The Elendilmir by pandemonium_213

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Chapter 36: The Wind-Lord's Finger

On their way to the sea, Sámaril and Elerína travel down the Baranduin on The Otter's Tale, a traders' keelboat, manned by a motley crew of Middle Men, including the superstitious but well-meaning Captain Rinan.  Elerína makes an offering to the River-mother, but will it deflect the threat of the Elder King's fierce storm that bears down upon them?

 

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to Surgical Steel for the nattering that led to the term "the Wind-lord's finger" and to Lizards Darth Fingon, Aeärwen, KyMahalei, Oshun, Elfscribe, Erulissë, and Russandol for picking nits and comments.  Deep-fried cockroaches with tartar sauce for all!  And an extra serving for post-publication nit-picking from Drummerwench!

Please see end notes for more acknowledgments.

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The man with one eye faced the West where a wall of clouds loomed over the edge of the sky. Lightning illuminated the dark folds of the distant storm, but the sultry air that hung thick over the Baranduin River did not stir.

“Wind-lord looks to be angry,” grumbled Captain Rinan, squinting at the storm before he turned his dark brown eye, sharp as a gimlet, to me. “Perhaps your lady would make another offering to the River-mother?”

“I will ask her.” Before I took two steps from his side, Rinan offered another request.

“Your folk are in good stead with the Lord of the Waters, so might you put in a word with him, too? This one looks to be rough,” he said, nodding toward the storm, “and the river already runs high.”

Sigilros caught my glance and arched his brows from where he sat cross-legged on the deck behind the captain of the keelboat. For all that we had explained to the persistently superstitious Rinan that we, like him, had been born in Middle-earth and had never actually seen or conversed with the Guardians, the mortal man remained convinced that all Elves communed regularly with them.

“I’ll see what I can do.” 

“And I could use your keen eyes to look out for snags, too.”

“Yes, captain.”

I climbed down the short ladder from the flat roof of the cabin to the deck where Elerína and Gaereth sat on a storage locker built into the side of the hull. Both women watched the approach of the spring storm. Strands of Gaereth's red hair, darkened with sweat, stuck to her white neck. Elerína’s moss-green gown clung to her body, and her face was pale and drawn, her eyes focused elsewhere. Her lips moved, but I could not hear her words.

“My lady...” 

She jumped when I spoke. “Forgive me, Istyar. You startled me.”

I laid my hand on her shoulder, hoping to comfort her, but tension remained lodged in her body. “Our captain asks that you make an offering.”

She rose and with sure steps that met the gentle swaying of the deck, walked to the opposite side of the boat where a wooden tub filled with white water lilies was wedged between two storage lockers. She lifted a blossom, still fresh, and cradled it in her hands. Droplets of clear water dripped from the flower’s tendrils onto the deck and stained the linen of her gown as she carried the lily and held it out over the river. She lifted her arms and sang:

Hear me, O River-mother!
The mountains are your breasts;
Your foamy water is your smile;
White swans are your movements;
Your waves are your hands, 
And the lily is the garland that adorns you.
We beg you, O River-mother, 
Be of good cheer while you carry us, your children, to the sea.

She dropped the lily into the muddy brown waters where it was swept into the current, swollen from spring rains. 

This was the fourth time I had witnessed Elerína make such an offering to the river with a ritual unfamiliar to me, and one that added yet another layer to the mysteries of my mortal lover and the women of her people. She watched the flower swirl away to be drawn down into the waters, and then she returned to my side. Her scent filled me -- a heady mixture of roses, womanly musk and river water -- and triggered a vivid memory of our last night together in Apairivo's home.

~*~

At sunset, Elerína had left the manor in the company of Gaereth and old Applethorn so that she might take the bath of purification after her courses. She did not – and would not – tell me where they were going, and left me alone in our bed. 

