From Clamor, Consonance by sallysavestheday

From Clamor, Consonance

Maedhros sings like rocks rattling in a rusty bucket, or so Maglor always maintains.

It is not true, of course, or at least not when they are young and light in Valinor. His voice is perfectly serviceable – good enough for fire-lighting and stone-setting and easing himself (or others) out of a hangover after an imprudent evening. And for lullabies, certainly, with all the children he has come to tend. Brothers, cousins, courtiers’ babes, little ones lost in the marketplace – all find Maedhros with their woes and wonders. Curled in his lap or draped across his shoulder, they settle, murmuring, and dream as Maedhros fills their ears with song – plain, and perhaps less mellifluous than others’, but more than equal to the task.

But when Maglor mocks him for his gravelly sound, Maedhros just dips his head and laughs, content that Maglor is the family songbird, the sweet teasel, the lark. He loves his little brother, is infinitely fond and proud. Where Maglor is singing, there will Maedhros also be: listening, echoing the tune. Smiling, or weeping, or roused to power, as the song commands.

Even after Alqualondë, after their illusion of safety and perfection and grace is shattered like so much glass on the bloody stones of the wharves. All along the bitter, blackened coast and across the raging sea Maedhros calls on Maglor’s music – to lift them up and ease their hearts and drive them on.

But at Losgar, while Maglor spins songs of war and the sparks of the flaming ships swirl skyward, Maedhros turns his back and struggles up the dunes, clambering through the rough growth and the sandy hollows until the sound of his brother’s voice is gone.

He keeps his distance until Fëanor’s ashes coat their hands, rejoining the singing only for that bitter lament. If his voice is even rougher than usual, from weeping or from fear, Maglor dares not tease him, then or after. His apology spills from his fingers, instead, weighting his harp, in song that affirms and sustains. Maedhros is King. Maglor sings him on.

But all the guards and shields that Maglor weaves are not enough against the Enemy. Against the mountain. Against the dark.

For thirty years, each sings alone.

Waking again in Mithrim, Maedhros finds Maglor curled in a bedside chair, spilling threnodies one after another into the air. He tries to join the song, but the raven’s croak that leaves his broken throat is a sore affront to the tune.

“Rocks,” Maedhros whispers. “In a bucket, Kano.”

Maglor’s guilty heart overflows and he falls bitterly to weeping. Maedhros only grinds out a laugh and continues to sing, grating and braying until Maglor cannot bear it and swipes at him to still his tongue. Maedhros bites at Maglor’s fingers and laughs again, so suddenly bright of eye and light of heart that Maglor can only join him, tipping from grief to joy in an instant on the wave of that terrible music.

They sing rounds, then, every evening, chasing each other’s voices in widening gyres as the sky fades through its ribbons of red and orange and deepening blue; resolving to some ancient invocation as the first stars shine. Maedhros’ growls run deep and wild under Maglor’s clear, fair tones. This, now, will be their long song, their great saga, their battle hymn.

The road East offers a fair wind for singing, and their paired throats carry the fight into the grasses, into the very air. Cold Himring rings, also, when Maglor visits: their fierce anthems bind the mortar even more strongly to the stones. When Maedhros inspects the Gap they ride the lines together, chanting. Maedhros’ teeth flash as he grinds out his broken howl.  

Four centuries of their defiant music end in an incendiary scream. The grass moans as it burns; horses and hounds and Lothlann’s defenders flare up and go out, brief and bright and bitter in the creeping smoke. Maglor draws on all his memories of the sea, of rain, of marshy humidity and the sweet dampness of ice melting under summer sun to beat back the flames and gather the last of his people in a desperate retreat. He rides at the rear, pouring song after song of water out into the blazing air.

Himring’s gates yawn at last out of the scorching dark. Maglor tumbles from his horse into Maedhros’ arms, dry as a bone, dry as an empty riverbed, raw and grieving and sore. Maedhros gathers him up, curls him into his lap right there in the busy yard, pressing Maglor’s head down against his crooked shoulder. His voice rumbles through Maglor’s chest in ancient children’s songs and lullabies as he rocks and rocks his little brother.

Maglor clings, gasping, more grateful than he can tell for the sound of those rattling stones.