Ungoliant's Bane by polutropos

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Ungoliant's Bane

Warning for canon-typical talk of spiders. 

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The fog of sleep rolled in, claiming Eärendil’s wandering thoughts in its advance. The weight of his body sank into the mattress, his breaths eased into a slow and easy rhythm, his heart—

‘Help! Emiiig! Heeeeelp!’

—his heart lurched and broke into a gallop. His eyelids strained against the pull of sleep, and he was wrenched from the path of dreams and tossed into sudden wakefulness.

Beside him, Elwing stirred and made a tired but unperturbed humming sound. She stretched one arm back, seeking him, as he heaved his body upright on the bed.

‘’s all right. Nothing to worry,’ she mumbled, finding his forearm and squeezing. She rolled over to face him, saying with a sigh, ‘I leave them alone with Gereth for one afternoon and she fills their heads with terrible tales—’

This was interrupted by a second cry, ‘Stomp it dead!’ and the shrieked response, ‘No! You stomp it!’ followed by, ‘Get Emig!’

‘—terrible tales of Ungoliant. And of course some determined spider has been building a web in their room every night—’

‘Emig?’ Elrond stood in the doorway clutching his favourite quilt—one of two such that Círdan gifted to the boys at their birth. At four years old, Elrond still carried his everywhere.  

His little child’s voice pleaded, ‘There’s a spider ’gain.’ 

‘Again, sweets?’ said Elwing, propping herself on an elbow. Elrond nodded. 

‘Well,’ she said, ‘aren’t we lucky your Ada is home! He is a spider slayer.’ She nudged Eärendil with a foot beneath the covers. 

Elrond’s eyes slid to Eärendil and widened. ‘You are?’ His tiny mouth fell open. 

‘That’s right,’ Eärendil swung his legs off the bed, ‘I am.’

He scooped Elrond up from the floor. Briefly, his arms forgot how much bigger his sons had grown in the last year, and he strained slightly as he adjusted Elrond’s weight on his hips. The boy seemed not to notice, clinging to him with all four limbs.

‘Come, onya, let’s save your brother from the spider.’

 

Eärendil would not say he was scared of spiders, strictly speaking, but he did have to grit his teeth to hide his discomfort as he closed his hand around the skittering little creature. 

‘No, slay her!’ Elros protested, as Eärendil held his hand out of an open window. ‘She will come back!’

The spider dropped to the ground outside. Eärendil came to sit on the edge of the bed where the twins sat huddled up against the wall. ‘She won’t.’ He took one of their hands in each of his. ‘And if she dares, she will rue the day! Eärendil Liantenehtar does not show mercy twice. ’

Two incredulous faces stared back at him: Elrond with brows pulled together and Elros chewing at his lower lip.

‘How come no one said before you are Lant… Lanti…’ Elrond struggled over the Quenya. ‘A spider slayer, Ada?’ 

Eärendil seldom allowed the doubts of others to erode his trust in his own abilities, but at this moment his confidence was crumbling under the weight of his children's scepticism. He inhaled deeply, allowing love to swell his heart and displace his doubts. 

‘Because,’ he said, ‘it was only on my latest journey that I earned that name. Would you like to hear the story?’

‘Yes please!’ they chorused. 

It was impossible not to mirror the glee that overtook their expressions at the promise of a story, and Eärendil laughed as he settled between them on the bed. Elros clambered into his lap and Elrond tucked himself up against his side.

‘All right, listen,’ he said, looping an arm around each of them.

The press of their warm bodies against him doubled the love in his heart and it spilled over, tears gathering along the rims of his eyes. How he wished he could stay like this forever. 

He blinked the tears away and began. ‘The winds had carried Wingelótë far to the south of the world—’

‘How far?’ asked Elros.

‘Very, very far. Shores so far that no Elf or Man has set foot upon them. Even the Ainur have shunned that land for many ages of the world.’

Elrond turned his eyes up, amazed.

‘Yes, the uttermost South. A land barren of both <i>olvar</i> and <i>kelvar</i>. And do you know why?’

‘No,’ Elros said, and Elrond shook his head. ‘Tell us!’

‘Because long ago a terrible monster cast her webs of darkness about it, swallowing up all the life in her hunger.’

Elrond gasped. ‘Goliant?’

Eärendil tousled his hair, smiling. ‘Yes, that’s right! Ungweliantë, Gloomweaver. She fled there in her madness, after the the fiery whips of the Valaraukar drove her from the North.’

‘’Reth told us this story,’ Elros said. 

‘Did she?’

‘Mhm.’ He nodded sharply. ‘And I don’t like it. Goliant ate up all the bootiful jewels and Mo’goth screamed–’

‘Yes, a very dark tale. A sad tale.’ Eärendil kissed the crown of Elros’ head. ‘But I think you will like the next part.’

The boys snuggled closer.

‘As we drifted further and further south, great gusts stirred up the sea. For fourteen nights and as many days Wingelótë was tossed about in the storm–’

‘Did you drowned?’ Elros asked earnestly.

‘No, my Elerossë,’ Eärendil smiled to himself, ‘we were all safe. Wingelótë is a strong ship. She kept us afloat. But when at last the storm spat us out, lo! we found ourselves beneath a starless sky. We knew not where we were. And where there had been land, there was only endless black. We were adrift in the dark, nothing but dark, dark, dark in all directions.’

