Before the Darkness by chrissystriped

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Chapter Six

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Mablung sat in the kitchen and stared into the candle flame, his mother sat beside him, holding Liriel close. He was still trembling. One of Orome’s Maiar had brought him home after finding him in the cave. He had been alone there, his parents hadn’t allowed him to accompany him to the festival at Valmar and he had went there to sulk. He had hoped to meet Glorfindel at the festival and maybe to make off with him without being seen.

The darkness had come unlooked for and he had been too afraid to try to find his way back without seeing anything. It frightened him still. It was said the trees were hurt. What if the light never came back? Mablung looked up when his father entered the room, a grave look on his face.

“What happened, Torgil?”, his mother asked.

Father sat down with a deep sigh. “King Finwe is dead.”

Mablung’s heart sped up when he saw the fear in his father’s eyes.

“Murdered by Melkor – like the trees.”

Mother sobbed.

“He stole the Silmaril. The Valar try to find him, but it looks like he has gotten away. Feanor wants to follow him.” Torgil shook his head. “Unreason. How can he expect to prevail against a Vala? But what else to expect of Feanor?”

Mablung knew that his father didn’t like the oldest prince. He never had met him before, he had been born after his banishment from Tirion. Was he King now, after King Finwe’s death. Death! Murdered. Mablung couldn’t fathom it. Things like this didn’t happen here.

“Follow him? But... back to the Great Lands?” Mother sounded incredulous. “The Valar surely won’t support that. How does he want to accomplish that, without ships?”

“How should I know? It’s only rumours. Let’s hope there’s no truth to them.” Father rubbed his forehead.

‘Back to the Great Lands’, Mablung thought.

Grandmother Finya had told him about it, of the endless, deep woods under the silver light of the stars. The stars... Mablung looked out of the window and saw them burning in the sky – and the darkness didn’t seem so dark anymore.

It was dangerous there, she had said, but whenever she told him about it, he had felt how much she had loved this life. He would have liked to see that land. There were mountains there, too. Finya had told him about crossing them on their way west. And it was large, much larger than Aman. Not, that Father would allow him to go with Feanor – if he even went.

‘Are you mad?’, Mablung berated himself. ‘He wants to fight a Vala. What could you possibly do there!’

 

Mablung moaned into the kiss, he leaned against the cool wall in a remote corner of the palace. Glorfindel had waylaid and hauled him here. They hadn’t been seeing much of each other since the darkness started, Mablung’s parents barely left him out of their sight and it was impossible to go to the cave anyway – it was much too dangerous in the dark. A kind of uneasy normality had set in. Life had to go on, even if the light didn’t come back. His eyes started to adjust to the starlight, but...

Glorfindel’s hands found their way under his shirt and Mablung clung to him. He wanted him so much and at the moment he didn’t worry about someone walking in on them. He fumbled with the ties of Glorfindel’s trousers and hoped his friend had thought about lube. Glorfindel made a frustrated sound and stepped back.

“Mablung! Wait! We can’t...”

He leaned his forehead against Mablungs, his breath quick and strained.

“I need you, Glorfindel”, Mablung whispered. “I miss you so much.”

“Oh Mablung! I miss you too.” Glorfindel embraced him, pulled him so close as if he wanted to fuse with him. “But we can’t go to the cave and everyone is so nervous at home. I can’t bring you there now, not even as friend.”

Glorfindel had introduced him to his parents soon after the incident at Ecthelion’s party. His parents had wanted to meet the boy their son was befriending. Mablung had felt very out of place there. They were so rich and... noble and although they hadn’t treated him like that – and Glorfindel never did – he was just a servant boy.

Glorfindel turned his head to a window a little down the hallway.

“Do you hear that?”

Mablung followed his gaze. Red light danced on the wall across the window and he heard... were that people? Glorfindel took him by the hand and pulled him to the window. It looked down on the courtyard. Mablung shivered when he saw the crowd that had assembled there, many of the elves holding torches that bathed the courtyard in a flickering, red light.

“What is he doing here?”

Mablung looked down at the stairs in front of the entrance. “Is that Feanor?”

The prince and his sons stood on the landing in front of the gate, looking at the crowd. It grew silent as he lifted his voice and his words could be heard even at their lookout. He claimed kingship for himself, talked about Melkor – calling him Morgoth – and his decision to go after him, to take revenge for the death of his father and take back the Silmaril.

He talked about the wide, uncharted lands and Mablung felt that longing wake again. And wasn’t Feanor right? The Blessed Realm wasn’t that anymore, the trees had withered and death had found its way into it. Were they really prisoners here? Confined in this land to give these... humans, of whom Mablung had never heard before, the Great Lands? Mablung didn’t know.

A cold shiver ran down his spine as Feanor and his sons swore their oath. He didn’t know, if what Feanor had said was the truth, but this oath... it could only be wrong to invoke Eru for such a thing. Mablung looked up to Glorfindel with wide eyes.

“What are we going to do now?”, he whispered.

Glorfindel shook his head. “I don’t know”, he answered with husky voice. “I have to find my father. We are sworn to Prince Turgon, if he decides to leave...” Glorfindel gulped. “You should go home now, Mablung. You’ll be save there.”

He gave him a lingering kiss – as if it were the last time. Mablung clung to his arm.

“Take me with you if you leave. Please! Don’t leave me behind.”