Just before dawn, she returned, her hair still damp and smelling faintly of the river as it did now. She had awakened me with kisses, supple and yearning at first, but quickly becoming greedy. Her hands glided cool as rain over my face, my chest, and my arms and then slid down to stroke my hips and around to cup my stones, sending shivers of desire through my body and making me iron-hard. My need for her was immediate, but before I could roll her onto her back and part her legs with the push of my thigh, a gently forceful gesture I knew she enjoyed, she placed her hands on my shoulders and shoved me back against the bedding. I could resist her no more than I might a torrent cascading down from the mountains. She straddled my hips, and I was engulfed in deep waters. When her mind touched mine at the height of our passion, we did not join in the falcon’s flight, but instead the swell of tides sent me crashing into her body to spend my seed. Wrapped in her arms, I fell into exhausted sleep, as if I had swum against a current for many hours.

That was the last time we enjoyed such privacy for lovemaking. We had departed the next day to travel southwest along a rutted road through the downs, leaving behind Apairivo's manor, perched high on its green hill, and keeping the mists over the Withywindle to our right. A few days later, we met The Otter's Tale and her crew at the wooden dock on the east bank of the Baranduin. 

The traders' boat that traveled from the river's headwaters near Annúminas to the mouth of the Baranduin and back again was to be our transport to the small haven of Gaillond. The boat had been crafted by Númenórean shipwrights but manned by middle folk: ten men, some lean as reeds, others bulky but all strong, formed the crew; a stocky helmsman, muscled like an ironsmith, guided the boat; and her captain, the man with the grizzled brown beard and a black patch over his left eye, commanded all. The wooden vessel they crewed was about fifty feet long and nine feet wide with a low draught so that it might pass through shallow waters yet built sturdily enough to withstand heavy currents. Benches, where the crew might sit and row with long oars, crossed the bow section.  A low cabin with a flat roof was centered on the deck; at the cabin's bow side, rose a tall mast with a single sail, now furled.

When we boarded the boat, yet another mystery appeared: a coracle made from oiled hide, empty but for a wooden tub filled with water lilies, floated down the current to nudge its prow against a clump of willows overhanging the bank. Elerína had run down the gangplank and to the edge of the river, where, heedless of her gown, she waded into the brown water to grasp a rope tied to the little boat and pulled it toward the shore. She retrieved a parcel of oilcloth tacked onto the hull and extracted a piece of parchment folded within it.

“A gift from the River-daughter,” she said, smiling enigmatically after she read the note.

“You have the favor of the Lady of the Withywindle? You shall bring us good luck!” cried Captain Rinan. He had then ordered men of his crew to tie the coracle to the keelboat and to carry the tub of lilies onto the deck.

~*~

Now there was no enigma in Elerína's expression: fear clouded her face while she stared at the grey outriders that streaked across the blue sky above us, and beyond, at the black clouds that gathered in the western sky. “There’s much lightning in that storm,” she muttered.

 “So says our good captain. He wants me to put in a good word with the Lord of the Waters and to look out for snags.”

Her apprehension eased a little when she looked up to smile at me. “Captain Rinan will make a riverman of you yet.”

“He is just humoring me, my dear. He thinks Sigilros and I will protect him from the wrath of Manwë. More likely it will be I who brings it down upon our heads!”

Her smile disappeared. “That’s nothing to jest about, Sámaril.”

“It’s only a storm.”

“So were the tempests that lashed She-That-Fell. Only storms. That is what the Zigûr said. He lied.”

Her words stung me when I heard what I perceived as an unwelcome comparison to my former master. “I am sorry, Elerína. I didn’t mean to make light of what happened to you and your people.”

She took my hand in hers. “I am sorry, too, my love. Sometimes your humor is a bit dark, and if I am in a mood, I don’t take it well. I am just nervous from seeing all that lightning. I do not like the look of it. I do not like the look of it at all.” A rumble of thunder, less distant than before, accentuated her worry. “These rivermen will ride out a storm and risk of being raked by the Elder King’s talons. It’s not something I wish to experience.”

“We will be all right.”

“You seem confident.”

Unlike her, I felt no unease when I saw lightning flash and heard the distant drums of thunder.  On the contrary,  I felt the anticipation I so commonly experienced before a storm: an edgy sort of exhilaration.  I inflected my response with a reassuring tone. “I trust our captain and his crew. So does your kinsman. After all, Apairivo arranged this. Let’s hope the River-mother can soothe Manwë’s bad temper.”

