The Road to Ruin by StarSpray

The Road to Ruin

Read The Road to Ruin

I don’t know where you’re going
But do you got room for one more troubled soul?
I don’t know where I’m going
But I don’t think I’m coming home
And I said, “I’ll check in tomorrow if I don’t wake up dead”
This is the road to ruin and we’re starting at the end
- “Alone Together,” Fall Out Boy

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Daeron could not say what drew him at last to the Sea, to the desolate strands of shore that were still, even now, in some places somewhere between sandy beach and the jagged, rocky edge of what had once been Beleriand. Tide pools were gathered where once flowers had bloomed and elves had danced; cliffs that had once been part of a rolling green landscape dropped precipitously into the sea below, as though some great fist had come down upon the earth to shatter it and make way for the rushing waters. 

Once he had wandered throughout all Beleriand beneath the stars, with Lúthien, with others, and alone. He had learned the secret pathways of Ossiriand, and learned the songs of all the seven rivers. Now the young king of the Noldor ruled in what was left of that land, and the rest of this new coast was strange to him. As he walked between dunes and kicked hollow pieces of driftwood ahead of him, Daeron listened to the waves, and wove his own songs in time with their rhythm, wordless and meant for no other ears than his own—and perhaps Ossë’s, if Ossë cared to listen. He wondered, as he stood gazing out at the grey water beneath a steely sky, whether Lúthien’s grave lay somewhere beneath it, too. Or perhaps it had survived, a lonely mist-shrouded island somewhere, where nightingales still sang in the springtime, and niphredil bloomed on a pair of small green mounds. 

All the rest, though—that was all gone. The shining glories of Menegroth, the towering beeches of Neldoreth. The honeysuckle thickets where Daeron had liked to hide as a child. The havens of Brithombar and Eglarest with their sturdy walls and bustling harbors. The island of Balar where Daeron had once gone to dive for pearls with Círdan and his folk. He had liked even better just sitting in the boat out on the water, surrounded by stars above and below, everything all black and silver and diamond. 

As he walked on he sang again a song that he had made at that time, of starlight on deep water and the company of friends traveling through the wide world, over land and over water. It had been a joyous song, when he wrote it, but Daeron had not felt such joy for many long years, and as he sang it now it became a lament, a dirge for drowned Beleriand and all who had died with it.

When the song ended, though, the music did not. Another voices was singing a lament of its own somewhere up the shore, so distant that only snatches of it were carried to Daeron on the waves. Anyone else might have thought it was only an echo of his song, or a trick of the wind and waves. But Daeron knew that voice, and would have recognized it anywhere, from a single brief note. He halted, and listened. The song was one of deep mourning and lamentation, of grief and guilt and blood and fire and saltwater and darkness. There was more music beneath it—the mournful notes of a harp. 

After a little while of indecision, Daeron walked on. He did not hurry, and as he went he drew out his flute, and began to play, weaving his music into the harmony of the waves and of Maglor’s lament. In response he heard Maglor shift his song just slightly to align better with him. And so they went on, until Daeron crested a dune and saw Maglor sitting on the sand some distance ahead. He lowered his flute, but Maglor kept plucking at the harp strings. He had stopped singing, and slowed his playing as Daeron approached, though without stopping. There was blood on them, and on his fingertips. Daeron could not tell if Maglor was too lost in the music to notice, or if he did not care, or if he was doing it on purpose. 

When Maglor at last released the strings and let the last notes die into silence, Daeron spoke. “It is said that you drowned yourself with the Silmaril.” 

“The Sea spat me back out,” Maglor said. He looked up at Daeron; his hair was tangled, falling into his face, crusted with salt. His cheeks were hollow and his eyes dark and haunted. But a spark of Treelight remained in them, a memory of the same years that Daeron had been mourning, though on the other side of Belegaer. 

Daeron dropped his satchel in the sand and crouched, touching the remnants of Maglor’s fire. They were cold and wet. 

