Winds of Wrath by StarSpray

One

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It was far too early for summer. The spring flowers still adorned the woods and the fields, and the birds were busy at their nesting and their hatching, and if one was patient and quiet, little babies of all manner of beasts could be seen–badger kits trundling through the leaves, fawns lying quiet and nearly invisible in the dappled sunlight, even bear cubs racing each other up the trees.

But as Eluréd and Elurín made their way south along the sunny coast of Lindon the heat had settled in, like a heavy blanket over the land that even the sea breezes could not abate. It brought with it scattered rain showers, the occasional rumble of thunder, and an oppressive feeling.

It felt like waiting. It felt like dread. Eluréd kept stopping to stare out across the sea and nearly getting knocked into it whenever Elurín swung the tiller. Their little boat was the same one that had taken them north and west to Himring and to Tol Fuin, and yet not the same boat at all, since all of the original wood and sails had been patched or replaced, one piece at a time, over the years. Círdan and his folk were meticulous and skilled, though, and at first glance or to the untrained eye she appeared almost brand new.

"Eluréd!" Elurín snapped as Eluréd ducked just in time. "If you don't stop staring out at nothing you really are going to fall in, and I'm not going to be the one to fish you out. I'm sure it will entertain the whole of Imladris for a century when I tell them how Lord Ossë hauled you out of a rip tide by your ankles."

"Don't be ridiculous," said Eluréd as he sat down.

"What are you looking for, anyway?" Elurín asked. "The skies are clear as far as I can see, and there are no ships coming in on the horizon."

"I don't know," said Eluréd. "But I feel as though…as though we perhaps made a mistake in taking the boat. We could have come down on foot. Elrond did, and Nellas. Don't you feel it? It feels like a storm is coming. And last night I dreamed of great storm clouds in the shape of eagles coming over the horizon, like the wrath of the Valar."

Elurín did not laugh; he frowned. "My dreams have been troubled, too," he said, "though I haven't dreamed of eagles. But whatever we feel, the skies tell a different story."

"Yes," said Eluréd. "That's why I am so uneasy."

The days passed almost lazily, all unseasonably-warm sunshine and cloudless skies, and the nights were starlit and alive with the music of frogs and crickets and other night creatures, when Eluréd and Elurín went ashore to make camp. They caught fish or hunted small game for their meals, and when Eluréd was not thinking of his troubled dreams the journey was a pleasant one, lazy and indulgent and lacking in any sort of real danger, which was a pleasant change of pace.

And then they saw it, a green hill of an island rising up out of the blue-grey sea, glowing like a living emerald in the sun. Tol Galen. Dor Firn-i-Guinar, where they had been born long ago, when Lúthien still danced among the flowers and Beren walked beneath the sun with deep smile-wrinkles around his eyes. Even now that all the lands around it were changed, Eluréd half-expected to hear Lúthien singing, her voice carrying over the sound of the water to welcome them home. But of course they heard nothing of the sort, only the rush of the waves bringing in the tide, and the cries of gulls as they wheeled overhead. He was at the tiller, then, and Elurín was perched atop their small crow's nest, his hair blowing like a shadowy banner in the wind. The island was covered in thick trees, and as the wind changed, turning southerly, Eluréd caught the sweet scent of niphredil mingling with the salt and sand.

It did not look like it had when they'd ridden away, but Eluréd wasn't sure if it was only that the trees were thicker and taller, or that it was no longer an island in a river but a tiny isle at the edge of the Great Sea, or merely that his memories from such a long-ago childhood were hazy. He did remember that it ha been raining the day they left Tol Galen, and everything had been grey and chilled. He and Elurín had shared a saddle, with their father keeping a sharp eye on them, though the old mare would have never let them fall. Lúthien's song of farewell had followed them for miles up the river. Eluréd had not thought, then, that they would never return to Tol Galen, nor ever see Beren or Lúthien again.

They took the boat around to the shore ward side of the island, and anchored it in a secluded little hollow protected by thick and gnarled tree roots that hung out over the embankment. Eluréd hoisted himself up onto them first, and pulled Elurín up after him. They stood beneath towering trees in green-tinged shadow. Niphredil and elanor blossomed all about their feet, along with violets and buttercups. Hemlock-umbels stood like white-crowned sentinels in the stillness.

Somewhere beneath the leaf mould of centuries, beneath the stones and the moss and the tangled roots of trees and flowers—somewhere on the isle lay the grave of Beren and Lúthien that no one had ever marked. The songs said they had died sorrowlessly, passing away Beyond in joy and love, and Eluréd hoped that was true.

Elrond had spoken of the wide clearing where Lanthir Lamath still gleamed and made its music, and the remnants of houses now overrun with blackberry brambles. It had been a very long time since Elrond had come to this place, but they found the clearing as he had described it. There were no berries, only the first white flowers opening in the brambles, but Lanthir Lamath was just as Eluréd remembered it—or nearly so. "It was bigger when we were children," Elurín said, laughing as he kicked off his boots to wade into the pool. "It's just as cold as I remember, though!"

