Shore Beyond the Shadowy Sea by Quente

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The white birds wheel; there flowers the Tree!

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Elfwine took his restriction philosophically; the library was a comfortable and well-appointed place. Elfwine soon lost himself in a book about the crossing of the Helcaraxe, the likes of which the librarians at Minas Tirith would have given a fortune to possess. Here, too, were treasures – and Fëanor’s predatory look toward some of the books indicated that the collection was fine indeed.

At the stroke of noon, Elfwine looked up from his book of lore when he heard the first horn sounding. He turned to glance out the window of the high tower of the library.

Far, far below Elfwine, the vanguard of a procession began to enter the Tumladen from the south gate, marching across the great field toward the city. The desire took him, strong and pure, to race down and shout with the people moving toward the gate to greet them, to cheer for the mighty company as it came.

He turned to Fëanor, who was lost in a tome of mathematics so brittle it still gave off the smell of the sea, and said, “Fëanor, they are here. Whose heraldry is a square field of snow, charged with a sun and moon and heart in their proper colors?”

Fëanor blinked up. “Eh? Ah! We’d best go, then. I wonder why Ecthelion did not send for us? He must have been caught up in one concern or another. That is the livery of my nephew Turukáno, King Turgon the Wise, come to look upon his realm of old. I wonder if he will find it as unnerving as I find the Ered Wethrin?”

“But quickly!” Fëanor stepped over to the table and scanned it, selecting a few books to slide into his pack. “Elfwine, replace the rest, would you? They come from the section of the library behind that barred door, inside of the locked chest. You can set the lock and bar, but hurry. We will join Ecthelion and greet Turukáno at the south stair.”

~

They raced together down the Way of Running Water until they got to the stables of the House of the Fountain, wherein grey Sailatári stood snorting beside Súretal. They led their horses out, mounted, and Fëanor’s expression was gleeful as they rode through the city and down the slope to take their place near Ecthelion.

Cooks and cartiers, bakers and washers, smiths and wheelwrights and grooms greeted Fëanor with glad shouts as he rode down to them on the long slope that led from the city. Fëanor waved to them all, nodding at the people exclaiming in surprise.

“Greetings, people of the House of Fingolfin!” Fëanor said. “Glad I am to see you here in our realm of Beleriand.”

The rumor of Fëanor’s arrival was lost in the great song of Turgon’s host as the rearmost part of it passed finally through the Gate of Steel, and they assembled in companies upon the greensward of the Tumladen.

And lo, even as Elfwine sat beside Fëanor watching the swell of riders take the field, he saw the companies halt, save for the captains of the gates and eleven of the lords of the twelve houses who came riding forward toward them clad in the livery of their domains. The twelfth lord, Ecthelion of the House of the Fountain, stood before the upward slope of the road to greet them.

Ecthelion raised his hand and the singing ceased. “Welcome, King Turgon, Queen Elenwë, and all the noble denizens of this land, to thy city of the singing waters!”

The company of the king rode down the center of the field. Tall was Turgon, and taller still in his high-brimmed helm set about with glittering diamonds, and Turgon’s expression was both grave and wondering as he looked again upon his white city – no longer his tomb – renewed beneath the sun.

The company parted then to allow a tall Man in ancient armor to ride forward to greet him – surely, Elfwine thought to himself with a rising excitement, surely it was Tuor. Elfwine wondered if he wore the very livery of Nevrast in which he had delivered his original message from Ulmo: the device was a white swan on a field of blue.

There, in the middle of the field, Tuor bowed to Turgon, and cried, “Beyond hope and beyond death we look upon thy fair city once more, King of Gondolin! A new star has risen, and the Doom of Mandos is fulfilled!”

And as one, the host shouted “Fulfilled!” in a great voice, and caught up in the moment, Elfwine cheered along with them, unsheathing Naurmacil to let it shine in the sun.

But before the cheering ended, Fëanor clicked his tongue and urged Sailatári forward into the space between the companies of the guard.

As he rode forward, Fëanor called – “King Turgon and Queen Elenwë, and all the people of the Noldor journeying far from Aman – I bid you welcome again to Beleriand!”