Elerína and I climbed up the ladder to the roof of the cabin where Captain Rinan stood steady. The riverman pointed ahead. 

“See where the trees draw close on the right? Sand bar’s by that. We’ll go through the channel there,” he said. “Do you see any sign of snags below water, Istyar?”

I scrutinized the eddies and swirls in the brown water ahead. “I see no evidence of any, but you would know better. I am not rivercrafty.”

“Maybe not, but you have shown good instincts so far, and Master Sigilros here surely has been on boats before." 

"I spent some time with Círdan's people," Sigilros remarked casually. Left unspoken was that "some time" meant five yéni: a diversion for Sigilros who claimed descent through his mother from the shore folk, but what amounted to more than seven hundred years for Rinan's swift-lived kindred.

"Orvyn, guide her to port!” ordered the captain.

“Aye, sir!” The short man with iron-hard arms pushed the long tiller, and the boat turned slowly, gliding along the current. The black poplars and alders along the riverbank closed in upon us as the channel narrowed. The helmsman centered the keelboat well ahead of the channel and held the position steady. Faster and faster the keelboat sped. As we passed through the channel, I heard faint scraping at the hull. I thought at first that detritus carried in the current or the branches of submerged snags that I had not seen was the cause, but was an eerie sound, as if small beasts or insects were trying to claw their way past the hull. I cocked my head to listen more intently.

“My apologies, Captain. I seem to have missed a few snags.”

“Snags? No, that is not what you are hearing,” said Rinan. “Those are the river-sprites.”

“River-sprites?”

“Oh, aye! They can do a great deal of mischief, but I'm thinking that your lady’s favor – and if I may say so – the presence of you and Master Sigilros -- may keep them at bay.”

I leaned over to look at the water that roiled in the wake of the boat. Several pairs of tiny feet and hands, distinctly human in shape, but webbed with long claws, flashed through the foam. They were gone in the blink of an eye.

The captain offered no further explanation on the nature of river-sprites, which I surmised must be creatures counted among the Ailinóni and Earni,: queer, elusive beings wary of the folk of the Noldor, but more familiar to the Silvan Elves of the dark forests and, apparently, to mortal Men who plied the river. The boat shot through the final stretch of the channel into calmer waters, and we passed into a wide expanse of the river where the current was broad and slow.

Our view of the sky had opened, too. While we had maneuvered through the channel, the approaching storm had devoured the sun, and the riverbanks beneath the trees were deep in shadow. Lightning flashed, and thunder growled while the first gusts of storm-borne wind sliced through the sultry air, catching loose strands of Elerína's hair and sending them flying. 

“Captain,” she said, “I respect your judgment, and it is you who commands The Otter’s Tale, not I, but that storm...”

“...Looks to be a big one. We’ve ridden out greater storms before. There is no cause for worry, m'lady.”

“Yes, I am sure you have defied storms, but please, look at the base of the clouds. There. To the southwest. Do you note the color?”

Captain Rinan squinted his eye again, and I followed his line of sight. A sickly green hue tinged the base of the glowering black clouds. The captain’s face went white. 

“Orvyn!” he barked. “Take us to the leeward side of yon island!" He pointed toward a lump of trees far ahead near the east bank of the river. "Men! Be ready to drop anchor and tie her up as soon as we reach the island. Istyar, Master Sigilros, I could use that elvish strength of yours once again to tie the boat down, sure and fast."

"You have that," replied Sigilros, who leapt down to the deck to join the crew who had grabbed poles and oars to help guide the boat toward the island. The muscles in the helmsman's thick arms bunched when he pushed the tiller. The Otter's Talehesitated but then turned gradually toward the island. 

The storm raced toward us. With the skill of Orvyn and the crew, the keelboat eased toward the island: a tangle of vines, twisted willows, boulders and mud. Two crewmen weighed anchor while Sigilros threw a length of rope with a grappling hook tied to its end to catch the trunk of a gnarled willow. He tested the grip.

