Shore Beyond the Shadowy Sea by Quente

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For there the fount immortal flows

The next day, the folk of Nimloth departed, with many promises given on both sides to meet again – and Fëanor declared the woods free of wolves, and safe enough that he felt it was time to continue on. “And now we go to meet your fate in Gondolin, Elfwine. Will you join us, son?”

Maedhros shook his head. “Elfwine Vandameldo carries strong companions with him. I no longer fear for his safety.”

And so it was decided that only Elfwine and Fëanor would travel to Gondolin. They prepared for the journey, and Elfwine songs that would hasten their feet. He finally remembered a walking song that Holdwine passed along to him, written by his friend Bilbo. Speaking of whom…Bilbo and Frodo had journeyed to the west, had they not?

At dinner that night, Elfwine asked that question of the company. “I know that before I was born, Bilbo and Frodo journeyed to Sindreám, your Elvenhome. Did they ever find that shore?”

Fëanor and Nerdanel exchanged glances, communing together silently for a moment. Finally, Nerdanel spoke. “Frodo has passed away, but Bilbo remains – time has lain lightly upon him, and he finds he has much still to discover and learn, exploring Valinor. He has visited this realm as well.”

For a moment Elfwine was caught in a strange yearning. In truth, he felt more at peace here than he ever had in Middle-earth. Could he not simply stay?

Elfwine thought of Théodred’s salute to him, one heir of the Riddermark to another, and sighed.

After the meal, the family pressed more gifts upon him. Maedhros gave him back his blue tunic with the swan of Dol Amroth, laundered and carefully mended by his own hand. “Wear this upon your journey,” he said. “It brought you luck before, I deem, and will bring it again. At the very least, it placed the eye of Ulmo upon you.”

“And here are better clothes than that from Amil’s closet,” Amras said, giving him a bag packed carefully with several garments. “Take them back to Middle-earth with you, in memory of your time as an Elven prince!”

Nerdanel handed him a satchel with the smell of something warm and spicy within.

“Is it Lembas?” Elfwine asked, breaking off a corner. Wrapped in thin linen, the piece tasted of almond and honey, cardamom and pepper, and filled him with an energy that he felt would sustain him for days.

Nerdanel looked affronted. “Of course not! That is the recipe of the House of Finarfin. My own waybread is far better in flavor, I assure you.”

Elfwine embraced her in thanks.

From Celegorm he received finely fletched arrows for his quiver, and from Caranthir, a rolled scroll. “This is my telling of our journey from Helevorn to Calissir, a record of your vow to us and your battle with the wolves. May it aid you in memory, lest you forget, as little rats might.”

For that gift, Elfwine embraced him, and kissed his cheeks. “Thank you, Prince Rat. You have taught me that you can indeed be a rat and an Elven prince, both.”

Caranthir cuffed his arm, and then gripped his shoulder. “Come back, somehow. Come back, Oath-friend, if you can,” he said.

~

Orvanis came to the courtyard early the next morning to see them off. She took his hand and said nothing.

“What is it?” Elfwine said, clasping her hand in return.

“I am not used to people that disappear forever when my eyes are no longer on them,” she said, and sighed. “I will have more in common now with Lord Caranthir than I like, I deem. I will miss you, little one!”

Elfwine flushed then, but leaned down to kiss her scarred cheek. “Maybe we will ride together again, someday. Stranger things have happened in these worlds.”

“I would like that,” she said, and smiled a little at their parting.

~

They rode west away from Calissir and the Esgalduin, skirting the tall mountains that bordered the south of the highlands, and finally to the upper mouth of the Pass of Anach. Along the journey, which they took at an easy pace, Fëanor taught Elfwine some of the rudimentary steps of harnessing his ability.

Elfwine, in turn, shifted their speech to Sindarin, to give Fëanor more practice at the modern dialect.

“We know that you can sing, and if a song of power is near you, you join it. But to harness power with your own song, alone, you must first learn to listen to the land,” Fëanor said. “The land is always humming to us. That is why when you come across Elves sitting perfectly still and staring out at nothing at all, they are actually hearing the news of the day from a nearby stand of trees.”

“So Elves are like cats,” Elfwine said, and avoided the sidewise smack to the arm.