‘Ada,’ said Elrond in a frightened voice, ‘you said we would like this.’

‘Right,’ said Eärendil. ‘Yes, I am coming to that part. Out of the dark came an even blacker dark. An absence of light.’

‘Goliant!’ both boys exclaimed at once.

‘Yes, the Gloomweaver. For she took shape, a giant spider, and reared back on her many legs. Her belly was aglow with all she had consumed. Wingelótë drifted straight towards her black beak.’

Elrond shuddered and Elros clung to his wrist.

‘But fear could not conquer the spirit for your Atar! No, for in that moment of darkness I remembered your Amil, and you — your laughter and your delight — and I took courage. I stood upon the prow and cried out in defiance: “Get thee gone, fell monster! Return to the Void whence thou camest!” And I held aloft the great axe Tarambor, which your grandsire Tuor Ulmondil once wielded, and behold! a white flame leapt from its blade, and Ungweliantë hissed and recoiled before its brightness, and her many eyes were illuminated by it, and she was afraid. But though it pained her, her hunger for the light drew her back. Then I waited. Her evil breath was upon my face, whipping my hair behind me. I heard the clack of her black beak opening to swallow Wingelótë and everyone on it. 

‘I swung my father’s mighty axe! Six times I swung, and six times the Gloomweaver cried out in agony. I wavered, clinging to courage, but with the seventh blow I rent the length of her reeking belly, and behold! it spilled forth many thousands of jewels, every one as bright as a Silmaril, and they were scattered out into the dark, and it was not dark; for the jewels stuck to the dome of the sky like stars. And as the carcass of Ungweliantë fell to ruin, and there upon our left were the coasts of Middle-earth, and we were not lost. By the blessing of Manwë and Ulmo, we were not forty leagues from Sirion, and we were carried thence on favouring winds and swift currents. Thus, once and forever, Ungweliantë the Terrible was felled, and no more, while Arda lasts, shall she weave her nets of gloom.’

As he ended the story, Eärendil heaved a sigh, having made himself rather breathless with the excitement of it. Both boys stared up at him in rapt silence.

‘So Goliant is gone?’ Elrond asked at last. ‘Forever?’

‘Yes,’ said Eärendil. ‘So you see, you need not fear. She will trouble the world no more.’

‘But her spawn!’ said Elros.  

Eärendil smiled. ‘You need not worry about her spawn. They are powerless without her. Besides, I do not think many will dare come near once they learn Ungweliantë’s Bane dwells at the Havens.’

Elros’ face lit up. ‘You are staying?’

‘Ah,’ Eärendil clasped Elros’ hand, running his thumb over the soft palm. ‘For some time, yes.’

‘’til our birthday?’ asked Elrond.

‘Yes, certainly until your birthday.’

Falling into silence, it was not long before the three of them had lapsed into sleep. Eärendil awoke to the touch of Elwing’s hand on his arm.

She whispered, ‘Though I could happily watch you like this for hours, I think your neck will thank you in the morning if you come to your own bed.’

Eärendil carefully untangled himself from the twins and pulled as much of the cover over them as he could without waking them. 

As they were climbing back into their own bed, Elwing said, ‘That was quite the tale.’

‘Oh?’ A flush of heat reached the tips of Eärendil’s ears. ‘You were listening?’

‘You were gone a long time. I came to make sure they were not holding you hostage. Well! when I heard that you faced Ungoliant, how could I not stay to hear the end of that tale?’

Eärendil drew the blanket up and shuffled closer. ‘I did not bestow the title of Spider Slayer upon myself.’

Elwing’s mouth split into a grin, her teeth a flash of white in the dark room. ‘I was not expecting to learn you had slain the Gloomweaver herself.’

‘Did you not?’ Eärendil tutted, feigning offence. ‘You underestimate me!’

‘Mm,’ she said, eyes falling shut. ‘No, I assure you I do not. Good night, Liantenehtar.’ 

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Chapter End Notes

Translations

Emig (Sindarin) = mum
onya (Quenya) = my child
Liantenehtar (Quenya, my invention) = spider slayer

Canon for the curious
As I often do (but especially because of the nature of this challenge!) I’ve put ‘canon’ in a blender. 

• That Eärendil spoke four languages/dialects (Sindarin; Quenya; Hadorian and Bëorian Taliska) comes from The Problem of Ros (HoMe XII: Peoples of Middle-earth). Here he is speaking Quenya to his kids.
• Gereth is a character named in Tale of Nauglafring (HoMe II: BoLT 2) who escaped the second kinslaying with toddler Elwing. 
• Tarambor is an Early Quenya form of Dramborleg, the axe Tuor wields in The Fall of Gondolin (HoMe II: BoLT 2). It doesn’t hold up linguistically, but it sounds cool so I used it. 
• In the Tale of Years C (HoMe XI: War of the Jewels), Eärendil’s voyages begin when Elrond and Elros are 2. Nothing says he never comes back between then and the third kinslaying. (In fact, the ‘many fruitless voyages’ referred to in The Problem of Ros suggest he did.)