The Elendilmir by pandemonium_213

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Chapter 14: Over Grass and Over Stone

Thornangor takes Sámaril hiking in the Weather Hills to help ease his friend's discomfort after the vision in the palantír; while exploring the slopes of Amon Sûl, Sámaril encounters the inexplicable when he steps into a small dell. When returning to Imladris, the two smiths are attacked by a hill-troll.

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The queen had aged overnight.

The day after I had repaired the seeing stones, and the terrible news had been revealed, Isilmë and I stood together on the balcony of Amon Sûl. Dark clouds gathering in the West devoured the sun; lightning flashed in the upper reaches of a distant thunderhead. Lines and crevices in the queen's face deepened as the light faded. The wind caught a loose strand of her silver and black hair and twisted it about.

“The eagles of Manwë are upon us,” she said, her voice distant and her gaze focused beyond the approaching storm.

I remained silent, not wishing to intrude on memory. Then she turned to me, her eyes swollen from weeping.

“Forgive me, Istyar. I know it is just a thunderstorm, but I can no longer look at dark clouds in the West without thinking of the Downfallen. Now more than ever...” Her voice faltered as she blinked back tears.

“He and his brother could not have been more different. Isildur was born in moonlight, but Anárion came to me on a day bright with the sun. Anárion’s decisiveness to Isildur’s deliberation. Anárion’s swift justice to Isildur’s measured fairness. Isildur, dark-haired and sea-eyed, and Anárion with that golden hair from the line of Hador. Yes, so different but they loved one another deeply.” She lowered her proud head, her voice barely above a whisper in the wind that sighed upon Amon Sûl. “Gondor has lost her king, but Isildur has lost his brother, and I have lost my son.”

The next day found Thorno and me hiking along the ridge that ran northwards from Amon Sûl. Early that morning, he had looked out the window of our quarters to see that the pall of humidity had been blown away by the previous evening’s storm, leaving the air crisp and clear.

“Come, old man. Enough brooding. You need some fresh air and exercise after that ordeal.”

We followed a trail that hugged the slopes, rising up and down along the side of the ridge. Bare rock rose from the top of the ridges, exposed to the elements by long years of erosion. Larks sang and insects hummed while the sun rose in the sky. The fresh fragrance of rain-washed summer lifted me from dark introspection. Thorno turned off the trail and clambered up the rocks to the top of the ridge. I joined him, and together we surveyed the land around us.

To the South, the hills diminished into a rolling plain broken by clumps of woods. Mists still hung over the lowlands to the West and in the East, the snow-capped peaks of the Hithaeglir cut the horizon behind the nearer foothills, blue-grey from this distance.

The upper reaches of the tower of Amon Sûl were level with us from this height. A flutter of movement at the top of the domed roof caught my eye; the queen’s blue flag inched its way down. In its place, another standard was raised. Silver and white flashed in the light of the morning sun as a new standard unfurled below the king’s banner.

Before I departed Imladris, I had sought Elerína in the chamber that housed Lairiel’s looms and spinning wheels. There my friend had revealed the gift for her mother-by-marriage.

Elerína guided me to a large ashwood frame across which a standard was stretched. Using threads and fabric of silver, grey, dark blue and white, she had appliquéd a ship with a billowing sail to the center of the sable field. Set in the sail was the insignia of a crescent moon cradling the Star of Eärendil. The eight phases of the moon encircled the ship. The beauty of her craft was stunning and I said as much to her.

“Thank you, Istyar. I am honored,” she had said. “I know such praise does not come easily from you.”

“My reputation precedes me, but praise is due, my lady. The execution is superb, and the design, beautiful. It’s unique...just like the woman who will receive this.”

“Yes, just like her. That is why I created it. The queen is a remarkable woman although I don’t think I need to tell you that. The traditional device of the queen’s flag – the heraldry of Idril Celebrindal – is striking, but I wanted to create a standard especially for Isilmë.”

“This fits her. Can you tell me more about the design?”

“I would be happy to.” Elerína leaned over her work and pointed to the ship. “The figures on the sail are the symbols of her house: the star of our forefather and the crescent moon. Isilmë belonged to a family of fishermen. Her father and his fathers before him sailed fleets to harvest the sea. Isilmë was very much involved with her family’s vocation.” She ran her hand round the circle of the moon’s phases. “Isilmë, like me, is devoted to the moon, and so I incorporated Isil’s faces here.”

