Farazbund by Mantida

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Chapter 1

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Farazbund

Mûr looked with no great enthusiasm round the hall in Menegroth that the Greycloak had assigned for the use of their company. From the beginning, he had had mixed feelings about the new comission from Doriath. While some of their company was all in a flurry at the prospect of making jewellery for Luthien, the most renowned beauty among the Stretched, Mûr was unmoved. The task might have been appealing, but he had lived through three hundred years of the Sun, he had worked long among the Stretched, he knew more than enough about them and their ways, and more contact with them was not welcome. The road from Gabilgathol to Doriath was long and dangerous now, and he was tired. But he was still a master smith, a commission was a commission, and the Greycloak always paid well. And when you started to 'take care of yourself', as some whippersnappers had dared to suggest to him, you might as well lay yourself in your grave, and get it over with.

The first day of work, as usual, was completely wasted. Children! Why on eath did the Stretched allow their brood to run so wild? Adult Streched stayed away from the dwarves, but their children were always a nuisance. Some came and stared at them fearfully from afar. Some, bolder, came closer, twittered like a flock of birds, sometimes even touched the dwarves or their tools, and got underfoot. Some fools like Maner, his apprentice, tried to talk to them, but older and wiser dwarves as a rule neither encouraged, nor discouraged them, knowing that in a few hours they would get bored and go away. But this one did not.

Mûr first noticed the boy when he came with the other children, a tiny chit of an elf, thin, wide-eyed and barefooted like all of them. But while the others were running around and chattering, this one stood still and silent, watching the dwarves unpacking their baggage, with his eyes darting from the tools to the samples of jewellery. Mûr almost stepped on him, he was so quiet. And long after the others had left, this one remained, having prudently removed himself to a far corner, still watching them, spellbound. As if, Mûr, thought, he had never seen a jewel-smith before. But then, the so-called smiths of Doriath were a joke, and the Noldor from Nargothrond rarely visited here since the Siege of the Iron Tower had been broken and the days had darkened again. A child that young might have never seen a real craftsman.

Next day, the boy came again, but he had changed his place. Instead of in the corner, Mûr found him perched on a shelf next to his work table, motionless, in what to Mûr looked like a very strange position, with his hands round his knees, and his knees under his chin. The huge, grey-blue eyes looking from under a fringe of golden hair never left Mûr's hands. After an initial surge of irritation, Mûr found this silent presence strangely pleasing. Hah! An elf or not, this child knew who was the best jewel-smith here.

Farazbund*, as Mûr started to call the elf-boy in his thoughts, was not at his place next morning. Mûr felt a queer pang of disappointment, and cursed himself for being an old fool. The child had simply gotten bored, it had only taken him longer than usual. Not a thing to mourn over, to be sure.

By the evening, when most of the other dwarves were gone to rest, Mûr did not. The necklace...  At first, he had had doubts, barely admitted to himself, whether he could still make jewels worthy of his name. Now, after he had seen Lúthien in person, he felt his old power stirring in him again. Lúthien,  a spirit of the morning, of darkness that brought new day... He was already half-seeing the necklace in his mind: a mesh of the finest silver wire, half-bright, half-dark like a cobweb at dawn, with white diamonds shining like drops of dew... It might be his last piece, but it would be something to remember him by. Lúthien so far had exhibited little interest in her prospective gift (Mûr suspected that she had not wanted any jewels in the first place, but was too kind to deny her father the pleasure of giving them), but even she could not preserve her apathy after seeing such work. Or so he hoped. He had better start working the wire now, when the image of the necklace was still clear in his thoughts.

He fitted a drawplate onto his anvil, reached into a box where silver rods were supposed to be kept, and cursed with irritation at himself. Thin silver wire? And how was he going to make it? There was no denying it, he was getting forgetful: the rods were on the table in the other end of the hall, and the box was nearly empty. Now, he would need to stop his work, get up and fetch the rods, since Maner, of course, had eagerly made use of his leave and had already finished his work for today. Young dwarves nowadays!

He stood up heavily, turned, and stopped in his tracks. He had never heard Farazbund moving, he had not even realized that the child was there, but the rods were there, offered to him in a small white hand. Mûr took it, acknowledged the help with a grunt, and got the most dazzling smile in return.

Perhaps it was that smile that made him break his rule of avoiding unnecessary familiarity with the Stretched. Or perhaps the wistful, fascinated look in Farazbund's eyes.

'If you come tomorrow, you may try to make something for yourself.'

The boy looked at his as if Mûr offered him all the riches of Khazad-dûm.