It had been over another fire that they had first met—a large fire, burning with fragrant wood and herbs in one of the grassy glades beside the pools of Ivrin, where Fingolfin had hosted his Mereth Aderthad. Maglor had been bright-eyed and quick then—quick to laughter, quick to song, and quick with clever words and rhymes. They had been thrust together by an audience eager to see how their respective reputations stood up to one another. There had been many a duet, while the feasting lasted, and many evenings spent in each other’s company, passing wine back and forth and talking—of the stars, of music, of their homes, of what the future might hold. The latter had proved darker and more bitter than either of them had predicted, then.

Daeron had not known, then, that Maglor’s hands, with long graceful fingers that danced effortlessly over harp strings, were already stained with innocent blood. He had heard vague rumors of the oath, but none had known to what it would lead the Sons of Fëanor, who seemed then valiant and fair, enemies of the Enemy and loyal sons and bright-eyed princes of the princely Noldor.

“What brings you out of your dark woods to the Sea?” Maglor asked finally, watching Daeron with a wary gaze. “You did not come just to make music with me.”

When singing, his voice had been as fair as it had ever been, as it was still when Daeron dreamed of it, his mind taking him against his will back to happier days, before everything had gone wrong. When he spoke, it was a wrecked, hoarse thing, like metal scraping over rough stones. He had been hollowed out by the years and by his own deeds, and his own losses. Daeron looked up at him, and waited for the anger to return, for the rage that had left him shaking and unable to speak or sing or do anything but weep, when he had heard the truth of Alqualondë. When he had heard much later of Doriath. Of Sirion. Of the rumors of Maglor’s own suicide. Now, though…most of what he felt was relief. Relief that Maglor still lived—that he could still be shouted at, Daeron told himself. Even though he was half afraid his shouting would cause Maglor to fall apart at the seams. 

“I did not come seeking you,” he said finally, rising again to his feet, “yet I have found you all the same. Come on, then. I have much to say, but I won’t say it here in the cold and wet.” He turned and walked away, back through the dunes toward the woods that crept up to the edge of the beach. He did not wait for Maglor, but heard him following after a few moments. 

The woods were a more cheerful place than the shore. There were birds and small beasts going about their business, and plenty of dead wood to gather for a fire. Daeron chose a campsite within sight of the dunes, but sheltered from the wind. The great ancient oak under which he built a cheerful fire dug into a small hollow of sandy soil whispered pleasure to Daeron at the warmth and the light, and its branches creaked gently overhead, dry leaves fluttering. By then the sun was setting, somewhere hidden by the flat grey clouds, and it was growing dark. 

Maglor stood just outside of the firelight, until Daeron turned to glare at him. Then he moved to crouch nearer the flames. His fingers were still bleeding. Daeron had gotten out his cooking implements by then, and found a source of fresh water from a spring not far away. He set water to heat, and then sat down, pulling Maglor down beside him. “Let me see your hands,” he said. Maglor let him take the left, but he pulled the right one back. Daeron grabbed at it anyway, and of the two he proved the stronger. 

It was obvious in a moment why Maglor hadn’t wanted him to see his right hand. It was a reddened mess of poorly healed burns, not quite stiff with scar tissue, but not as nimble as it had once been. Daeron did not look back up at Maglor’s face, and focused instead on his fingertips, which still oozed blood. Daeron took the hot water and a cloth to clean them, ignoring the way that Maglor hissed and flinched. “Did you intend to play until your fingers were naught but bone?” Daeron asked. 

“I had not noticed,” Maglor said. 

Daeron scoffed, but he kept his own fingers gentle as he tore thin strips of bandage to wind around Maglor’s fingertips. “You are not as good a liar as you once were,” he said, and finally moved away to turn his attention to food. He was hungry, and Maglor had to be near starving. How he had remained a live this long, Daeron did not know. Perhaps he was not always so careless as he seemed that day—though Daeron rather doubted it. He retrieved some way bread, and tossed it to Maglor, who caught it, fumbling a little as it hit his chest. Daeron had other things, roots and herbs that he’d foraged earlier in the day, and some dried meat from when he’d last taken the time to hunt. It was enough to make a simple stew—nothing to sing songs about, but it would be hot and filling. As he worked, Maglor turned the way bread over in his hands. When he caught sight of Daeron’s glare he set it down. 

