Double Edges by Elleth

Double Edges

Read Double Edges

The mountain of furs, blankets and coverlets began to shift and shudder, and the topmost three slid to the floor with a muffled thump. I took another deep draught of my tea and laid another bundle of twigs onto the fireplace to re-kindle the glimming embers to flame before I headed to the kitchens across the yard between the wings of the house. The north wind scattered flakes of snow over the frozen earth where they found no purchase, and I was glad that I knew where I was certain to find the brothers at this time, rather than to go hunting for them around the compound in the beastly cold. A surge of warm, moist air hit me in the face as I entered the kitchens, and the relaxed chatter dropped to nothing at all while I filled a bowl with broth, a cup with honeyed tea, and fished for a cinnamon stick to slip in; an unobstrusive treat for Maitimo to enjoy. While I readied a tray, the tension became palpable very quickly.

"Well, Estelindë? Is he awake?" Makalaurë asked. His fingers, drumming impatiently on the wood of his harp, stilled. He made no pretense of even having played at all, and his voice, after I had summarily dismissed all of them earlier in the morning while Nelyo still slept, was still noticeably cool. He was not, I noticed, wearing his crown, though a red impression on his temples showed that he could not have taken it off long ago, perhaps only after the most recent council session had concluded.

"Not yet, but he is waking. And, as before, you will not all go tromping into his room and overwhelm him, understood?"

There was a murmur of assent, if a reluctant one, and Carnistir, the least amicable of the brothers toward me, remained standing, his eyes fixed on the door. He seemed apprehensive despite his words, but what thoughts precisely hid behind his face I could not fathom.

"I will go," he said.

I sighed, tugged one of my braids back into place and bowed my head to him. "Very well. Be considerate, he will be be exhausted after the journey and all your ceremony of welcoming him, still."

"Still?" asked Ambarussa the Younger over the clatter of pots that had resumed now that an outright confrontation had been avoided and the news was commonplace rather than dire. "It's been two days since he came back from across the lake."

"Yes, and seven years since he was hung by his wrist, more since he was captured, and not nearly enough time to recover fully from his ordeal even in Nolofinwë's camp. Use your brain, Atyo."

He looked chastised (and Ambarussa the Older briefly scowled at me for it), almost so much that I felt sorry for the harsh response. He had had enough grievous experiences behind himself, and his near-death at Losgar made him quick to both empathically support and worry for his oldest brother, although he did tend to speak without thinking. I looked at Makalaurë again, who was watching the exchange with attentive looks, and a face as though he himself had something to say, which he certainly had.

"Curvo made him a gift. We should bring it to him."

"Oh, what gift?" I raised an eyebrow at them. It was a strange idea. Curufinwë especially had shied from being around his oldest brother since Findekáno had rescued him. In doing so he reminded me of the cat I had had for a while in Aman, when mice had come creeping into my stores of healing herbs during one of the eviller winters in Formenos.

Often just as ill-tempered as the cat (and with the same fine, sleek black hair), he had reminded me of her so much that I had given in to poor temptation and named the cat Curwë. Her namesake had failed to find it amusing, and it gave him cause to hiss at me for at least a month whenever our paths crossed. Now, with Maitimo surviving an ordeal similar to the one that had killed their father, and more beyond that, I suspected there was no little resentment, no little fear, and no little doubt that his brother was indeed his brother. Or still his brother, hence the odd behaviour.

"It is a new sword," Curufinwë said in clipped tones as though he had picked up on my thoughts. "His old one was taken from him during the ambush," he explained and rose to his feet from his seat by the fire, rubbing the back of a sleepy-eyed Tyelperinquar, who clung to his father with arms and legs wrapped around Curufinwë's torso. "I have refined the technique that will cause the blade to glow. It was hard enough to convince the Dwarves to yield me all of the metals and salts that I needed for the work, and the bioluminescent algae cost me dearly; the Sindar of the coast were reluctant to grant them for a purpose they failed to understand, and revealing that secret is out of the question yet. We must remember that we need commodities to trade."

