On the Starlit Sea by Idrils Scribe

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Chapter 24: Thanksgiving

Many thanks to Grundy for her invaluable beta-read, and to the clever minds at Vinyë Lambengolmor for providing me with some made-to-measure Adûnaic words.

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Elrohir warily eyes the laden tender, bobbing on the placid waves in the golden light of sunset. 

To the East the first stars are opening over the pine-draped spike of Tolfalas rising from the waves. Behind the island, the hills of Belfalas shimmer in the far blue distance. 

Gondor, at last. No Corsairs have entered these waters since the kingdom’s founding. 

The

Shakhalzôr

is flying a white flag of parley. The captured Umbarian looks bedraggled, with the Eyes of Sauron on her sails painted over with tar.

“Come now, lad!” Calear is careful not to jostle his splinted hands, but he gives Elrohir a firm nudge with his elbow. “I cannot climb down, so you must stand for us both.”

Glorfindel meets Calear’s eyes, and a quick smile passes between them. 

Asking Elrohir to assist him was a stroke of manipulative genius on Calear’s part. Glorfindel wholly approves of the arrangement. Much like his father, Elrohir is someone who needs to be needed.  A wounded friend to tend to has grounded him more than coddling ever could. 

Calear’s gentle bossing has Elrohir up on deck all day, in the sunlight and sea wind, singing beside the crew. He remains quiet and reserved beneath his burden of old sorrows, but his Sindarin improves by leaps and bounds, and his wound is closing itself at last. 

Today for the first time, Elrohir looks something like an Elf-prince, grey-clad with the star of Eärendil stitched with silver thread on his tunic’s breast. Celebrían had even thought to pack him a formal circlet. Glorfindel knows the jewel as Elladan’s, a sprig of Niphredil wrought of silver and pale emeralds. Glorfindel has set it on Elrohir’s head for the occasion, both in Ossë’s honour and to keep his jaw-length hair from his face in the sea-wind.

Elrohir lifts a hand to feel for the clasp at his nape, clearly afraid of losing the circlet, but at Calear’s urging he steadies himself, and begins the climb down the grey rope ladder. Glorfindel follows suit. 

Down in the tender, Elrohir settles on a bench in the middle of the boat, as far from the water as he can get. His lip curves in disgust at the barrels of Umbarian rum. Some are fine sanded wood, destined for the prince and his entourage. Most are rough-hewn, and the drink sloshing inside is eye-wateringly bad.  

The red Eye of Sauron glares from every single one. 

“Will Ossë be content with grog this nasty?” Elrohir asks, knowingly.

“The taste matters less than the origin.” Galdor assures him as he and Glorfindel sit on the bench on either side of Elrohir. “Ossë holds an ancient hate against the Eye, and he delights in spoils.” 

Galdor’s eyes dart around, quickly catching the gazes of his crew. He is on his guard. 

One of the

Shakhalzôr’s

tenders lies nearby. The Mortals have chosen leaders among themselves, and these Men are permitted to attend Ossë’s thanksgiving. 

Galdor vetted them before he let them off the

Shakhalzôr

, but he is taking no chances. The Mortals’ longboat is rowed by his own sailors, age-old fighters with knife-sharp eyes and perfect aim. They are dressed for peace, but their bows are at hand and they have cutlasses in their belts. A wrong move in Elrohir’s direction would spell swift death. 

The Mortals do no such thing. They sit stunned with wonder and fear. 

“Greetings, Yssion, Lord of the Coasts!” Galdor stands facing West, and bows deeply as he lightly balances himself on the wave-tossed boat. His voice is solemn. “We come to pay our thanks for your aid in our dire need.”

Silence descends, deep enough that the smallest of sounds - the wind whistling in the

Nemir’s

rigging, the creak of the oars in their locks - ring like drum beats. 

Then the waves’ rush quiets down as the Sea itself goes smooth as glass, a mirror of indigo, and Glorfindel can feel that bright sense of

presence

that portends the coming of the mighty among the Ainur. 