“What is it you want to say to me?” Maglor asked finally. 

“Many things,” Daeron said, “but I find I cannot say any of them while you look as though you’d faint dead away if I raised my voice. Will you not eat?”

He expected Maglor to take offense, but instead he laughed—a rough, quiet sound like pebbles tumbling over each other. “I’m not as fragile as all that,” Maglor said. “If I were I would have faded away long ago, and you could shout at my bones to your heart’s content.”

“I would not be content,” Daeron said, more fiercely than he had intended. He set the pan over the coals to simmer, and leaned back from the fire, pulling his cloak about him. Maglor had no cloak, but did not seem bothered by the chill in the air. “Did you really try to drown yourself?” he asked after a moment. 

Maglor looked up. His hair had fallen across his eyes again, hiding them in flickering shadow. His mouth quirked in a mirthless half-smile. “Once. The tide was coming in, and it just washed me back up onto the shore, the job only half done. I did not try again.”

“That was foolish.”

“Perhaps.” Maglor looked away.

“Was it worth it, the Silmaril? Any of it?”

The answer came without hesitation. “No. But when it began—it wasn’t—” Maglor faltered. It was the first time Daeron had ever known him to be at a loss for words. He waited, watching the stew simmer, and the fire crackle. Sparks floated up like tiny stars to disappear with the wisps of smoke. Somewhere in the wood an owl hooted, and farther away another answered. “The Silmarils were the greatest thing my father ever made,” Maglor said finally. “The Oath…that was the worst thing that my father ever made. I do not know if he was ever truly mad, but there was a kind of madness over all of us in those days, after the Darkening, after…” His voice broke, and it was another long moment before he went on again. “After Morgoth slew our grandfather. My father would have gladly sacrificed the Silmarils to undo that—everyone seems to forget that, forget how much he loved his father—but that was impossible, and the Silmarils were the only thing left that Morgoth had taken, that might be gotten back. And we loved both our grandfather and our father, and so we swore alongside him…”

Silence fell between them, broken only by the crackling of the fire between them. Daeron threw another handful of sticks onto the flames and watched them leap. 

“We were the ones that found him, after,” Maglor said after a while. “Maedhros and I—we had been away from Formenos, and then the dark had come, and by the time we’d gotten our wits back and returned, it was too late. Morgoth was gone, the Silmarils with him, and Grandfather…” His whole body shuddered with the memory. “We wrapped his body in linens, washed away the blood—there was so much of it—and did not let our brothers see. Nor our father. I don’t know that he ever forgave us that.” He looked back up at Daeron. “I wanted to revenge my grandfather more than I ever wanted the Silmarils. And I would have followed my father to the very ends of the earth. But the Oath overtook everything else, in time.”

Daeron stirred the stew, testing the meat for tenderness. “You could have broken it,” he said at last. 

“Less evil would we have done in the breaking,” Maglor murmured. His gaze had dropped to the flames, and he sat with his knees drawn up, arms resting over them. His bandaged fingers were an odd, clean-looking counterpoint to the rest of him. “I know.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Maedhros would not,” Maglor said, as though it were all as simple as that. Perhaps it was. Daeron had never had a brother, nor anyone that he would have followed into such darkness and horror. “And—well. I could not follow him at the last, and so here I am.”

“I do not think your grandfather would have wanted such vengeance,” Daeron said. He had spent many long years thinking about the things he would say to Maglor, cruel things meant to twist the knife of his guilt deeper into him, so that he might feel some of what Daeron had felt, but he found no satisfaction now at seeing Maglor flinch at the words. He seemed to shrink into himself, and did not answer.

There wasn’t really much to say after that. Daeron pulled out a wineskin and passed it over to Maglor after taking a sip. It was half empty before the stew was ready, and it being a good vintage from Lindon, they were both more than a little drunk as they ate. Afterward, they drank the rest of the wine, which seemed to loosen Maglor’s tongue, for he started to ask the questions then, as the clouds parted overhead and the starlight began to fill the night. “What about you, Minstrel of Doriath, and the tales told of your deeds?” When Daeron did not immediately answer, Maglor remarked, “You slew no kin, but you were no hero either.”

