The Son Still Shines by cuarthol

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The Son Still Shines

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The guards parted the curtains of the large tent as Ereinion approached.  He acknowledged their act with a brief nod before dipping his head and entering.  Inside was dim and quiet, the brazier had burned low and it was cold enough his breath still hung visible.

Finarfin, High King of the Noldor and his great-grandfather, sat half dozing at the large table that had only a few hours ago held a dozen captains, giving reports and debating strategies.  Ereinion set down the mugs of warm cider he carried and unveiled one of the lamps before settling in across from the king.

The light roused Finarfin and he gave a weak smile when his eyes cleared and settled on his companion.  “Forgive me, I did not intend to drift off.”

“Rest is a precious thing,” Ereinion said earnestly.  “Take it while you may.”

Finarfin lifted the mug to inhale the rich steam, offering a soft murmur of gratitude and taking a long drink to warm himself.  It was sweetened with honey but he could still feel the tingle on his tongue of the spices that had been infused into it.  He shifted his leg, almost healed now, but he found the cold pained the wound anew.

He was eager to be back in the fighting, now that he could ride again, even though Ereinion kept counseling against it.  ‘A half-healed wound is a liability we can ill afford.’

The captains, loath to choose loyalties, remained silent on the matter.

The younger king took out a map which had been lately marked and spread it on the table, pushing aside the papers which had been rolled inside.  “Ingwë has sent a rider to say we have secured the Andram from here to Sirion and can hold the lands south with some measure of certainty.”

Finarfin nodded.  “That is good news.  The more we can dig in our heels the harder it will be to push us back again.”

Ereinion tapped another spot on the map further east.  “He also has had reports of another army pushing up from Ramdal.”

“The sons of Fëanor?”

“We cannot confirm it,” Ereinion hedged, “though they are the only ones I know who could muster such a force for battle.  The Green-elves do not bear such arms or armor, and I would not expect them to march at any rate.”

Finarfin shook his head, sorrow settling deep over his heart.  “So long as it is the Orcs they battle.”

“Would that they had remembered their true foe earlier,” Ereinion agreed. 

Bitterness, sorrow, anger, and hope all strove within him for the news.  Since their arrival, there had been no contact with what remained of the Fëanorian forces, though the Eagles indicated they were still centered at Amon Ereb.  Finarfin was torn between the love once held for his brother’s children and the evil into which they seemed to have fallen with ever greater wilfulness.

He had a mind to send word to meet with them, but there was one hurt that still lay too heavy on his heart to be willing to do so without souring his judgement.  Perhaps it should have been two hurts, but centuries had long scarred that wound over.

Ereinion let his gaze fall back to the brazier, barely embers.  He should call for someone to tend the fire.  He sometimes wondered if his great-grandfather did not punish himself with the cold.  Instead he said, “If this weather holds, the rivers may freeze over.”

Finarfin felt winter’s fingers worming into his clothes, shying away from thinking too deeply about a frozen journey so long ago, though it never truly seemed to leave his thoughts in this season.  “Is that common here?”

Ereinion gave a shrug and sipped at his drink.  “We are still far enough south that it is rare, but not unheard of.  We should be ready if that happens.”

Finarfin returned to studying the map.  He was grateful for those who had called this land home, their knowledge hard won.  Without it, all the armies of Valinor would have been fighting blind, groping through unknown lands with unknown dangers.  North, there were scattered battles in the open lands around Amon Rudh, but most were concentrated along Sirion, where Ingwë led their main force.  He learned the land first as analogies, ink upon the parchment, understanding coming only as he slowly crossed the leagues himself.

He had gathered the Noldor - both exiles and those newly come to war - under his banner, for he carried the authority of his position, but had not spent an age testing himself in battle or proving his command.  His willingness to listen to those who were wiser in such matters had endeared him anew to the exiles and he rarely wielded his rank but in cases of internal conflicts.

There was Amon Ereb, known only as the place where the last known Fëanorians held.  And there, Doriath, the fallen realm of Olwë’s brother.  But then his eyes strayed west of their camp to where a sharp knife had scraped a label from the parchment.  He let his finger linger on the spot.  Ereinion’s eyes followed, and the icy finger of an old pain pierced his heart.

“Nargothrond.”  He had not meant to say it aloud; it slipped out, and he saw the strained emotions on his great-grandfather’s face.  Returning his gaze on the map, he said, “I do not know what might still be there to see, but we are not far from what was once the gates.  A league, perhaps.”

Finarfin had heard the stories in the years since his arrival.  It was said it had been laid waste and plundered, its gates broken and its caverns defiled.  It had not occurred to him that there would be anything left to see but the now-empty space on the map.

“I was still quite young when last I saw it,” Ereinion continued, wistful but full of sorrow.  “We stayed there briefly, my mother and I.”

Finarfin tightened his grip on the mug.  “Would you take me there?”

—

Ereinion stood staring at the ruins of the bridge, its stones now crumbled into the waters of the Narog.  Orodreth’s Folly, many called it; Túrin’s Arrogance would be more apt.  It mattered little now.  Túrin had joined his father and sister in death in the end.  There were few who held Ereinion’s contempt, fewer his wrath.  If ever he had met Túrin he would not have withheld either.