"We should gift them some," Carnistir suggested, if with a note of caution in his voice. "As soon as you have perfected them, and they have understood their use in battle, jealousy will breed demand, and we have our first item to export," he said.

"It is perfected, as far as the primitive means here allow me. My work would have been more refined in Aman, but with the tools and facilities here, it will be no better as long as we have not refined the technology we brought." Still carrying his sleeping son, he retrieved a tightly-wrapped, twine-bound bundle from the mantelpiece, as long as his arm at least, and handed it to Carnistir before looking to meet my eyes. It was a mystery why he had begun to look to me for approval – perhaps because I was accompanying the brothers on behalf of their mother's pleading and as a family friend, perhaps because I had similarly strict standards as Fëanáro had had, though my expertise lay in healing rather than his universal genius, and recently, in looking after this wayward gaggle of rebel children.

"Open it. It is solid work," Curufinwë said to Carnistir, never looking away from me.

I almost rolled my eyes at his posturing, stopped only by the sure knowledge that Curufinwë was watching my face closely for a reaction, even the faintest show of being impressed, and finding anything less than outright admiration at his innovativeness would be received with nothing less than disgrace. I nodded, once Carnistir had pushed aside the cloth far enough to pull the sword from its scabbard and allow a glimpse at the blade. It was fine work for all I could see; the firelight glinted harsh and red on a keen edge, but that was not surprising. Curufinwë's skill in metalwork had never fully rivalled his father's or grandfather's, or so I had heard, but he was skilled-enough in his own right and undoubtedly the finest weaponsmith in Exile.

All the same, the idea of a glowing sword made me wonder – Curufinwë was not the kind of person who did something with a single purpose in mind, and not long ago he had been less than charitable toward his oldest brother. The first time, while Maitimo had still been lying in his long unconsciousness, Curufinwë had claimed that he stank of death, and of the reek of Angamando, and that he could go no closer without gagging. He had never approached the bed where his brother lay like a skeleton wrapped in tissue paper, with all his red hair shorn away to deal with lice and other vermin that had plagued him.

And even later, when Maitimo looked far more like himself again – when he had gained weight, some of the scars were fading, and his hair had begun to grow back, Curufinwë had been reluctant to approach during his brief visits to the other shore, claiming afterwards that Maitimo's bright-with-pain eyes spooked him. Perhaps that was partly true, perhaps part of it was guilt – Curufinwë had been one of those who pushed for Makalaurë's kingship, knowing that he would make for a weak ruler and thus open the way for the younger sons to gather far more influence than the smidgeon of power they wielded over their own handful of followers each. But it continued to feel odd, and I could not ask him or any of his brothers without risking them campaigning for having me reprimanded and cause yet more division.

Sometimes the politicking tired me.

It was Makalaurë to whom the sword was passed next, and he, too, made a show of admiring the craft, praising especially the artful etchings on the blade that spelled out a stave of protection against evil and for prowess in battle, and the designs on crossguard and pommel, the three Silmarils shining in triumph above the ruined towers of Angamando, a harbinger of promise and unlikely ambition both.

"We should go and give it to him," Curufinwë said. He deposited Tyelperinquar on a chair, where the boy curled up to continue his nap, and reclaimed the blade to wrap it in its cloth-covering again. "We have been prattling here long enough." With a smirk at his brothers he strode from the door and left it rattling in the wind. A gust swept in with snowflakes. I sighed, gathered the tray of the now-cooled food and drink, and headed after him. Maitimo had not yet had breakfast, if it could be called that at this hour of the day, if he was in any state to take it yet, and if his brothers' visit did not exhaust him far enough to spoil his appetite entirely. But I was glad at the very least that Curufinwë had given up his ambition to introduce his son to the evil of the world, after Makalaurë had shouted down a proposal to take the boy to see Maitimo in his frail, hurt state.