“Devoted to the moon? What do you mean by that?” I had asked and received an enigmatic half-smile.

“I only mean that the moon is important to my mother-by-marriage and me.”

“Sometimes you are as inscrutable as an elf,” I had said as I helped her detach the flag from the frame.

Thornangor shifted beside me on the crest of the ridge, also watching the new flag catch the wind. “That is an impressive work of craft,” he said and then chuckled. “I wonder what those old fellows of the court will say when the queen returns with that flag flying.”

“I daresay their balls will try to climb back into their bodies.”

Thorno snorted. “Ai! I’m glad to see your sense of humor has returned. I’ve been worried about you, Istyar. Seeing and speaking with Fëanáro through the Threads – well, I can tell you I would have shat myself had that happened to me!” I smiled at his favorite vulgarity that he had acquired from his mentor, but then Thorno’s affable voice shifted to a serious tone. “There’s something else you’re not telling me.”

“You’re right, but I didn’t wish to say anything until I knew we would not be overheard.”

“Then out with it, Sámaril. I know whatever you saw in that thing has been eating at you.”

“It was who I saw.” I took a deep breath. “Sauron. I saw Sauron. And I think he may have been aware of me.”

“Did he speak to you? Touch your mind?”

“No, I do not think so. When I tested the stone, that was the first thing I saw -- the jagged plain and the burning mountain and then him, standing on a balcony of the Barad-dûr. He turned toward me. He may have been trying to discover who looked upon him, but he was distracted by the siege.”

“That would explain why you were so shaky. You truly had me worried there. I didn’t think you’d stop trembling.”

“The whole experience was unnerving, Thorno. The Threads always threaten to suck the life out of me.”

“There were times that I envied you, Master Teretion and the Istyanis your ability to see those things and their passage through time. But the price seems heavy. I am content to be an ordinary smith!”

I put my hand on his shoulder, hard with muscle from his labors.

“Thorno, please. You are anything but ordinary. That you learned so much from the Istyanis and added your own stamp of creativity to your craft is more than evident. You are fortunate, too. She protected you from using your arts to dark ends.”

“She was protected herself. Master Teretion told me what happened when she discovered she was not to work on the...well, you know. He said she was so angry and hurt – that her anger could be heard from behind that door. But the Istyari were adamant.”

Shame pierced me at the recollection. Teretion and I had been so young and full of ourselves. Entrusted to the secretive project, we nonetheless dropped enough hints that Mélamírë astutely guessed what had transpired. Once she deduced that she had been shut out of crafting the Rings, she had confronted the Istyari behind closed doors where a reasoned discussion rapidly deteriorated into a shouting match. The argument ended when Istyar Aulendil slammed his fist on Tyelperinquar’s desk as his final say in the matter, the reverberations carrying into the corridor, followed by the Istyanis storming from the office and slamming its door in answer to his verdict.

I flinched, recalling how I had hurt Mélamírë through my ill-disguised intellectual strutting. It may well have been true that she had been protected because of concern for her well-being, but more likely, Aulendil had not wished to risk certain discovery of his manipulations had she worked closely with him on the project. Instead, he had fostered other connections, including those with two naïve and prideful young men. It was a connection that I feared had led me to him on that balcony of Barad-dûr.

“Yes,” I said, turning away from Thorno and gazing to the southeast where the ruins of Ost-in-Edhil lay and beyond that, Mordor. “She was protected...for a time. Count yourself fortunate, my friend.”

“You do not know if Sauron truly knew it was you. After all, he didn’t make contact with you.”

“That is true, but I fear what Master Arindur said may have hit close to the mark. The bond between mentor and student is not easily severed. Sauron may not have known it was I, but I have no doubt that if he was not aware of the nature of the palantíri before, he most certainly is now. And you know him. He will be ravenous to get his hands on such devices.”

“There is nothing you can do about that,” Thorno said. “Whether it was by you or another, he would have discovered these things.”

“There was something else, Thorno.”

“What’s that?”

“Fëanáro. In certain ways, he reminded me of Aulendil.”

“Should this surprise you? They were both taught and cherished by Aulë at one time. There are bound to be similarties.” Thorno clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Enough of this solemn talk. What is done is done. Let’s be off.”

