The Elendilmir by pandemonium_213

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Chapter 22: Trout Fishing in Eregion

When Sámaril prepares to craft a Yule gift for Valandil, the details of an essential component's design elude him. In order to clearly visualize the design, he must delve into bittersweet memory of his former mentor, Istyar Aulendil.

Thanks to the Lizard Council, specifically Aearwen, Drummerwench, IgnobleBard, Jael, Moreth and Oshun for invaluable critique and comments. Also a tip of the hat to Lintalomë who, in comments on Lethe's LiveJournal, jolted the dark muse's memory of Tinfang Warble (History of Middle-earth I, Book of Lost Tales 1).

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The pen smacked against the wall of my office and clattered in a dim corner. Raking my hands through my hair, I gritted my teeth, willing the image to clarify, but it taunted me from the hazy borderlands of deep memory. Night after night I had met this frustration, and I was sick of it.

I shoved myself away from my desk. Snatching my lamp retrieved from the Barad-dûr, I stalked through the dark hallway to my workshop. I hung the lamp on a hook and gathered my materials from hidden places in cabinets and storerooms. On the smooth black surface of my workbench, I arranged several wands of ash, the skein of spider silk, the pail filled with Laurefin’s hair, and a box of teal feathers I had retrieved from Mistress Duineth. I stared at the parts and tried to visualize the whole, hoping to find inspiration, but the missing piece skittered away each time I reached for it.

With only one month before Yule, I had my work cut out for me. If I wanted to complete my gift for Valandil before the longest night, I had to begin forging the key components soon. I knew what I must do to snare the elusive concept, but walking into the memory would be no less painful than deliberately reaching into a flame. My heart raced while I girded myself to leap into the waking dream. I had no other choice. I summoned the design again. The image sharpened for an instant but then darted away. This time I took a deep breath and pursued it, plunging into the well of memory.

~*~

The rap of metal against the soapstone counter made me jump.

“My apologies, lad! I didn’t mean to startle you.” Istyar Aulendil had appeared out of nowhere in the workshop. He stood next to me at my right where I sat working on a project for one of the master smiths of the Otornassë. Aulendil's hand rested on a steel spool of unfamiliar design. “Set aside what you’re working on for the moment. What is that anyway?”

I looked up to meet the Istyar’s eyes. There was no displeasure in them, but instead the glitter that warned of brimming enthusiasm.

“A new drill for Master Eretáno,” I had replied.

“That can wait. I have another project for you.”

He pushed the metal spool toward me and then placed a skein of a pale silvery filament and an oaken box containing clusters of feathers on the workbench. I reached into the box of feathers, and something sharp jabbed my probing finger. I hissed, pulling back my finger, a bead of blood oozing from the skin, and saw what had injured me: a barbed fishhook.

I picked up the steel spool turning it around in my hands, and then looked at Aulendil.

“I want you to duplicate these,” he said. “That’s a reel. Those are flies.”

I still looked at him dumbly.

“I swear, Sámaril! You’re hopeless!” he snapped. Then he smoothed his tone. “I’m sorry, lad. I was wondering if you’d like to go fishing with me.”

It was a flattering request -- an honor that such a revered craftsman of the Otornassë would wish to keep company with me, barely past journeyman’s status. Moreover, my previous expeditions with him when I tested my fishing spears had been pleasant. I had come to enjoy the challenge of spearing salmon, the wild streams, the taste of fish smoked over campfires, and most of all, the Istyar’s company. At no other time did I see him relax as much as when we went fishing together, and it was then that his insight, albeit strange at times, was most compelling, and in retrospect, probably the most honest.

“Yes, I would like that. I will need to sharpen my spear…”

“Are you purposefully being obtuse?” He tapped the reel with his forefinger. “Not spear-fishing. Fly-casting. No one else will go with me,” he added wistfully. “Celeborn and I are too estranged to even speak to one another these days. Tyelperinquar isn’t the least bit interested and...”

“Ai! He’s trying to get you to go fishing with him, isn’t he?” declared the feminine voice, its familiar timbre snapping with good-natured mockery.

Mélamírë entered the workshop that she, Teretion and I shared, her face smudged with soot and glistening with sweat from the heat of the forges she had just left. Tendrils of black hair stuck to her neck. She came over to stand on my left opposite Aulendil.

“And just what is wrong with fishing?” he countered.

“Nothing if one is efficient about it and simply spears the fish. This...” she took the reel from my hands and set it back down on the bench. “This is a spectacular waste of time.”

