.

She felt very real, very warm, and very solid as she carefully reached around my bandaged upper body to pull me closer, resting her chin upon my damp hair and gently caressing my sweaty temples with her hardened finger-tips.

“You cannot be real. It is only a dream.”

She smiled, the knowing smile only one can smile who knows their time is limited. Then she slowly reached out and placed her index finger upon my lips.

“Shh,” she whispered while soothingly running her hands over my hair, straightening out the tangled strands with her fingers.

“You are safe with me.”

I somehow felt like weeping with relief as her arms draped around me and her lips kissed the top of my head with a feathery touch. Sighing softly I submitted myself to her embrace, leaning my forehead in the crook between her neck and shoulder and feeling her well-defined muscles shift beneath my hands.

“You are safe.”

And after this, all I remember is darkness for some time.

 

I awoke in a room that still was faintly familiar to me, a room I had often occupied when travelling to the south-eastern border of my lands, in better days before Dagor Bragollach. I awoke thickly covered in furs and blankets reeking of dampness, my brother sitting beside me, gently squeezing my hand.

“We feared for you.”

I do not know anymore if that were his words. I still remember something being said, but not exactly what. What I remember most vividly is the look on his face. One I knew all to well from when Maedhros had returned from Angband. Something that said that my survival had been a close thing and that made me wonder what there remained in me that wanted to stay alive so desperately.

That day passed in a blur, in which I constantly drifted between being half-awake and half-asleep, deadly cold and far too warm until finally my fever broke.

I do not remember much of that time. I vaguely remember my brother trying to coax me into eating and drinking, holding my hand while doing so. I remember I refused all food but found myself eagerly turning to the offered comfort.

My mind rested in strange dreams and I felt oddly content in this state. I did not want to think. Not about the present, not about the future, and certainly not about the recent past. I felt best when I lay wrapped in thick blankets, drugged almost senseless, pretending the world around me was no more existent than my recurrent nightmares. I desperately ignored that there still was something outside of the tower’s walls and I somehow expected my environment to do the same, as if we all could be able to continue living in this substitute of reality and never emerge from it again, while outside the rain fell and everything dreamed, like in forgotten times before the Sun and the Moon.

 

She came again the next night.

This time I found her sitting beside me when I woke from sinister dreams, curling my hair around her fingers. “Are you better?” she asked and her hand was warm upon my cheek as she bend down to kiss my forehead. I nodded mutely and slipped my hand into hers.

I think I fell asleep for a while then. When I was awake again she was lying next to me, fingers lightly touching my cheek and her hair fanned out on the pillows. She felt very warm and very dry, though outside it kept raining, raining without ever ceasing. Something inside of me screamed that this could not be, that it was simply some trick of my mind, but I could touch her, and how could I simply make up someone so solid, someone so tangible, someone so… real?

“No,” I heard myself saying, “no. It cannot be.” But she simply shook her head and continued stroking my hair.

“How?” I said. “How have you come here? When have you come?”

“Fool,” she answered, smiling her strange smile. “Do you not know that I have never been away?”

And with that she suddenly got up in one swift movement and walked away from me.

“Stay,” I pleaded, sounding entirely unlike myself, as if some stranger had taken residence in my body without me having any knowledge of it. “Don’t go now. Please.” But she did not answer anymore, only smiled, and suddenly I felt awfully tired.

 

It was the cold grey hour of dawn when my brother entered the room to look after me. I had given up on trying to sleep after waking some time during the night and so I lay there silently, watching him bleary-eyed while he added several new logs to the fire.

“Are you not sleeping,” he finally asked, crossing the room.

“I cannot.”

“Are you not tired?”

I closed my eyes. “Awfully so.”

His expression darkened as he sat down on the side of the bed.

“Are you hurting?”

“Only a little.”

“Do you want me to get you something to help with it?”

“No,” I whispered. “I am fine. I do not need anything.”

There was a moment of silence between us, the only sounds the heavy rain outside, the low crackling of the fire and the distant murmur of voices somewhere down in the hall.

“Do you know how she has come here?” I asked.

He looked puzzled. “Who has come, brother?”

“Haleth,” I breathed. “She was here.”

At the mention of the name his head jerked up immediately. He studied me gravely, then managed a faint smile, worry written all over his face.

“You must have been dreaming. Are you sure you are fine?”

“Yes,” I answered weakly, suddenly feeling a lot like starting to cry at any moment. I have developed the odd habit of doing so for the pettiest and most trivial reasons without forewarning and there is nothing I can do to prevent it. “Yes. But she was here with me.”

“You had a bad fever,” he continued. “Surely you have been hallucinating.”

