By Stars' Light by Erfan Starled

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Chapter 2

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*** Border of Valinor ***

 

“I am going with them, father.” He spoke the words steadily, as if he were no more than going on one of Oromë’s hunts with Turgon, Galadriel and Aredhel.

 

“Finrod, Aman will be closed to you! You heard Him. No pity even in death, if you follow them now. Galadriel’s heart calls her hence, but yours – yours speaks of Tirion. And of those left behind, as does mine. We were always going to return, and if you leave now you will be forever barred!” Finarfin’s eyes bored into his son’s, desperate to persuade him. “Do not number yourself among the dispossessed… Listen to your heart. Return with me to Amarië. Don’t follow the oathsworn into this curse.”

 

His eyes hardened as Finrod shook his head slowly. He would go with Turgon, with Galadriel, and with his brothers. To leave them, to let them seek Morgoth without him, never to know their fate – he could not do it.

 

“This parting cannot be undone. Be very sure…”

 

“Give me your blessing?” He bent his knee and waited.

 

His father’s hands touched his head. Warm lips kissed his brow. Finarfin drew him to his feet for one last, long look.

 

“Then do justly. Tend your honour well. You will need it. Keep true to what you believe and take my blessing with you, for all your endeavours if not this choice, for I do greatly fear for you.”

 

Finrod kissed him, lips on tear-damp cheeks. “Tell Amarië I loved her well but could not stay. Help her understand?”

 

Finarfin gave no answer and Finrod nodded in abrupt resignation. His father would not promise what he could not do and his father did not understand this wilful severance from grace.

 

While the others said their goodbyes, Finrod let the chill breath of the fugitive north wind dry his tears.

 

***

 

*** Araman ***

 

The ships hove to clumsily. Fëanor welcomed his sons ashore but nothing was resolved about loading the ships for a first crossing. Fingolfin said they were all exhausted and should take counsel again after they had slept. Uneasily, much needed rest settled across the company. Calyaro watched as the boats came ashore and though his eyes followed Fëanor’s every step with equal parts hunger and dismay, he showed no sign of moving to greet his lord and Fëanor, after one cold glance in his direction, ignored him completely.

 

Finrod saw the little byplay and saw Maglor move toward the minstrel and his father say a sharp word to him. Maglor’s hand lifted in protest but he gave in and with one last look over his shoulder he went with his father. Calyaro blinked slowly and then he gracelessly retreated past Finrod to a less populated stretch of rock where Finrod lost sight of him.

 

After everything that had happened, the shambling, beaten-looking figure should not have been important, no matter how cultured he once was. It meant nothing that Calyaro had once entertained kings – but his reduction to this state seemed in a small way to match the obscenities of the Haven. Finrod, feeling disgusted with them all and with better things to do, still found himself disturbed by the emptiness in Calyaro’s eyes.

 

They woke to a north-west wind and an empty sea. Talk turned grim but they settled down to share out some food and wait for the fleet’s return.

 

When red light broke and flickered upon the horizon, reaching high and higher still, a laugh escaped Finrod before he bit it off. “A new custom for new times, my lords. They burn a pyre for the dead of Alqualondë…”

 

They all stared, silent. Only when the flames burned low and sank into the sea, did anyone move.

 

Fingon said, white-faced, “They would not do that! Maedhros would not leave us! Not after…”

 

Finrod looked at him. Did he think he deserved better? The impulse to call him to account moved in him, but there was nothing to say and nothing to be done. Those who had fought Teleri could still fight Morgoth. They must face Mandos’ doom and their own conscience. Finarfin would hardly let him do more. His feelings subsided into inner shadows, coiled quiescent, not resigned.

 

What to do? Some talked, others listened. Fingolfin considered their next course, while Fingon urged him to take the one route left to them, the northern passage. All the while, Galadriel, close by Fingon’s side, nodded emphatic approval of this most dangerous choice.