Glorfindel touched his cheek tenderly. “There’s nothing decided yet. Go home and calm down.”

Mablung followed Glorfindel through the palace, he didn’t want to argue with him, but he didn’t want to go home either. He was sure that his father wouldn’t ever follow Feanor, even if Prince Turgon should go.

Aimlessly he walked through the streets. Groups of elves stood everywhere, talking in whispers. They all had torches or lamps, he hadn’t seen Tirion this bright since the death of the Trees. What was he supposed to do? He didn’t want to stay behind without Glorfindel. And if the prince, he served, went back to the Great Lands, wasn’t he obliged to go, too.

He thought again about the stories Finya had told him. He didn’t care about Melkor – Morgoth – and he wasn’t a warrior, he couldn’t fight, but he longed for the wideness of these Lands, for the freedom it promised. ‘Mother, Liriel... Father’, he thought. The idea of leaving them hurt his heart,  but... he wanted to be free of the expectations of his fathers that were so far away from what he wanted for himself.

 

Mablung wrapped the cloak tighter around himself and held the hood closed over his mouth so only his eyes were free. The wind was like icy hands that froze his skin and the hard flakes of the snowstorm bit into his face. He was so tired, so terribly tired, but he knew that he mustn’t fall asleep. He had seen what happened to those who lay down at the wayside – they never woke up again.

It had been madness to dare the ice, but when the firelight had brightened the eastern coast they had known that the ships wouldn’t come back for them. Feanor had betrayed and deserted them. There was no other way but the ice. They couldn’t go back, they had rejected the Valar’s mercy, they wouldn’t get another chance. And so they had braved the Helcaraxe, this terrible cold that pierced marrow and bone.

Mablung didn’t know how long they had been walking. The darkness was eternal and timeless. Maybe this was the punishment for killing their kin, to have to wander forever through this icy desert. Blindly he reached out for Glorfindel who always walked beside him. For a time they had held hands until it had turn to cold. You risked frostbite if you left any body part outside the cloak for too long.

Mablung lifted his head when his hand only found emptiness. It was dark and the snowflakes stung in his eyes.

“Glorfindel?”, he croaked and coughed before calling his friend's name louder.

No one answered him. No one followed behind. Where were the others? Mablung turned around in a circle. He had lost them! Somehow he had lost the way. Mablung sobbed as despair overwhelmed him. How should he find the other side of the sea now? He was caught in a world of ice and snow.

A part of him wanted to lie down and fall asleep, it would be over quickly. But... He didn’t want to go to Mandos, the Vala’s words were still fresh in his mind. He couldn’t die now. Not after he had dipped his hands in blood. Mablung wailed. He had killed an elf! He would never be free of that guilt again. He stumbled on, in a direction that just maybe was the right one. Don’t stop, just don’t stop and give in to his tiredness. They’d been already walking so long. It couldn’t be that far to the coast, could it? Surely he would soon see the new, old land he had wished to see so much...

 

“Mablung!”

Glorfindel’s voice was almost gone from the cold and his shouting. He walked back along the column with quick steps, the eyes that met his were tired and empty. They hadn’t any strength left. How could he have lost Mablung? They had walked beside each other the whole time and then he had been gone, vanished. And he hadn’t noticed!

“Mablung!”

Glorfindel wiped a tear from his cheek before it could freeze. He had lost him. He had promised to protect him, Mablung had trusted him, and now he was gone. He had to find him! He looked up when Ecthelion, who helped him with his search, walked up to him. His friend shook his head.

“He must have lost the way. The snowstorm...”

Ecthelion had dark shadows under his eyes. They all slept badly for fear of never waking.

“I have to find him.” Glorfindel turned in the direction they had come from. “He has to be somewhere out there!”

Ecthelion gripped his arm. “You can’t go back, Glorfindel! You’ll freeze to death!”

Glorfindel spun around and bushed Ecthelion back.

“You never cared for Mablung. But he is my friend! I won’t leave him behind!”

Glorfindel turned away and quickened his step. He had to find him! He’d never forgive himself, if he didn’t. He fell face first into the snow when Ecthelion jumped at him from behind.

“And you are my friend!", he growled and twisted Glorfindel’s arm on his back. “I won’t let you run into your death with eyes open. It’s been hours since you saw him last and that was in the middle of a damned storm!”

“Let go of me!” Glorfindel tried to wriggle from under him, angry desperate tears froze on his cheeks. “I can’t abandon him!”

“I won’t let you go.” Ecthelion shifted his weight so every move sent a painful stab through Glorfindel’s shoulder. “And if I have to, I’ll punch you unconscious and carry you, but I won’t let you throw your life away. He’s dead, Glorfindel! Mablung is dead.”

Glorfindel slumped sobbing.

“No”, he whispered.

But his reason told him that Ecthelion was right. Mablung wasn’t in the column and if he had lost his way in the snowstorm, he was dead.

Frozen to death or fallen into one of the crevasses that had taken Turgon’s wife and so many others. His mind knew it, but his heart didn’t want to believe it. The thought that he would never see his smile, never hear his voice again, hurt so much. Glorfindel clung to Ecthelion, who helped him to his feet, and cried at his shoulder.

“You are right”, his friend said softly. “I never cared that much for him, but I didn’t wish him such a fate. And even less I wished you this pain. I’m sorry, Glorfindel. I’m so very sorry.”