He stirred from his thoughts when Finarfin laid a hand on his shoulder.  “I remember wondering why Nargothrond was not safe enough, why we were sent to the Falas.”  He turned and looked at Finarfin.  “My father had more wisdom than he is credited with.”

“He did,” Finarfin agreed.  His kind, soft-spoken grandson.  Too often following the stronger voice against his own mind.  He ached to think of his fall.

It was hard for Ereinion to remember sometimes that Finarfin had known his father before their exile.  The two worlds felt wholly disconnected, and he struggled to reconcile them in his thoughts.  Though he had parted from him so very young, he had loved his father deeply and mourned his fall.  He refused to believe that the loss of Nargothrond was due solely to his failment.

“The central gate lies there,” Ereinion said, indicating the deep fissure in the cliff, its depths hidden in shadows.  “Or had.  I know not what you will find now, nor within.”

“Will you come?”

Ereinion shook his head.  “I wish to keep my memories of it unmarred; the warmth and beauty of its caverns, the joy that once filled it.”  He offered a wan smile.  “Could you have but seen it as it was.”

“I understand.”  Finarfin wished for that, also, but ‘as it was’ was gone.  Only what remained now awaited him, and something he did not know drew him on, a need to seek some undefined thing.  “I will not tarry long.”

Finarfin turned and climbed the gentle rise from the riverbank, overgrown with bushes and vines and the deadfall of winter twisting among broken stone.  The cliff cut deep into the hillside, hiding whatever might lay within the shadows from searching eyes.  He waited until he, too, had passed beyond sight before unveiling his lamp.  Its blue light glinted pale off the remnants of the gate, ruined in the dragon’s assault. 

The darkness did not easily give way, consuming the light rather than being dispelled by it.  He stood in a broad but low antechamber.  Ahead the floor sloped down, soon beyond the lamp’s reach, and he followed.  Deep scars marred the smooth walls and the detritus of both time and plunder littered the way.  He pressed on against the heaviness of his heart.

He went slowly, letting his fingertips caress over the walls in places.  The passages were wide enough that several could have walked side-by-side, and tall enough for a horse and rider.  There were carved reliefs, niches which had likely held lamps, intricate designs framing the many doorways and passages.  All were marred, and few by accident he guessed.

Silence reigned for a time until he heard the drips of water echoing out of the darkness.  He followed their sound, pausing where the path forked, pressing on when he was certain of the way.  The sound became louder as he went, but also the foulness and the reek of things he did not care to guess.

Without warning the walls of the passage fell away and he stepped out onto a wide plaza at the edge of a vast cavern.  Light glimmered back from damp surfaces, but even in this state of decay it was a wondrous sight.  From this vantage he could see how the walkway rimmed the entire cavern some distance up the side, but there were broad stairs leading downward, and he followed these instead, into a forest of stone trees.

Thick trunks rose from the floor and branches sprawled across the roof, long spires of faceted minerals slowly growing downward from their canopies, crystalline inflorescences.  All around their roots and through the midst of the cavern ran a lattice of waterways, now stagnant and choked with sludge.  But he could imagine it flowing, moving the air and making for a pleasant breeze.

Flecks of crystals and gems blinked and glittered as the lamp moved across the surfaces, crossed with veins of ore like lightning.  There were toppled statues, smashed beyond merely falling, and the ruined threads of tapestries which hung unmoving in the stale air.

He continued on, the path edging the water here, crossing it there, before widening into one of a number of terraces rimmed with benches and dotted with bare-canopied pavilions.  There were rings of what might once have been gardens, others seeming to be long-dried fountains.  They now held coals and ash, remnants of fires speaking of willful destruction.

All the evidence of what once was only made him feel the lack of it more keenly, now little more than a shrine to emptiness.  Despite how carefully it had been built, every thought and detail, how it must have once glowed like a starlit wood, ringing with laughter and song, even the memory of life had been ripped away.  The emptiness seeped into him, filling every crack and hollow.  Where, amidst all this lack, was his son?  It was not enough to know he had delved these halls, he wanted to feel him in them.

Beyond the stone forest was an archway more grand than the others, its doors gone but splinters all around spoke of their hewing.  Perhaps they had fed the fires.  With a glance back he continued into the second hall.

Despite the imposing fireplaces on the walls, fires had been built in the midst of the room as well, soot blackening the roof, and charred bones littered the floor around them.  The forms of other corpses he did not care to look at too closely lurked in the furthest shadows.  It lent a malice to the silence, a place not merely of the dead but of death.

Beneath his feet, however, the floor bore what once had been a grand collection of mosaics, now half-hidden in filth, or their tiles pried up or broken in place.  He could still see some of the patterns, scenes from stories that he had not been a part of, and he looked for the most part without understanding.  One depicted a battle, archers driving back a dragon.  Others showed fair towers or sunlit waters.  People whose faces meant nothing to him, banners of unfamiliar families, letters he could not read.  The life his son had lived without him, yet his son was not to be found among them.

