Shore Beyond the Shadowy Sea by Quente

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The wind beyond the world’s end blows

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Blinking his crusted eyelids apart, Elfwine wondered where his dolphin friend had got to, the one that had neatly gripped the back of his tunic and hauled him upward through the sucking pressure of the wave. It was clear he was no longer in the water: his fingers touched rock, which was promising, but he had the thick taste of seawater in his mouth, which was not. He rolled and spat, and raised his head to open his eyes more widely. What…?

Elfwine’s body ached as if he’d been in battle, but he was no longer in the sea – he was in the middle of a stone circle surrounded by a dense wood.

Then he realized the rock he lay upon was beset on all sides by something dark and crawling, and his eyes flew wide. He reached for his sword and cursed, remembering that he’d left it in his ship trunk when he raced to lower the sail. Instead, his fingers fastened around the pouch that held his sextant, and he cursed again.

Putting aside the where and why and fæder was right, sailing is going to kill me, he looked around for something to bludgeon with, even as the first of the crawling things reached the base of the stone he sat upon. There was a large branch at the edge of the circle, fallen from the trees beyond.

Hopping down hard enough to crunch a few of the fist-sized shapes beneath his heels, Elfwine ran for the branch and gripped it. Swinging, he swept a few more away as the ones closest turned toward him. They broke against his makeshift staff, oozing ichor.

Letting his aching body fight without thought for a moment, Elfwine tried to take measure of his surroundings. Dark, thick wood. Fangorn? Ents would never allow spiders into their wood, not the likes of these. Greenwood the Great? But how did he get there? Perhaps if the dolphin was a friend of Garsecgesfréa, he’d been rescued and … flown? Swum? Transported? Northward.

Another spider dropped from a high limb above him onto his head. It was larger than the rest, and its scrabbling talons dug into his hair. Elfwine cried out, clawing at it until it came loose, and hurled the flailing body into a tree. It cracked apart, and Elfwine shuddered, racing for the center of the clearing again.

He leapt upon the rock, thinking – at least the ground was cleared, now. But what then? He could not simply fight them off until nightfall, worse might come. Should he win free of the woods? They were thinner to the east and west, he recalled, if he was indeed in Greenwood.

But just as he was turning to face east, as near as he could tell – he saw a mass of dark, glittering, eyes. Intent, they stared at him from the blackness of the trees, assessing, lingering. Whatever was beyond the circle was waiting until he tired before it came forth. Until then, it sent its children to toy with him.

Elfwine took a deep breath, letting it out. He might still feel exhausted from the storm, but his fæder had been through worse – and King Aragorn worse still than that. Had he his sword and a map, he could win free of this place – but he had neither, and did not think climbing a tree would save him from spiders. Eldarion, well-schooled in the ways of the Rangers of the North, would counsel: when in doubt, run.

Run it was.

Just as Elfwine had made up his mind to run as far in the opposite direction from the beast as possible, it came swiftly toward him, perhaps sensing his intent.

Elfwine cried out again, bringing his makeshift staff down hard on the center of its head before the mandibles could catch at him. Once, and once more. And still it came.

Fæder, I will never touch a ship again if the Ese allow me to return to you. I will hand back my apprentice sextant, and will content myself with ruling a flat land of grass for the remainder of my days. I will let my brother Léofwine remain in his library with the scribes and scholars.

Although soon, he feared, the choice would be out of his hands. Desperately he swung his staff at a snatching leg, and saw it withdraw – but only because the creature was rearing up to position its mandibles to bite.

And then, his eyes tricked him, because he thought he saw an arrow lodge itself deep within the spider’s eyes.

It screamed, even louder than Elfwine had, and tried to scramble back. He took advantage of the movement to swing again, but before he could, he was shouldered back by a very, very tall figure with flaming hair and a bright sword, held in his left hand.

And held firm by another one. “Peace, Thindar,” the voice said in somewhat rusty Sindarin. “We bid you welcome, and apologize for being late in coming. Arriving? That’s it.”

“Thank you,” Elfwine responded automatically, eyes glued to the figure before him. The tall one dispatched the spider with several brutally efficient passes of his sword, leaving it to collapse in dreadful heaps on the forest floor. Then he raised his hand to hum a song, which had the rippling effect of shooing the smaller ones into the wood.

