On the Starlit Sea by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 18: “I’ve got a Pulse!”/Back from the dead

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A silver peal pierces the fog of Glorfindel’s grief. At first he thinks that the ship’s bell is rung as some belated honour to the dead, but this is no measured eight beat count. The ringing is frantic and ceaseless, as if the lookout is wildly yanking the bell cord.

Valar! What fresh hell is this!? 

Have the freed slaves on the Shakalzôr turned against their Elvish rescuers? Or did the surviving Umbarians somehow stage a mutiny from their lockup in the slave hold? 

Glorfindel drops Elrohir’s saddlebags, passes a hand over his red-rimmed eyes, and dashes from the cabin, already gripping his sword-hilt.

Upstairs, the deck is clear. The crew crowd at the railing, pointing and staring at something off the starboard bow, but none have drawn their weapon. 

Glorfindel’s eyes flick to the Shakalzôr . On the defeated Umbarian all seems in order . Freed slaves in pillaged uniforms keep stripping the dead marines of their gear. One naked corpse after another is unceremoniously tossed overboard. Like strange bobbing buoys, the dead dot the waves before they sink. The sea roils with feasting sharks. 

Then he feels it: the wind has shifted into the West. The air seems lighter, as if a breath he has long held is at last released. The storm-clouds have scattered, and in the East the stars are opening. Eärendil rises against the evening sky, brighter than Glorfindel has ever seen him. The last rays of a red-and-gold sunset shine on his face, gilding what remains of the Nemir’s foam-white sails.

For a brief instant Glorfindel stands like a man waking from a deep sleep, who casts off the burden of some dark dream. He looks up, breathes the clear wind, and senses beyond any doubt that something has changed. Somehow the Song of the world has been altered, a thread shifted in Eä’s warp and weft by a power greater than what Elves or Men might wield. 

“Glorfindel!” Galdor waves from a cluster of officers on the quarterdeck, his tone almost frantic. “Here, look to starboard!” 

Glorfindel leaps up the quarterdeck stairs. Galdor and Alphalas make room for him at the railing. 

But a stone’s throw from the Nemir’s hull the water swirls, aglow with phosphorescence. The gleam is bright and eerie against the falling dusk. A circle of blue light bubbles up and unfolds like a strangely shaped water-flower, its edges silver-limned.

“What is that!?”

“Ossë’s hand!” Galdor replies, his eyes fixed on the shimmering waters. “I have not seen him act like this since the Fall of Sirion.” Galdor, too, seems strengthened. At the burial he looked defeated, but now a new hope shines in his eyes. 

"I know not how," he says, clapping a hand on Glorfindel’s shoulder, "but my heart tells me that not all is lost, my friend."

Glorfindel dares not share Galdor’s estel . Elrohir’s grandmother was once changed into a white bird as she plunged to certain death, but such wonders have not graced the world in these later years. 

Below, the waters churn into pearl-white sea foam. The scent of the ocean, fresh and salty, sprays into their faces. Sharks wheel circles around the glowing patch, a rim of slender silhouettes, but not a single one crosses into the stirring waters. 

Another gush of air bubbles up, lifting a dark shape into view. Glorfindel’s hands clench white-knuckled on the railing - can it be!?

Oh Nienna, Lady of Mercy take pity … 

The thing - no, two of them - shoot upwards like corks pushed underwater. They break the surface and bob on the waves. 

Mail glimmers in the dying daylight. A grey surcote. Dark strands of sodden hair plastered to a face pale as death. 

Elrohir is still in his hauberk, and yet through some impossible grace he floats. Calear’s battered shape bobs beside him.

A sharp cry tears from Glorfindel’s chest. Time itself slows and thickens, and he moves as if through mud when his hands claw at the buckle of his sword-belt. When at last it gives way he tosses it, scabbard and all. He does not turn to look where Hadhafang clatters against the deck, but pulls his tunic over his head while already bending to yank off his boots, flinging them wherever they may fall. 

He clears the gunwale in a single leap. 

The water’s bite is cold when it swallows him, but Glorfindel kicks himself up and launches towards Elrohir. He gives no thought to the sharks, nor to the carrion they squabble over as he speeds through the glowing waves. 

A slender shape shoots past him. Alphalas is a daughter of the Havens, and she is the better swimmer. A swift dash and she grabs hold of Calear, lifting his head above the water.

When Glorfindel reaches Elrohir he floats on his back, slack as a corpse. His eyes are closed and the waves wash unhindered over his blue-lipped face. Glorfindel lifts his head onto his own chest so his face is free, but Elrohir does not breathe. He hangs limp in Glorfindel’s arms. Glorfindel can do nothing but swim faster than he ever has, with great breath-draining strokes, and drag him towards the Nemir . 

The ship is but a stone’s throw away, and yet it seems an eternity. 

“Here, sir! Pass him!” yell a pair of deckhands, hanging from a rope with arms outstretched, but Glorfindel will not let go of Elrohir, and so they are hoisted up on the same line. Glorfindel’s bare back scrapes against the planks of the hull as he turns to shield Elrohir while the crew haul them up with great heaving pulls. Something warmer than water begins to trickle down his flank, but somehow he feels no pain. 

