A Web of Stars by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 6

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They met few people on the road. Just once did a Silvan hunter slip from a stand of young birches to hail Legolas in a woodland dialect Arwen could barely understand. She was wary of this strange visitor. Despite the summer heat the woman wore a camouflage cloak of cloth of nettles dyed in shifting patterns of grey and green, and she had drawn her hood. 

Legolas had no such doubts. He broke into a smile, and leapt from his horse to greet the Elf. 

“Well met, Elder Erferil! How goes your hunt?” Legolas made a small bow, hand over his heart. Clearly this was a person of importance in the Greenwood. 

“Well met my prince, and Celebrían’s daughter.” Erferil’s Sindarin bore the Greenwood’s melodious Silvan brogue. A calloused hand pulled down the green hood, and Arwen stiffened in her saddle as cold horror shivered down her spine.  

Erferil was ancient indeed. One brown eye shone with the remembrance of starlight over the waters of Cuiviénen. 

The other sat blind and still in its socket, a sickly white. The side of Erferil’s face was a dripping swirl of pinkish scar, like molten metal in a smith’s fire congeals into new and alien shapes. What hair she had left was braided with feathers in the Silvan fashion, but half her head was cratered and bald. 

Arwen was a child of peace. She had seen scars of old war wounds in Imladris’ House of Healing, but never before had she met an Elf so maimed. She knew not whether to stare or to avert her eyes from Erferil’s mutilation. 

Despite all her courtly training she must have gasped. 

Erferil took no offence, it seemed, because she smiled a lopsided grin. “Worry not, young lady,” she said, merry as any Wood-elf. “It has been two Ages since I took this wound. I am well used to awkward introductions.” 

Arwen regained her composure, and dismounted. “Well met, Mistress Erferil the Motherless,” she declared with a proper curtsy. “Forgive my thoughtlessness.” 

“Think nothing of it, lady. You took it better than most Elves your age, even your own mother!” Erferil laughed at the memory, and Arwen made a note to ask Celeborn for that particular story. 

Soon enough Erferil’s expression grew serious once more. Her lichen-greened fingers worried at the arrows in the quiver at her belt. The fletchings were goshawk, and the gaze in Erferil’s eye as she examined Legolas was as hunter-sharp. “As the keeper of these woods I must ask: what game do you pursue this far south?” 

Arwen’s heart leapt in her throat. Surely their spider hunt would end here: even if Legolas would stoop to falsehood, he could not deceive one so ancient and clever as Erferil. 

“We ride to hunt spiders at Amon Lanc.” Legolas said bluntly, facing Erferil as he spoke.  

“Ahh … a drastic resolution to the great debate!” Erferil’s laugh rang like rain on leaves. “I am proud to see you honour your mother’s blood. Good hunt, my prince, and may you make your mark!”

Then her smile vanished, quick as a winter dusk. “Spiders are a dangerous quarry,” she warned. “Take heed, young ones, lest you repeat my old mistake.” She gestured at her ruined face.

“What mistake?” Arwen croaked past the knot of dread suddenly filling her throat.

“Ah, lady … a good hunter should know her prey like she knows her own lover.” Erferil caught Arwen’s gaze, her good eye boring into hers as if she wanted to sear the words into Arwen’s brain. The resemblance to Elrond was eerie. “Not all spiders are alike. Some must bite to inject their venom. Others can spit it far, and the stuff melts flesh like acid.”

Arwen winced, and at the sight Erferil once more grinned her lopsided smile. “Kill them before they get within spitting distance!” 

With that, she drew up her hood, bowed, and disappeared into the undergrowth. A small rustle, the edge of a trailing cloak, and it was as if she had never been there at all. 

Summer birdsong and the gentle drone of insects was all that broke the heavy silence as Arwen and Legolas mounted once more. 

“Erferil did not try to stop us?” Arwen asked, once her shock had worn off. She wanted to say more, ask Legolas if he was scared, too, but pride froze her tongue. This was her one chance to hunt real prey, a beast worthy of song. They would not turn back on her account. 

Legolas shrugged a little too casually, and Arwen noticed how his restless fingers fiddled with a loose thread on the embroidered edge of his saddle blanket. “Why would she? I am her prince.”

Clearly Thranduil’s pomposity was a family trait. Arwen managed not to roll her eyes. Better change the subject. “What did she mean by ‘the great debate?” she asked.

Legolas grew even more uneasy. “The Silvan elders are petitioning my father to have Amon Lanc demolished. They feel some dark taint upon it, and fear that the keep might be manned against us some day.” 

He suddenly looked sad. “The Sindar counsellors all disagree, as does Father. I have never seen him so distraught. They cannot bear to part with the old hall, because my grandfather Oropher built it.”   

Arwen tried and failed to imagine icy King Thranduil growing sentimental over a building. “Surely your father …”

“It is a Greenwood matter.” Legolas interrupted her. “My father’s counsels should not concern outsiders,” he declared pompously. “It is not for me to reveal them.”

Arwen snorted, glad for something to laugh at. “I know. You are the prince.” 

