Until the final flicker of life’s embers by Quente

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From Ekkaia to Belegaer

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This time, when Dior opened his eyes, they were not figurative at all. Feeling strange, he looked down at himself – clad all in silver linen, he sat on a sloping bank outside of the high walls of a forbidding keep. Next to him, he saw his mother clad similarly in silver – but she was not as he had known her.

“You arise to a fair morning,” Lúthien said, smiling at him. “I have been singing the sun up, while you recovered. This is how my form used to be, before I died last. I missed feeling the song of Arda through me. When I was mortal, I lost the sense of it. Now in my third life, I delight in it again!”

Dior’s mother looked ethereal indeed, and not grounded by age as she had been when he’d known her on Tol Galen. Dior wondered at himself, staring down at his limbs to examine them. What was he, now that he had left his mortal half behind? He had died before his limbs could feel any of the weight of mortality, but now he felt none at all.

“Emil, do I look an elven lord now, like grandfather?”

Lúthien looked at him thoughtfully. “We see in the same way,” she said. “You have ever looked beyond physical form, and into the hearts of those you observe. I sense that you have lost that which has kept you from Nimloth – the weight of Beren’s mortality in you. I find I miss it, if only because I miss him. But this form suits you, Dior. Your spirit shines forth, and folk may see it now unimpeded by mortality, if they look beyond your fair face.”

Dior put his arm around his mother’s shoulders then to comfort her, and realized with a strange jolt that he might be very tall now, for she seemed small to him – Beren’s lack of elven height was no longer part of his physical form, and he might stand as tall as Elu Thingol. He clambered up and walked as awkwardly as a colt for a moment, staring down his body at the length of torso and leg.

“I do not feel like myself,” Dior said, laughing, turning about in a circle. “But I no longer feel trapped! There is much to see and do here, and I delight in it.”

Lúthien smiled at him and looked about her somewhat more cautiously. “For your sake, then, I am glad. But we are far to the north of any city or dwelling,” she said. “And I deem that we shall be in need of aught to eat before long. We must walk south, and get some distance from Mandos’ halls, I feel, although I do not know this land.”

“At least it is downhill,” Dior agreed, and together they shook out their limbs and began the long walk down.

~

Dior learned much from Lúthien on that walk. Though it took them a long while to clamber down the mountain, they never suffered. She taught him to draw upon his Maia spirit to sense the pathway through the scrub and rocks, and call to the birds and beasts to aid them in foraging for food and finding water.

Sometimes they let themselves fray into mist again, their bare feet floating above the rough stones and bracken to spare their flesh, until they found the bottom of the mountain, and espied the road that led south along Aman’s western shore.

Fascinated, Dior stared long into the wild waves that swept to the edge of the world. He’d never seen the sea before, and the wonder of that ungovernable force touched his heart. He saw in himself the power to join with it – in the form of a sea bird, or a fish, perhaps – dance and be lost in its beauty.

“A true grandchild of Thingol then,” Lúthien said, catching his arm before he could fling himself off the cliff in a long dive. “Well, perhaps we shall go visit our kin in Alqualondë, and see if your wife has come there before you.”

Dior cast his senses southward to see if he could sense Nimloth, but after a moment, shook his head. “If she lies that way, I cannot feel it,” he said. “But I do feel other beings coming near. I do not know if they are elves.”

They stood and waited on the road, and Dior felt a growing nervousness. Who would be the first people they would meet, in their new lives? Would it be a Golodh, full of resentment for the Silmaril? Or was it a Maia sent to direct them back to the Halls of Men? Or was it someone on an errand of their own?

There was singing, coming from the road, and what they saw approaching them from the south was none of those things.

Instead, it looked to be a parade, or procession, led by a throng of musicians and dancing elves clad all in white and garlanded with flowers. In the midst of it all there was a Vala in the shape of a dancing woman, emanating the sheer joy of existence like a power that Dior had not felt before.

Immediately, Lúthien hummed a tune to obscure their identities, drawing shadow around them like a cloak of their hair, and they stood to watch the dancers process past.

“I feel drawn to them,” Lúthien said quietly as they twirled and leapt, cavorted and flew past; her eyes full of wonder. “I have never wanted to be part of something quite so much in all my lives, unless it were my marriage to your father.”

Dior hesitated. Would he part from his mother here? He would, if she willed it. So he waited while she watched, her feet twitching and her body swaying, lost to the music of pipe and drum as the procession passed them on the road. He felt a curious pressure upon his mind then as the procession passed, as if a very large beast was staring down at him from a great height, considering in its calm and wild way whether he was food or a friend. Dior projected back “FRIEND” as strongly as he could, and wondered if his mother felt the Vala’s regard in the same way.