But he rode, and listened, and for many hours heard nothing at all. It was not until that evening, sitting by their campfire, that Elfwine finally heard the inkling of something interesting.

“Every so often it feels like the wind, the birds, the trees, the insects, the fire, are all saying something,” Elfwine said, after concentrating hard to hear something - anything - outside of the usual. “They have their own usual sounds, but together it feels like a greater meaning.”

“That’s the start,” Fëanor said. “Keep at it. What are they all saying?”

Elfwine concentrated a little more. “Nothing,” he said, dismally. And then he sat up a little – he heard a bird sing in the bough of a tree, and the limbs shook around her. “Rain?”

“Yes, the trees have raised their arms to the skies, can you hear it?” Fëanor said. “Tomorrow we will hum a little tune to keep us – and Súretal and Sailatári – dry.”

After another day of travel, Elfwine could hear more of it, and caught himself one day sitting perfectly still as they were striking camp, trying to puzzle out what the crickets meant by chittering to each other about a very great bird shadow that kept falling over them. He looked up, but saw nothing.

“Ah – yes, they keep speaking of an eagle, but we are near enough to the mountains of Crissaegrim where they make their nests that it could mean they were simply out hunting,” Fëanor said.

At the top of the Pass of Anach, Elfwine looked down to see their path wind between the slopes of Ered Gorgoroth on the East, and the steep faces of the Echoriad on the west. The landscape was vast, and he felt just like the crickets did when they felt the shadow pass over them. A chill touched his skin, and he felt something move within him – love, for this vast and beautiful land, graven deep by its history and Elf magic.

“It is wonderful, is it not,” Fëanor said with just a touch of satisfaction. “It took some doing from even the Elves to return everything to its proper place, after it was drowned. And now it’s all humming along with its own music, creating life and joy and change again, as it was meant to all along.”

Elfwine contemplated that silently for a moment, and then said, “Was it difficult to convince the Valar to raise this land for you?”

The story of that endeavor took them through to their night’s camp.

On the last day of their journey, Fëanor was teaching Elfwine a song that would reveal his path to a destination when they were greeted by an Elf leaping down from a rock to the side of their horses.

Súretal came to a halt and swished her tail inquiringly.

“Hail to the High King!” The Elf said in Sindarin, and bowed. She was clad in grey, and seemed smaller than the Noldor and Sindar that Elfwine had met. “I am Ahti of the Penni people; we dwell now in the Anach and its hills. If you are going into Gondolin, I have leave to tell you that those that live therein have cleared an eastward tunnel. You no longer must travel south.”

“Oh, thank you,” Fëanor said. “Well-met.” And then he said something carefully in a dialect that Elfwine did not know, but it brought a great smile to Ahti’s face.

Ahti responded in kind, and said, “I shall show you and your companion to the entrance. If you come in this way, you will not get to see the seven gates, however.”

“Ah, we’ll see them a different day, I imagine,” Fëanor said.

“They are still quarrying the road and it is rough, I must warn you. But passable.”

~

Elfwine felt the strange power move within him the moment they stepped out of the passageway and onto the Eastern side of the field of Tumladen. Fëanor glanced over at him and quirked an eyebrow. “I did wonder what would happen when we got here,” Fëanor said.

And, as if in answer, Elfwine felt himself puppeted again – his hands rose high and he spoke strange words that scratched his throat. A mighty wind rose up over the field, circling once around the great white city, and then fell to rest. Afterwards, Elfwine collapsed forward, holding Súretal’s mane and panting.

“I do not envy you, Vandameldo,” Fëanor said, his brow beetling. “But we might have a greeting party now, from the few who live here whom you have alerted.”

“Those moments are surpassing strange,” Elfwine admitted. “They exhaust me. I wonder how Tuor felt?”

And indeed, when they had ridden past half of the great field surrounding the Amon Gwareth, they espied a party of riders coming toward them, dressed in the livery of the city.

“That’s odd,” Fëanor said, watching them. “Those are Gondolindrim, and not the few who decided to return with me. In fact, that one who rides out in front is Ecthelion, if my memory serves me.”

“Ecthelion who slew the Balrog Gothmog?” Elfwine asked, eyes alight, but Fëanor shuddered.