“I never wanted to be a hero,” Daeron said. He had never wanted to be in a tale at all. He just wanted to write them down, and sing them for others. “And I am still accounted a mightier singer than you.”

Maglor laughed—just a little, softly and hoarsely. “Neither of us ever cared about that.”

No, they hadn’t. It had been a topic of friendly debate at the Mereth Aderthad, between the Sindar and the Noldor. Daeron had known comparisons were being made even before he decided to accompany Mablung, and he had worried that Maglor of the Noldor would be proud and jealous of his accolades. Finding him rather a kindred spirit, more eager to share in his knowledge and skill than to compete, to forge a friendship rather than a rivalry, had been a relief as much as it had been a delight. 

That had made the revelations of Alqualondë all the more bitter, later. And worse still what Maglor had done, without even the excuse of confusion or fear or panic, in Menegroth and at Sirion. 

“Why did you do it, then?” Maglor asked after a while. “Betray Lúthien to Thingol?”

“I did not expect him to demand of Beren a Silmaril,” Daeron said, “and I could not have expected Beren to take up the quest.” He remembered the look on Thingol’s face when Beren had laughed and accepted the challenge. Thingol had not expected it, either—but Melian had looked grave, and he suspected they argued over it later. Lúthien had been furious, and made no secret of it. But she had not been angry with him—not then, at least. 

“That is not what I asked,” Maglor said.

“Does it matter why?” Daeron replied. He sat up, feeling suddenly the weight of all his years as though it were a great stone upon his chest. The unceasing sound of the waves washing up over the beach behind him was no longer soothing, but grating. He wanted the silence of the deep forest, with only the sleepy whispers of trees around him. Across the fire Maglor sat half in darkness, his face hidden in the shadows of his tangled hair. “I wronged her—twice—and maybe if I had not things would have been different, but I am not so sure. Beren came through the Girdle with Doom at his heels, and snared Lúthien in it the moment he called out to her.” And even had Thingol not set an impossible quest before them, if Beren had not been slain by Carcharoth—if he had lived a full life without interruption and died after the manner of Mortal Men, still, Daeron knew, Lúthien would have followed him to Mandos and beyond, will of the Valar or Ilúvatar himself be damned. 

Maglor was quiet for a moment. Then he asked, “Did you love her?”

Daeron spluttered. “Did I—of course I loved her! To know her was to love her!” He grabbed his flute and got to his feet. “Do not compare my deeds to yours, Maglor son of Fëanor. I am no kinslayer.”

“No,” Maglor agreed. “Only a jealous lover.”

Daeron snorted. “I am not that, either. I loved Lúthien—but never like that.” He saw Maglor’s eyebrows raise, but he did not stay to hear more questions. He did not want to talk of Lúthien, or of Silmarils, or of anything from the past. He stalked away from the fire, steps weaving more than they should have, thanks to the wine. Starlight drifted through the canopy above him, bright enough to light his way until he had retreated far enough that the sound of the Sea was not quite so loud, and he could drown it out with his playing. He sat at the base of another oak and put his flute to his lips. 

The song that came to him was one he had written only recently, as he had wandered the lands in the north of Eriador, near Lake Nenuial. Celeborn had dwelt there for a time, with Galadriel, but they were gone by the time Daeron had come there. He knew not where. War had come to the north lands again, armies marching up from the south and east and setting fire to the forests, besieging the city of Ost-in-Edhil. Or perhaps it had already fallen; the stories Daeron had half-heard were confused and often contradictory. Gorthaur had arisen to take the place of his master—that, at least, was certain. Daeron had skirted well away from all of that, and so found himself here on the coast, somewhere south of Lindon, but still far north and west of danger. 