"Hold the rope taut as you can," he said to a wiry crewman, whose arms knotted when he pulled the rope tight. Sigilros stepped onto the wale of the boat and then set one bare foot on the rope, testing it. Then, with smooth steps, he glided along the rope and leapt onto the shore, landing on his feet with the grace of a cat. 

Then it was my turn to run the rope, and it was with no little apprehension that I kicked off my shoes and set my right foot and then my left on the wale, balancing precariously while the boat rocked. The rope stretched above the swift current. Over twenty feet away, Sigilros waited for me. 

I took a deep breath to still my jangling nerves and called back to memory the exercises of my youth, when we were compelled to run the ropes. Our first experience with rope-walking had been upon ropes anchored to thick poles, driven into stone. The strands swung only two feet above the ground, so a fall was not perilous. As we gained skill, learning to shift our weight with stride, we walked across ropes stretched from roof to roof above alleyways in Ost-in-Edhil. 

We, the sons and daughters of the Noldor, had taken umbrage at what we deemed silly exercises suitable for the dark-elves of the forest until Master Helegon reminded us this art might well come in handy. Later, when we climbed into the mountains to search for minerals, the art of rope-walking indeed became useful when we crossed crevasses cut deep by frigid streams that roared far below us. 

However, much time had passed since I had last run along a rope. At worst, I assured myself, if I slipped, I would fall into the brown river, get drenched and lose only my dignity rather than my life at the bottom of a rocky ravine.  Sigilros called out to me:

"What are you waiting for, smith?  I can use your help now!"

I exhaled my apprehension then placed my right foot on the rope, imagining myself light as air. I cleared all nagging thoughts from my mind and called upon my body's memory, and stepped smoothly, balancing myself, and jumped to the muddy bank of the island with no mishap.

"Not bad for a golodh," allowed Sigilros. "Now let's tie this tub down. The Elder King's wrath is almost upon us." The muddy-black clouds rolled over us; lightning flashed, illuminating the too-early eventide with blue-white light. Thunder boomed like giants' drums over the river, and the wind keened through the tortured reeds.

A crewman threw another rope to me. Catching it, I scanned the shore for a likely object to serve as an anchor. Sigilros was already knotting his length of rope around a thick tree that leaned out over the river. I spied a boulder sunk deep in the earth and set to wrapping the rope around its base. Sigilros came to tie the knot, creating loops that would tighten when pulled by the force of the boat. 

While we were at work, something cold and hard hit my right arm, and then my forehead. Hailstones the size of large peas fell upon us. Great bolts of lightning forked across the black sky, and the trees screamed as their leaves were shredded from thrashing branches. Back on the boat, Captain Rinan hustled Elerína and Gaereth toward the protection of the cabin. 

Satisfied that the ropes were fast, Sigilros gestured for me to run the rope back to The Otter's Tale. This time, I did not spare a moment for nerves, but ran swift and sure back to the boat, drawn by the fear I saw lodged in Elerína's face as she turned from the cabin door to look once more at the storm that sped toward the river. 

I leapt onto the deck of the boat, which rocked to and fro. The furled sail guttered as the wind tore at it. Sigilros glided along the rope and had just set his right foot on the wale when my scalp and skin tingled, and the hair on my head and on my arms lifted. I grabbed Sigilros' arm and yanked him down to the deck of the boat, pressing my body flat against his.

"Stars' blood! What in the..." he exclaimed from beneath me, but blinding light and a deafening crack of thunder cut off his words. The scent of lightning and charred wood engulfed the deck; smoking splinters joined the hailstones that bombarded us. Sigilros met my eyes, and mouthed something but his words were muffled as though he spoke through thick masses of wool. He pointed to his right ear and shook his head, and then looked up toward the mast: I followed his gaze to see that it was in smoldering ruin. 