They spent a few days exploring old haunts, tracing the tumbled stones that had once been walls and still outlined their old house, and discovered the little cave behind Lanthir Lamath was still there—but they were too big now to fit inside, let alone spend hours there the way they'd done on summer afternoons when their parents were busy with baby Elwing. That night was spent singing to the stars.

The next morning dawned bright and clear, but when Eluréd climbed the tallest tree on the island he was greeted by winds coming howling out of the west, and a sea gone the color of steel as dark clouds rushed in. "Elurín!" he cried. "The boat!"

They raced to their boat as the tide swelled up around the island, so swiftly and so high that they hardly struggled to drag the boat up onto the tree roots, lodging it securely among the trunks. The wind howled through the wood, sending a cascade of leaves swirling around them as though it were autumn and not still spring. "Well, your storm has finally arrived!" Elurín said as he finished securing all that could be secured. The ground beneath them trembled. Somewhere not far away something broke—the earth itself, it sounded like—with a great crack! Eluréd flinched and reached for Elurín. They huddled near the boat, nestled among the roots of a great beech. It did not keep out the rain or the worst of the wind, but it felt safer.

"This is more than a storm," Eluréd said to Elurín. Even mere inches from one another, he had to shout over the crashing thunder and driving rain. It felt like the ending of the world. Perhaps the War of Wrath had been like this, when Beleriand broke and sank into the Sea. They had been on the eastern side of the Ered Luin, then, and only felt the aftershocks.

The storm seemed to last for an Age, and at the same time hardly any time at all. When they emerged from their hiding place, they found the island nearly untouched. A few trees had fallen, but Lanthir Lamath remained, and the niphredil still blossomed. But now the island was farther from the coast than it had been, which was newly jagged and strange looking, as though the storm had crashed into the coastline with such force that it had broken it. "What was that?" Elurín wondered aloud, staring at the land and then at the grey-green roiling sky with wide eyes. "Who did what to anger the Valar so?" Eluréd had no answer.

They stayed on Tol Galen until the skies cleared again, and the oppressive heat lifted, and the seas calmed, so that it felt like proper spring again. Even then, they were reluctant to leave. This one little piece of Beleriand still stood, nearly untouched by the wars and disasters that had befallen the lands all around it. Standing in the midst of the trees felt familiar and safe. It remembered them, as it remembered still Beren and Lúthien and Dior and Nimloth. Eluréd, when he'd first learned that Tol Galen still survived, had not wanted to come to it, fearing that it would be both too strange and too familiar. Now that he was here he did not want to leave—and maybe he had feared that, too.

"We must go soon," said Elurín as they sat in the sunshine beside the glittering waters of Lanthir Lamath. "Elrond was in Lindon." Eluréd hummed, not taking his eyes off of the falls. A rainbow shimmered in the spray at its base. "And if he's not too busy rebuilding what's left of Forlond or Harlond, he'll probably be worrying about us," Elurín went on, with a set to his chin that told Eluréd that he was very determinedly not thinking about what worse things might have befallen Elrond. For his part, Eluréd had thought of all of it already, and dreaded returning to Lindon to find any of his imaginings come true.

"Something is different," he said instead. "Something—I can't explain." It was difficult even to discern that something was different. Tol Galen, through some strange enchantment and memory of the joys and love that had called it home once upon a time, clung to the peace and beauty that it had known in Ossiriand. It was a place that Elrond had said many called haunted, and Eluréd, sitting beside the waterfall in the glade of his birth, thought that those people were not wrong. "You're right," he said after sitting for a long time in silent thought. "We must go back to the mainland."

It took a full day to free the boat and lower it into the waves without breaking it beyond their skill to repair. There was much cursing and by the time the task was done it was evening and both Eluréd and Elurín were bruised and scratched and sore. They took another day to rest, and then set off in the early morning. Elurín wanted to make straight for Lindon, but Eluréd insisted that they go to the nearer shore first. He wanted to set his feet on firm land unencumbered by the enchantments of Tol Galen. "Whatever answer you're looking for, Eluréd, I don't think you'll find it here," said Elurín even as he steered them into the shallows, going carefully to avoid the broken rocks and fallen trees rolling in the surf. "I feel the same—the air tastes different, and there is something strange about the horizon."

"I want to know what the stones have to say," said Eluréd. He jumped from the boat and splashed his way ashore to kneel on the bare stone ground. He placed his palm upon it, and it was rough beneath them, not yet worn smooth and soft by endless days of wind and water. Elurín came to join him, humming a soft song that Eluréd joined, as they reached out to the stones. But these stones had not known Elves very well; the Laegrim had been more for trees than for stone, and all Eluréd felt from them was a jumble of confusion and of difference. Something about the very fabric of the world had changed, but they would need to speak to those wiser than they if they wanted to learn what it was.

"Perhaps Círdan will have heard from Ulmo, or Ossë," said Elurín as they returned to the boat. "Or perhaps we'll meet Ossë!"