Battle over, all four of them breathed a sigh of relief. Four? Elfwine looked from figure to figure to figure, catching his breath. The one with red hair was cleaning his sword; the one with golden hair was staring at him. And the last was the one that had moved him out of harm’s way – and he was gazing upon Elfwine with a curious light in his eyes.

“I do find the spiders an arduous addition to the Song,” said the golden-haired man, in Quenya, stretching. “Thank you for dispatching them for me, brother – it takes much effort to get the ichor off the blade.”

Man? No.

Elfwine staggered back several steps to better take them in, now that the pressing danger had passed. They were no men, but Elves, of a sort he had not seen outside of Rivendell – very much like his tutors Elladan and Elrohir, but entirely elf without any human at all. Fey, they were, and fell, and taller than Elfwine by many inches.

“I have no love for spiders,” Elfwine said in heartfelt Quenya. “And I thank you, Elves of…Rivendell? for saving me. I am confused that we have not met before, but surely you were in the company of the Lord Elrond before he left these shores. Or are you of Gildor’s traveling company, under the banner of Finrod the Great? Glad I am that you remained – do you assist King Thranduil and Lord Celeborn in their retaking of these forests?”

His words were met by silence, and then the dark-haired one, who also seemed to gather power around him like an ancient tree gathered shadow, cleared his throat. “Under the banner of Finrod! No, we are not. I am Fëanor, High King of this realm of Beleriand. You have said many things, and I do not doubt that to you, these things all make sense. However, you are entirely wrong.

“I was wrong, too, to believe you a Thindar – you, who come in the raiment of my nephew Turgon’s folk. Vinyamar, I believe it was?”

Elfwine stared down at his sailor’s tunic, which was blue emblazoned with the white swan crest of his grandfather Prince Imrahil’s house. “Vinyamar?”

“You named us elves of the house of Elrond – well, you are somewhat correct there, although it is more true that he was of our house once, is that not so, Nelyo? At any rate, are you one of his house too, young one? You sound it, you speak our tongue like one of us. Nay,” Fëanor said, frowning and leaning in. “You look like one of the House of Fingolfin born far from Aman, if any still linger in the lands beyond the bending of the sea!”

What?

Fëanor was conversing in Quenya fluently, as if he spoke it as much as he read it. Elfwine sent up a small prayer of thanks to Elladan, who had taught Quenya with his father’s pronunciation to all the fosterlings at the King’s house in Minas Tirith, and took a deep breath.

“I am no Thindar,” he said in Quenya, and pushed back his salt-thick hair behind his decidedly round ears. “Nor am I of the Eldar at all.” For the most part, but that was a somewhat longer tale. “Elfwine son of Éomer am I, heir to the King of Rohan.”

Then, he let himself sink to the rock behind him, feeling the adrenaline leave his body in a rush. He was a sinking ship himself. He nearly laughed at the thought, and then shuddered to think of her – the fair ship that they had named for Mithrellas, broken in the waves.

On second thought, perhaps they should not have named her for one of Nimrodel’s people. Ill fated in the sea indeed! He started laughing in earnest, then, clutching his arms around him, feeling the tears start in his eyes.

“A Secondborn!” Fëanor said, his eyes becoming even more alarmingly bright.

“I am Celegorm, the son of this mischief-maker. Are you hurt?” the elf with golden hair asked him, stepping closer. “How came you here?”

“I am not hurt, although I am weary. I was on a ship that I built during my apprenticeship in my grandfather’s princedom of Dol Amroth, and it broke apart in a strange and sudden terror of the sea. I sent up a prayer to Iethcwen, who is called…Uinen in your tongue, and she sent a dolphin to me, who…did something like drop me into a hole in the wave, I cannot explain it better. And then I awoke to spiders.” The spiders! Elfwine started shaking a little, feeling the chill of shock come over his body.

“And this is where we uncover the key to the puzzle,” Fëanor said. “If it was the Lady of the Sea at work, she might have felt the existence of this portal of mine.”

“Father, we must go,” said the other son, looking at Elfwine with concern. “He is suffering. Let us take him back to the hold. Celegorm, get the horses.”

~

Bundled in a cloak, they led Elfwine to where the horses gathered at Celegorm’s whistle. Elfwine gaped when he saw them.

