On the Starlit Sea by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 20: Bedside Vigil/Holding hands

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A hand is curled around his own, the fingers folded over his. The weight of it lies warm against his skin. 

He tries to open his eyes, but he lies sunken beneath dark water. The cold of the abyss bites into his bones, and tatters of half-forgotten dreams grasp him like the tentacles of sea monsters, dragging him down into nightmare’s depths.  

Hamalan stares at him, her face waxen-still, gilded by the ghost-light of a dead sun. All around her, a dark wasteland stretches cold beneath the moon. He can hear demons hunting in the shadows, sniffing out his living blood. Not hers. Not any more. 

“I am sorry,” he says, because he knows not what else to tell her. “I should have died in your place.”

She looks at him, her head held at that angle when she is thinking. “You never do,” she says.

He knows that it is true and yet he cannot bear it, so he reaches out to touch her, but she twists away from him. He grasps at the hem of her robe, to keep her with him. She snarls and her beloved face peels away to reveal the Ringwraith’s shrivelled skull-mask. The jaw unhinges, baring double rows of serrated teeth. 

When he screams his terror, his lungs burn in agony. The cold has sunk its claws into him, and he cannot stop shivering. 

There is a refuge, a place to flee where darkness holds only the peace of a starless night, stillness without shadow. 

The road runs like a ribbon of glowing silver-grey, ever downwards through the shadowed wastes to a massive gate, black as obsidian. What hunts him cannot enter the silent halls beyond that towering arch. This he knows, with absolute certainty. But once he sets foot upon the grey path, there can be no return. 

“Elrohir.” Glorfindel’s voice, but whether in mind or speech, he cannot tell. 

He remembers the hand, clutches at it, and it gently closes over his own. The touch anchors him to waking, pulling him up to the light. 

Another hand, on his head, stroking his hair.

“Wake up, Elrohir.” Glorfindel cannot be here, in the shadows at the bottom of the sea, and yet his presence folds itself around Elrohir like golden lamplight pours into a dark room. The demons scatter into the distance. He floats in the light for a time, and knows not where he is or what to do. 

“Open your eyes,” Glorfindel suggests, and only then does he remember them. 

When he obeys, the world is too bright. The light hurts, and the pain drags him out to sea like a leaf riding a rushing wave. 

A lamp shutter clicks. Blessed twilight descends. He blinks. Overhead a sky of silver stars pulses gently with his heartbeat.

“Shhh,” the sound is in his head and his ears both, all gentleness. “You have a fever. Here, drink a little.” 

The rim of a cup presses against his lips. Warm, sweet liquid trickles into his mouth, and only now does he recall being thirsty to the point of torture. The honeyed wine hides a bitter tang of healers’ herbs, but the drink is the most blessedly wonderful thing he ever tasted. 

When the cup is empty, he blinks, and the glare dissolves into Glorfindel’s face. 

“You are alive…” Elrohir croaks through cracked lips, astonished by this much good fortune.

“I am.” Glorfindel smiles, his fair Elvish face bright as the sun. “And so are you.”

“Did we win?” Elrohir rasps.

“Fear not, my friend.” Glorfindel says, setting the cup down somewhere beyond sight. “We won.” 

“Calear?” 

“Alive, and healing.” Glorfindel’s face is bright with joy. His hand curls, weaving the fingers into Elrohir’s hair. Elves like hair, and Glorfindel now seems to be indulging where he has held back before. 

“Ossë, he …” Elrohir’s voice falters. He cannot speak for the terror and strangeness of it.

His hand hurts, but when he raises it to look he finds only a cream-white Elvish bandage. The memory of the Umbarian and his knife assaults him, and he shudders with the sharp jerk of weightlessness as he plummets off the yard once more, the stunning shock of hitting the water, the terror of drowning.

“I know,” Glorfindel says, with almost painful gentleness, and his honest compassion is enough to make Elrohir regain his voice. 

“Ossë is an octopus,” he says, his breath hitching, “luminous, the size of a hill.” He draws a shuddering breath, and soldiers on. “I had to breathe, but it was all water and it flowed into me. It was so cold. I thought I had died, but He made the water like air. I could talk, but He was in my head too. He looked straight through me.” 

He shudders at the memory of that golden-eyed gaze. 

Glorfindel makes a soft, encouraging sound, his eyes on Elrohir’s face. 

“He wanted to sink the Shaklhalzôr! All those poor oarsmen. I told Him they were slaves but He did not care. His anger is … terrible. I thought He would snap me in half, and Calear, too, but then He laughed. He knows Galdor’s name, said that Galdor knows how to thank Him.” Elrohir pushes himself up, frantic, though the effort sets the half-lit cabin to spinning. “You must tell Galdor, Glorfindel! He must thank Ossë, or He will …” 

Elrohir’s good hand clutches the blanket as if the silk-soft Elvish cloth might ground him, but he cannot say more, because his breath has run out and sitting up has him swaying. Blood-red spots wriggle before his eyes.  He must breathe slowly, but somehow he cannot stop these great wheezing sobs that tear from his burning lungs. Glorfindel’s face goes hazy when he blinks away tears.

“Ai, Elrohir…” Glorfindel leans forward and embraces Elrohir, pulling Elrohir’s weight against himself. One hand rests warm and solid around his shoulders, the other cups his head and gently strokes his hair like he is a child.  

No amount of anger or reproach could have driven Elrohir to tears, but Glorfindel’s gentleness proves his undoing. He must stop crying, but he cannot. Glorfindel’s tunic is wet with tears. 

Glorfindel lets it happen, singing under his breath, and the song is all comfort and half-remembered warmth. 

When at last Elrohir’s breath evens and he raises his head, he cannot look Glorfindel in the eye for the shame of it, but Glorfindel presses a kiss to Elrohir’s forehead, then reaches out to gently lift his chin. 

“Not all tears are an evil,” he says softly, and lowers Elrohir to the pillows. 

Elrohir cannot help a sigh of sheer relief at lying down once more. From a side table Glorfindel takes a piece of linen, wets it with cool, clean water. 

“The Ainur are alien. They surpass our Elvish understanding,” he says, his expression pensive as he wipes Elrohir’s swollen eyes. “Sometimes They clothe Themselves in Elvish form, but even then They burn brighter. When arrayed in shapes of their own devising, They can be … too much. Especially Ossë.”

“Have you ever seen Him?” Elrohir asks, eager to change the subject.

“He once agreed to guide my ship on a long journey. A wild ride that was, leaping from wave to wave on the wings of a storm. At times I saw Him in His Stirrer’s shape, a light in the deep, or great golden eyes amidst the waves. He made me uneasy, though I knew that He meant me well. You had no such certainty. There is no shame in being shaken by the experience.”

Elrohir does not answer. His head hurts from crying, his wounded hand pulses with sharp pain and his body slumps against the pillow, boneless with exhaustion.

“Sleep. Tomorrow, you will feel stronger.” Glorfindel passes a hand over Elrohir’s eyes, and at once his pain eases, leaving behind a deep, wholesome tiredness. He gladly sinks into it, and consciousness flits from his grasp.