“No,” I heard myself say, “no,” and I do not know if I did so out of conviction or defiance. “I could see her. I could touch her. She held my hand. She kissed me. Here.” I raised my fingers to where her lips had touched my forehead, as if in the vain hope of finding any evidence there.

“Caranthir, she is dead. She has been dead for many years, and you know it.” He sighed tiredly and squeezed my hand very gently while frowningly pushing a strand of hair out of my face. “You still feel too warm. Try and rest now.”

I bit back a frustrated growl.

Yes, I was wounded.

Yes, I did have a fever.

Yes, I was barely able to think straight.

But I simply wished he would do me the favour and stop looking at me as if I just completely lost my mind.

“Try to sleep,” he repeated and then turned and left me alone.

 

She returned night after night. She stood silently in a dark corner of the room, contemplating the fire in the grate or remaining motionless in the window niche for hours. Sometimes she talked to me, though she never talked much. Sometimes she touched me. Most of the time she simply sat at my side, watching me with an almost accusing expression.

Sometimes I did not want her to be there at all.

“Go away,” I wanted to tell her, but the words remained stuck in my throat. After all, how could I tell her to go away, the one whose presence I had craved more than anything else in my life?

One of these nights she lay down beside me, pressing against my back and stroking my hair, while I turned away from her, trembling.

“Leave me,” I forced out hoarsely. “You are not there. I do not want to see you. I am not going mad.” But she did not move the least bit and only when I awoke the next morning she was gone.

Her visits became a strange routine within a world tumbling down into chaos and the few times when night had fallen, and the rain beat down, and the fire burnt low, and yet she still had not appeared, I found myself eagerly listening to my own anxious breathing, longingly waiting for her slender form to emerge from the shadows.

People soon started whispering among themselves that I was losing my mind, seeing things that were not there, but she sat beside me during the bad nights when I could find no sleep and as much as reason screamed against it, I desperately wanted her to be real.

 

The cut in my side was deep and healed slowly, and it took time until I was finally able to leave my bed. I sometimes think it would have been better if I would never have been able to do so at all. For when one is walking among the living once more, it is inevitable to become confronted with present consequences of past mistakes that I for my part could yet have lived a while without being reminded of.

Shadows of the past cling to me like the sheets I find myself tangled in every morning. I know that I cannot go on like this. I know that I have to start living again. I know I have to haul myself out of this dark hole and let go of the guilt of holding the blame for all of this, lest I despair. I know I have to. But I simply do not care.

What I did seemed to be a wise course of action back then, another ally in our fight against Morgoth, another small step towards our final victory. It seemed to be within our grasp, so very, very close, and some say indeed it would have been ours, if it had not been for his treason. But who could have known that in the end the tide would turn against us? Who could have read his genuine thoughts behind the sly speech and humble gestures? And still, still I could not help myself but to entertain the nagging thought of how differently the outcome might have been, had I simply turned him away.

It was probably just another act of defiance, I can see that now. See, I can make things right, too. I am more than the nuisance you have to send far into the East to somehow keep him out of trouble. I can do more than insulting Elu Thingol and bedding mortal women. I can be useful, too.

Ulfang’s people were numerous, and I really thought I could make a difference, that I could use them to our advantage. But I did not. What I did, was to bring the traitor into the equation. And it is hard to live with that. It is unbearable to think about where we might be now, what me might have achieved, had it not been for this. Had I not put trust in one as him when so much was at stake.

 

I have never been the one to have contemplative moments, but here, with nothing else to do, nothing else to occupy my mind, I find myself assaulted by them. I am just another ghost, hiding in the shadows, sitting by the window and staring out at a land I should by all rights still be able to recognize somehow.

But I do not. Not in the way the air smells or the birds sing, nor in the way the wind sounds. I do not recognize that what was once Thargelion in the hue of the grass, nor in the way that the clouds move. There is nothing left of what I once cherished.

Sometimes I wonder how much of my fortress still stands, and if I still would recognize it today. They set fire to it. We still saw it light the sky long after nightfall, when we were already far to the South. Behind us, it was raining ashes.

I pull the blanket draped over my shoulders tighter around myself, shivering slightly. It is getting colder day by day and I begin asking myself how I shall make it through the winter in this forsaken place. Strangely enough, Dolmed is not even nearly as far north as was Rerir, and I cannot recall ever being as cold there as I am now.

I can feel tears blurring my vision once more, though inside I feel nothing but numb, and I angrily swipe them away.

“Are you alright?”

I whirl around, surprised to see my brother standing right behind me.

“I… I did not hear you approach,” I murmur, turning back to the window.

“Perhaps you should go back to bed,” he says softly, touching my shoulder.