We made our way back to the path. The day was glorious: clear dry air, cloudless blue sky and the calls of birds singing their praise to summer, all in sharp contrast to the gloom of mourning within the tower.

Thorno returned to our quarters while I continued my hike to the slopes of Amon Sûl itself. I followed no path but meandered across the grass, stopping now and then to admire the tower soaring above me. Thirsty, I recalled that Lónando had mentioned a spring that welled up from the western side of the hill. Taking a few deep breaths, I picked up the scent of water and wet stone. After walking on a bit more, I found the location of the spring in a hollow scooped into the westward slope.

A silver ladle hung from a chain by the spring, which bubbled out from a fountainhead and onto stones laid around it. I took long drinks of cool water, assuaging my thirst, and splashed some water over the back of my neck and forehead to cool off. Stretching, I looked down into the hollow and at its low end, saw a small dell lined with luxuriant green grass and flowers. I set off downhill and came to the edge of the little dell. Blue cornflowers – the flowers of Idril -- covered its banks. I thought to pick some and weave them into a wreath for Isilmë. I stepped over the lip of the dell into bone-chilling fear.

Like that night in the glade, terror blinded me. I struggled to free my mind from the inexplicable horror that came out of nowhere. I sought the warmth of summer, bringing myself back to reality and driving the chill fear away. When my sight returned, I found myself on my hands and knees in the springy grass, the larks still singing and the sun shining bright. The blue cornflowers waved in the breeze, peaceful and benign. Perplexed, I rose, brushing off dirt and grass, and searched for what had caused this, but to no avail. I could find no dark presence.

The sensation had not been as powerful as that when I had swooned in the glade, but it was the same. Most curious, I seemed to be seeing it from another’s eyes. Have the residues of the Threads caused this? I wondered. Shoving the experience into the drawers of memory for later contemplation, I attended to my goal and sliced the stems of cornflowers with my knife, sending my arts through the blade and into the plants’ tissues so they would remain fresh and unwilted.

Thornangor and I departed the day after Isilmë and her entourage had left to return to Annúminas. My farewell to her had been sorrowful. Her bright eyes were dimmed, and the hair at her temples was now completely white. I placed the crown of cornflowers over her brow and ignoring protocol, I embraced the queen –- my friend -- in front of the Dúnedain. She had buried her face in my shoulder for a moment, but pulled back, and smiled wanly.

“Do not forget, Istyar. I may yet summon you to Annúminas to repair my finery. Take care of my grandson and his mother.”

“I will not forget, my lady queen, and I will.”

I had climbed to the top of the tower then and watched her ride away. She sat tall and straight on her horse despite her grief, the crown of flowers blue as the summer sky. The peregrine flew high above her, calling out its farewell to Amon Sûl. Isilmë’s new standard of the silver ship and eight moons, borne by the knight riding ahead of her, waved in the morning breeze. Once again, I found myself worrying that this might be the last time that I saw my aging mortal friend alive.

Thorno and I set up camp near the woodland pond again. It had been a pleasant spot and the small meadow nearby had provided good forage for the horses. We decided to spend a couple of days there to let our mounts rest. The Dúnedain had sent swift riders ahead to bring the sad news to Imladris so there was no need for us to make haste.

With the horses settled for the evening, Thorno and I set out hunting. Night did not preclude us from stalking deer as it had when we traveled with the Dúnedain whose vision, although adequate, was not remotely as keen as ours in the dark. Hunting under the stars was pure pleasure for us, stirring something ancient and feral in our blood.

Thorno had driven an arrow through a yearling deer’s eye socket, and felled it instantly. After murmuring a prayer thanks to Oromë for the kill and to honor the animal for giving its life, he hoisted the doe over his shoulders. We made our way back to the camp, singing an ancient hymn to the Great Hunter. Owls hooted and a nightingale called off in the pines, mingling with our song.

We neared our camp when the hoots, trilling and chirping ceased abruptly. Thorno and I stopped singing in mid-verse and froze, listening. The soft night hung utterly silent. Not even the leaves stirred. Then the scream of a horse pierced the night air. Thornangor dropped the deer, and we sprinted to the camp.

The unmistakable stench of troll smacked my nostrils. I heard Tuilin’s fearful cry receding in the distance, but nothing from Thorno’s horse. Making signs to one another, we crept forward in silence, concealed in the black shadows of pine and oak that ringed the small meadow.