The remaining sons of Fëanáro filed out behind me despite my former reservations, which they often overrode with few compunctions if it suited them, and being only a healer, I had few ways to argue with their decisions unless it endangered my patients' health. But Maitimo was up and about as I entered the room, having shrugged on a dressing gown, and Curufinwë had found a comfortable spot at the foot end of the bed, holding the sword in his lap, still wrapped.

Maitimo's face, drawn though it was – he surely still was in pain, from the ride and his ruined arm both – lit up somewhat, seeing me enter with the food. "Estelindë, it is good to see you. Curvo tells me I slept two days, is that true?"

"You should know I do not exaggerate unless it suits my interests," Curufinwë cut in from the bed, and I nodded to confirm his words, all of them. "Yes, nearly so – we arrived in the late afternoon two days ago, and it is now --"

"- an hour after noon, and no wonder I am famished," Maitimo said, and perhaps spotting astonishment on more than one face – several of his brothers, and mine - he stated, "I hung there long enough to memorize the lights' changing on any given day , and today it is nearly as overcast as it was above Angamando; that makes guessing easier." He was talking in an conversational tone, friendly enough, but now avoided eye-contact with anyone in the room, and instead sat at the table by the window to begin eating. The broth I had brought he gulped down from the bowl without ever bothering to use the spoon, and the tea followed suit swiftly enough, before he leaned back in his chair with eyes closed, wincing only slightly when his formerly dislocated shoulder came in contact with the wood. I had done my best with the reduction, and he had been as cooperative as could be hoped in the exercises that hopefully would push him along toward regaining most of the function in his arm, but as it was I doubted he would ever heal fully after seven years of a dislocated joint supporting his full body weight. It was, all things considered, a miracle that he still lived at all, and not merely because of his shoulder. I shuddered to think of the procedures that had been required to keep him alive, and would be glad to purge that knowledge from my mind if it were possible; the care for the stump of his arm, keeping him nourished when he had been too weak to take food, and others still.

"So," he aked eventually, after Makalaurë had begun shifting uncomfortably about the silence that hung heavy in the room. "You are all here and it is good to see you, but I --" and his voice faltered as he studied his brothers, his eyes now resting on Curufinwë. A blue glow shimmered through the wrapping of the sword, hard to see anywhere but in the shadowy creases of fabric near the hilt, but nonetheless clear enough in the dimness of the day. Curufinwë's face darkened, his posture stiffened, and one hand came to cover the glow, Maitimo looked stricken and all colour drained from his face before I pushed into the line of sight to block the blue glow from his view.

"Out. Out, all of you!"

Tyelkormo was the first to regain composure. He had shown a head for tactics before, and now, throwing the door open and herding his brothers out into the yard I heard him say, "Check the perimeter, see if the Enemy has breached the palisades anywhere. Any orcs, shoot on sight!" I secured the lock. The commotion outside faded away, but soon enough a single, long, clear horn blast sounded: All was safe.

Maitimo, after minutes of sitting stiff as a poker, finally relaxed, and had begun shaking. I touched his uninjured shoulder and standing behind him put my arms around him in the same gesture that Nerdanel had often employed from the time when he was young, encasing him in a protective hold that was one of the few prolonged touches he still tolerated. "If there was any Enemy servant, your brothers dealt with it," I said. "You are safe here, Maitimo."

He nodded. His breath came in shudders and he had not yet calmed enough to speak out loud, but I felt drops falling onto my hands and arms soon enough – he was crying, biting his lips to muffle the sounds that wanted out, and his left hand found mine to claw into. His fingernails bit into my skin and would surely draw blood, but I did not have the heart to gainsay him when he so obviously needed the support.
"It is fine," I repeated, helpless in the face of his hurt mind being on such clear display. Estë was the healer of hurts and weariness, and I had gleaned nearly all my knowledge from her, but her power had not sufficed to heal Maitimo's grandmother of her ambition to pass to Mandos, nor would I, a mere elf, be able to sufficiently calm Maitimo's mind. He would need time, and care, love, and peace, I thought, but that, too, was uncertain to heal him fully, and I had never been a great healer of the mind, my expertise lay with bodies.