One of her dancers tossed them flower crowns, which Dior caught. He bowed to them, and affixed one onto his head. They were garlands of white nimphredil, and Dior laughed to see it, for they were born on the same day in the woods of Neldorath as Lúthien. “A crown of my aunts,” Dior said, setting the garland upon his mother’s head.

Lúthien blinked up at him, smiling. “Let us journey a little longer together, Dior. I would be with you when you find Nimloth! And then – perhaps then I shall return here, for we have seen the procession of Nessa. One of her maia asked that I join them, just now. Had they been going South I might have considered it, but instead they go to greet Mandos on the slopes before his fastness. Come, let us return to the road.”

“Nessa did not say as much to me,” Dior said, “Rather, she weighed me, and found me curious, but wanting.”

“Not everyone has dance in their nature,” Lúthien said, laughing. “And I did nothing but dance for endless years in the woods of our land, until your father found me. I am simply glad they did not recognize me.”

Dior felt heartened that Lúthien had found a reason to remain in Aman so swiftly, and wondered what he might do, after he found Nimloth again. He did not want to rejoin Thingol, wherever he might be; nor did he want to take up his princely duties over the Doriathrim, although that might not be a choice he could make. The sea, though…

Before long a rattling cart passed them, a fisherman on his way southeast to Alqualondë. They hailed him, and he was struck dumb, staring at them.

They spoke for a moment, exchanging greetings. After a long and puzzled chat wherein neither side comprehended the other save for a few words, Lúthien paused and hummed a song of understanding. Finally the language resolved itself in Dior’s ears.

“...Well, I did not expect to encounter two Powers upon this road,” the elf said, his language a strange and soft burr. “Although I did just pass a Bala as she turned East, dancin’ up the mountain to greet her friends in their great delving.”

“We are not those,” Dior said, pondering what they must look like to passers-by in Aman. “Just travelers.”

“Are you?” He said, looking at them keenly for a moment. “You sound like a Returner. But hop on and make yourself comfy.”

The fisherman’s name was Uilon, and his dark skin and many-braided hair marked him as Vanyar. “I am an odd one among my people, I admit,” he said, cheerfully. “Livin’ with Prince Olue’s folk in Alqualondë as I do. Ware the fish in the baskets, though I packed them with enough salt that they should not be stinkin’ much, ere we turn home.”

They found places to sit on sacks of coarse-woven cloth, and settled in as the horse clomped its slow way south. Dior found that it did, indeed, smell of fish, but not so much that he cared – life on a fish-cart was still more joyous than the ill-fitting half-life he’d had in the Halls of Men.

“Are there not waters enough near your home to draw fish from, that you must journey all this way?” Dior asked.

“Special fish off the coast,” Uilon said cheerfully. “My people call them Morilingwë, although those with my husband’s speech call them elsewise, ‘spinnerfish’ or some such, for they look like spinning tops! My good husband had a yearning for ‘em, so I went to fetch some to keep us for the season. They last a while, if dried properly, and he likes ‘em for seasoning. What did you say your names were?”

“Dior, and my mother Lúthien.”

Uilon nodded. “Ah, those names suit you both perfectly, and if I hadn’t heard that those two were given the Gift of Men, I’d say you were their spittin’ images.”

Dior glanced at Lúthien, who simply smiled.

~

By the time they’d made their leisurely way down the coast and turned east to skirt the northern edge of the vast green fields that held the dwelling of Nessa, Dior had learned a vast amount about the fish of the northeast coast of Aman.

“What does the edge of the world look like?” Dior asked Uilon, gazing westward. “And have you been there?”

“Dark Ekkaia – I have been in love with her all my life,” Uilon said, chuckling. “Wild, she is. Ulmo visits her seldom, and she dances to her own rhythm from our shores to the very edge of the all things. Only once has she let me near it, in my vessel – I was thrown westward by a storm, and she let me trace Tilion’s path all the way to where her waters fall into the dark chasm where he keeps his stable.”

Dior was struck by the impossibility of that – the unthinkable sight of the very moon, a fixed orb in all his life in Beleriand, turned Maia and resting in a chasm beneath the sea. “I want to see that,” Dior said. “I long for it!”

“S’truth, I shall never see a sight more stirring in all my days,” Uilon said, gaze trapped in his memories.

~

The pass through the Pelóri led them northward, again, for a time. Before they ascended, Lúthien fashioned them coats from the spare sack-cloth, stitched with their own hair by a needle borrowed from Uilon, and stuffed with straw to keep them warm.

Dior made them sandals of woven straw, and Uilon chuckled to see them in their new garments.