There in the starlight the hulking form of a troll bent over Thorno’s mare. It carried a huge club in its grotesquely long arms and brought it down again and again on the skull of the horse, the dead animal’s body convulsing with each blow.

Thorno had a bow and arrows, the more effective weapon against trolls from a distance. Yet if the troll exposed its neck, I might throw my knife into the soft tissues under its jaw and bring it down. We separated so that we could attack the creature from two angles. My blood ran cold as I watched the monster.

It had been many years since I had confronted a troll. Not long after the refugees of Ost-in-Edhil had fled to Imladris, Laurefin and Galfaron had led us into the northern reaches of the Trollshaws to hunt these creatures. "Instructive exercises" Laurefin had called these forays. Vivid memories of the strategies employed to take these beasts down now flooded my thoughts. My heart beat faster, my muscles tensed, ready for action; my senses became hyper-alert, but my mind turned toward cool, calm calculation, processing every nuance of the beast and the scene.

Thorno let an arrow fly, his bow singing in the night air, but the troll moved, and the arrow missed the mark of the great veins in the neck and lodged above its collarbone. The troll howled, its eyes flaring red. It charged at Thorno.

The bulk of these creatures belied their speed and agility. Thorno leapt away from the troll as it swung its club at him. I surged forward and sliced the creature’s thigh with my sword, piercing the hairy hide and exposing muscle and a glimmer of the femur. I ducked to avoid the massive arm that swiped at me. Another of Thorno’s arrows thudded into the troll’s side. The troll charged toward him, its long arms reaching to snare my companion. Thorno leapt to avoid its grasp, but when he landed, his foot slipped, causing a moment’s hesitation. The troll’s club caught him in his mid-section and flung him into the grass. Thorno lay stunned while the troll bore down upon him, club raised to strike the fatal blow.

Jagged, glittering words erupted from my mouth. The troll froze in place like a stone statue. Putting all my strength behind my sword, I sliced the creature’s neck open, nearly decapitating it and jumped back to avoid the beast’s fall and the cataract of blood that gushed from it.

The troll crashed to the ground, its life bled out within moments. It twitched a few times and then lay still. Satisfied that it was dead, I went to Thorno’s side. He had already struggled to his feet, clutching his left side.

“No! Here, lie down.”

“Stop it, Istyar! I am…Ai!” He gripped his side again. “I think my rib is cracked.”

“And that is why I want you to lie down! You caught that club hard.”

“It looked worse that it was.” Nonetheless, Thorno acquiesced, wincing when I probed around his injury, but I found nothing out of place; the break was no more than a thin fracture. He remained relaxed while I prodded his abdomen, relieved when I found no signs of internal bleeding. I helped him to his feet.

“Laurefin would have my hide for such clumsiness,” he said. “Those words you spoke though...they were nearly as painful to hear as the pain in my side. Were they...”

“Yes,” I interrupted him. “They were.”

“That was quite a trick. Would have been more useful if you had used them earlier.”

“I’m sorry, Thorno. They just came to me when I saw that thing coming after you. I have buried so much of that tongue...”

“Please! You know me. I’m making light of this,” Thorno said, gasping a little. “I am grateful that you remembered them.”

I had reflexively spoken the Valarin words of command, which I had heard once before. Those words had saved my life when I was in the mountains collecting specimens and minerals with Istyar Aulendil. I had been so engrossed when examining the remnants of an ancient animal embedded in a stone that I had nearly stepped off a precipice. Aulendil had called out those very words, grating but powerful, to freeze my muscles. He had been at my side in an instant, releasing the paralysis to guide me away from the cliff’s edge. He had chastised me as only he could for my lack of attention, and in the next instant, asked me how the remains of a sea creature might have come to be on a mountain range. His words must have been engrained deep in my memory and thus burst forth in my utmost need to save my friend.

“I’m surprised this troll wandered so far from the northern fells,” I said, changing the subject. I walked over to the creature where it lay in the trampled grass. “I want to examine it now, before the sun rises.”

The stench nearly overpowered me, but I scrutinized the beast at close range. Sightless round eyes glistened beneath massive brow ridges. Its mouth gaped, revealing huge molars and long ivory canines. Blood, black in the starlight, trickled from its flat nose and across its protruding lower face. With some effort, I rolled the creature from its side over onto its back. For the most part, its hide was bare and scaly, but patches of coarse dark hair covered its shoulders and back. A crude leather skirt was wrapped around its loins, and ribs arched beneath taut skin; this thing had been starving. Then I saw its swollen black teats. A nursing female.