If he was not mistaken, here were three Mearas, of the kin of Shadowfax or his forebears, standing before him and bending their proud necks to nose their riders. “Beauties,” he breathed, and was delighted when the great roan mare came up to him and looked at him curiously.

“What is your name, lady?” Elfwine said, touching her soft neck.

Celegorm started laughing, then. “Ah, you’re after my own heart, Secondborn. You care naught that Fëanaro Finwëion has trapped you in his snare set between worlds, but you melt at the sight of our horses. This lady is Carnirocco, and beside her are her daughters, Morirocco and Súretal.”

“It’s not a snare, Turca. It’s a path!” Fëanor said. “It is meant to be a shortcut between the continents by way of the song that holds the sea road in place.”

Ignoring the discussion, which had quickly become technical, Elfwine put his hand upon Carnirocco’s neck, feeling her snuffle his hair. “I am sorry – any apples I would have had are in the middle of the sea, my lady,” he whispered to her in his fæder’s tongue. “But I would bring you the sweetest fruit from my aunt’s orchard in Ithilien if I could.”

Unlike Shadowfax she had allowed herself to carry a light saddle, well padded for the weight of her rider. “I did not know the Mearas took a saddle?”

“Ah, a few balk at it, it’s true. These ladies are more practical, and know their backs would ache otherwise,” Celegorm said.

The horses, more than anything else, made Elfwine understand that he was far from home. “Am I mistaken, or are these not the horses of the fields of Sindreám, of Elvenhome, who traveled far over the sea to Middle-earth? I know of no horses like this in Middle-earth, unless it is in the fields of my fæder, and even then the blood has been diluted.”

“I believe so,” Fëanor said. “Celegorm knows more of the migration of that herd than I do – I was dead when the livestock were being sorted out at Mithrim. But these three are a gift to my son Caranthir from his uncle, my brother Fingolfin, upon the remaking of the fastness in Helevorn.”

“I do not know that place, except as a story,” Elfwine said, feeling a sinking in his heart. He cleared his throat and swayed a little, gripping Fëanor’s cloak for purchase, like a child.

Glancing sideways at him, the other son’s expression turned concerned again. He took a water skin from his belt and handed it to Elfwine, which he took gratefully.

“We’ll tell you where you are when we get some food in you,” The Elf said. “For now, perhaps you can concentrate on the horses? It helps, when you can think about something to distract you.”

Elfwine was used to living with people out of song – King Aragorn had bandaged his fair share of Elfwine’s scrapes, by his own hand. But these names (Fëanor, Celegorm) were beyond even Glorfindel and Erestor – well, maybe not beyond Glorfindel. His mind spinning, he took the advice, and instead asked after the horses.

The three horses were very well tended, which was to the credit of these Elves and went a long way toward banishing any of Elfwine’s potential distrust. The great mare Carnirocco was the dam of the herd, and her name was apparently a jest upon the name of her owner.

“I’m sorry for the extra weight, Rēadfrowe,” Elfwine said, naming her in his own tongue, patting her flank. “But I deem you can well support it. You are strong!”

Fëanor turned his head to stare. “You spoke a different language, just then. What was it?”

“The tongue of the people of Eorl, the Eorlingas. Or…the Elves term it Rohirric, the language of the horse people. My mother is of the Númenorean race, but my fæder Eomer’s folk are originally of the far North country of Middle-earth, until they were gifted the fields to the north of Minas Tirith by a king of Gondor.

“Horses, fæder would say, are our life and our blood. I have never met one of the Mearas, but I have seen tapestries of him: Shadowfax, greatest of horses. And yet, and yet, here are three such beasts!”

“The tale of your kin as they came south is a story I would like to hear,” Fëanor said, sounding delighted. “Tell me that word again?”

And on their way through the dark wood and out to the fields beyond, Elfwine found himself explaining the migration and language of the Eorlingas. Finally he paused.

“You…are you the Fëanor out of the ages of history, then?”

“Ah! I misdoubt that any would name their children for me nowadays,” the Elf said, a little melancholy. “I am the only one. There is my son, and my grandson, of course – we share a name between us. Curufinwë. But Fëanaro is mine alone.”

“Oh,” Elfwine said, and found that in this long day of gods and shipwrecks and spiders and great horses, he’d stumbled across the strangest adventure yet.