“I recall a time when you enjoyed it.” He picked up one of the feathered hooks between thumb and forefinger. “In fact, this is one of the first flies you made for me.”

Mélamírë crossed her arms, her brows tensed in a slight frown. “My interests have changed,” she said tersely.

“You and your will-o-the-wisp interests.” He eyed the Istyanis’ workbench on the other side of the room. A chaotic jumble of steel, copper, brass, wood, and multicolored glass jars and vials cluttered its surface, all projects in various stages of completion and deconstruction.

“I hope you’re concentrating on Artanis’ commission,” he said. “If you’re having difficulty, you know I am always willing to help you.”

“The Lady Artanis specified that she wished for me and me alone to work on her commission.”

“I know, I know.” He waved his hand with a dismissive gesture. “I just wish you’d focus. You’d make faster progress.”

“This from the man who is willing to while away his time standing in a frigid stream and devise elaborate ways to catch a fish when he could just as easily and more swiftly wield a spear.”

“Just like interests change, tastes also differ. I happen to enjoy the activity as you well know.”

While they bickered over fishing and the Istyanis’ erratic work habits, I began to sympathize with a nail caught in a vise. I reached out to touch the filament on the skein, finding it to be sticky rather than silky as it appeared.

“What is this?”

“Spider silk,” Aulendil said. I jerked my hand back. “Oh, Varda’s stars, lad! It's not poisonous. It is merely material.”

“Where did you find it, Istyar?” Mélamírë picked up the ball and partially unwound a strand of silk.

“From a trader out of Far Harad. I picked it up in Tharbad a few weeks ago. I’ve studied spider silk before. Surpassingly strong stuff.”

“It must have come from a surpassingly large spider.” Mélamírë shuddered and put the skein back on the bench.

“Perhaps. The creature itself is of less interest to me than the filament. Once it’s spun, it will make perfect fishing line. Who’s that young weaver friend of yours, Náryen? The one who crafts those chemises? You’d think Vairë herself wove the fabric the way you women praise them.”

“The value of comfortable undergarments cannot be overstated,” said Mélamírë, smiling and running her finger along the ivory fabric of one of the chemises that peeked out from beneath the collar of her shirt. “Her name is Lairiel. She’s a journeyman for Mistress Vílwen. Sámaril knows her.”

“Well, then, lad. There you have it,” said the Istyar. “Take the spider silk to Mistress Lairiel and ask her to weave a four-stranded line from this. I’ll send along the procedure she must to use to remove the stickiness of the fiber. While that’s being done, you will work on the reel and the rod.”

“All this to catch a little fish.” Mélamírë shook her head and left the workshop.

“Never mind her. Fly casting is the province of men,” he huffed, but smiled indulgently as he watched the Istyanis leave. He turned his attention back to me.

“Have this completed in two weeks.”

The next month found Istyar Aulendil and me riding on the road along the Sirannon and then turning aside to follow one of its tributaries that rushed down from the highlands. We climbed into the foothills of the Hithaeglir and riding through woods of firs and birch, following the stream that ran alongside us. When the sun slid down in the west, Aulendil checked his horse and gazed down at boiling rapids where the stream tumbled over red rocks.

He then pointed to a glade visible among the trees. “We will set up camp there.”

After unloading our gear and releasing the horses, the Istyar and I surveyed the wide stretch of the stream that opened below the rapids, its pools luminescent in the late afternoon light. There, below the surface of clear copper-colored water, brown trout darted and waved in the current.

The Istyar inhaled the pine-scented air deeply. “Perfect. Just perfect. What do you think?”

“It is a beautiful place.”

“And thick with fish, too. Be assured, they will not be easy to catch. One must be a fox to lure trout, prepared for anything.” He squinted at the water. “They’re feeding now. Let’s catch some fish before the sun sets.”

I returned to the campsite to retrieve my gear. Sitting on a log on the rocky bank, I pulled on the hip-high boots that Aulendil had the cobbler make for me. Lined with wool fleece to provide warmth, the outer leather was impregnated with oil and the soles coated with a gummy substance made of the sap of a tree from the far south, yet another import obtained by the Istyar from the mysterious trader of Far Harad. Aulendil had then used his arts to seal all the seams, rendering the boots waterproof. He had already put his boots pulled up to his hips and was attaching suspenders to them.

“Now don’t fall into the water. If those boots fill, you’ll never get up,” he said, adjusting the suspenders over his broad shoulders. “Ready, lad?”