“Balrogs,” Fëanor said, “Do not give an easy or clean death. One of them left me barely alive, after a flaying with a whip of fire. I do not recommend it, and I am quite glad that Ecthelion slew one.”

When the party from the great white city drew near, they paused and waited for Fëanor and Elfwine to ride up to them. Then, one of the company blew a horn, and said in a mighty voice, “Hail to the High King!” in Sindarin. And the group clasped their fist to their breasts as they bowed.

“Gondolindrim,” Fëanor muttered, but bowed his head in turn to them. He shifted his language to theirs. “Glad I am to see you. I have an errand here in your library, and hope you can escort me there swiftly.”

“Library?” Ecthelion asked, riding forward. Elfwine could not help his staring. Ecthelion looked as mighty as the tales told, scarred and broad and thick of thew, with his Noldor-dark hair flowing unbound around his silver tunic. He was well-mannered, however, and his voice soft. “You did receive the message we sent? We sent an eagle out after you a day or two ago.”

“Ah,” Fëanor said. “If the eagle went to Calissir, I was already on my way here. What news do you send us, Ecthelion of the Fountain, slayer of Gothmog?”

“Well,” Said Ecthelion, sitting back on his horse. “That explains how you arrived here first! The message was to invite you for our ceremony of welcome. King Turgon is on his way to our city, and we make ready for him. He should be here in several days’ time with a retinue of all our folk, returned to dwell here awhile. He also rides with Elenwë, who has never set foot in Beleriand. We shall have a parade when he arrives, and a banquet.”

“Ah,” said Fëanor, and then looked sideways at Elfwine. “Much becomes clear. Well – we shall take part in your ceremony, although it may be in a way no one will expect.”

Elfwine drew a breath, waiting for the Ese to move through him again to explain things – but when he did not, Elfwine shrugged and bowed. “Glad I am to meet a hero of old,” he said. “I am Elfwine, called Vandameldo, son of Éomer King of the Riddermark, and the High King has allowed me to journey with him to your city.”

Ecthelion raised an eyebrow and looked Elfwine over once again – from his blue swan-crested tunic to his ears, which were puzzlingly pointed. “Well,” he said again, clearly perplexed. “Welcome. I see there is more to this tale, but come. I will show you to your rooms, and then to the library, as you ask.”

~

Elfwine had grown up in the wooden and gold-thatched hall of Meduseld, and he loved his home greatly. But his first steps into Minas Tirith had broken his mind open with wonder, and he was glad he had his cousin Elboron at his side when he journeyed there.

“Cease gaping, they will think us uncouth,” Elboron whispered to him, elbowing him sharply as they climbed through the grey stonework and encircling streets that led up to King Aragorn’s citadel at the top of the city’s seven circles.

And even as Minas Tirith dwarfed Meduseld in splendor, so did Gondolin dwarf Minas Tirith. It reminded Elfwine of a tale Lothíriel told him as a child – of the two great trees of Aman, and how all the other great trees of Middle-earth were lesser children of these.

Elfwine had heard that Gondolin was built to look like Tirion upon Túna in Aman, and felt the stirrings of a compulsion to see the original himself. As they passed through the south gate into the city, the urge caught him unawares – so like the sea-longing he’d grown up with that he gritted his teeth. So many thoughts swirled in his head that he found it hard to slow them. Tirion is a place I will never visit, he said to himself. Content yourself that you are somehow, beyond all hope, here!

The street leading into the city was wide, paved in stone with marble kerbs. Bright gardens were everywhere, in front of fair stone houses that had just begun to stir with activity. Elves bustled to and fro about the streets as they readied the city for the entry of their kindred.

Amid the houses were squares that held fountains descending with a tinkling music, and above all of the courtyards and houses and gardens and fountains, the slender white spires of towers rose high. Elfwine wanted to pause and look at everything – every carved face in the white marble, every fountain, every flower, every tree.

Elfwine felt tears rise in his eyes, and verse came to him then. He raised his voice and sang it to the trees, and felt the glad welcome of the city as it accepted his song.

For there the fount immortal flows:
Its water white leaps down the hill,
By silver stairs it singing goes
To the field of the unfading rose…

Fëanor smiled at him, feeling Elfwine’s song twining in with the rest, but then he noticed the tears.