"I hope not!" said Eluréd as he swung up to the crow's nest. "Allow us a smooth voyage back to Lindon, please, my lord!" he called out to the waves. "Take pity on a pair of wanderers!"

There was no reply, and the journey took longer than they hoped, with strange new tides and currents swirling around the reformed coastline—not to mention new inlets and outcroppings, and entire islands too of bare wet rock that had not been there when they passed by going south. But the weather remained fine, with favorable winds and clear skies—and a more seasonable chill in the air in the mornings and evenings. Eluréd spent the nights lying awake staring at the stars, searching for anything new. But the only difference in the sky was that he never saw Gil-Estel. That happened sometimes, but this time, after such a terrible storm that changed the very outline of the coast…

They slipped unnoticed into Mithlond. Harlond and Forlond had been horribly damaged by the storm, and from what Eluréd could see even the fields farther inland had been hit, destroying the new-planted crops. There would be lean times in Lindon, come winter. Even so, both Men and Elves swarmed about like ants, hard at work rebuilding. Eluréd more than half-expected Elrond to be there somewhere, but they searched the whole harbor, and no one they spoke to had seen him.

"He may have gone east over the mountains," said one Elf hard at work repairing a short flight of steps that had cracked almost in two. He paused in his chiseling and wiped his forehead on his sleeve. "Lord Elendil and his folk were talking of building a kingdom in Eriador, near Lake Nenuial. Or at least that is what I have heard."

"Did you see Elrond go with them?" Elurín asked.

"I did not see them go at all," said the stonemason. "There has been too much to do."

"What's all this about a new kingdom?" Eluréd wondered as they left the stonemason to his work and made their way inland. "I didn't think the Faithful wanted to break with Númenor. And if word gets back to Pharazôn, Gil-galad will be in a spot of trouble, won't he?"

Elurín looked grim. "That is assuming Pharazôn is there for word to get back to," he said. Eluréd looked at him sharply. "Look, is that Elrond there?" They were coming to the city gates, and a lone rider had just entered through them. It was indeed Elrond; his hair was bound back in plain and sensible braids, unadorned with ribbons or jewels, and he looked as though he had not slept since the storm hit. His cloak was muddy and his clothes stained with travel. His expression was grim, and he seemed to take little stock of his surroundings, only barely acknowledging those who greeted him at the gates.

They did not call out to him in the street, but followed him back to Gil-galad's palace, where they waited just outside the stable. It took longer than strictly necessary for Elrond to come back out; he must have taken his time tending his own horse rather than letting one of the grooms do it. "Well met, nephew!" Eluréd said brightly when he finally appeared. Elrond looked up sharply, and his expression brightened as soon as he laid eyes on them.

"Well met, uncles!" he said, and came forward to embrace them. "I feared you were caught in the storm."

"No, we were safe on Tol Galen when it hit," said Elurín. "But that was no mere storm. Do you know what it was all about? The coastline is all changed."

Elrond's smile vanished like the sun behind storm clouds. "Ar-Pharazôn attempted to invade Aman," he said. "Elendil saw the fleet depart. Then Meneltarma erupted, and the waves came, and…well, you saw what it did to us. Númenor is no more."

Eluréd looked at Elurín, who's eyes had gone wide. "Númenor is…but what of those left behind?" Elurín asked. "What of Míriel the queen?"

Elrond shook his head. "As far as Elendil can tell only those who were aboard ship already escaped—though who knows what became of Sauron?"

"It is Sauron who should have borne the brunt of the Valar's wrath," said Elurín. "Not the whole of Númenor!"

"Yes, I agree," said Elrond. His shoulders sagged, and he seemed very weary, as though the weight of all Middle-earth were upon his shoulders.

"We won't speak more of it now," said Eluréd. "We've only just arrived ourselves, and I for one would welcome a meal that isn't way bread or cooked by Elurín!" He received a punch in the shoulder for this, but also another smile from Elrond. He slung an arm around his shoulders and dragged him along inside. Whatever might come, they could set aside fear and grief for a few hours, at least.

But though they determinedly spoke of everything but Númenor to Elrond that afternoon and evening—mostly they spoke of Tol Galen, and of Beren and Lúthien, and Dior and Nimloth—it never left Eluréd's thoughts. When evening came on he slipped outside and down to the shore, away from the harbors where it was quiet. There should have been a sandy beach there, but instead he found broken stones and various bits of flotsam and jetsam—nets and bits of wood and scraps of sailcloth, and the like. He found a smooth boulder jutting out of the surf and climbed atop it. "I think I have had my fill of you for a while," he said to the Sea. It kept on washing up and down the beach, of course, uncaring of his opinion. "I do not at all blame Elendil for wanting to settle down as far inland as he's gone," Eluréd went on. "But before we go back to the woods and mountains I would be very much obliged, Lady Uinen, or Lord Ossë—or Lord Ulmo if you are indeed listening as the Wise all say you are!—I would very much like to know what has happened and why."

But of course there came no answer. Only the chilled wind off of the water, and the sound of the waves on the stones, and the cold uncaring light of the faraway stars.