Clear Pebbles of the Rain by StarSpray

Thirteen

The next day dawned bright and clear, the valley washed clean by the rains. Raindrops and dew clung to the leaves and sparkled in the dawn as Maglor leaned out of his window. The river shone silver that morning, rushing along below him. A nightingale was perched somewhere above him, perhaps on the roof, singing merrily.

After a short time someone came strolling down the path, humming a song that Maglor didn’t know. When they came around a flowering bush he saw that it was the golden-haired figure he’d seen that first morning, the one who had looked at a distance like Glorfindel of Gondolin. Up close, he saw that it was Glorfindel. Maglor stared a moment too long before starting to withdraw, for Glorfindel saw him, and approached the window. “Well met, Maglor,” he said, looking up at him. He positively shone in the sunlight, his golden hair flowing down his back, and clad in green so that he looked indeed like a golden flower. “You are looking much better than when I last saw you.”

Maglor frowned. He was almost certain that the last time he had seen Glorfindel they had both been in Hithlum, before Turgon had slipped away with his people to Gondolin. He was certainly not better than he had been then .

“I mean at Dol Guldur,” Glorfindel said. Maglor flinched back. “You may not remember. I helped Elladan and Elrohir carry you out.”

He did not remember that, but he did remember, vaguely, a sharp brightness, like Arien herself had descended for a moment into the dark under the tower. That must have been Glorfindel, his spirit all the brighter and stronger for having returned to life after Mandos. Mostly all Maglor remembered of his rescue was the fear—that it wasn’t a rescue at all, but some final trick of the Enemy to finally break him entirely. Had it been so, it would have worked. He looked away from Glorfindel, back down at the river.

“Have you visited the workshops, yet?” Glorfindel asked. Maglor shook his head. “Perhaps you should. Were you not a woodworker as well as a musician?” Maglor did not answer, and Glorfindel shrugged. “Think on it, if only to be doing something with your hands.”

He left, and began to sing a merry song as he went on, full of tra la la lally and other silly nonsense. Maglor looked down at his hands, the one part of him that had not been touched in Dol Guldur. The orcs would have broken every bone in them over and over again if they had been allowed to. He’d been threatened with it often. Sauron, though, had wanted him to keep the use of his fingers—and his tongue—for he had not wished Maglor broken to no purpose.

The memory of it brought back the taste of blood in his mouth and the smell of acrid smoke, and the sound of the orcs’ horrible laughter. The sun seemed to darken for several minutes as Maglor tried to make his lungs work again. He opened his mouth to stretch his suddenly-aching jaw, and rubbed at the phantom soreness in his lips; he could feel the scars there, from the needles and the cords, indentations in his skin that should not have been. When he looked back outside the sun was bright again, and all he could smell was the flowers outside of his window.

He went outside—by way of a door this time—and found Elrond sitting with Estel in the gardens. They did not see him, and Maglor was able to watch for a little while as Elrond instructed Estel in something. The snatches that Maglor could hear sounded like herb craft. He would not have expected Estel, who seemed to always want to be moving about and doing something, to take much interest, but he was listening with rapt attention. Maglor left them to it, and wandered through the roses and the lilacs. He found the path that led to the workshops and forges, set a little apart from the house so that the noise and smell didn’t bother anyone. He heard the ringing of hammers on metal, and the scrape of sharp metal over wood, and over it the laughter and chatter of the craftsfolk as they went about their work.

It was surprising to actually feel an itch in his fingers, a desire to take up a piece of wood and make something out of it. He thought of that little bowl he’d made in Lórien. He could still make things—not beautiful, but not ugly either. But he wasn’t sure who he would find there or how to ask for a simple carving knife and a bit of wood to whittle, so he turned away.

His meandering walk took him back to where he’d seen Elrond and Estel, though Elrond was alone then, paging through a book. He looked up and smiled to see Maglor. At his beckoning, Maglor went to sit with him. “Are you feeling better today?” he asked. Maglor didn’t know how to answer. It wasn’t as simple as a yes or a no. In the end he settled on yes, because he did not feel the same chill clinging to him, and at least his dreams had been quiet. He looked up at the sky. The sun was high, and the air was warm, and bees were buzzing lazily around, crawling all over the flowers and then flying off to their hives for honey-making, dropping pollen as they went.