Galdor himself reaches over the gunwale, grabs Elrohir around the chest, heaves him over, and lowers him to the deck with a wet slap. 

Glorfindel scales the railing and drops to his knees beside the still form. Sea water gushes from Elrohir’s boots, streams from his clothes until he lies sprawled in a puddle, slack as a broken puppet. 

Nearby, Calear is hidden from sight, surrounded by friends and helpers. Elrohir, too, draws a cluster of pale faces and concerned voices calling his name, but he remains still, his skin cold and grey as stone.

Glorfindel reaches for Elrohir’s fëa and finds only silence and darkness. For a moment, panic strangles him. 

His hands scrabble over Elrohir’s chest, desperately searching for a heartbeat, but the layers of surcote, hauberk and waterlogged gambeson reveal nothing. 

Nearby someone keens, misery made sound, and then Glorfindel realises it is his own voice.

Suddenly Galdor is there, kneeling down on Elrohir’s other side. With a quick, sure motion the captain buries his fingers in the wet hair at Elrohir’s nape and pulls his head forward. Elrohir’s neck bends to his hand limp as a doll’s. Deftly Galdor unclasps the buckle beneath Elrohir’s collar and pulls off the gorget so he may feel for the great artery in Elrohir’s throat. 

Glorfindel does the same, but their searching fingers find only stillness beneath the clammy skin.

Nothing. 

“Valar, no!” Despair buries him like a monstrous wave swallows the coast, and he keens once more, folding in half beneath the sorrow until his forehead touches Elrohir’s unmoving chest. This cannot be! Surely Ulmo is not so cruel to return a corpse! 

“Quick now!” Galdor’s hand lands heavy on Glorfindel’s shoulder, pushing him away. His voice cuts through the fog of grief, all efficient business. “We must breathe for him!” He already leans forward over Elrohir’s face. 

With a jolt Glorfindel sits up, realises that Galdor is right. The knowledge of what must be done comes rushing back to him, cutting through his panic like a clarion call over the din of battle.

“I will!” he says, raising a hand to hold Galdor back. 

With courage born of despair Glorfindel breathes deeply, closes his hand over Elrohir’s nose, seals his own mouth over Elrohir’s, and blows.

Elrohir’s chest rises and falls. Water streams from his mouth - his lungs must be full of it - but he remains still, dark lashes throwing long shadows over his sunken face.

Glorfindel gives him another breath.  

There!  

A small, fading wisp of light for his fëa to touch; the gentle throb of a heartbeat against his searching fingertips.

“I have a pulse!”

For a torturous instant Elrohir lies still, and then a wheezing gasp bubbles through the seawater that pours from his nose and mouth in great horrific gushes.  

Like the sunrise after a night of pain, Galdor’s face breaks into radiant joy. Cheers rise all along the ship. Elrohir’s name, and Calear’s, too. Up aloft the crew are singing, an outpouring of jubilance and praise to Ossë, but Glorfindel pays them no heed. 

He grabs a fistful of sodden surcote between Elrohir’s shoulder blades and heaves him up, flips him over and holds him suspended, face down so the water runs out of him. Elrohir coughs and retches more brine over the deck, and to Glorfindel’s ears his gasps and heaves are sweeter than any minstrel’s song.

When it is over Elrohir’s chest rattles with a terrible, wet sound, but he is breathing. 

Glorfindel holds him, clutching tight, his own breath heaving as he drowns in sheer relief. 

Being held seems to ease Elrohir, and soon he draws steady breaths that bubble in his wet lungs. Glorfindel cradles him, holding on as if to sanity, heedless of the mail ringlets biting into his skin.

“Elrohir…” he mutters into Elrohir’s salt-caked hair, “You were …  I thought you were dead! Thank Ulmo, thank all the Valar, you are here, you are alive … oh, Elrohir.”

A rope-calloused hand moves into view and lifts Elrohir’s chin. Its mate touches Elrohir’s throat and his forehead, then splays over his chest. Glorfindel looks up into Falver’s eyes. Her gaze is full of both sympathy and grave concern. Galdor crouches beside her, holding out a grey woollen blanket.

Falver wedges an arm between them, trying to wrap it around Elrohir and lift him off Glorfindel’s lap.

“No!” Glorfindel clenches, refuses to loosen his hold. They must not take Elrohir from him. He will not allow it. 

“Sir,” the healeress says, very calmly but without ceasing her attempts, “he cannot stay out here. We must warm him up!” 

Falver’s words shock him out of his daze of relief. She is right. Ossë has no regard for the Children’s frail bodies. Glorfindel may not feel the chill, but Elrohir’s cheek is cold as stone where it lays against Glorfindel’s collarbone, and the sea wind whips at his wet clothes.

He scans the deck, bewildered to see Calear being carried below deck, his battered shape hidden beneath a blanket and a multitude of helping hands. Dusk has deepened into night. Surely but a moment has passed since the bell called him from his cabin?   

Glorfindel leaps to his feet, balancing his precious burden, and makes for the sick bay.