We scrambled to our feet, unsteady thanks to the rolling deck and the driving wind. Waving his arms, the captain beckoned us to the cabin where Elerína and Gaereth, who covered their ears with their hands, peered out at the tempest from the open door, terror gripping their expressions, and yet transfixed by the might of the storm. The crew crouched low on the deck against the sides of the cabin with tarred palls pulled over their heads for protection. Rather than crowd inside the cabin, I stood alongside Rinan on the deck, who had also covered his head with a large square of stiff canvas. Sigilros sidled up beside me while we watched the ferocity of the storm lash the trees and tear at reeds. The river's surface roiled.

I turned my attention to my ears, calling upon the long-years of training to direct my fëa's energy toward healing the injury from the thunder's assault. Gradually, the clatter of the hailstones on the deck became sharp, as did the groans and squeaks of The Otter's Tale as she lurched against the straining ropes, which thankfully held fast. But then the wind took on a strange tone, and I wondered if my ears might still be damaged from the thunder. Beneath the shriek of the wind came a deep drone, distant at first but increasingly loud and unlike anything I had heard before. 

"Look!" Fear and marvel mingled in Rinan's cry. He pointed toward the southwest. "The Wind-lord's Finger!" 

There against a band of the lighter sky in the southwest was a brown-black cloud that snaked toward the earth. The line of trees obscured its lower reaches, but dirt and debris swirled up around it. The Wind-lord's Finger. I had read of such storms, said to scourge the plains of the East and to occasionally strike the more westerly lands of Middle-earth, but had never seen one.  The sight and sound of it terrified me, and yet filled me with awe. Entire trees twisted in the whirlwind, groaning and cracking in agony when the tempest yanked them from their roots and threw them like twigs. I had never seen such power unleashed in a storm. 

Trembling warmth squeezed between Sigilros and me beneath the canvas. I wrapped my arm around Elerína and pulled her against me.

"Manwë has come for us. His eagles have come..." The wind caught her voice and swept it away. I looked down at my lover; she was not with me, but instead stared into another time, another place, grappling with dark memories she had yet to share with me. I pulled her even closer, trying to protect her from past and present.

The funnel cloud undulated toward the river, bearing down upon on us with its unearthly howl. We stood helpless before its fury; dumbstruck, no one spoke, each captivated by the twisting cloud. Do I look upon my death? I wondered. Will Manwë's Finger pluck me from this boat to rend my body, and send my fëa spinning to the Halls of Mandos?  Elerína pressed herself against me; I clutched her, not at all ready for death that forever would separate us.

A branch hurtled through the air and struck the boat, making a loud crack.  My ears popped, but ringing into my memory came the words of my mother, who had prayed when Sauron's dread army had marched in sight of beleagured Ost-in-Edhil:

O most powerful Lord of the Waters, at whose command the winds blow, and lift up the waves of the sea, and who stills the rage thereof; We do in this our great distress cry unto thee for help; deliver us, Lord Ulmo, else we perish.

Ulmo had not heard her supplications then, but perhaps he would hear her son's now. It can't hurt, I thought. I murmured the words and heard Sigilros pick up the chant, but in his mother tongue. 

The monstrous cloud roared toward us, hurling more branches and an entire tree that flew over our heads, but as it neared the river, its course shifted. With ponderous grace, it lifted toward the sky, as if leaping over the angry waters. It then touched the eastern riverbank again to tear more trees from their roots.

The rains came after that, blowing sideways, so that the tarred canvas no longer offered even meager protection. The fearsome drone of the funnel cloud retreated into the distance. I urged Elerína back inside the cabin where the rain drummed hard on the roof and against the sides of the cabin rattling the shutters that were closed over the small windows. Gaereth, upon seeing us enter, eased her way past us along with a lean young man of the crew; she gave me a little smile and a shake of her head when I exhorted her to stay. I noticed that the young fellow held her hand. Perhaps they had sought comfort from their fear in one another.

Elerína sank into my arms, resting her head against my shoulder. Her heartbeat pummeled me, but I held her tight, stroking her wet hair and her back, crooning to her that she was safe, and silently thankful that we all had been spared. The tension and tremors left her body. When she at last looked up at me, her blue eyes had returned to the present. I pushed wet strands of dark hair from her face, and kissed her brow. 

"This is not the first time you have seen such a storm, is it?"

