Clear Pebbles of the Rain by StarSpray

Eighteen

Estel and the twins returned triumphant from their hunt, and preparations for Midsummer celebrations continued apace, until the day itself arrived. It was a warm day, cloudless, and Maglor had no choice but to allow himself to be dragged out into the meadows for the day-long feasting and games and singing. He did nothing more than sit in the grass as a spectator, but no one seemed to mind. Many songs were sung of summertime and growing things, of sunshine and rain showers, of flowing water and starlight and moonlight. Wine and mead flowed freely, and though he drank little of it Maglor felt the effects—not enough to push him into joining in the songs or the revelries, but it was easier to laugh under the bright sun surrounded by such merriment, as though all there was in the world was that valley, filled with summer flowers and music and easy companionship, and all the shadows and dark things that lurked outside of it had ceased to exist.

When evening came at last, Gandalf set off his fireworks, shooting them up into the sky to burst in clouds of sparks of blue and green and red and gold, hanging in the air in the shapes of flowers and of birds and other marvelous things. They were loud, though, and Maglor flinched hard enough at the first sharp whistle and burst of one that he almost fell into Elrond. Elrond leaned against him, saying nothing. Gandalf sat on the grass laughing at the delight of his audience, and blowing smoke rings from his pipe, which glowed in the light of the fireworks as they drifted lazily up into the air before dissipating in the breeze.

After the fireworks there were bonfires and dancing under a blaze of stars. Some of the dances were very old, perhaps predating the Great Journey, and the Elves leaped and spun around the fires, laughing for the sheer joy of it beneath the stars while others beat out the rhythm on drums and sang old, old songs. Maglor had heard them before in Ossiriand when he had gone to visit the Laiquendi with Ambarussa. He’d never danced to them himself, but his brothers had; he remembered their bright copper hair gleaming in the firelight as they spun, and the light in their eyes as they laughed. If he half-closed his eyes now he could see them, ghostly, slipping in between the dancers of Rivendell.

Where there was not dancing there was singing and storytelling. Elrond held to his promise and sang many old songs and lays to Estel’s joy, though he fell asleep halfway through the Lay of Leithian, head on Gilraen’s lap. Elrond finished it, his fair voice soft in the twilight, his fingers deft across the harp strings. Maglor watched and listened and felt the ache in his fingers.

Many fell asleep out in the meadows, on blankets or on the grass or, in a few cases, in the trees. Maglor did not sleep, instead lying back and staring up at the stars and tracing the old constellations. He could not have gotten up to leave even if he had wanted to, for Elrond had dozed off with his head on one shoulder, and on his other side Elladan crowded against him, with Elrohir curled up just beyond him. Maglor was almost certain that they had done it on purpose. Crickets and frogs chirped and peeped through the night, and the bonfires burned low but did not go out; those who did not sleep sat around them and talked in quiet voices or sang gentle songs to the summer stars.

There had been other celebrations in another lifetime that had faded into slumber like this, only then it had been his brothers sprawled out over and around him. Most often it had been Caranthir tucked up right against him, a habit from toddlerhood, and then either Curufin or Celegorm with their heads on his arm or his legs. Occasionally he had woken to find a golden-haired cousin added to the pile, or perhaps Fingon with his gold-wrapped braids coming undone.

Maglor wrapped his one free arm around Elrond, who shifted slightly in his sleep and sighed softly. His other arm was pinned under Elladan. If he lifted his head he could just glimpse Gandalf nearby, seated at the base of a tree with his pipe glowing redly. He was not wearing his hat, but his head was bowed and he seemed deep in thought. Maglor dropped his head back onto the blanket and stared up at the stars. Sleep beckoned, but he knew what sort of dreams awaited him, and he did not want to disturb anyone else with them. He could sleep when the sun came up, finding a warm patch of sunshine somewhere. Tári had the right idea about naps. It was hard for the shadows to creep in under the sun.

Sometime in the dark hour just before dawn Elladan rolled away, and Elrond shifted enough that Maglor could escape without waking them. He did not look at Gandalf as he passed by, slipping through the trees and finding a stream to follow more or less at random. It led him deep into the valley, where the walls of it narrowed, and the mountains rose up overhead, sheer and imposing. Maglor found the stream’s source in a frigid spring bubbling up amid a pile of mossy stones, and he climbed past it to perch atop the largest one. The morning was slow in coming to that place, shadowed as it was by the mountains, and few birds were there, for he had left the trees behind as he’d climbed up a steep slope to the spring. It was all stones and moss and a little bit of grass. Niphredil peeped up out of the moss by the spring. Niphredil grew everywhere in Imladris—as it should, Maglor thought. The flower had followed Lúthien and so it followed her children. He had often found it growing by their campsites in Beleriand where it had not before Elrond and Elros had come there.

He sat in silence and listened to the spring. When he looked up he saw clouds gathering, pale in the morning, promising a rain shower. No one would mind; it would be brief, as summer showers were, and when the clouds departed the valley would be left washed clean and glittering with raindrops clinging to the flowers and the leaves.

And that was precisely what happened. Maglor remained where he was on the mossy stone, though the rain soaked into his clothes and his hair and left him shivering. He had felt the cold more keenly since Dol Guldur, and even though the sun afterward was warm and his clothes quickly dried, the chill lingered. But the sunlight on the raindrops that clung to the niphredil sparkled, and the air had a fresh damp smell to it, rich and earthy and clean. He inhaled deeply, closing his eyes, listening to the soft whispers of the trees not far away and of the stones beneath him. He listened to the flowing water and thought for a moment he heard something more—heard the Music that he missed so desperately. He sat very still, not even daring to breathe, as familiar melodies whispered to him from the water.