~

A dark-haired Elf who must be Caranthir stood at the gate to greet them. He looked with curiosity on Elfwine.

The fastness of Caranthir son of Fëanor was well enough fortified that it seemed of a variety with Helm’s Deep, and Elfwine looked up to stare at the stone walls and iron portcullis and battlements. “Do you see many raids here? Are there orcs still about? My father is often riding out with the King to settle arguments, of late. Perhaps too often.”

“No orcs any longer,” Caranthir said, “But when I built it before it fell, there were many spawns of Morgoth about the land. Welcome, stranger who rides with my father.”

Elfwine dismounted and bowed, glad that even if he was not of a height with all of these tall Elves, at least he wasn’t short.

“I thank you for your welcome,” Elfwine said, keeping to the Quenya they’d been speaking.

Caranthir took that in silently, tilting his head downward a little to look at him. Elfwine met his gaze, and was struck again by the banked fire within his eyes. Another name out of the ancient tales was before him.

Finally, Caranthir spoke. “Many ages of this world have passed since one from east of the Emyn Luin has set foot upon my lands. I welcome you, Elf of the Twilight. Times must be different indeed if you speak the tongue of the Noldor! I am Caranthir, son of Fëanor, and brother of those two. This is my home. How came you to speak my birth tongue?”

“East of the Emyn Luin?” Elfwine asked. “Where am I?”

“Beleriand. And he’s a Secondborn,” Fëanor corrected Caranthir. “I was confused too.”

Caranthir blinked and reassessed. “Odd,” he said. “Who are you, then, Secondborn who is yet Elf-fair?”

Putting aside the name of a continent long lost to history, Elfwine set his teeth and tried not to grimace too much. “Elfwine son of Éomer King of the Riddermark,” Elfwine said, striving for politeness; Elves would certainly not understand how condescending the term ‘elf-fair’ was. Surely Caranthir had met Men before? “I thank you for your hospitality. Your family has saved me from spiders, and I am in your debt.”

“Saved you? I sense more to the tale than this.” Caranthir replied, a little wryly. “Welcome, anyway.”

Fëanor was uncharacteristically silent during this exchange, and Elfwine noticed that he’d gone off to tend to the horses, along with Celegorm. Elfwine was enough of his father’s son that he stared longingly after the three mares – the dark, high-stepping mare Súretal, he especially wanted to know.

“I hope you still have notes in your study about certain modifications father made to the local area,” the red-haired Elf said. “You have a portal in your eastward wood that links to Middle-earth. Knowingly or not, its presence means you will have guests every now and again. And not all of them might be as well-suited for being dropped into darkest Beleriand as Elfwine son of Éomer.

“Ah, and I will properly greet you now.” He turned and nodded gravely. “I am my father’s first-born, Maedhros, and I will make sure he returns you home…hopefully before anyone shows up to ask questions. You aren’t expecting any other visitors, Caranthir?”

“I am not, unless you are?” Caranthir gave him a meaningful look. “Certain of your companions are, shall we say, curious.”

“Not expecting any companions, no,” Maedhros said dryly. “But they might come nonetheless, if they lack occupation.”

Elfwine gazed at the Elf who did after all make him feel short. He noted the hook in place of a hand. In Elladan’s tales, Maedhros had perished in fire. But in Elladan’s tales, Beleriand had sunk below the waves! His mind began to spin again, and this time he did not have a horse to cling to.

“To me you are all figures out of ancient memory – and I deem the tales were mistold, if you stand before me now, on a land risen from the sea.” Elfwine shook his head, drawing Maedhros’s cloak around him more closely.

“I understand how that must feel,” Maedhros said. “Before we answer any other questions, or show you a map, follow me! I will take you to bathe, and eat.”

He turned, and Elfwine went to follow, but – unexpectedly – tripped and staggered over nothing at all. Catching himself upon Maedhros, Elfwine muttered an apology, and then realized that he was incredibly, immensely … exhausted.

“And also,” Maedhros said, steadying him, his expression concerned. “rest.”

~

Caranthir’s stewart, Orlinn, was a tall elf with dark hair and the stamp of all the rest of the Elves of Caranthir’s keep in his appearance. Orlinn showed him to a room overlooking the interior courtyard. In concession to the weather, which was fine and breezy in the summer evening, the balcony doors were set wide. He bade Elfwine to sit while he prepared the bathing tub in the corner of the room.