"Will you bring me the sword?" he asked a while, battling for composure in silence, punctured only occasionally by a sniff or heavy breath. Both of us, I knew, were still listening for sounds outside – orcish noises, the din of battle, an alarm, anything. But there was nothing, and the crescent nail marks he had left in the palm of my hand had begun to throb unpleasantly.

"I do not – there is nothing else left to me if I mean to ever feel safe again," he admitted, sounding all of a sudden like the boy who had taken a tumble down the palace stairs in Tirion in his eagerness to greet me upon a return from the Gardens of Lórien. "I will need to fight again."

There was nothing to be said against it. Physical exercise, as long as he did not overtax himself, would do him good, and would the ability to wield a sword with his left, if that was possible. He still had problems with the habitual use of fork and spoon, not to mention penmanship, and it would need desperate training. If it helped his sense of security, all the better.

"You will do well," I said to him as I retrieved the bundle from the bed and offered it, holding it until his fingers had closed securely around the pommel. "My lord."

Maitimo smiled then, half turning to me, but his hand dropped, the blade clattered to the floor, and any veneer of confidence he might have tried to erect during our conversation crumbled: The blue glow continued to ooze from beneath the cloth wrap.

Maitimo turned back to me with something akin to panic. I picked the sword up, unwrapped it despite my suddenly shaking hands, and attempted to hand it back to him.

"Here, take it."

"No. Estelindë, why will it not stop glowing? I am no orc!"

The claim was at once absurd because it was so self-apparent, and heartbreaking inasmuch that he had ever, for the slightest moment entertained such a thought.

"Of course you are not. You are Nelyafinwë Maitimo Russandol, and I would not have expended weeks of my time to keep you alive if it were any different. I can assure you that your blood runs red indeed, rather than the black sludge in their veins; and you can believe me - I have seen more of it than I had ever believed I would, and more than I would care."

He breathed out. My voice had been harsh again, I knew, but this was not a moment for gentleness, and before any such thought took root in his mind I would rather tear it out and squash any remaining seeds. "I have studied orcs, Maitimo; I have catalogued all of the differences in their physiology, and I can assure you that aside from scars, you share none of the characteristics that make an orc an orc."

"You are thinking in physicalities only, that was ever your great your failure! Perhaps that is because you failed to stop my grandmother from dying!"

I was on my feet before I could form another coherent thought, and the upsurge of anger carried me to the door, having me reach for the handle and yanking, only to find that the door was still locked.

I paused. It was true that I had been one of Estë's maidens when Míriel came to Lórien; I had at that point ended my studies and become myself a junior teacher of healing, and Míriel had been subjected to my care, a frail, tall, all-too-pale woman who wanted nothing but sleep, complained of the cold despite the sub-tropical warmth of the Gardens, and found no joy in their many wonders, resolving at last to pass from life rather than heal, but I had by no means been the only one to care for her. Estë herself had frequently seen to her and never had had any reprimands for me, and one Olórin of Nienna's tutelage had frequently sought her to try and impart comfort. It was not me alone who was at fault for it. It was Maitimo lashing out through his fear. That was all.

I rolled my shoulders to dispell the tension from them, and turned back to him. He was cowering on his chair, his head on his knees, in a position that must undoubtedly hurt, and covering his eyes with his one hand.

"No, Maitimo. No, stop. It is fine. I am not angry." Although it was hard to temper my voice back into a milder tone, one look at his misery was enough to melt the remaining anger into nothing. It was to be expected, I told myself. After years of torture it was not surprising that he would try and assert power where he could, and if that hurt someone he had not intended, or if the reaction would have left him fearing retribution in Angamando, then his reaction was entirely understandable. I knelt, pushing the sword underneath the table and out of view, but he refused to uncurl, his muscles locked into position, and said nothing.

"I will speak to your brother to find what he did to have the glow persist. It is no flaw in you, it is a flaw in the making of this thing," I said, and once more got to my feet. "You are exhausted, Maitimo, may I suggest that you try and rest?"