“Almost, sir.” I fiddled about with the hooks that attached the suspenders to the tops of the boots, managing to attach them soundly.

We waded out into the stream, some distance apart. The substance on the soles of the boots provided traction on the slick rocks but I was nonetheless careful with my step. The chill of the mountain stream seeped through the leather, so I was glad to have the boots. Better than standing in frigid water even if I could have endured it if pressed.

Although I had practiced casting under Aulendil’s guidance before we left the city, I still managed to catch my hook in brush, eliciting bursts of “Hopeless, just hopeless” from upstream. At last, I found my timing and cast the fly in an arcing trajectory out into the current.

Aulendil was right: one had to be a fox to catch a trout. I tried several different lures – delicate mimics of caddis flies, stoneflies and mayflies, all with razor-sharp hooks concealed within the feathers -- before I enticed a crafty fish to strike. The fish exploded from the stream, sending silver pearls of water flying.

“Set the hook!” called Aulendil. “Not too hard now. Yes, yes, that’s it! Reel him in!”

The trout flashed golden in the waning sunlight while I spun the reel, faster then more slowly, working the fish to the shallows where I stood, the current gently pushing against my legs. I caught the writhing fish in my bare hand, removed it from the hook and then killed it swiftly to end its struggle.

That was the first of four brown trout I caught that evening, rivaling Aulendil’s three although one of his was the largest of the seven.

“So how do you like fly-fishing?” he asked, his eyes alight and a grin on his face when we made our way over the rocks to the earthen bank, each of us with trout in our creels.

“I like it. I like it very much, but however did you think of all this, Istyar?”

He pursed his lips, knitting his dark brows. “I honestly don’t know. Sometimes these ideas just come to me.”

We gutted the trout and set two fires, one to grill the fish for our meal, and the other -- slow and smoldering -- to smoke the fish that we did not eat. We stuffed ourselves senseless on the delicate flesh of the grilled trout and lay back against our bedrolls under the stars, the rush of the stream singing in the background and an owl hooting off in the whispering pines. We passed a flask of brandy back and forth, slowly becoming inebriated. As always when Aulendil drank too much, the conversation took a peculiar turn.

“Sámaril, I have wanted to ask you something for some time now.” He took a swig from the silver flask, handing it back to me, and rolled over on his side, propping himself up with his elbow and looking at me intently with starlight caught in his eyes.

“What’s that?”

“What do you know about your family?”

“Well, Mother and Father came from Tirion, part of Findis’ House but my father followed Nolofinwë in the Rebellion. My grandmother died in the crossing in the Helcaraxë...”

“Yes, yes, I know all that. I mean farther back. From before the time of the Great March.”

“Before the time of the Great March? By Cuiviénen you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Very little. Just old family legends.”

“Such as?”

“It’s silly, really. You know how things become distorted through tales.”

“I am well aware of such distortions. Tell me anyway.”

“There’s a story that my mother and father call ‘as old as time and just as fuzzy’ -- that an ancestor of our family was one of the Fays. Which is ridiculous. The only Fay who married one of the Children was Queen Melian...”

Aulendil snorted so powerfully that brandy went up his nose. He sat up abruptly, pounded his chest and coughed. His sputters transformed to laughter. He caught his breath and wiped his eyes.

“Oh, that’s a good one! Do you really believe that twaddle, Sámaril? That Melian is the only Fay who has mingled with those of this Middle-earth?”

“That is what is written.”

“Did it ever occur to you that the descendants of Lúthien aim to preserve their status by perpetuating that tale? There’s plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise.”

“How so?”

“Oh, please, Sámaril! First and foremost, that Tinfang fellow.”

“Tinfang? Who?”

“See! Suppressed histories!” he exclaimed with glee. “That’s one more thing that Istyar Pengolodh does not deign to teach correctly to his students. Tinfang’s father was a Noldo, but his mother was a Fay of Yavanna. It is said that the beauty of his music on the pipes could make the stars weep. Poetic nonsense, but I have no doubt of Tinfang’s ancestry. The children of Lúthien just don’t want you to know it.

“There’s more: eagles that carry on intelligent conversations with Elves and Men; sentient spiders; Men that change into bears and back again; huge talking hounds!” He rubbed the crescent-shaped scars on either side of his neck, scars he claimed were the result of an accident in Aulë’s forges. “Don’t all those things strike you as being rather odd?”

“Well, now that you mention it...”