"No, it is not. The storms that inflicted Númenor in her last days spawned such funnel clouds and even greater winds. And that lightning bolt! We are lucky to be alive, Sámaril."

"We are lucky to have you on this boat. Your caution likely saved us."

"Maybe. Captain Rinan will say that the River-mother protected us."

"Perhaps she did, thanks to your offerings."

"I would like to think so, but we did not escape unscathed. Yet here we are!"

"Yes, here we are." I lifted her chin with my fingertips and kissed her, letting my relief and love flow over her sweet lips and eager tongue. When we broke off the kiss, she gasped with exasperation.

"I wish that we had some privacy! I miss you, Sámaril."

The intensity of Elerína's desire sometimes surprised me, pleasantly so, and I wondered if all mortals felt such a sense of urgency. But then, I, too, felt the joy of life returning to me: we had faced the tempest together and survived.

"I miss you as well. But it won't be long before we reach Gaillond, isn't that so?"

"Not long. About a week, I think, judging by the current's strength. You will like the villa in Gaillond," she said. "We will have our own bedchamber with a mattress stuffed with new rushes every day and a featherbed, too."

"It sounds wonderful," I kissed her lightly this time, not wishing to further fan the flames although I was already hard with want for her. "In the meantime, there's always the woods..."

"...And mud and thorns and insects that bite. I will try to apply discipline over desire like your folk do. I shall pray to Nienna for continence."

"Please do not pray too fervently."

She chuckled, the first time I had heard her laugh that day; then she paused. "Listen! The rain has eased."

Following her, I stepped outside onto the deck, which glistened wetly in the golden light of the late afternoon sun and into a newly washed air, the charged scent of lightning still lingering. Rain drizzled lightly with a gentle blessing after the storm. Sigilros stood beside Captain Rinan who was assessing the damage to the mast and the charred sail.

" Ah, here is our lady of the lilies!" the captain said, turning to greet Elerína. He gave her a short bow. "I thank you, m'lady. Your offerings to the River-mother protected us."

Elerína scanned the broken mast from which a thin trail of smoke threaded into the sky. "I fear the protection was not complete."

"That? Could have been worse. Much worse. After all, the River-mother turned the Wind-lord's Finger away from us. She must have liked your flowers." He gazed downriver again. "The current'll take us to the mouth of the river, and from there we will row to Gaillond. The shipwrights of the haven can fix her up. Can't head upriver without a mast and a good sail." His brown eye then swiveled toward the East. "Look! Now there's a good sign, lightning-struck mast or no."

We all followed the captain's gaze. Against the black clouds of the retreating storm, the lower pillars of a rainbow appeared. The crew shouted in triumph and began to sing as they cleaned the deck of debris. Elerína slipped her arm around the crook of my elbow.

"Nessa's bridge," she said. "It is said that she dances upon it after Manwë spends his wrath."

The rainbow's pillars grew to meet in an arch that gleamed red to violet. I did not see Nessa tripping along her bridge, but when I turned back to the river, sparkling in the sun, I saw the watery form of a man's muscled back and narrow hips, but greater than those of any man, slicing through the river, which reached up to pull him down into her deep embrace. I blinked, and only the hammered gold of the sun's sword lay upon the water.

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Chapter End Notes

Illustration: Thomas Cole, 1836. View from Mt. Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts After a Thunderstorm -- The Oxbow.

Translated verses in praise of the River Ganga (Ganges) from Kalki Purana, Chapter 34, provided inspiration for Elerína’s invocation of the Mother River. Sámaril's invocation of Ulmo is adapted from the 1789 United States' edition of the Book of Common Prayer.

Special thanks to Darth Fingon for calling my attention to the following terms from Tolkien's Qenya lexicon:  Ailinóni = water-lily faeries and Oarni (or in "proper" Quenya, Earni) = merchildren.  See HoMe I: The Book of Lost Tales I for more faerie folk: brownies, pixies and leprawns.

And a hearty shout-out to Dwimordene for inspiring me to tackle tornadoes in Middle-earth.  Please read her excellent The Horn of the Kine.