Elfwine spurred Súretal forward to join him. Riding between the long rows of knights toward the king, Elfwine wished he was wearing the full livery of Rohan, or the princely garments given to him by Amrod and Amras, to be fit for this glittering company – but he was in his blue tunic of Dol Amroth with the swan upon it, and he straightened his back and tossed his hair, feeling the blood rush to his face as he rode at Fëanor’s right.

And there, as they finally reached the king’s company, Elfwine felt the slow rush of blood in his body rise to a fever pitch. He felt the Ese clamber into him, and he thought to himself, Ah! Finally I will see what I have come for.

In the middle of the field of Tumladen, before Turgon and Fëanor and Tuor and all of the people of Gondolin, he raised a mighty voice to speak over the host.

“Turgon! On the hour of thy return to this city, I lay a gease upon thee: many were slain because thou didst love overmuch the work of thy hands. Not until the histories of those who fell to protect thy city is gathered, canst thou depart from this place. Dwell here, Turgon, until thou learnst that a city is naught but the lives of its citizens!”

A hush fell over all assembled as they stared at him, astonished. Panting, Elfwine felt the dizziness of the god departing his body, his limbs prickling as if waking from sleep.

And then the presence of the Ese left Elfwine entirely, and he fought dizziness by gripping Súretal’s mane. But before he could fall, Tuor rode up to him and held his shoulder to keep him in place.

“My brother,” Tuor said, expression touched with wonder and understanding, “I always misliked that after-feeling. Take a few deep breaths.”

“I wondered if we felt the same,” said Elfwine, staring at Tuor. He could not formulate words yet to explain how he felt meeting this ancient hero. And yet, Tuor looked to be in the strength of his years, like King Aragorn at home. “How is it that you not in the halls of your ancestors?”

“How came you here?” Tuor asked in return. “How is it that Ulmo found you – did you stray too near the shore?”

“My ship was sinking,” Elfwine began, but then the king raised his hand.

“Silence,” Turgon said, letting out a long breath, his face grave. “I will hear more of your tale later. You have somewhat changed the itinerary of my journey.”

Leaning against Tuor’s arm, Elfwine bowed his head.

“No wonder Ulmo made you forget his words,” Fëanor said. “Neither one of us would have come, had we known what sort of doom we were laying upon you, nephew! It is good to see you anyway. I was in your city to make use of your fine library, and did not realize you’d be here until we met Ecthelion halfway over the Tumladen.”

“If you were here, that explains why you didn’t receive my invitation,” Turgon said, eyebrow twitching. But then another figure in his company rode out from behind him, and stared at Elfwine.

Elfwine looked back at the Elven version of his own face and finally understood Caranthir’s joke, to put him in Fingon’s clothing. Fingon was taller and sharper of feature, with eyes carrying a depth of experience – centuries of it – that Elfwine lacked. Still, they were close enough in likeness that they could have been kin. Elfwine fought the impulse to hide from the bright eyes behind the mane of Súretal, and instead bowed.

“Uncle?” Fingon asked Fëanor, raising an eyebrow. “What new relation is this?”

“Ah. This is Prince Elfwine of Rohan. No relation, except perhaps very distantly. He is – if you look closely at his ears – a Man.”

“Ulmo brought a Man to Beleriand to do his bidding, again?” Fingon asked. But then Turgon met Elfwine’s gaze, and looked long at him. In Turgon’s wisdom and graveness of expression, Elfwine saw the original stamp of his grandfather Imrahil, and could not help but smile.

“I hear I am of your blood, King Turgon, in some part,” Elfwine said. “My lineage carries the line of Númenor. I am told I hold the likeness of my grandfather, Imrahil of Dol Amroth.”

“I can see this.” Turgon said. “I will be circumspect before all these people who are eager to rediscover their old dwellings – but be welcome, Uncle and…other kin. We shall speak later.”

Turgon rode forward to base of the long slope up to the city, and wheeled his horse so that he faced the murmuring crowds. “My people,” he cried. “I should have forseen that Ulmo, who has ever had an interest in the affairs of Gondolin, is not done with us yet. His command is clear: before you leave, you must tell me your histories. I will have Master Pengolodh arrange times and places and transcribers, and we will collect your accounts in an orderly fashion, as soon as we may. But for now – I bid you, welcome back!”