He played until he ran out of breath, and the wine ran its course, leaving him clear-headed but weary, with stiff fingers and dry lips. As Daeron lowered the flute he opened his eyes, finding that dawn was breaking, and the stars were fading. On a sudden impulse he rose and began to climb, jumping to reach the lowest bough, and pulling himself up to the very highest branches. It was a tall tree, and took him to the heights of the forest canopy. From there he could see across the brown and red-brown trees, many with leaves still clinging as autumn began to fade, stretching away into the distance. A squirrel could pass from where he perched almost to the roots of the Misty Mountains without ever touching the ground, if it so wished—or he could have, a few years before. To the west, he could see the sea, pale under the coming morning. The clouds had cleared entirely away, and the sky promised sunshine and perhaps a bit of warmth against the coming chill. The waves rose and fell. In the very west, near the still-dark horizon, Gil-Estel glimmered. Daeron gazed at it. He had never seen the Silmaril up close. It must have been marvelous indeed—for even to see it as a distant star sent a thrill through him. There was a Light older than the Sun or Moon, familiar and yet not, for he had seen only its reflection before, in Melian’s face and in Thingol’s eyes (and in Maglor’s eyes). It was a holy thing—and as Maglor had said, safe now from all evil, and there for all to see, who would raise their eyes to the stars. 

After the last stars faded, Daeron made his way back to the ground, and back to the camp. Maglor was not there, but his harp was. Daeron supposed that meant he would be back. He caught himself feeling relieved, and pushed that away as he dug out the way bread, chewing on it slowly as he made his own way back to the beach. He told himself it was curiosity—what could have called Maglor away from a warm fire on this desolate spit of land? It was all sand and rocks and water, and the occasional gnarled piece of driftwood or broken seashell. Daeron climbed a dune and looked up and down the beach. Hills rose up a little way to the south, and perhaps there was a cove nestled between them. He saw footprints, too—indentations in the sand that disappeared where the waves crested. 

Ulmo himself could not have convinced Daeron to walk through the frigid water. He kept to the dry places, picking up a piece of wood as he went, with vague thoughts to carve something later. A figure of some kind, or perhaps another flute, or a set of pipes. “Or a comb,” he said aloud, coming around the hillside to find a small cove, where tide pools were gathered, and where Maglor hovered above the incoming tide, his matted hair falling across his shoulders in a way that made Daeron’s own scalp itch. 

Maglor glanced up. “What?” he said, then his gaze dropped to the water and with one quick movement he plunged his hand into the foam; it emerged grasping a fish, flopping and indignant; Maglor tossed it into a pool a little way up, and glanced back at Daeron. 

“A comb,” Daeron repeated. “It seems to me you have not laid eyes on one since the War of Wrath.”

Maglor’s mouth quirked in a wry smile—genuinely amused, Daeron realized. A change had come over him in the night. He looked less ghost-like, and though still a far cry from what he once was, a spark had returned to his eyes that called to mind the Maglor that Daeron had met beside the sun-spangled pools of Ivrin. “I had one,” he said, “but I lost it. I don’t know where.”

“Clearly,” said Daeron. He stepped closer to the hillside, which was so steep as to almost be sheer, as a wave washed up perilously close to his ankles. “The tide is coming in.”

“So it is.” Maglor retrieved a sack from somewhere, and took the fish he had just caught out of the pool and threw it into it, followed by another. “I have not been starving, you see,” he said as he turned back to Daeron. “And—come, before the water covers them.”

Daeron went, in spite of himself, skipping over a few large stones. Maglor caught his arm to steady him when he slipped on slick algae at the last. Together, they looked down into the tide pools, where all manner of strange creatures dwelt, or had been temporarily trapped at low tide. There were tiny silver fish that darted among prickly sea urchins and anemones with their strange waving arms. Mussels of various sizes and colors clung to the stones. Seaweed and algae grew in green and brown tangles, and crabs scuttled out of sight when they perceived that another stranger had come to stare at them. Strange creatures there were too, all arms, shaped like stars, and with strange undulating limbs all along their underside that waved in the water or aided them in moving across the bottoms of the pool. “Do you eat any of those things?” Daeron asked. There had been all manner of strange foods served at the Falas, long ago, fished out of the deeps, but he did not remember any of this sort.