'May I really?' he asked in an awed whisper. 'Oh, thank you. Thank you so much! I...'

Mûr snorted. An elf and no mistake! Never use one word when ten will do!

'Yes, you may really' said Mûr sarcastically. 'Now, be off. Time to sleep.'

Whether the elfing slept at all that night, was doubful, in Mûr's opinion. The old dwarf was, as usual, first to work, and Farazbund was already waiting there, practially dancing with excitement.

To give him his due, he was able contain his elation enough to actually listen to Mûr's curt instructions, so when the other smiths appeared, he was already rummaging in a casket with glass beads and semi-precious stones. Mûr met the quizzical glances stone-faced, and tried to look as if a little elf at his work table was a perfectly usual sight.

Mûr gave him some copper wire, pliers and small shears. He was rather curious to see what the boy would do. He did not have high expectations. Farazbund was obviously keen, but the Stretched of Doriath — apart, of course, from the renowned Eöl the Dark — were proverbially poor metalworkers. On the other hand, judging from his hair, yellow like liquid gold, Farazbund might have some Noldorin blood in his veins. Mûr never saw such hair before on a Stretched outside of Nargothrond.

After a while, he looked at the fruits of the boy's work, and almost laughed aloud with joy. Farazbud worked copper as if he had been born to it, threading the wire through and around the beads quickly and with economic movements,  making glass-and-copper insects: a bee, a ladybird, and a green caterpillar. Simple, naïve, but surprisingly lifelike.

He was not the only one to observe this.

'Look at this child', he heard an awed wisper behind his back. 'He is touched by the Maker.'

Mûr snorted in answer, and looked sternly at the speaker. Touched by the Maker, indeed. As if he did not know himself, and needed a beardling like Uzaghân, barely past his first hundred, to tell him.

Mûr did not sleep that night. He needed less and less sleep these days, and his mind was busy with thoughts and hopes which up to now he had considered a thing of the past. Truly talented dwarves did not apprentice to a master who was on the verge of the grave, even if the master had been taught by Telchar himself. Maner was a good lad, with this head and heart in the right place, but did not have the inner fire that Mahal gave only to the chosen few. Mûr had told him that frankly, and the young dwarf had been candid with him in return:  Maner's true delight was in trade and travels, not in metalwork. He would surely make a good trader one day, but never a real craftsman. Farazbund, on the other hand...  Mûr had to talk to the boy's parents at some point. True, the elfling was still little more than a baby, and the Stretched had long days to spend in learning, but it seemed such a waste to wait until Farazbund would grow up enough to travel to Nargothrond, and to learn the craft from smiths of his own kind. Perhaps they would allow the boy to take regular lessons from him?

During the next few days, they settled into a routine. Farazbund came early, left late, and was very eager to learn. Pleased with his progress, Mûr allowed him to work on a leaf-shaped silver clasp the elfling was very keen on, and ocassionally even entrusted him with some small errands, reasonably certain now that the boy would not drop and spoil anything. The other smiths were starting to get used to him, and Maner, himself still not much more than a boy, was obviously fascinated with the elfling. Mûr felt rather indulgent towards this - after all, if Maner were going to trade with the Streched, it would do him good to improve his knowledge of their language. Even if it involved Maner stuffing himself with sweets Farazbund surreptitiously brought him, or having an ocassional chat during work time. Like now.

'You are doing well with the brooch. Is this going to be a beech leaf?' asked Maner.

Farazbund shook his head firmly, putting finishing touches to the wax model for the cast.

'Oak. Beech leaves are only for the king.'

'Are you going to wear it yourself then?' Maner inquired again.

'No. It is for my father. He is hunting in the woods far away', he said with a sigh, 'but', he brightened 'he will come back soon.'

It was spoken with such an obvious love and longing that Mûr felt his eyes moistening. His own children had spoken of him like that, once. Now... When and how had it all gone? Barazburg, a captain in Lord Azaghâl's army, was always abroad. Kibilân, his beloved daughter and once one of his most apt pupils, had moved to Tumunzahar after her marriage, and they had hardly seen each other after her mother's funeral. "Too busy," she always wrote. Mûr gradually stopped asking.

Maner did not notice — or pretended not to —  Mûr's sudden sadness. But Farazbund was different.

'Master, I would like to make something for you one day,' he said shyly. 'May I?'

'You may,' answered Mûr hoarsely.

But it was not to be.