“Are you well, Elfwine?”

“I am overwhelmed, I think. It is fair here, surpassing fair, and I know not where to look first. I grieve that I cannot stay, I think, until the city sits in my memory unfaded until I myself pass away.”

“Ahh.” Fëanor’s face mirrored Elfwine’s sorrow for a moment. “I have known very few Secondborn. And so it must be to you, that time is short, and rushing past, and there is little of it to fill with what you love. It must be a thing of great frustration for you – and it pains me that our own journey together will be short, and end before I have truly taught you anything! Or learned much of anything from you, for that matter.”

Elfwine wiped his sleeve over his eyes and smiled, then. “Orvanis said, ‘You are called to feast, and revel, and enjoy, and if you can’t do that when the time is right, what is the point?’ And here I am in the most beautiful city that I have ever seen, and I am weeping.”

They passed through a square full of market stalls and shops – there was a bit of singing from the Elves there, as stalls were resurrected from memory, and then filled with goods that the citizens might need. Shortly past that, they dismounted from their horses, and Ecthelion had some of his people lead them to a stable with a penant above it marked by a blue fountain.

“You will be staying with me, at the House of the Fountain, until the King’s household makes his quarters ready,” Ecthelion said.

Within, the house had fountains a-plenty, with open colonnades encircling courtyards graced by them. Their rooms were on the west side of the house looking out upon the street they had ridden on – the Way of Running Water, Ecthelion named it.

Once they had settled into their chambers, Elfwine took a deep breath and changed into a set of Nerdanel’s robes. He wove silver into his braids, and set a circlet upon his head, and felt a reluctant but growing delight that he might pass for a citizen of that place.

Ecthelion gave him another curious glance as he led them toward the library, but Elfwine simply smiled at him, and did not share his tale. He sensed that the time was not right to reveal it, not before the King entered the city again.

~

In the days before the return of the Gondolindrim to their city, Fëanor spent the majority of his hours in the building that housed the library on one side of the Square of the King. Elfwine, at liberty, felt himself free to wander – and wander he did, unremarkable in his Elf guise. His growing love for the fair courtyards and streets and alleys of Gondolin settled within him like water in a parched man.

Elfwine’s favorite place to walk was along the Alley of Roses – a path that led northward from the Square of the King, wide enough for two to walk abreast beneath tall marble trellises of vines. In the spring, Elfwine imagined, they would hold roses of delicate scent and beauty, but for now the greenery shaded him from the summer sun on the path that led northward to a high, circular courtyard.

This square, Ecthelion told him, was where Tuor and Idril wed – the Place of the Gods. It held a rotunda surrounded by tall white birch trees with silver leaves shimmering in the wind, and a white pavilion overlooking the southern slope of the high-spired city. Here, Elfwine sat late into the day, looking out across the towers and fountains and squares, and listening to the awakening music of the place. Sometimes, he sang his own verses within the greater music.

There elven-lights still gleaming lie
On grass more green than in gardens here,
On trees more tall that touch the sky
With swinging leaves of silver clear.

It was his paeon and his farewell all in one, he sang it hoping to remember the smell of the clear air, the warmth of the flagstones at his feet, and the beauty of the rose vines that encircled the Place of the Gods in their high trellises.

Elfwine wondered if the roses were white to match the city, or pale gold, or a deep, blood red. He wanted to lie there beneath the trellises through autumn and winter, until spring blessed him again with their scent, and their petals fell around his face in soft afternoon light.

At dinner one night in Ecthelion’s dwelling, Fëanor glanced at him sharply. “Elfwine,” he said, “Can you sing your ears back to Man-shape again?”

Surprised, Elfwine did so.

“I am relieved,” Fëanor said. “You were beginning to lose some of your Mannish look, although you had little of it to begin with. I was just making sure you are still a Man. You have a very Elvish light in your eyes, now.”

“I do?” Elfwine put down his knife. He’d just been thinking about visiting the north side of the city the next day, and seeing Idril’s tunnel.

“Perhaps you’d best come join me in the library tomorrow,” Fëanor said. “I am not sure that I trust this city to let go of you when the time comes. And…maybe wear your Middle-earth clothing again.”

Chapter End Notes

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