~

“I will find you later,” Tuor said. “For now, try to find some miruvor, it aided me ever after Ulmo’s visits.” Nodding his head he rode away then, toward the Elven maidens that Elfwine guessed were the Princess Idril and Queen Elenwë.

“Here, Tuor’s advice was sound.” Fëanor pressed some of Nerdanel’s miruvórë into Elfwine’s hands. “Drink.”

In an orderly fashion directed by lords bearing different insignia, each company processed through the gates. Then, some of the throng split off and went their separate ways, to the shouted greetings from the ones who had come before to prepare for them. Last of all came the king’s household, and Fëanor and Elfwine rode alongside some lords that Elfwine guessed were famous names from history.

One lord looked sideways at Elfwine as much as he looked sideways at him, and soon Elfwine was staring at a golden-haired Elf with a confused expression on his face.

“Elfwine?” the Elf said to him, and in the next moment something occurred that Elfwine could not quite understand, it looked as if someone – Elfwine could not tell who – gripped the reigns of the Elf’s horse and directed him around a corner and away. Elfwine tried to glance around the corner to see who might have averted what was surely a moment of recognition, of meeting – but he saw no one.

“Who was that?” Elfwine asked Fëanor. “A blond, tall fellow – very fell, and very old.”

“I can’t see him, but by description, it sounds like Glorfindel to me,” Fëanor said. “Why?”

“He recognized me, and called me by name.”

“Did he know you in Middle-earth?”

“Nay – he came West with the company of the Ring-bearers, before I was born,” Elfwine said.

“Ah, perhaps he received word from Elrohir about you,” Fëanor said, and then glanced sideways. “Hm. Pretend I did not say that.”

Elrohir. But not Elladan? There was much to think on, so Elfwine nodded, and tried to clear his mind as they rode north along the Way of the Running Waters to the Square of the King. The music of the place soothed him – especially the many fountains of the south part of the city, singing sweetly of their pleasure that their maker had returned.

“Ah, the fountains are happy,” Elfwine said to Fëanor. “Hear them? Glad they will be that King Turgon will tarry here awhile.”

“That is an entirely Elvish thing to say, Vandameldo. We need to send you home sooner rather than later,” Fëanor replied, glancing sideways with a troubled look.

Elfwine laughed. It seemed to him as if the fountains were coaxing away any worry he might have had – of strangers who knew his name and then disappeared, of returning home too early or too late, of doing anything but lingering and listening to the beautiful song of the city’s creation. “You taught me to listen,” Elfwine reminded him.

“I did,” Fëanor said, thoughtfully. “Well, no need to worry about it just now.”

Soon Turgon’s household, and the heads of the twelve houses, and the captains of each gate, were in the Square of the King, riding up to the great fountain that sent water shooting upward twenty fathoms to fall in a glittering crystal rain upon the marble stones of its deep base. They dismounted then, and grooms took the horses.

Directed by the captains, they settled back into their companies, and the king walked to each and bowed to their people, in thanks and in praise for their defense of the city. When he paused before the banner of the Mole, he took the head of the house into his arms, kissing his cheeks. “And you especially I welcome, my nephew. May we find peace here together.”

Long was their embrace, and the great fountain sang a song of hope and healing as its water fell in bright droplets around them.

Finally, at Turgon’s signal, a gnarled and bent Entwife strode forth with two saplings in her arms, scions from the white tree Celeborn of Tol Eressëa, and she planted them in the place before the king’s citadel where Glingal and Belthil once melted in dragon fire.

As the Entwife began a deep and rumbling song to bless their planting, Ecthelion raised his hand, and a panoply of horns blew. This sound was taken up across the city, and the glad sound of the return of Gondolin’s people echoed across the Tumladen, and the very mountains rang with the joy of it.

The ceremony of return was complete, and King Turgon entered once again into the tower that he died to defend.

There Ecthelion of the Fountain came to his lord and bowed. “Everything is to schedule, my king. Please take a cup of welcome before dinner.” He signaled to the pages to pass out wine to the throng.