The dwarves' stay in Menegroth was coming to the end. Mûr rose in the early morning to cut   tear-shaped diamonds for the necklace, when an unfamiliar presence surprised him. And not a welcome one. The stranger embodied everything that repelled Mûr in the Streched. He was handsome enough, and obviously high-born, with long silver hair indicating his kinship with the Greycloak, but his contemptuous, almost hostile expression as he looked around the dwarves' workplace voided the beauty.

The Streched looked around as if he were searching for something he was not finding there. Mûr was going to ask his purpose, but he held off. The elf did not greet him, or even acknowledged his presence, as if the old dwarf were a part of the furniture. Let him look then.

The door opened and Farazbund, early as usual, bounced eagerly into the hall. On seeing the silver-haired elf, he stopped for a split second, and his face lit up.

'Father!' he shouted and threw himself at the visitor. ' Father, you are back! I missed you so!'

A flash of joy lit and softened the scornful face, and suddenly Mûr saw the similarity between the two: now he could believe it was Farazbund's father.

'And welcome to you, Thranduil,' laughed the elf, hugging him back, 'I missed you, too. But what on earth are you doing  here?' he asked, looking around as as if for the first time fully connecting the environment and Farazbund's presence there. Mûr, already anxious, could see the stranger's joy changing to bafflement. And something else, less expected. Fear.

Farazbund did not observe that anything was amiss. He ran to the table, took the leaf-brooch, carefully unwrapping it from a piece of chamois leather, and presented it to his father with a wide smile.

'Look what I made for you!'

The next moments had for Mûr a strange, nightmarish quality when one knew what would happen, and could do nothing to prevent it.

'No!' shouted the stranger and threw the jewel as if it burnt him. 'Not you! Curse the kinship with Eöl and your mother's Noldorin blood! Do you want to end like them?'

Farazbund stood motionless as if frozen, and looked at his father with bewildered, frightened eyes.

'I don't understand,' he said in a small, shaking voice. 'Why are you angry with me? What did I do wrong?'

'Wrong?!'

The elf clutched at his son's arm, and, to give him his due, visibly tried to calm down.

'Oh, child, you are too young to understand, but you must obey me. I am sorry I raised my voice to you. I am not angry with you, I am afraid for you. What you are doing is... wrong. It is not for the elves. People who study such crafts do bad things. Terrible things. You must not touch smithcraft again. Do you hear me?'

'Yes,' the boy sobbed, 'but—'

Mûr could not keep silent any longer.

'Your son is a born smith,' he said with a forced calm. 'Do you want him to deny a part of himself?'

For the first time, his presence was acknowledged.

'Be silent, dwarf,' Mûr was jolted by the venom in the elf's voice. 'You are not going to poison my son's mind any more!'

Mûr gritted his teeth, and forced himself to let it pass. This fool was Farazbund's father. He would not quarrel with him before his son. And however bitter it was, he had the right to decide his son's future.

But the boy also heard this. He looked at his father with incredulous shock, shook his hand from his arm, ran to Mûr and buried his tear-stained face in the old dwarf's beard.

'Thank you, Master! Thank you for everything,' he whispered.

'Farawell, Farazbund,' said Mûr softly.

'Thranduil, come with me this instant!'

The boy hesitated, but in the end obeyed.

Mûr remained at his table, fingering the silver leaf-clip, discarded and broken like a piece of rubbish, looking at the empty end of his table, and remembering the grey-blue eyes filling with tears. In all his life, he had never felt so sad or disgusted.

Mûr was found dead by his work table next morning. The pride of the craftsmen of Gabilgathol was to always complete the job, so the necklace was finished by Uzaghân with what help Maner could give him. But they worked with painful knowledge that it would be only a pale shadow of the old master's idea. Mûr did not live long enough to perfect his last masterpiece.

Yet perhaps Mûr was fortunate. He did not learn of his warrior son's fate, killed in defense of the Noldor on the bloody fields of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. He never knew that, many years later, the only son of Kibilân died by an elven arrow in the ill-judged attack of the army of Nogrod on Doriath. Or that the archer had grey-blue eyes and hair like liquid gold.

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Chapter End Notes

Author's notes: Farazbund - 'goldenhaired', or 'golden-head' to translate verbatim. 'Bund' is attested Khuzdul for 'head'. 'Faraz' is my own extrapolation from Adûnaic 'pharaz'. We know that Adûnaic was strongly influenced by Khuzdul, and I suppose words for metals were most likely to be borrowed from the language of the Dwarves. Names of Mûr's children are attested (more or less) Khuzdul. Barazburg - 'Red Axe', Kibilân - 'Silver River'.

Beta-read by Gwynnyd and Adaneth. Many thanks to them, especially for valuable advice on jewellery-making.