A good day to undo things done in the dark. Maglor looked at Elrond, who caught his eye and saw the direction of his thoughts. “Are you sure?” he asked. Maglor nodded, because if he didn’t do it now he might never get up the courage again. “Very well.” Elrond rose. “Wait here. I want Elladan and Elrohir with us.” Maglor nodded again, content to remain in the sunshine. Elrond strode away, toward the workshops rather than the house.

In his absence a cat wandered out of the bushes, sleek and black with white tips to her ears, and dainty white paws. She peered up at Maglor for a moment, and then decided he would do, and jumped up to but her head into his hand with a demanding purr. Maglor obliged, scratching a little behind her ears, and smiling a little as she rewarded him with more purring. She lay down with her head on his leg as he continued to pet her, stroking down her back and allowing himself to revel in the silky softness of her fur. She remained there with him until Elrond returned with his sons, when she jumped lightly down and disappeared back into the bushes from whence she had come.

Elrond sat beside him again with a reassuring smile, and Elladan and Elrohir sat on the grass at their feet. “Are you ready?” Elrond asked. Maglor nodded. Elladan reached up to take his hand, and Maglor found himself gripping it too tight, but he couldn’t make himself loosen his fingers. His other hand gripped the edge of the bench, which grew slick and damp under the sweat of his palm. He closed his eyes as Elrond placed a hand at his throat, resting it where his neck met his shoulder. His fingers curled around the back of Maglor’s neck, but his thumb remained at the side—there was no encircling, but it still put him in mind of the last hand to wrap around his throat, with its missing finger and only barely made of solid flesh but no less strong for it. He took a deep breath, and felt Elladan squeeze his hand.

Elrond’s song was quiet and steady. Maglor didn’t listen to the words, instead letting the melody of it and the rhythm of his voice fill his hearing, just above the buzzing of the bees and the singing of the birds in a nearby stand of trees. They seemed to harmonize with him, somehow. It was soothing to listen to—until he felt a sudden tightness in his throat, and a searing, burning pain in the back of it and on his chest where he’d been branded with the Eye. He choked, jerking back—he wasn’t in Elrond’s garden anymore but in the dungeons again, and the smell of blood old and new was thick in his nose, and Sauron was there, his eyes like burning coals, his voice like the roar of a furnace and just as hot—

The great singer of the Noldor will sing no more.

Then his head struck something hard, and though it hurt it was a sharper and more present pain, and Maglor gasped for breath. His face was wet and he tasted blood; his tongue hurt. His chest still burned. Someone was saying something to him—several someones, on all sides of him. He pressed his face into someone’s arm, unable to stop himself from shaking. A hand parted the hair on the back of his head, and he felt the sticky wetness of blood there.

“It’s all right,” a voice said in his ear. “It’s all right, Maglor. You are safe.” It sounded like Elros, but that was wrong, Elros was long dead and lost to him, he could not be there—

No, no. Maglor tried to take a breath but he was shaking too badly to fill his lungs properly, and his chest still burned. Not Elros. Elrohir.

Through it all, he realized distantly, as Elladan and Elrond spoke over his head of fetching water and something to press against the cut on his head, which was still bleeding, through it all he had not made a sound. His throat hurt, though—like he had been screaming.

Water was brought, and a damp cloth was pressed to the back of his head. Maglor flinched; it stung, but then the coolness was soothing. His whole head throbbed, but even that eased with a few quiet words from Elrond, who held the cloth in place with one hand and rubbed Maglor’s back with the other. Eventually Maglor was able to sit up, leaning sideways against Elrond instead of laying half in Elrohir’s lap; he had fallen off the bench and sat on the grass, now. “I’m sorry,” Elrond murmured. “I thought there might be resistance, but nothing like that.” Without opening his eyes, Maglor found his hand and squeezed it. “We will try again—but not soon.”

“Will you consult with Gandalf? Or perhaps Saruman?”