Thorno stood alongside me. “It has a young one,” he said.

“Yes. Likely hidden nearby, too. But you need to rest before we seek it out.”

I called to Tuilin, who had fled the scene, seeking safety but trained to remain in my vicinity. I heard his answering whicker in the distance and the pounding of hooves as he returned. Thorno and I slowly walked back to the campsite where I piled more logs on the fire, which roared into a bright blaze. Thorno lay down on his bedroll, grunting from pain. I helped him remove his shirt and set to shredding my silken robe into strips to bind his rib cage.

“No, it’s best if I can be alert if need be,” he said, declining my offer to prepare a tincture of willow bark and humella for him. I sat cross-legged near the roaring fire, Thorno’s head in my lap. To ease his pain, I stroked his forehead and crooned a simple song to lull him into half-sleep while we awaited the dawn.

The day came swiftly, already sultry and humid before the sun rose above the trees. Thorno flinched when he rose and gulped tepid water from his tin camp cup

“The pain’s still there, but it’s not as bad,” he said, gingerly patting his left side. “I’m good to go.”

We returned to the meadow where I piled dry grass, twigs and logs over the carcass of Thorno’s mare, and set the pyre to flame. Then we examined the troll again.

Upon exposure to the sun’s light, the body of the troll had petrified to a mottled rock-like substance, a phenomenon peculiar to these creatures bred long ago by Morgoth. Thorno poked at the rigid form with his foot.

“I wonder what causes this?” he said. “The Istyanis believed that the Great Enemy bred the trolls from ancient creatures related to Men, but the petrifaction is so unusual. Why would living flesh become lithic when exposed to sunlight?”

“An unintended result of the breeding process maybe. It’s a mystery to me, too,” I said. I kept my other thoughts to myself – that Sauron likely viewed the sunlight-induced petrifaction as wildly inefficient and no doubt was working to eliminate it from the race of trolls.

We backtracked the trail of the troll by broken twigs and the lingering foul odor it left in its path. Lónando had noted the absence of trolls due to the war in the south; Sauron had called upon as many minions and slaves as possible, thus depleting the northlands of such dark creatures. However, the presence of the starving female suggested that a few had remained behind.

The trail led to an overhang of rock tucked away in the hills a few miles from our campsite. The odor became stronger as we approached the shallow cave. I unsheathed my sword and went ahead. There in the shadows cowered a troll-spawn about the size of a small wolf. The young male was covered with downy brown hair; he bared his canines and screamed. Then he yammered -- unintelligible, uncouth nonsense but intercalated with what sounded like words: “Ma! Ma!”

“Oh, Varda!” swore Thorno. “It’s calling for its mother.”

“She will not come.” I re-sheathed my sword and pulled out my long knife, its edge keen.

“Sámaril!” Thorno put his hand on my arm before I advanced into the cave where the creature pressed itself against the rock wall. “He’s just a baby! Look at his face.”

Limpid brown eyes beneath heavy brow ridges blinked in the dim light. The spawn's protruding lower face was far more delicate than that of its parent. For all its strangeness, the face called to mind the image of a human infant. I remembered the pictures of the apes in Mélamírë’s cherished book. I squelched the welling instinct of sentiment.

“What would you have me do, Thorno? Leave it to starve? This will be a mercy.”

I entered the shadows, crooning to the young troll. Its eyes darted, but then it visibly relaxed and its breathing slowed. It allowed me to approach and even reached out with a long hairy arm, its palm open in supplication. In an instant, I had grabbed the hair on its head, yanked it back and had opened its throat with my knife. The body crumpled to the nest of leaves and pine needles, now darkening with blood.

Leaving the carnage behind, I returned to dappled sunlight. The red blood on my knife turned black and crumbled off the blade. Thorno’s face tightened with judgment.

“Sometimes you are very hard, Istyar.” He turned away, his right hand pressing against his side, and trudged down the slope among the firs, not looking back.

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Chapter End Notes

humella (also given as fumella): poppy. JRRT wrote about the poppies of Irmo; I think one can safely assume these are poppies containing opium.