Elrohir has gone pale, and Glorfindel moves closer to him until their shoulders touch in a wordless gesture of comfort. In the other boat, the Mortals sit wide-eyed and trembling. 

The wind stills, the very Sea seems to brighten, tendrils of blue light curl and shimmer beneath the water, and from their pulsing heart rises Ossë. 

He wears the fána the Falathrim call Yssion. An Elvish shape, but taller than even Maedhros was, and his skin shimmers iridescent like fish-scales beneath his mother-of-pearl armour. Ossë stands upon the waves as if on solid stone, foam sloshing about his webbed feet. 

Only his eyes recall his Stirrer’s shape, for they remain great and golden.  

“Greetings, Galdor of the Falas!” Ossë laughs, in a voice like a gale-wind, clearly most pleased with himself. 

“Oh mighty Storm-lord!” Galdor knows Ossë’s mercurial temper, and he pours on the praise as thick as he might. “Two of our own fell into your domain, and you returned them to us safe and sound. You struck down our enemies and granted mercy to their thralls. For all your fearsome deeds, you have our deepest gratitude!”

Ossë seems to grow even taller, revelling in the praise.

“As our thanks, we now lay before you the wealth of Sauron’s servants.”

Elrohir has been told his duty. Like a man stepping up to the executioner’s block he stands up in the boat. Glorfindel can hear the frantic hammering of his heart.

Galdor hands him a silver cup, brimful of the late Prince Bawbuthôr’s finest liquor. Elrohir’s fingers clench white-knuckled around the stem, but as instructed he turns to Ossë, bows, and proffers the cup with outstretched arms.  

“My deepest gratitude, oh Sea-lord!” he utters in painstakingly practised Sindarin.  

Ossë approaches, walking on the waves’ gently lapping surface as if on smooth ground. His golden eyes rest on Elrohir.

Glorfindel can feel the dull roar of Elrohir’s mind awash in terror, how he presses it down so he can remain standing, his hands barely shaking, and bear Ossë’s presence.

Ossë, grinning like a swordfish happening upon a particularly fat school of sardines, takes the cup from Elrohir’s unsteady hand and quaffs its entire eye-watering contents in one draught. 

“Ahhh!” he groans, almost Dwarf-like, “Mairon’s booze! A worthy gift, Galdor! My lady Uinen and all my folk deserve to share in it. Fear not, child,” he says to Elrohir, his mood clearly softened. “I am done with my sport! All your house are friends to me, and so are you.” 

Galdor grins. “Now, let us treat your folk as well!”   

The crew Sing Ossë’s praises as they throw the barrels overboard. Some are only half-full, and they should be floating, but every last one sinks like a stone. 

Ossë dives down after them. His laughter lingers for a while, a sound like rolling thunder that makes Elrohir and the Mortals turn white and cling to their benches. The Falathrim only laugh along.  

Then it is over, and the rowers begin to turn both tenders around to head back towards the waiting ships. Both boats are driven together by the waves, though the oarsmen extend their oars to push them apart. 

The moment is brief, but Elrohir’s eyes alight on the Mortals in the other longboat. One of the Men is Haradrim, wearing an improvised turban and veil atop his salvaged Umbarian uniform. 

Elrohir greets him in polite Haradi with a smile on his face, but this man whose language Elrohir speaks as his own does not return his greeting. Instead he lowers his eyes and shrinks back into a deep bow when Elrohir tries to catch his gaze.

Elrohir pales. Now all the Mortals in the boat stare at him with frightful awe. Glorfindel can see it in their eyes: Elrohir is hallowed, exalted, and wholly set apart. 

“Nimirphazân,” they whisper behind their hands: ‘Elf-prince’, and “Avalôzîr”: ‘Vala-touched’.  

The words hit Elrohir like a punch to the face. His eyes widen, though he gives no other outward sign of his shocked sorrow. 

He sits very still and straight, and is silent as the tenders drift apart to they turn back to their respective ships - the Men to the

Shakhalzôr

, the Elves to the

Nemir

.

 

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Elrohir flees as soon as his feet touch the deck. 