“Now, while that water is heating, what shall we dress you in?” Orlinn rummaged in a chest. “King Fingon – ah, I should say Prince, it’s difficult keeping all of them sorted in these after times – he keeps a fair bit of hunting garb here. Lord Caranthir said he thinks you’re of a size. I’ll put some of his things out for you, shall I?”

Looking around, Elfwine saw that all of the furnishings were plain but well wrought of wood, as if the owner had practical taste. Elfwine found he liked it.

Elfwine’s body felt a deal better after the bath. After Orlinn treated the spider scratches with an ointment to keep them from infection, he left Elfwine with a pat on the back. “Ah you’re here now, little Manling. My lord will take good care of you.”

And so Elfwine pulled on the clothing (a tunic in undyed fabric, but with touches of a rich blue at the cuff and collar) that was only a little large for him. Then he looked about for a comb. His hair was a tangled mass, even after washing out the sea water.

There was a mirror, comb, and hair clips of gold. After working out the tangles, he wove his hair into the double braids of the Knights of the Riddermark, and fastened the ends. He wished, thinking of the term “elf-fair”, that he was graced with a beard like his father – but he had none, nor had any of Imrahil’s lineage. He scowled into the mirror for a moment and sighed.

Thus clad, he found that his hunger and tiredness were at war. His hunger won, and he left the rooms, making through the keep toward the sound of voices and smell of food.

Fëanor and his three sons were in the large, wood-beamed center hall, sitting at a long table with maps and notes covering one side of it. Food and drink were set out by some of the people of the keep, and Elfwine caught a glimpse of his first elf maidens of this realm – they were strong like the shieldmaidens of Lady Eowyn’s company in Ithilien. He wondered how old they were. Were they as old as the ones he’d met first, born before the sun?

Maedhros looked up at him as he came to the table and raised an eyebrow at Caranthir. “Really?”

Caranthir looked amused. “I knew you were of a size with Fingon. Now you could be his child, whereas before you were a bit more of a water rat,” he said.

“In truth,” Maedhros said, eyebrows beetling, “You could be a new child of Turgon born in Middle-earth, save for the height.”

Elfwine decided that he was too tired to take offense and smiled at them, sitting himself with little ceremony in front of the food. “Please forgive this rat or elven prince, whichever I am, if I begin my meal. It is hungry work getting tossed about by Sǽfréa.”

“Oh, it’s possible to be both,” Caranthir began, and was immediately elbowed by Maedhros.

Before Elfwine ate, instead of the standing silence (he did not know which way to stand if he was already beyond the west) he bowed his head and prayed for the drowned crew. Things were afoot that perplexed him, but he had the strange luck of being alive while they were not, and he would mourn them properly someday. He sent his prayer up to Garsecgesfréa before he set to the meal of venison stew and bread.

After a time, he found that the elves were eating with him. He blinked up, bowl clean, caught by Maedhros’s curious expression.

“You said you were on a ship – will you tell us more of your tale?”

Elfwine nodded, trying to sort the memory in his head. Then he took a deep breath, remembering his time making and sailing Mithrellas… He told it as succinctly as he could, ending with the dolphin and the tunnel. There had been something else, too – a great voice, the figure of a giant made of sea foam. No, his bones ached to remember it, and he pushed it from his mind.

“Intriguing,” Fëanor said, pulling over a sheet of paper and a pen. “So it appears like a passageway. I was uncertain, when I made it, what shape it would take. The physics make it appear like more of a fold…”

“A tunnel, first of water, then of forest,” Elfwine explained. But then he yawned, his vision fuzzing. “I beg your pardon,” he added, sheepishly.

Caranthir chuckled. “Go off with you, little rat. After an adventure like that, of course you want sleep. You can answer more questions in the morning.”

 

~

The next morning after breakfast, Fëanor ushered him into the highest room in the keep.

“This WAS my study,” Caranthir said sourly.

The room was remarkable for the deep slope of the roof, which had an opening allowing for an enormous telescope to be pointed out of it, southwest into the sky. Below the telescope was a seat upon risers, accessible by a ladder.