Above, great galleries had been hewn into the walls, spiral columns wound about with carven leaves and flowers soared three levels high.  What manner of festival might have been held here, what music and cheers might have resonated once, the thunder of hundreds of voices joined together in tongues unknown to him.

All he could hear was the distant drip of water and the thrumming of blood in his ears.

Though there were many doorways on either side, he continued straight on to the far end.  Another broad corridor led on, always downward, and he again paid no regard to the many branches which fed it, following only the main way.  The sound of water was long behind him before he came to the last and largest (though he did not know it) of the three caverns.

Here all the remaining treasure of Nargothrond lay in a heap.  Neither the dead nor the gold nor the decaying opulence held his gaze  Passing by all else, he stood at the foot of the dais, his lamp at last winning the battle, pushing back the shadows and drawing out the ghosts who haunted these halls.

Behind the throne and to either side rose two great trees, shining silver and gold in the image of Telperion and Laurelin.  Between them, still discernible despite the damage, were two figures carved in relief and inlaid with all manner of gems and precious materials, though most had been pried out.  They stood on a hillock of flowers, crowned with leaves and pearls, arrayed in fine robes which pooled about their feet.

Finarfin stood for a time, simply gazing at the perfect image of his wife, and his heart ached for her.  His own face, though, felt so very distant; a ghost from nigh six-hundred years past presiding in absence over all.  The face his son had looked last upon.  He wondered if Finrod had felt his absence as keenly as he had felt his, wondered what comfort it might have given him to see his parents’ faces thus.

He took the seven steps up to the throne and let his fingers trace its form.  The designs upon the chair were ones that lived in his heart, designs his son had loved since his youth, waves and flowers and the entwined serpents of his house.  Every detail whispered of Finrod’s touch, a thoughtful decision in each tap of the chisel, each surface and niche.

Here Finrod had lived, and for a time Orodreth as well.  Sons and daughter had walked these halls in footsteps he could not follow.  He could not now recall that which he had never seen, only whispers remained to hint at what had once been.  He had not known what he sought here in the deep, dark earth.  He was not certain he had found it.  But he had found something.  Generations of kings, his son and his son’s son.  This had once been a realm, now it was not even a tomb.  Memories which were not his own, moments gone he could not grasp.

Was this where his son had been betrayed?  Had his nephews stood just here as they turned his lords’ hearts against him, usurped his crown, sat as imposters upon his throne?  How long had they cultivated such evil thoughts, to send him with purpose to his death?

He sank to his knees, weeping for the final days of his son in pain and darkness, and wondered not for the first time if he had truly made the right choice.  Had he, too, sent his son to his death?

—

Ereinion rubbed his hands together to stave off the cold, pacing beside the river.  Ice had already formed at the edges, branches lying heavy under the weight of frost.  It had been several hours, though not so long he felt something might have happened.

He tried not to imagine what was left for Finarfin to see, nor in what state he would return.  Though he tried not to let it, his mind conjured an image of Minas Tirith, its shining walls and streaming banners so clear in his mind.  What ruin had been wrought there, stones defiled, towers broken.  What befouled dungeons where Finrod and his ten had fallen.

Somewhere in these wide forests lay his father’s body unburied.  And his sister-  No.  He cut his thoughts off sharply.  No amount of grief would undo their fate, and no amount of spilled tears would ever empty that well.  But he would not give himself over to it tonight.  He tucked away those memories into the inviolable chambers of his heart and waited for Finarfin’s return.

He saw the lamp first, rising from the earth like a toy moon he had once played with.  Leaving the river’s edge, he met his great-grandfather half-way.  Finarfin had made no effort to hide his tears, though dry now, and when he reached Ereinion they embraced in silence.

The only sound was the gurgle of the Narog.  No breeze played in the grasses, the leaves too frozen to be tossed about so easily.  But the river flowed on undaunted yet by the cold.  It might freeze over ere long, but not yet.  Not yet.

They turned away at length and remained silent on the return journey, made longer for Finarfin’s wound which had grown increasingly painful until it left him limping.  But there was a solace in each other’s company that could not undo the pain of his heart but eased the burden of it.  Once back at camp, Finarfin found the tent too constraining.  Despite the cold, he instead settled into a small hollow and watched the stars blink in and out as thin spots in the clouds passed overhead, breath hanging thick in the predawn air.

It had been like knowing someone only in death, looking upon their countenance and trying to imagine it filled with light and life.  He drew his cloak tighter around himself.  “Do you remember the mosaics in the second hall?”

Ereinion carefully drew the memory up.  “I do.”

“Would you tell me of them?”  His son was gone, his grandson after him, but Ereinion still held the memories, and perhaps what he truly sought could only be found in the living and not among the dead.

Ereinion gave a soft hum and began to speak, and Finarfin closed his eyes and listened, seeing the past through him.  Tomorrow they would continue their fight for vengeance.  Tonight they would walk together in the memory of their lives.

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Chapter End Notes

Eternal gratitude to Polu for the review <3