The

Nemir’s

hold has filled up with the shifting of stores between both ships. Amidst the stacked crates of hardtack and the coils of spare rope is a dark corner where he can be alone with his thoughts. It is not the desert - no light and space and clear, windblown heights beneath the stars - but he is alone with the rush and sigh of the waves against the hull. 

There the terrible weight of it strikes him: he will never again be a Man. Until now he has, to himself, pretended that this journey with Glorfindel was a strange interlude, and that somehow, someday soon he would return to the life he knew.

It will not happen.

Now that he is out of the Elves’ sight, he cannot pretend for a moment longer. He claws at the circlet, jerks it off his head. His hair tangles in its long-lined silver swirls, but he yanks it away, pulling out some clinging strands. The small pain grounds him as he sinks down on the floor leaning against the curve of the hull, his back to the sea that murmurs beyond. 

The Elvish jewel in his hand shines with a soft light even in the dimness below deck. For a moment all is dark rage, and he wants to throw the damned thing through the hold, send it clattering between the stacked water-barrels to disappear from sight. 

He does no such thing - it would be pointless, so he closes his fist around it until the silver petals of some pale northern flower bite sharply into his palm. 

He must not cry. He has long ago mastered the trick for it: to disappear inside his own mind and walk paths all his own, leaving behind his body as a thing he might distantly observe. It is his only escape from this  place, and he gladly sinks into it.

Hamalan awaits him there, and a sharp, clean pain of longing cuts through his chest. 

He did bury her in the end, though many days had passed since her death. He insisted on seeking her amidst the charnel of the battlefield, adamantly refusing to leave with Glorfindel until she lay in a proper grave. Glorfindel indulged him. 

It was a long and bitter search, slowly weaving back and forth across the carrion-strewn valley with Glorfindel hovering at his shoulder, their veils tight around their faces against the stench and the cloud of biting flesh-flies, stopping every few paces to throw stones at growling packs of scavenging jackals. When he found her nothing recognizable remained of her face, but he knew her by the scarf he once gave her, and the stitched beading on her belt. 

Ot refused to go near the charnel-stench, and so they had to wrap her in a cloak before they could carry her, up into the hills where the air was clear and they could build a cairn over her to keep off the wild dogs. Glorfindel sang some Elvish song over it, and Elrohir one in Haradi. 

He sensed nothing of her spirit. Perhaps she had already left the world behind, like a snake sheds its old skin, to pass into Eru’s hand as the Haradrim believe - and the Elves, too, it seems. The Umbarians say that Mûlkher grants life to the soul while the body is preserved, and so they embalm their dead lords to stave off decay. He remembers the fly-bitten ruin of her, and shudders. If this is true, she is wholly dead.  

And yet, he wants to go back to her, to the bright and stark beauty of that ochre hillside beneath the desert sun, and sit by her cairn, for a time.

He could do it, maybe. Stow away in the

Shakhazor’s

hold and remain there until they are halfway to Pelargir. The freedmen will not dare refuse him, of that he is sure. He imagines stepping onto the quay in some harbour town of South Gondor. 

A free man, wholly unbound. What will he do, once his pilgrimage to her grave is done? Where will he go? 

Then he remembers. 

Elladan

. 

The thought brings him out of his indulgent self-delusion. His brother is the lodestone to which he must turn. There is nowhere to go but North, though he dreads the strangeness of it. 

He draws in his knees, sinks his forehead down onto them, and closes his eyes. He will stay here for a while, in the twilit silence of the hold, and let the

Nemir

carry him away.

 

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Chapter End Notes

We're almost there. One more chapter left to go!

Ossë gets his present at last, and now that all of the swashbuckling action is done, Elrohir must face some hard truths about his situation.
Of course I'd love to hear your thoughts on his predicament. What will be next for him? How can Glorfindel help him through this?

Meanwhile, I'm working on the first chapters of the upcoming sequel, in which the Nemir reaches her destination. I'd love some ideas, suggestions or requests from readers about what could happen there.

See you soon,

IS