Prince or not, Legolas was a pleasant travel companion, clearly well used to camp life, and they made good time on their southward journey. 

Beyond the narrows, a hush fell across the forest. Without being told Arwen knew that they would meet no more passers-by. Ever since the slaughter at the Last Alliance these lands had been deserted.

Nonetheless, they did come across a house. 

The glade was breathtaking, with clouds of wavy hair-grass growing in tussocks beneath the birches, all dappled silver dancing in the moonlight. A gorgeous summer abode, but the longhouse stood empty. No fire burned beneath its roof, no song filled the echoing space. The white chalk patterns spiralling across the loam walls were strange and vaguely menacing.

Arwen brought her horse to a stop with a shout of surprise. “Look, a house! Did you not say no one has lived here since the war? It looks newly built.”

“There is no one here. Let us move on.” Legolas sat pale and still on his horse. 

As in Lórien, the Silvan Elves of the Greenwood liked to live in longhouses, entire clans beneath a single roof of reeds and bark. These houses were fluid, they shifted and moved with the seasons as the woods around them changed. They popped up like mushrooms, almost overnight.

This one had a watchful air to it. Arwen knew that tell-tale ripple in the world’s warp and weft.

She dismounted, unsettled. The fine hairs on her arms stood upright with the force of the Song that had been woven here, but Elrond’s daughter was not one to turn aside from a show of power, no matter its source. She straightened her shoulders and, clenching her hands, entered the dark doorway.

Underfoot, the floor was clean and bare without the usual carpet of rushes. No droppings either — clearly no woodland bird or beast had dared enter here. Her footsteps echoed eerily through the hollow space. 

A dark shape fluttered beside the door. Arwen’s blood froze. She gasped and almost made an embarrassing leap outside, but then her eyes adjusted. 

Nothing but a Silvan cloak hanging from a peg. The magpie feathers were smooth beneath her fingers, but Power thrummed through the garment, prickling her skin. The cloak must belong to the Singer, but why did they leave such a precious thing behind? 

And it was more than a cloak. Small trinkets were laid out upon the floor. Arwen walked among the rows, more astonished with each find. Roper's tools. A hand loom, such as a Silvan woman might use to weave colourful mats of reed. A beech-wood book. The faded shoe of a small child, stitched with amber beads. Through it all some skillful Singer had woven a taut, thrumming thread of Power, but she could not discern their intent.

She turned to the door to ask Legolas, and was surprised to find him still standing by the horses. When she called him over he refused to come near the house. 

“This house is no home. What is it for?” she demanded when she made her way back to him.

“A place for the dead,” he said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. “Built for the Houseless Ones to inhabit.”

“The dead should go to Mandos!” she blurted out, shuddering. Only evil spirits lingered in Middle-earth after death, fallen Elves lured to the Morgoth’s service. Why would these Silvans have dealings with such abominations? It was unconscionable. 

There had to be some different, reasonable explanation. “Do you build empty longhouses in the woods to draw Houseless spirits away from your homes?”

“No!” Legolas’ eyes widened. He seemed shocked by the very notion. “We want to draw them back home, to the lands of their birth.”

“The dead have no business in Middle-earth. They belong in Mandos.”

Now it was Legolas’ turn to be confused. “They are Wood-elves. They belong in the Greenwood!”

Arwen swallowed. Erestor had held forth a few times on the subject of the Dark Elves’ benighted unwillingness to turn to the light and order of Valinor, but to be faced with such unnatural behaviour was quite different. She was about to debate Legolas on the matter, but then other lessons of Erestor’s — the ones about diplomacy — returned to her, and she changed the subject.

“This house is empty,” she whispered. “I can tell.”

“Yes,” replied Legolas, grief in his voice. “It is a failed attempt. They do not return, our beloved dead.”

“Return from where?” Arwen asked, now wholly confused.

“The Dead Marshes.” Legolas’ voice was soft and sad. “There they lie, and they will not rise.” 

 

'I don't know,' said Frodo in a dreamlike voice. 'But I have seen them too. In the pools when the candles were lit. They lie in all the pools, pale faces, deep deep under the dark water. I saw them: grim faces and evil, and noble faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair, and weeds in their silver hair. But all foul, all rotting, all dead. A fell light is in them.' …

`Yes, yes,' said Gollum. `All dead, all rotten. Elves and Men and Orcs. The Dead Marshes. There was a great battle long ago, yes, so they told him when Sméagol was young, when I was young before the Precious came. It was a great battle. Tall Men with long swords, and terrible Elves, and Orcses shrieking. They fought on the plain for days and months at the Black Gates. But the Marshes have grown since then, swallowed up the graves; always creeping, creeping.'"

TTT, Book IV, Ch 2 The Passage of the Marshes

 

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Chapter End Notes

Welcome back, I hope you had a good week.

I'm back among the living, thanks for all of your kind well wishes!
Arwen dives into Silvan culture in this chapter, meeting Erferil and finding the empty house in the woods. Introducing an OC is always a bit nerve-wracking, so I'd love to hear what you think about Erferil and her people.
A comment would make my day!

See you next week,
IS