No answer. With the sword, once more carefully shielded from Maitimo's sight, I made for the door a second time, fully intending to question Curufinwë about his tactics and ideas in this game. I found him, with snow in my hair and shivering with the cold, in the forge at long last, after hunting around the compound to be sent hither and thither by the few people who were out and about. The blue glow of the sword had faded into nothing, and the red one of the brazier served as the only ominous light as I came in and closed the door again behind me. In the heat of the room the snowflakes melted and water ran down the back of my neck. I shuddered, just as Curufinwë turned to face me. He was working on a knife, an ordinary kitchen knife by the looks of it, and I watched the blade on the anvil darken as the heat faded out of it.
"Estelindë," he said, with the sort of surprise that was quite likely feigned, and wiped a sooted cloth over his forehead, leaving a long dark smear from eyebrow to eyebrow. "What brings you here?"

"You know that quite well, I daresay."

"Yes, given that you are carrying Maitimo's sword. Did he find fault with it?" Again I could find his eyes on my face, and this time it unsettled me, because I knew it was deliberate rather than honest curiosity and seeking for approval. He knew perfectly well why I had come.

"It would not stop glowing until I took it outside! Was it deliberately crafted to spook him, or is there something wrong with him?" I asked, and inevitably, my voice grew sharper again. I swatted at the back of my neck again, where more water – or perhaps sweat – tickled like an irritating fly.

"I did nothing but the things Father taught me," Curufinwë stated, perhaps by his answer finally acknowledging that I was quite serious with my request. "You see, we did not know Orcs very well in Aman, I am telling you nothing new – you were one of the people who told us the bogey stories your parents knew from Cuiviénen, after all," he said. "So the swords were not... correctly calibrated initially. They were confused. We had to experiment, and what we found suggested a different approach that Father and I had no chance to refine before --" he trailed off. I motioned for him to continue, despite my misgivings. It was apparent where this went. "The algae that I mentioned earlier, the source of the bioluminescence, is merely the means to an end; the thoughts and spells that go into the metal serve as triggers for the glow – and orcs, rather than just generic evil, they are... we found that they are ruinous creatures that hate themselves, and all that is good and whole in the Eldar. It is not merely our intent to slay them, our hatred for them, that triggers the glow, you see, but their hatred for themselves, or I might have created swords that would light up at our will and behest only."

I was speechless. It was undoubtedly an extremely simplified account of the mechanisms he was describing, but I had to acknowledge that it explained a disturbing amount of what I had witnessed in Maitimo's room. And if the maker's intent contributed to shape the mechanism, then Curufin's resentment, perhaps fear, whatever name his emotions for his oldest brother deserved, if they deserved any name at all, would have flowed into the sword as well, and the loving care that he had crafted the details with was merely a varnish over his true intent.

"You meant to test him, didn't you, and failed to care what that might trigger in him? Whether he was still himself?"

My own resentment broke through unbridled now; I had bottled up too much of it recently, and this was intolerable. "Because you sought to unmask his supposedly monstrous nature, and because you sought to use that 'proof' to your own advantage, is that not it?"

Curufinwë paused in his motions. The hammer in his hand, tapping onto the knife on his anvil, stilled. "Father could not have survived --- no one could have survived what Maitimo survived! I needed to prove that!" In the dim light of the forge, the glow of the brazier caught his eyes, and he had never looked more like a Son of Fëanáro now than he had since Losgar, unrepentant of anything, and dangerous far beyond the normal measure of an already-dangerous man.

Behind me, the door opened. Daylight, or what could be called that on this overcast day, streamed in. A gust of wind swept through the room, and the instruments on their racks rattled. Maitimo was standing there, not at all bundled up against the cold, and shivering underneath his thin clothes. The sword's glow flared, and I shifted to hide it from view.