“I need it,” Turgon said, looking around the long hall of his old house with a strange expression on his face.

“You do,” Fëanor agreed somberly. “It is not easy, to return to the place of your death.”

“It is not,” Turgon agreed, glancing upward at the high support beams above them. His face a little pale, he walked deeper into his halls, seemingly lost in memory.

The wine, when Elfwine tasted of it, was tart and bright and good, and he found himself in the company of more Elves than Elfwine had ever seen together in this realm or his own. Gazing around at the company mingling in the king’s hall, he noticed their beauty and power, and his heart ached at the long ages of their decline in Middle-earth.

“All this company sailed West after the fall of Gondolin?” Elfwine asked Fëanor.

“Ah, no,” Fëanor said quietly. “Many of them died. They were still under the Doom back then, and the rest fled to go elsewhere, to various realms –”

“Sirion,” said a voice beside them. An Elf stepped toward them, eyes dark as Fëanor’s, but with hair falling in a silver sheaf from his tidy topknot. Elfwine’s attention was caught by his grace, and just as much by his expression – out of a roomful of elves, this one had the most concentrated curiosity in his eyes.

He regarded Elfwine for a long moment, and Elfwine in turn felt a strange shock run through him. He’d seen this Elf before, somewhere. Was it in Rivendell? Was it an illustration in a book of old tales?

But then, tearing his eyes away, the Elf bowed low to Fëanor. “High King of Beleriand you are, but long before that, you were master of my order, the Lambengolmor. As one of your guild, I bid you welcome!”

Fëanor looked with interest upon the Elf, eyes narrowed for a moment. “I have it! You are Master Pengolodh. Excellent, excellent. We have been in your library, and I must say that the restored collection here is quite thorough. Did you have it shipped in recently, or was it called back out of Song? I have a few volumes that might round out your holdings on hydro-engineering, but I was quite interested to see that you had some Dwarrow works. How came you by those?”

“I won’t have as much time as I thought I would have to set it to rights,” Pengolodh cast Elfwine a glance somewhere between exasperation, wonder, and something else that Elfwine could not name. “And I am rather surprised that…well, I cannot say more. But I do have a few more of those extracted from Gimli Gloinion, when he visited us in Tirion.”

“Gimli –” Elfwine exclaimed, “He is in Aman? That is excellent news, and I must relay this to him and to Legolas when I return home. But of course he is here, this is in the future of my own time.” He opened his mouth for another question, but Fëanor raised a hand.

“Vandameldo, we hold the past and future in our hands, and we had best not meddle overmuch.”

Pengolodh’s expression was strange again, and it seemed that he had either too much to say or too little. But instead he turned his graceful head toward Fëanor, and they fell swiftly into a conversation about curation and the uncertain nature of books called back out of memory.

Finding himself ignored for the moment, Elfwine wandered away in search of more drink.

From the whispers, Elfwine could tell that he was the cause of speculation, especially when Fingon loomed up beside him, refilling his cup from a flagon.

“Hail, Fingon the Valiant,” Elfwine said, accepting the wine. “Thank you for your clothes, by the bye. I wore your jacket from Helevorn upon my journey here. Are you standing beside me simply to further some rumor?”

“Perhaps,” Fingon said, his grin sharp. “Anything to discomfit my staid brother, in this kingdom of his that I have only just seen! I could not believe it, when I saw you riding up next to my uncle – I did not know what to think, aside from wondering if Idril had a hidden twin. And for Ulmo to send you to lay this doom upon him… my poor brother! I feel that he has had enough of learning his lesson to last him several ages, and yet he is given more. It must be a difficult thing, to be so beloved by a Valar.”

“Were you not beloved of Wolcenfréa, of Manwë, in times past? I know that he sent you an eagle, once.”

“Once,” Fingon said. “I am not complaining, but I could have used one or two more!”

Elfwine laughed, thinking that the histories did not speak of Fingon’s complaints about too few eagles.