“What is the opposite of adorning a pig with silk? That’s what the pair of you are. Never have I seen finer folk in poorer garb!”

Lúthien pretended offense at his words, and they spent many merry hours teasing each other back and forth on the long road.

If Lúthien’s humming along their path kept them warmer than they should be, winding through the long valleys and onto the slopes, Uilon did not mention it, nor did he complain.

They met other folk several times in their journey. Once, a hunting party of tall Vanyar with spears came riding past, dark faces painted and garbed in glowing silver mail. They rode past on a night of full moon, and Dior watched with his mother as the horses thundered up the trail near their camp.

Another time, Dior came to a sudden halt while collecting wood for their fire, when he heard noises below them, and turned to see a crowd of elves in the valley coming toward them, in livery of red and black.

He felt his breath seize, then, and he dropped the branches to clutch at his chest. The sounds rang in his ears again – swords, and screaming. Dior fought himself, fought his body for breath, and his mind to wrest himself back into the present moment. “I am not there,” he said to himself, breathing in. “I am here, I am safe.” But was he? His mother moved next to him then, putting her arm about him and pulling him against her shoulder.

“I will conceal us,” Lúthien said.

Lúthien left Dior by the fire and went into the woods, and there sang songs of peace, weaving bindings around them and above them so that those with ill intent would not heed their presence.

Uilon did not question her when she returned, but gave them each a portion of dinner – a fish stew.

“Do you not hunt?” Uilon asked Dior as they ate.

Dior was startled out of his memories. “Ah, my father was friend to many birds and beasts who aided him. I do not hunt, out of regard for that friendship. I suppose I am lucky he did not befriend any fish, or I would be hard pressed to sup now.”

But once more, Uilon fell silent, looking as though he’d answered the last bit of a riddle. Still, he did not ask them any questions, although Dior felt certain he knew who they were.

The next day they passed a branch on the path where a north-turning road led up to Formenos, and Uilon told them of the house of Fëanaro and the exile that had led him there an age of Arda ago. “Must be where all those Goldoi in red were goin’,” he said.

After that, as though the Golodh had no patience for roads of gravel, there was a marked difference in the quality of the roadwork, and their way to the coast went much more swiftly.

~

The eastern coastal road was well paved and wide, although when they reached it, it was quite empty. The Belegaer lay before them, though, vast and playful, and at his first glance of it Dior whooped and tossed the straw hat he had woven high into the air.

“Teleri you are in truth,” Uilon chuckled. “Now, most Teleri Return from out of that eastern exit from Mandos’ Halls,” he pointed north along the shore road, “So that the sea is the very first thing they set eyes to. Strange it is that Mandos had you walk all this way, although…perhaps you are of mingled blood?”

“I am,” Dior agreed. “Have you not guessed yet, friend? At any rate, this is my first time seeing the Belegaer on either side of her, and I find myself moved beyond anything I’ve felt yet in my – short, I grant you – life.”

Uilon looked off into the sea for a moment. “My true love Líson calls me a fool sometimes, for he deems me without curiosity, but I tell him it’s wisdom to know when to cleave to your own business. And my business is fish, and sometimes it is to enjoy the company of travelers come down from the Halls. Who you are, and why you might think it wise to hide away from the Goldoi, well. ‘Tisn’t my place to guess at it. No! Let us go find you some family, for they are undoubtedly wiser than I am, and know how best to keep you safe.”

“Do not call compassion unwise, friend,” Lúthien said, touching Uilon’s shoulder. “I count it a blessing that we met you along the way.”

That night, at their camp, Lúthien and Dior danced and played music for their friend, in thanks for his kindly acceptance of them, and because Lúthien no longer felt the need to hide herself from him.

Dior fashioned a flute out of a large conch, and to the flickering light of their fire, Lúthien danced to his fluted music. He matched the ebb and flow of the great tide as it washed onto the wild shores north of Aman.

Lúthien’s dance was of joy: of rebirth, and singing under the sun and moon and stars, and stealing life and all the beauty of it from death, from the Valar themselves. It was a new dance, and a new song, and Dior felt it thrumming within him too – all the promise of existence, of years added to his short span, to be in Arda and move in the greatest of dances once again – even if it meant contending with his memories, and hiding from the great powers lest they order them back, or sever his mother entirely from his father.

Uilon was silent after they were done, staring out into the sea himself, and at the strange star that drifted slowly eastward.

“Ah,” he said at last, “that reminded me of the first time I was out in a boat, feeling held in the arms of Ulmo himself, for all my family spoke against it. ‘Twas like coming home.”