“No,” I answer. “I am fine. I just do not quite feel myself at the moment.” Add to that, that I do not even quite act myself. That I do not even seem to know myself anymore sometimes.

“No one of us does. It will get better. It will be alright.”

It is a matter of fact that people start telling you that things will be alright when they know exactly that things will never be alright again. I do not voice my thoughts aloud. I somehow do not feel like antagonizing anyone at the moment.

“But it is good to see you feel better.” He pauses, as if to wonder what to say next. Then he looks at me soberly. “Do you still see her?”

I am afraid I cannot give him the answer he wants to hear. So I only nod mutely, clutching the blanket closer as if fumbling for a handhold that will prevent me from falling into the bottomless abyss that seems to be opening up right before me.

He sighs and the sound of it is like thunder to my ears, reverberating in the silence of the room.

“Let it go,” he almost pleads. “Do not let these phantoms of the past haunt you any further.”

“But I can see her,” I tell him. “She whispers to me in my sleep. She talks to me when I am awake. She does not go away. Please… I am not going insane.” I know I am beginning to sound hysterical, but I seem to be unable to control it anymore, nor can I control the tears that begin streaming down my face seemingly of their own accord.

“She was a girl,” I cry, “for Ilúvatar’s sake, only a girl! What harm could she have done? You had a thousand wise counsels for me, a thousand good reasons why I should leave her alone. Why did you not use a single one of them to warn me of him? Just a single one! Why did no one warn me?”

I know I am probably not making any sense now. It just keeps coming together all at once; the love I had for Haleth, the betrayal of Ulfang’s people, my inability to let the past be past and move on, and it is pushing out of me with such a force that it is making me breathless.

“Why did you not warn me?”

“Would you have listened?”

I know I would not. I never had, after all. But reason escapes me at the moment. I wish my head would clear. I wish I was somewhere else. I wish nothing of this had happened. I feel like ripping this place apart, when in fact I even lack the will to get up and leave this window.

“I’ve achieved nothing in my life,” I continue. “I have no children, the only home I ever had has been taken and destroyed, the person I loved with all my heart left me for some desolate forest, and the one time I tried to make things right… it should have been me who died in that battle. More so than Fingon, more so than those Atani, even more so than the Naugrim. I do not want be remembered forever as the one who made alliance with him. I did not want this to happen. I did not want this…”

Words fail me. I want to run away. I want to go and hide in the mountains like I had done back at Rerir at times when I could not even stand the few people who were around me. There used to be a place high up, where sometimes snow would lie until late in spring and where no one ever came but me, and there I would sit beneath the blue sky and watch the winds ripple the surface of the lake until all anger I felt would disappear like morning mist on the meadows. How I wish for that place sometimes.

As far as I think back I always had a thing for wishing for what I could not have. It is not a healthy feeling. Most of the time it feels like being eaten up from the inside.

I feel my brother’s arm slip around me. I wish he would stop treating me as if I might break from his touch. I will not. I want him to hold me. Hold me, lest I fall apart. I know I am being self-pitying, but I cannot seem to help it right now. I feel awful, and I simply wish it would stop.

I do not know how long we sit there, neither speaking, nor moving. At one time he finally leaves and I remain sitting there, face hid in my hands, wishing the world would cease existing.

 

When I finally return to my room I am not very surprised to find her there, standing by the window in the firelight. For the first time I realize that she has no reflection and casts no shadow, but somehow I do not find this odd at all.

“I once told you to seize the time granted to you,” she says. “I hold to that.” She does not come to me. She simply stands there, arms crossed before her body, talking out into the night.

“This wallowing is unlike you, Fëanorion. I hardly recognize you anymore.”

“Did you know me at all?” I choke out. I am not sure if I want her to answer, to snap back at me or if I simply want to enrage her. But she does nothing of this, she not even turns, only talks on very calmly.

“You are being selfish, can you not see? You are not the only one who lost, you are not the only one who feels miserable, so why do you make this the one thing your life is revolving around? Do you really think you could have changed anything?”

I wish she would stop. I hate it how she states these things so matter-of-factly. I hate it even more because I know she is right.

“I love you, and I want you to stop this.”

“Go away.”

She laughs mirthlessly. “I am not going anywhere.”

I know she will not. She always had a stubborn streak, and it was never in my powers to dissuade her from anything, nor is it now. She will not leave. Not ever.

Outside the rain keeps falling and the shadows are deep beneath the mountain slopes. Lightning tears the clouds from time to time, revealing a grey and colourless world beneath a sinister sky.

There remains nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing but dreams and a ghost with warms arms and no shadow, an apparition that talks little and still visits me occasionally after night has fallen.

Lest I forget…

 

The End

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