“With Gandalf, yes,” Elrond said. “He intends to visit again sometime soon. And if he cannot help, perhaps I will write to Saruman, if one of you will take a letter south for me.”

“Yes, of course,” both twins chorused.

Eventually, Maglor was able to get to his feet, head throbbing, the world spinning around him, and slowly Elrond helped him back to his room, where he was bundled into bed and sung to sleep with simple lullabies that he did not have the strength or the will to battle against. The last thing he recalled before sleep claimed him was clutching at Elrond’s hand, half-dreaming already and fearful that he would drift away and dissolve into mist and sea spray if he had nothing to anchor him to the living and solid world.

His dreams were awful, but they were not of Dol Guldur. Instead he wandered the empty streets of Tirion. It was dark, and there were no stars. He was seeking his parents, his brothers—his cousins, uncles, anyone, but there was no one, and he could not call out to them. It was cold, and sometimes he could hear footsteps down a side street or somewhere behind him, but when he tried to catch a glimpse of whoever it was, he found only emptiness. The dark windows stared at him like black eyes. The Mindon Eldaliéva seemed to pierce the darkened sky like a pale sword. If he could just reach the palace, he thought, he must find his father there, and all would be well, but every time he tried to go that way he ended up somewhere else. Tears of frustration and fear choked him, and he wanted to scream, but when he opened his mouth no sound would come.

Then those dreams dissolved into golden mist, and he found himself in a vivid and cherished memory, sitting on the green grass with Elrond and Elros, teaching them to play the harp. Elros sat on his lap, his small hands guided by Maglor’s larger ones over the strings, as Elrond sat beside them and watched, as Maglor taught them their first proper song, rather than just scales and exercises. Maedhros was nowhere in sight, but he was not far away. Maglor let go of Elros’ hands and let him pluck the strings, slowly and then a little more confidently, until it was the melody of the song that Elrond—the adult, the master healer—had sung in the garden under the sun. In the dream Elrond the child sang the words in his higher, nightingale-sweet voice, and in the dream Maglor joined him, weaving their voices together in a harmony that cast a strange and comforting warmth over him, like a blanket draped over his shoulders by someone who loved him. But then his throat began to feel tight, and a heat was rising from somewhere within him. He wanted to stop but his mouth kept going, louder and louder, as the grassy hillside and Elrond and Elros both faded away and he was sitting in a dark room underground, and Sauron himself loomed up over him, his own mouth open to counter the song, his hand reaching out to wrap around Maglor’s neck, choking him—but still he sang, with a strength that did not feel like his own, and the last note of it rang out like a great bell, and Sauron fell away, and the dark stones, and Maglor was alone in ringing silence. His face felt wet, but not with his own tears. A hand traced over his cheek and he thought that he heard a quiet voice like the whisper of a gentle wave over sand whispering his name

He woke with a start, jerking and almost falling out of bed. Then he panicked at the feeling of something wrapped around him—his arms, his legs, all bound up—but when he finally sat up he saw it was only the blankets, only tangled because he had been tossing and turning. Moonlight shone through the windows, and somewhere out in the garden someone was singing. His throat hurt, and felt swollen. Maglor reached up to touch it and winced, feeling bruises. Then he made himself get up and straighten the blankets before crawling back into bed, though he knew sleep would not return. He lay and stared at the window without really seeing what lay without, until a small dark shape jumped up onto the sill. Maglor sat up in alarm, but then leaned back again with a sigh upon realizing it was only the cat. She paused to lick her paws and groom herself for a moment in the moonlight, and then silently padded across the room to join him on the bed—indeed, she curled up in the curve between his head and shoulder, purring gently when he reached up to pet her. Maglor sighed, and closed his eyes.

When he opened them it was morning; he did not remember falling asleep. The cat was still curled up by him, sleeping soundly. Golden sunshine had replaced the silver moon, and though his throat still hurt, the ache was less. A bird was singing merrily just outside of the window. He took a deep breath, and started to sit up—and startled the cat, who dug her claws into her shoulder briefly before jumping away. Maglor jumped and winced—and then froze, having heard a quiet voice gasping at the sharp prick of pain.

There was no one else in the room. The voice had been his own.