"Maitimo. Estelindë just reported that there are malfunctions in the sword. It seems that I was mistaken in my assumption that I had perfected the luminescence," Curufinwë said, suddenly all penitent. Now, in the light, he seemed entirely the usual image of himself; handsome, accomodating and more or less kind, but I could not forget the glow of his eyes, and had no doubt that he had not merely planned for the sword to behave exactly as it had, but that he had hoped for it to spiral out of control further, with all the vile implications such considerations carried.

Maitimo, still lingering by the door, finally took a step inside. "Yes," he said. "Yes, it malfunctioned." He almost seemed grateful for the explanation, one that he could latch onto without admitting damage to himself. "I confess, I was growing anxious that I had some taint upon me." Then he laughed, although it sounded more as though he attempted to swallow a cough or a sob. Curufinwë joined in, full-throated.

Ruinous creatures that hate themselves, and all that is good and whole in the Eldar, I thought, and held my tongue. Maitimo stepped further into the forge, slid past me, and soon he was admiring the artfully twisted handle of the kitchen knife Curufinwë was crafting.

"I like this design," he said. "Would it be possible to include that in the hilt of a sword? I would need sure purchase in a one-hander, of course," he said, "So I understand if that is not feasible. And, one more thing, do not attempt to make this one glow. I can kill orcs just as well with a dull blade as long as the edge is keen."

"Of course. Here is to the many orcs that your future sword shall slay!"

Curufinwë's eyes flickered to me while he spoke, and I knew then I had better hold my tongue or lose it, and rather hope in silence that Maitimo might one day come to terms with himself again.

I dearly hoped so, as I made my way back out into the snow to leave the brothers to their plotting, and closed the door firmly behind me. Maitimo had accepted the game to keep his brother in line, and that was something that would keep him from contemplating his own misery – and for once, Curufinwë might find his own intent wrenched from his grasp and twisted to counteract its original purpose. Maitimo's resentments were better spent on this matter than on himself, who he had been, and who he was now. I dearly hoped that that idea should take root with him eventually.

---

Chapter End Notes

Since the story takes place in the early First Age, I used Quenya names and terms throughout:

Fëanáro - Fëanor
Maitimo, Nelyo, Nelyafinwë, Russandol – Maedhros
Makalaurë – Maglor
Tyelkormo – Celegorm
Carnistir – Caranthir's
Curufinwë, Curvo – Curufin
Tyelperinquar – Celebrimbor
Ambarussa/Atyo (short for Atyarussa) – Amras
Nolofinwë – Fingolfin
Findekáno – Fingon
Angamando – Angband.

Atyarussa, Second-Russet, is a name stemming from elaborations on the Shibboleth of Fëanor in Vinyar Tengwar #41, it was one of the twins' names (the other being Minyarussa, First-Russet) to help distinguish them. The mention of his near-death at Losgar is something of a melding of the two versions of the story that exist, the published Silmarillion version where no hint of it is given and both twins die at the Havens of Sirion, or the version of the History of Middle-earth where Amras perishes on the Swanships.

The idea of the Elven-Swords glowing due to their wielders' hatred for the Orcs is canonical as far as I can remember, although I failed to turn up the textual reference. But with that in mind it seemed strange to me that Sting, as wielded by Bilbo (and later Frodo and Sam), who had no particular quarrel with the orcs (or at least not to the degree that the Eldar would) would be exhibiting the same quality unless it was also imbued into the sword itself somehow, which would, in my mind, require the respective weaponsmith's touch. It was from these considerations that the fic developed its twists and turns.

I have no idea if algae would yield sufficient bioluminescence to make a sword glow, or how that could be implemented technically, but I am not an Elven weaponsmith, and at any rate, Noctiluca scintillans produces a lovely blue glow. The idea of bioluminescence in Elven technology I first encountered in Pandemonium_213's excellent fic The Apprentice.

And last but not least, many, many thanks to the excellent friends who put up with my ponderings and blabberings - Brooke and GG, as well as Zeen and SWE, who also used their valuable time to beta and comment on this fic and helped polish it into its final version.