“I’ve lived among them. The Maiar. Believe me when I say that they are compelled to become corporeal. They are drawn to incarnates, whether these are the Children of Ilúvatar or bird or beast. The Fays have come to Middle-earth and left their mark among its inhabitants, human and non-human alike.”

“Human and non-human...” I said.

“Yes. Think about it. That is why I ask. I recognize the imprint of the Fays, and I thought I perceived that in you.”

“It’s just a tale. Father says that so few of the Unbegotten now walk among us that memory has become myth. Likely as not, my foremother was one of the Firstborn.”

“Likely as not. That’s the healthy skepticism I have taught you so well. Maybe it is just a hoary family legend. Doesn’t matter. Pass me that brandy, lad.”

He did not speak of this again. Years passed before the full ramifications of what he had said were revealed.

Aulendil and I spent the next few days fishing while the mountain breeze sighed in the pines, harmonizing with the whir of the cast lines. I had never seen him so much at peace as those days we spent fishing at the stream. While the sun sank in the West on the evening we were to depart, we packed the smoked fish and prepared for our journey back to Ost-in-Edhil.

Before he mounted his horse, he turned back to look at the forest and the rushing stream. The breeze lifted a strand of his black hair loosened from its plait. He spoke, his voice melancholy.

“It’s strange how the simple things in life go on while we become more difficult.”

~*~

I blinked, and I was back at my workbench, my hands gripping the edges of the counter. I breathed deeply a few times, reorienting myself. I returned to my office, retrieved the discarded pen from the floor and sat down in my chair at my desk. I smoothed the parchment with both hands then poised the pen to draw but stopped. Splotches of moisture inexplicably stained the paper. Puzzled, I dabbed at these with a rag, and then realized they had come from my tears. I took another deep breath, driving away the pain of loss and betrayal, and began to sketch the schematics for a reel.

All fell into place after that. I took the spider silk to Lairiel, telling her what I intended to do with line spun from it. When I asked if she was willing to make the line, she nodded silently.

“Do you remember...” I asked, hesitant, for these also were harsh memories for her.

“I remember,” she said. She took the skein from me, turning it over in her hands. She unwound a strand from the coil, rubbing it between her clever fingers. “How could he have been capable of such betrayal? I wanted to believe...” Her voice trailed away. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes. “For Valandil I will do this, but it will be a sad task for my heart.”

Calaquar crafted rods from the Ash of Stars, praising the fine grey wood for its strength and flexibility. In the meantime, I forged the reels, the guides and the hooks. From the iridescent feathers of the teal drake that Isilmë’s falcon had brought down, I made flies of many sorts, tying them with Laurefin’s hair, which was nearly as strong as the spider-silk.

All this was done in the night with the pale light of the waxing moon mingling with the warm golden glow of my lamp. Night after night I worked on my gift for Valandil. In his turn, he was secretive in the daytime, working in Calaquar’s workshop, saying only, “It’s a surprise” when I asked him of his tasks and flinging a cloth over his project when I walked into the workshop one afternoon. Calaquar shooed me out into the corridor.

“Best that you stay clear of my workshop while the young prince is engaged with his project,” he said. “He has a way with the wood, you know. He’s already as talented as some of my apprentices were.”

So Valandil worked on his craft while I worked on mine at night. Only three days before Yule, I completed the rods and reels. Under the vault of stars, I tested them on the bridge over the Bruinen. The reels hummed when I cast out the line, glimmering silver in the moonlight. I adjusted the balance on each pole: one for Valandil and one for me. Satisfied with my work, I reeled in the lines. I yawned, not a little weary from days of waking dreams instead of true sleep, but before I left the bridge, I looked out over the river churning dark beneath the moonlit shelves of ice. I envisioned trout waving in copper water, the summer breeze carrying the scent of pines, and thought of my teacher, who had outfoxed us and then set the hook viciously, but who had also cast so much away.

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Chapter End Notes

Aulendil's lament about the simple things in life going on while we become so difficult (appropriate, I thought, for a backsliding former servant of Morgoth) belongs to Richard Brautigan, author of Trout Fishing in America.

Lairiel – master weaver of Imladris, formerly of Ost-in-Edhil
Calaquar – master woodwright of Imladris, formerly of Ost-in-Edhil
Mélamírë (Istyanis Náryen) – master smith of the Otornassë Míretanoron/Gwaith-i-Mírdain;
Laurefin = Glorfindel

Nolofinwë - Fingolfin

Artanis - Galadriel's father-name