~

The Pelóri did not behave like mountains should, Dior thought. They swept down to the coast of Araman to form the briefest of seashores, and just before Alqualondë, a foothill of the range jutted forward to form a great natural arch. This was fortified by vast gates of iron, and a guard of tanned but white-haired soldiers stood before them.

“Ah it’s Uilon,” called a guard. “Did you pick up a few strays along the way, again?”

“Aye!” Uilon said, laughing. He fished one of Dior’s woven baskets out of the back – it was full of mussels that they’d picked from the rocks that day on Belegaer’s shore.

“We’ll eat well in the guardroom tonight,” one said, clapping Uilon on the shoulder as they thrust open the great gate. “You never fail to think of us, Uilon!”

“‘Tis no trouble. Líson and I can hardly eat it all ourselves!”

“Your husband is at the aviary, if you wish to find him. He stopped to warn of your approach this morning.”

“I’ll make my way home first, I think! Then I shall find the kin of these two. Líson will have to wait, or find me!”

Lúthien had woven a homely sort of spell into their coats, and sitting beside Uilon, they looked nothing more than a cheerful fishwife and her uncomely son, two that might have fallen and Returned from any village on the far shore, by Orc or weather or accident.

“Welcome back, Returners!” The guards greeted them, “Glad we are to see you.”

And yet they did not truly see them, and waved them in without a second glance.

The city of Alqualondë itself, nestled into its natural harbor, was like nothing Dior had seen. Menegroth of the many caves, and his home near the Lanthir Lamath, had grown from the land around it like all the architecture of those who had never been to Aman. But this was Valar-touched, and stone-and-steel forged, and Dior felt more of a trace of Golodh engineering in that city than he thought he should.

“Ah, the Goldoi helped the Teleri build this fair place,” Uilon responded to his question. “There was great friendship between them once, before they slew the Teleri and took the ships.”

Still, it was lovely. The castle was carved out of one side of the bay and had slender spires reaching upward like the necks of sea birds, echoing the ships in the harbor whose prows were carved with every kind of bird but the swan.

“Those beautiful swan-prowed ships, those are no longer built,” Uilon said. “You can hear the whole tale of it from Líson, if you care to, later. He was here at the beginning, my lovely Falmari! After that, he no longer wished to build ships at all, and turned to other occupations. He tends to the Prince’s aviary nowadays.”

The streets were paved, and the houses were whitewashed and painted in the delicate colors of shells. The fruits of the sea adorned her, but throughout the city there were strange gaps – places where statues had been removed, with nothing replacing them; fountains where the shapes of gems had been pried away from the edges so that nothing remained but faceted holes. It had been done deliberately and left so, so that the city still looked raw from the rage of its citizens.

“Ah, y’see, we haven’t forgotten,” Uilon said. “None of us wants to get rid of these wounds ‘til they’ve had words with the ones that turned against us.”

At this, Dior was silent, for this history bled into his own. But the city was fair despite the hurts done to it, and the best part of the design was that Dior could ever see and hear the sea.

~

On their way to Uilon’s house in the market square near the docks, he traded mussels for clothes for them, simple and practical robes and pants that protected them from the chill mist of the bay. Uilon hesitated at boots made of leather, and Lúthien shook her head, so they remained in their sandals of woven straw. Belts of cloth he girded about them, and gave them useful knives with thick felt sheaths.

After they bathed and were preparing the mussels and salad of seaweed, Líson stepped into their house. A tall elf he was, mast-thin and scarred, with sea-burnished skin and the white hair and blue-gray eyes of the people of Olue. He bobbed his head in greeting when he saw Lúthien and Dior.

“Whom have you gathered along the road, my wandering love?” Líson said to Uilon, setting his satchel upon the table.

“Some friends newly Returned, and merry folk they are,” Uilon said, giving Líson a hearty smack of lips to the cheek. “And merry you look as well, my beauty. I have brought you the spinnerfish you desired for the winter! But for tonight, we dine on mussels from Araman.”

Dior and Lúthien turned away to let them embrace in peace, and Dior found his mind wandering again, to see if the bond of his marriage would be answered now that he was in the city. But still there was silence. Did Nimloth remain in the Halls? No matter, Dior thought, tamping down a wave of disappointment.

When they sat at dinner, Lúthien bowed her head and began her tale, the true one, with no subterfuge. “And so,” she concluded, “We are here, whether the Valar willed it or not. And therefore, I do not desire to walk into the court of my uncle and proclaim myself – I would have us walk freely in this land, quietly, and live as we may – so that my choice to return is preserved, and Dior’s choice to stay. I know enough of good Uilon to know he will not impede us. What say you, Líson?”