 

Finrod had no taste for debates with Fingon and murmured a word in excuse to his uncle. He started moving among the crowd, the needs of such a journey on his mind. Exiled, cursed and shipless – how had life changed so much in such a short time? And now the mountains ahead of them… To navigate even the rocky steeps of the coastline, they must reapportion the baggage, sparing people to aid the children, and they must take fresh stock of what food they had.

 

He was wondering what size groups they should divide into, each group to keep tally of their own number, when he came upon Fëanor’s rejected follower crouching mournfully among the rocks. Refined Calyaro was not his idea of a killer but then none of them had imagined killing of any kind before the unholy death of Finwë. He was fumbling with his pack, blind fingers undoing buckles and strap as if his eyes were blurred. 

 

He finally managed to get the wrapping open and bowed over what appeared to be a mandolin, fingers gently mapping the cracked neck and the gaping hole where pegs should have been. Half of them dangled still attached to their strings and the others forlornly adorned the once-proud neck above which curved a lovingly carved head and beak. Bleak irony that this broken instrument, clutched as if for comfort, must once have mirrored the swan-ships’ beauty.

 

Finrod moved on, but later saw him staring out to sea as if searching the dark horizon for ships that would never come. He sat on, oblivious or uncaring of the rising tide. Finrod’s feet started to take him down to the beach toward him, moved by the sight of such desolation, when his sword knocked against his shin. He stopped, his cold heart hardening, reminded of Calyaro’s own sword wielded at the Haven along with the rest.

 

Instead, another figure down on the shore-line crossed to Calyaro’s side with ease, despite the wet, sandy rocks, slippery with weed. Glorfindel. He spoke a few words in Calyaro’s ear and then drew him away from the salt damp of his disconsolate vigil.

 

“Did he come with us, Aro? He seems more than a little upset.” Glorfindel came to talk to him, musician in tow, as calmly as if all in the world was well, apart from this one sorry creature and the sea-wrack that he was trying to shake from his boots.

 

“I picked him up at Alqualondë.” Their eyes met.

 

“He was there?” Glorfindel frowned.

 

“With a sword and travelling at Fëanor’s side when I saw him ride out.” Dispassionately, Finrod inspected the state of him. Damp, haggard and still blood-stained, Calyaro barely heeded either of them. Occasionally he shivered. He was wet to the knees.

 

“Well?” he said more coldly, “Has your lord betrayed you, as well as us? Is that what troubles you? Or is it your conscience?”

 

Slowly, Calyaro looked at him. Finrod had never seen such lifeless eyes and he almost shivered himself. For a moment they stared at each other, one with animosity, the other with hopeless shame, then Glorfindel shook Calyaro by the shoulder in friendlier fashion than Finrod’s address, more to rouse him from his stupor than to rebuke him when there was no sign of an answer.

 

Finrod’s spurt of savage anger faded back to easier numbness. There was going to be no remedy for what had happened. Fingon was no less guilty than this underling and he could not in justice single out the one and spare the other. He had other concerns, more pressing.

 

“Let him go. He’s of no account.” Glorfindel looked a little surprised, but released his catch.

 

Freed, Calyaro slowly wiped the mandolin as dry as he could and rebundled it closely in its tattered wrapping.

 

“Does he not talk at all?”

 

Finrod shrugged. “Not so far. Not to me. Let him do as he pleases. Let him drown on the rocks, if he doesn’t want to cast himself on Manwë’s mercy, or he can come with us and face that.” He pointed. Glorfindel’s lips twisted down, whether in disapproval of the callousness, or at the mountainous prospect that was their gateway to a precarious bridge of ice, he neither knew nor cared.

 

Finrod’s bitterness faded. Like his anger earlier, it was not gone but settling deep within. There would be much to do and that was what mattered. Unprepared, they faced a journey far harder than they had imagined. Fables told of what lay ahead. They were about to find out for themselves.