A New New Home by Tehta

Chapter One

Read Chapter One

“Well done, Penlod.” Turgon began to gather the assorted maps and diagrams strewn about his desk into a single pile. “A very promising start. A very promising start, indeed. I have a great feeling about this new city of ours, this… new home. New home! Yes, I like the sound of that. Let us call it Vinyamar! Please amend all the paperwork accordingly.”

“Very well, my Lord.” Penlod accepted the pile with a bow.

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“‘New home’? Really?” asked Egalmoth while pouring the new cider into two earthenware cups. “I suppose our Lord has always been a rather… literal man.”

Penlod accepted a cup. “No more literal than the Sindar who named the region where the city will be located.”

“Oh, right. ‘This shore’.” Egalmoth took a sip, and grimaced. “Well, at least it sounds less ominous than ‘Mist gloom’.”

“I will drink to that.” Penlod lifted his own drink, noting that it smelled not unlike etching acid. “Though not with great enthusiasm.”

 

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“Now, this is quite wonderful!” Penlod swirled his jewelled goblet and sniffed at it, enjoying the fruity yet spicy aroma of the wine. “The Southen Slope 40, you said?”

Egalmoth smiled broadly. “The 38. I wanted you to enjoy something truly special before you leave this shore for… wherever it is you are going to build this secret city of Turgon’s. Oh no, I just had a horrible thought. Does the new city have a name yet? And is it ‘New Vinyamar’?”

“I will not lie and say our Lord did not suggest that.” Penlod took a sip. The 38 vintage really was excellent, elegant with a lingering finish. “But for now we are calling it ‘Tower of Guard’. At least, that is what I have been writing on my schematics, as a sort of codename, in case they fall into uninitiated hands. People are always building guard towers, after all.”

“But surely Lord Turgon is planning to think of something more fitting?”

“Yes, he s.”

“I bet you anything–no, not anything, let us say, a crate of this wine against one of your artistic sculptures–that we will end up living in some variant of ‘Secret City’.”

If Egalmoth wanted to make ill-informed bets, that was his own problem. “You are on,” Penlod said.

—

“Oh, Papa.” Idril looked up from the figure-ground diagram she had been studying, her eyes appealingly wide. “I just noticed our new city’s name. ‘Secret Place’, really?”

 

Penlod smiled to himself at Turgon’s disappointed expression as his lord said, “It took me months to come up with that, my sunbeam. Do you have any better suggestions?”

“Well…” Idril’s golden hair slid over her shoulder as she tilted her head, thinking. “It is located among mountains, in a wide valley full of rocks and bubbling springs… and soon, of agriculture…”

“‘Rock of water?’” suggested Turgon gingerly.

“How about… ‘Rock of the music of water’? Or perhaps ‘Flower of the plain’?”

“That is… very poetic, sweetpea. I do like it. Penlod, please amend the paperwork.”

“Of course,” replied Penlod. He could already taste the wine.

It was only once the meeting was over that he realised he did not know which of the two poetic names his Lord had liked. Well, why not write in both, and let common use determine the winner?

 

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The soft tap-tapping of rain on the canvas of the command tent was not unpleasant in itself, but after five days the sound was rather wearing out its welcome. Not to mention wearing out the canvas, which had sprung several leaks.

Penlod regarded the upturned helmet that was being used to collect dripping water in the north-east corner. “Is that yours?” he asked Ecthelion.

Ecthelion looked up from the drafting table, and the diagram he had been amending. “That is my old helmet, yes. I have got two newer ones. Not that I ever get to use them. This city-building mission,” he continued while scribbling, “needs fewer smiths, and more weavers.”

“It definitely does.” Penlod took a swig from his beautifully-forged flask, then held it out in invitation. “Are you sure you will not join me?”

“Much as I love grain alcohol,” said Ecthelion with obvious and mildly hurtful sarcasm, “I really need to finish this redesign of the storm drains. The workers are waiting for the new, increased measurements, and the sooner they start, the sooner we will finish the basic infrastructure, and the sooner you can get to work on the houses. Eventually allowing us to move into our City of Dwellers in Stone, and leave behind this Campsite of Dwellers in Damp Canvas.”

“‘City of Dwellers in Stone’, right,” Penlod took another sip. “I have heard quite a few people call it that.”

“Yes, it is gaining popularity. Together with a shorter variant for the more indolent, ‘City of Stone’. To be honest…” Ecthelion made another correction. “I have been encouraging both of these names. I find it troubling when the workers say they are going up to ‘The Flower’. It sounds so disrespectful. Like calling our Lord ‘Turvo’ behind his back.”

“Hmm.” Penlod, who had occasionally done just that, drank again. His eyes wandered to Ecthelion’s old helmet–which would need emptying, soon–and then his mind wandered to the other ways a helmet might be filled. “I have an idea! Let us ask some of the hairdressers to retrain as weavers. It is the same principle, surely?”

“I am no expert in either art,” said Ecthelion. “But they do seem to be closer together than sculpture and city architecture, and you have managed that switch well enough.”

Penlod took a sad, long swallow. He missed his old occupation.

 

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“Now, listen closely,” said Egalmoth. “You might even want to take notes.”

“Why?” Penlod was in no mood for this. The day had been long, and full of complaints from newly-arrived citizens who had, for completely inane reasons, found their new home disappointing. “Let me guess. Your new house has many flaws.”

“Only one.” Egalmoth sat down on the edge of Penlod’s desk. “The courtyard feels a bit… unfinished. Empty. In short, I think it needs a statue, quite a large one. I would like it to represent Lord Manwe caught in the act of creating a rainbow. As I have no idea how he actually does so, I leave the details up to you. Just… keep it tasteful, all right?”

Penlod pushed away the edge of Egalmoth’s patchwork cloak, which had fallen on top of his paperwork. “Why would I take time out of my busy schedule to make you a strange statue?”

“Two reasons. One: you love making strange statues. I bet you missed it when… plastering walls, or whatever it is you have been doing out here.”

“Designing towers, mostly. So, so many towers. Lord Turvo sure does love them.”

“Yes, the city does look rather spiky at a distance, does it not? Like a riled hedgehog.” Egalmoth rifled through his shoulder-bag, his expression thoughtful. “‘Hedgehog-of-the-plain’. Eh. It would never have stuck. Which brings me to my second reason: you owe me a statue, by the terms of our bet.”

“What bet?”

“The one about the eventual name of our fair city! Some variant of ‘Secret Place’, I believe I said. And we have ended up with ‘Hidden Rock’.”

“That is not exactly the same. Besides, I have already accepted, and drunk, my prize.” Penlod sighed at the memory. “We have been subsisting on grain alcohol for decades now. Can you believe it, I have found myself longing for Lake Mithrim cider.”

“Which brings me to… Aha!” Egalmoth finally located, and pulled out, a beautifully-shaped bottle of pale glass. “I would like to present reason number three: mead.”

The yellowish liquid in the bottle caught the light from the window, casting golden highlights onto Penlod’s diagrams. Yes, Egalmoth knew him well: a giant, slightly bizarre statue of Manwe was exactly the sort of project he would relish.

“Now that I think about it,” Penlod said, “‘Hidden Rock’ is a very valid variant of ‘Secret City’. Now, how large a statue did you want, exactly?”

“One moment.” Egalmoth uncorked the bottle. “Before we begin, let us drink a toast to our new new home.”