The tall Falmari was silent for a time, sipping on the honey-mead. “Let those live who desire it,” Líson said, “In the way they desire it. Some questioned my husband’s decision to marry a Teleri, and one who could not give him children besides. And yet, more happiness have we had than if we’d managed to please everyone but ourselves. If you find joy in dancing, then dance, Lúthien! If you wish to apprentice here, you should, Dior. But.”

“But?”

“You are known here, in song and legend. You will be recognized. It may be that you should not walk into your uncle’s court, but I deem you should meet with Prince Olue as quietly as you may. He is a wise lord, and he will treat with you fairly.”

“I fear,” Lúthien said, “that if he is a lawful lord, he will tell the Valar.”

“And yet, if he does not know you are here, he cannot help to conceal you. Believe me when I say that the Falmari protect their own – and you, our beloved princess, we would never send back to death.”

Dior could tell that Líson’s words were sincere. These two were honorable. Lúthien would abide by Uilon and Líson’s word, and Dior would as well, for their wisdom was tempered by compassion.

They agreed that Líson would take them to Olue’s aviary the next day, and ask that the prince attend to him on a matter of urgency regarding the hawks, in order to speak privately.
~

The palace, graceful and tall, echoed with the sound of the sea. It was built over an inlet in the rocks, and the sea flowed beneath and under the stone walls, half-carven as they were from the face of the cliff that cradled them. The palace looked like a sea-stone hollowed by the waves and sand, with the tall necks of towers high above, and boats sheltered beneath the first story so that the prince and his court might live as much on the water as on land.

Lúthien and Dior hummed their song of peace and forgetfulness as they walked past the guards at the gate, and all the way up and through the many-terraced palace to emerge onto a high plateau carved from the sheltering cliff. There, a wall protected a yard and mews, and in it were housed many falcons, pigeons, and other birds meant for hunting and sending swift messages.

There Dior gazed at sleeping falcons on their roosts, hooded and banded, and watched as the city below awakened to meet the fishing boats returned from their predawn journeys into the bay.

Soon, they heard a voice, low and courteous. “Líson – tell me, is one of my birds ill? It is rare that you call me. Last time, it was for the birth of a bird that was the color of blood, and you wished me to augur the omen it brought. What is –”

Olue strode forward, and Lúthien let their disguises drop, and he ceased to speak. He stood in the midst of the aviary and beheld them, and passed his hands over his eyes.

“Maiden, you have the look of my brother Elue about you. Tell me, for I have not seen him in a long span of years – how come you here? For his daughter is dead, they say, and in the halls where men go.”

“No longer, uncle. For we chose not to remain,” Lúthien said. And smiling, she came close, and embraced the man who had the look of her father to him, if a little shorter of stature, and with hair mellowed from silver to ivory.

“Lúthien – truly?” Olue said, his voice full of wonder. “I would have the tale of this. And tell me also why you were not ushered to my court with all panoply and ceremony, for your great deeds in Beleriand. And is this – my grand-nephew? He is the very image of my brother, but for his hair!”

And so they sat together in the aviary, and Lúthien told him why they had come quietly and in disguise, and at the end of the tale he sat silently before them.

“And so now you are in my hands, my niece and grand-nephew,” Olue said then. “And you ask for nothing more than the freedom to do as you choose. I cannot lie to the powers of this land. But I say to you: go to Nessa and dance with her, Lúthien. If she accepts you to her train, she will intercede on your behalf if Námo comes calling.

“Dior – I cannot ask that you remain here in Alqualondë, though my heart desires it. For if I am asked where you are, I do not wish to say that I know, and point to you in my own city! But I have tidings for you, however, that may lead you to another dwelling place.”

“Tidings?” Dior sat forward.

“Your daughter Elwing came to this land with her husband, and they dwell together along the coast of Araman. She keeps a lighthouse, and her husband pilots a ship…of sorts, although I’d never make one of mithril and glass myself. Living alone as she does while her husband is on his patrols, I deem she would be glad of your company.”

Dior was struck by the strangeness of such news. “It seems that many things took place while I dreamed within the Halls of Men,” he said. “How came my daughter here? And – why does my wife Nimloth not yet live? Who is Elwing’s husband, is he of Menegroth, or a different sort of elf? What does he patrol for, in this place? Why can she not live in your city?...And my sons, are they not here too?”

Olue dropped his head, remaining silent for a long moment before he finally spoke.

“Come, beloved niece and nephew. Before I tell you aught of what has passed in Beleriand since you departed it, we shall dine. It will take some time to tell the whole tale, and … you must be fortified for it, for I must warn you, the news is grim.”