Maglor laughed, softly. “No. Urchins and starfish are not edible. Sometimes I get lucky and find clams or oysters, though I cannot prepare them as well as my cousins used to. The ones in there now are no good to eat.” He picked up his sack and led the way back to solid ground. Daeron followed, and they walked together in silence back up the beach. Belatedly, Daeron noticed that Maglor’s fingers were bleeding again, the bandages all lost now and the cuts reopened—and not helped by the cold saltwater or the fish scales. He caught up Maglor’s hand to look at them, and this time Maglor did not pull away. 

“Does this hurt?” Daeron asked, fingers ghosting over the scarring on his palm.

“Not now,” Maglor said. “It sometimes does. Less often than it should, perhaps.”

“If I bandage your hands again, will you at least try not to lose them and open up all the cuts again?”

Maglor’s mouth quirked in that not-quite-smile. “Yes. Though why you bother—”

“No one else can keep up with me,” Daeron said, dropping his hand and turning away. “You cannot keep up, if you insist on playing until you ruin your fingers.”

True to his word, once his fingers were bandaged again Maglor was more careful, and let Daeron take care of gutting and cooking the fish. Even seasoned with nothing but smoke and saltwater, it was good. After, Maglor climbed the nearest dune, and Daeron followed after him, bringing the piece of driftwood and his knife. They sat in companionable silence amid the grass, watching the waves, and a few seagulls that came to peck around the wet sand. “You never did say what brought you out here,” Maglor said after a time. 

“Because nothing in particular did,” Daeron said. “Except maybe homesickness.” He gestured with his knife out toward the sea. “This is as close as I can come.”

“Why did you leave?” Maglor asked then. 

“I tried to follow after Lúthien, but the Girdle had other ideas. It was not my fate to follow her—and it seemed that I was meant to go east, rather than north. So that is where I went.” Daeron glanced up from the teeth of the comb that he was carefully carving out. “It is good that I did leave. I would not have wanted to meet you in battle.” He was no warrior—Mablung had more than once despaired of him ever being able to defend himself—but his voice would have been weapon enough. He could have sung the ceiling of Menegroth’s great hall down upon all seven of Fëanor’s sons, had he been there. Daeron did not think he would have hesitated—but Maglor would have matched him, note for note. 

“I am glad you were not there,” Maglor said quietly. “I am glad that we met only at the Mereth Aderthad, when all was—if not happy, then at least hopeful.” He rubbed his scarred palm absently, gazing off down the beach. Shadows had returned to hover behind his eyes, and Daeron did not ask what dark thoughts he was wandering through. “It is strange,” Maglor murmured at last, “to speak my thoughts aloud and to receive answers from someone other than the waves and the gulls.” Daeron hummed agreement. They had both been wandering alone for too long, he thought.

Something out on the water caught his eye. At first he thought it a trick of the light, as the sun was starting to sink westward, and clouds were gathering far out on the horizon. But it was not a trick. “Ships,” he said, lowering his comb and knife, and shielding his eyes against the sun’s glare. “Coming out of the West.” Maglor followed his gaze, and they watched as what appeared to be part of a great fleet passed by, presumably on its way to Lindon. 

“Ships out of Númenor,” Maglor said. They must be, for Daeron did not think another fleet would come from Valinor—not for Bauglir’s mere lieutenant. “There is war in the east; I have heard tell of it from birds that come west, crying for the burning of their forests.”

“There is war all across Eriador,” Daeron said. “I skirted well around it, going north and then coming down the coast. Gil-galad will need a great army from Númenor, indeed, to turn the tide of it.”

“And my nephew is dead,” Maglor said, his voice heavy. “I dreamed of it, not so long ago.” He closed his eyes, and a single tear escaped to trace a path down his cheek. “Ai, Tyelpë…he did not deserve that end.”

“I am sorry,” Daeron said quietly. 

“He was the best of us. And now there is only me, the last of my father’s house. It should not be so.”

“But it is,” Daeron said. 

“My father said once that the deeds we would do would be the matter of song until the end of days.” Maglor laughed, a little, but it was a bitter sound, full of grief and regret and guilt. “He did not say what kind of songs they would be.”

“Or who would sing them,” Daeron murmured. 

“I will sing them, even if there is no one to hear but the sand and the sea.”

“I will hear,” Daeron said.