“It is true, however – I would not have come, had I known the message. The doom that I helped deliver would imprison any Man for the rest of his life,” Elfwine admitted, and had enough wine in him that he pulled Fingon closer to speak quietly in his ear. “Please answer me something, Elf who has my face. Why is it that some few of these Elves – like Pengolodh there – look at me as if they already know me? Is it simply our similarity in features, or is it … something else?”

Fingon laughed, and leaned down, knowing that he drew the gazes of the room toward them – two dark heads bent together, one well-known Elf with hair braided in gold, and one mysterious Elf with hair braided in silver, so alike they could be uncle and nephew. “The Valar are involved in this. I do not know more, but if there are other parts to this strange tale, they are not yet revealed to me.”

Elfwine glanced around again, and saw that the host was processing into the grand hall, where Fëanor was being ushered to a seat near the middle of the high table. Beside Turgon sat an Elf in a pale green dress, her golden hair bound by a silver-white filet. Elfwine’s eyes followed her, and he found his steps suddenly arrested.

“That is my sister-in-law, Elenwë of the Vanyar. Lovely, is she not? She died in the crossing of the Helcaraxë in the time before the sun rose,” Fingon said.

Elfwine thought through these words, and took another long drink of his wine. He felt younger than a blade of grass.

“You are next to me tonight. I’ll guide you to your seat,” Fingon said. “I will introduce you to her later. I think my brother wants to look upon you a little more anyway – it is amazing how true his blood has run in the houses of Men throughout the great ages! But come, I would know more about you, vessel of Ulmo.”

As they passed through the throngs to their seats, Elfwine found that his heart was aching again. He was indeed nothing but a blade of grass, or the little rat that Caranthir named him. “The tale of my nineteen years is dull enough to tell to one who has long been my hero. And I find I do not want to tell it, in this place especially. It is strange to think that these halls were mostly empty when we arrived here. And not long before that, they were eaten by sea and fire. Looking upon this court, it pains me that so much beauty was removed from my world. I mourn it.”

“Ah!” Fingon glanced around too, smiling. “Glad I am to see this through your eyes. It is quite a sight, is it not? All these lords and ladies of Gondolin in their finery!”

Elfwine looked at the queen Elenwë, shining with her own gentle light. “I would have it all back with me in Middle-earth,” he said. Or perhaps I would stay here instead.

“And that is what my uncle has done by raising Beleriand from the sea,” Fingon said, “And for that deed, for giving this realm back to us and allowing us the chance to live in it in joy, he is welcome in Turgon’s city. It also helps that Elenwë lives again,” he added.

“But in a while, perhaps in a hundred years, two hundred, will King Turgon and this host not return to Sindreám, to Elvenhome, and this city stand empty?” Elfwine asked. He did not want the beautiful city to feel lonely after it had been awakened again in joy.

“Perhaps, and so do all things change in Arda,” Fingon said, “But our fate is not fixed as it was in the first age. Be comforted, Edain! Even though the tales end with loss and leave-taking, the world is different now. This city may not remain empty for long.

“At the very least,” Fingon added, laughing, “You have tied Turgon here for an age, while he learns story after story of his citizens.”

They sat and ate, and Fingon told him more of the Elves that sat near him – things that did not feature in the histories, such as the long-running feud between Ecthelion and Glorfindel over who had the better sword. The meal flew by swiftly, and when the high lords and ladies of Gondolin sat at their ease, there were calls for song.

And so Turgon rose. “Gondolindrim, I have heeded the words of Ulmo! It is time for us to hear the history of our city, of its making, and its glory, and its fall. And no one is best suited to begin this great telling, of the dark and the bright, than the lord of the House of the Harp.

“My Lord Salgant – come and play for us!” Turgon commanded, and from the high table, an Elf in silver and black livery stood, and accepted a harp from his liege. “Sing of the Fall of Gondolin, and sing of our return!”

The minstrel sat before them and looked grave. He drew his hands over his strings as if steadying himself to a difficult task, but when he began, his song pierced Elfwine’s heart.

There, in the great hall below the mighty Tower of the King, near the courtyard in which the saplings of Celeborn set their new roots into the earth, Elfwine heard the story of Gondolin from one of its betrayers, and wept along with the company at all Salgant recounted.