But the room had become devoted to something else, and the windows along the slanted roof were tinted an interesting blue to reduce glare. Beneath the diffused light was a table covered in maps – but these were like no maps Elfwine had yet seen. They were in large part etched upon glass, so that they could create multiple layers over a base map, revealing changes to the lands over time.

Some of the glass maps had legends out of the most sorrowful tales: Coastal impact of the sinking of Númenor, Second Age, and Middle-earth bays after the War of Wrath, Second Age; and some were esoteric, like Climate and soil morphology post-Amon Amarth eruption, early Third Age.

Fëanor pulled over a set that said, Beleriand Risen, and set the glass into several clamps. Ghostly, the map sat hovering above the sea.

Elfwine stared at the land, fingers tracing places well below water on Middle-earth. “But it is still sunk – at least, I have sailed over these mountains, and saw their peaks far below me in the water. Dolphins play there now, and the ruins are grown up with coral and seaweed!”

“I spoke to the Valar,” Said Fëanor, “And they raised it again for me out of the sea — for us, the Noldor and the Sindar and others who dwelt in this realm, that we might delight in it without the taint of Morgoth.”

“I truly am in Beleriand,” Elfwine said, feeling oddly blank inside. What it meant that he was in Beleriand, he did not know – but he was extremely grateful that he was not dead.

“So. From whence did you set sail?” Fëanor asked, and Elfwine traced a finger along the coastline of the Middle-earth he knew, below the hovering map.

“From here, from Dol Amroth, my grandfather’s city. And we came this far, a day’s sail from Mithlond, when the storm took us.” Elfwine ran his finger along the waters he had traversed, paralleling the coastline north, remembering the journey.

“Perhaps this portal was simply the most expeditious, then – look.” Fëanor tapped the glass, over the land labeled Thargallion, at the edge of Dor Caranthir. “Your ship sank here.” His finger traced the land northward. “And you arrived here, in this wood at the foot of the Ered Luin.”

And that is when Fëanor pulled out another set of glass maps which looked like topographical maps, but with calculations arrayed along each line. This he overlaid above the first two, and traced the eddy of one set of lines from the ocean over to the forest housing the stone circle. “Uinen dropped you onto this path, I deem.”

Elfwine peered at it to no avail, and finally settled it in his mind as Elf magic. At the very least, he could see clearly that he’d need two different ways to return home.

“So I need to first return to my own earth and not this hovering one, and then walk back to Rohan.” Elfwine sorely wished he had a king’s ransom of gold with him – a mare like Carnirocco would be prized above jewels in Rohan, and it would spare him the weeks of walking.

“It should not be difficult,” Fëanor assured him.

“Do you believe so?” Elfwine asked, feeling relief wash through him. At least there was hope, now, for setting things back to rights. “Then I might be back in time for the Midsummer celebration in Minas Tirith – King Aragorn and Queen Arwen are throwing a feast for Eldarion’s begetting day.”

Suddenly Caranthir and Fëanor were both staring at him.

“What year is it for you, child?” Fëanor asked, finally, as Caranthir buried his face in his hands.

Elfwine looked from one to the other. “It is the twenty-seventh year of the King, in this fourth age of Middle-earth,” he said.

And then Fëanor seized his pen, speaking softly to himself. “Another axis of travel, beyond world-bending, beyond shifting geographies,” he said. “Time. Well, that is of no matter, we shall find our way through that one too. I shall need to discover the interaction between time and space, surely there is a key – some melody in the Song…”

Caranthir gripped Elfwine’s arm, pulling him away and out the door, leaving Fëanor muttering to himself at the long tables of maps. “Come. I’ll call Maedhros to look after him. We’ll go hunting. I can’t be cooped up in here, and you’ll be better off if you have something else to think on.

“Little rat,” Caranthir paused, his expression softening. “Your King Aragorn has been dead for many scores of years, and thus we discovered that you came not only across the sea road, but through time as well, to visit us.”

---

Chapter End Notes

• Bunn (reading): Erm, your timeline. Beleriand doesn't actually rise until after the death of Aragorn.

  Me: Crap.

  And that is how this thing is about 30k words longer than planned.

• Fëanor the Linguist is obviously canonical but also deep in Silmarillion fiction, and I love this characterization and give thanks that I've gotten to read it all the time.
• The Mearas especially thank Chestnut_pod for the saddles. Oshun's piece on Rochallor was excellent for understanding Valinorean horses.