Then footsteps in the woods below broke the silence, and the music slipped away from him like sand through his fingers; Maglor sighed and opened his eyes. Gandalf emerged, leaning on his staff as he paused to peer up at Maglor. “Ah, there you are!” he said. “I wondered where you had gone off to.”

He had not wondered, Maglor thought. Otherwise he would not have come to this spot, out of the way as it was. “Is Elrond looking for me?” he asked.

“Oh, no. Only me.” Gandalf smiled and climbed up to sit on a stone just by Maglor’s. He was nimble as a mountain goat, for all his apparent age. “This is a nice quiet spot,” he said, leaning back to survey the view. Maglor said nothing. It was very hard to imagine this whimsical figure braving the darkness of Dol Guldur. And yet it seemed that he had; and then he had gone back to drive the Necromancer out. Elrond had spoken a little of the wizards, but they remained mysterious to Maglor; the light in Gandalf’s eyes was strange and familiar at once. “I noticed you did not sing last night,” Gandalf said, as though he were remarking upon the fair weather. Maglor did not answer. “A pity. I had looked forward to hearing you perform.”

“I will not perform again,” Maglor said. Gandalf looked at him, and his gaze was so keen that Maglor had to look away.

“May I ask you a question?” Gandalf said after a few minutes of silence, broken only by a single hawk’s cry as it circled over them for a moment before wheeling away to find better hunting grounds.

“I suspect you will ask regardless of what I say,” Maglor said, earning a chuckle. “I do not promise to answer.”

“What is it that he wanted from you? The Necromancer, I mean.”

Maglor couldn’t stop himself shuddering at the name. “Is torture for its own sake not enough?” he asked.

“For orcs, perhaps. But he always has some other propose.”

Maglor looked down at his hands, finding himself rubbing at the scars on his palm, and his gaze strayed to the bands of scar tissue around his wrists, where cold iron had bitten into the skin and worn it away. He stopped himself and flexed his fingers. He did not answer. Telling Gandalf would make no difference; it was easy to guess if one knew anything at all about Maglor, and if one noticed that his hands were unmarred, and though his mouth had been stitched shut he had been allowed to keep his tongue.

“Hmm,” Gandalf hummed, very softly. He did not sound surprised at the lack of an answer. “You held out a very long time against him.” Maglor shrugged. “Do you know how long you were there?”

“No.” Time had lost meaning very quickly in the dark. Years, certainly. Whether a hundred or ten, he did not know.

“Well, you were there when I made my way through—and I am sorry that I could not help you then. I barely managed to get myself out, I’m afraid. I had lingered too long with poor Thráin. And then it was sixty years before we finally moved against the Necromancer. A mistake, I know, though it was the counsel of Saruman. He was ready for us, and his retreat was no real victory, though at least Wilderland can breathe easily for a little while now. I do not know how long you were there before, but between sixty and seventy years a prisoner in Dol Guldur—that is a very long time to be held in the dark.”

Maglor had started to shiver again, and he couldn’t make himself stop. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked, hearing the plaintiveness in his voice and hating it. “Why does it matter?”

“Maedhros was held in Angband for thirty years, give or take,” Gandalf said. Maglor flinched at the sound of his brother’s name. “You were held at least twice as long. There is great strength in the spirit of Fëanor’s house.” It was gently said, meant as kind encouragement, but it felt more like condemnation.

“There was, once.” Maglor unfolded himself and slid off of his boulder. “But it was neither strength nor defiance that kept me alive in that place.”

“What was it, then?” Again that gentle kindness; once it would have made Maglor bristle. Now it only made him sigh.

“Fear,” Maglor said, keeping his gaze on the stones under his feet. There was no point in pretending otherwise. He had no pride or vanity left to protect, and he did not care any longer what his father would think. He was exhausted, suddenly, and he almost didn’t care what dreams awaited him when he finally found his bed. He left Gandalf by the spring and followed the stream back down through the valley. The Music was gone, and all he could hear was the rush of it over stones. He slipped quietly through the woods and then the gardens to find his own room, where tea was waiting for him, still steaming. He drank a cup because he knew it would not go unnoticed if he didn’t, and then he fell into bed, burying his face in the pillows. The breeze through the window was warm, and linens smelled of rosemary.

He did not, as he had feared, dream of darkness and blood. Instead he found himself at the river that flowed past the orchards that lay behind his grandfather Mahtan’s house. Willows dotted the banks, and under one of them sat Maedhros, looking much as he had done in their youth, though in the dream it was the sun that lit the world, rather than Laurelin. Unlike in their youth, he wore no jewels, and his hair was loose, falling over his shoulders and glinting like copper in the sunshine. Also unlike in their youth, he had no right hand. Instead he drew with charcoal with his left, a sketchbook propped on one knee. Maglor could not see what he was drawing, but he glimpsed Maedhros’ face, set in concentration and with an unhappy set to his mouth. A smear of dark charcoal marred one cheek. In the distance behind him Maglor heard someone call out, Russandol! Maedhros looked up, and there the dream faded away, leaving Maglor to wake some time later, as evening came on, feeling rested and melancholy, but nothing worse.