Clear Pebbles of the Rain by StarSpray

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Twenty

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Summer wound lazily away toward autumn. Elrohir and Elladan were called out into the north near the end of August, and Glorfindel rode out with them. The mountains had been emptied of orcs, but other fell things still crept through the Ettenmoors, and dwelt in the hills near the ruins of Fornost where no one but the Rangers dared to go in these days. 

Estel was disappointed, as he always was, to be left behind. He had had a taste of the wild lands beyond Rivendell that summer and yearned for more. But he applied himself to his studies, in language and in history and in healing, and many other subjects that he sometimes questioned the use of. Elrond just told him that he could never know what knowledge he would find useful later. All of it would be useful, Elrond did not say, when he took up the Winged Crown and the Scepter. 

More than once, though, Elrond found Estel in the library with Maglor, having convinced him to answer some obscure question about the histories he studied, or about his travels during the Second Age and beginning of the Third. Maglor was as patient with Estel as he had once been with Elrond and Elros, and when Elrond got the chance to eavesdrop for more then a few seconds he smiled to notice how Maglor subtly and deftly turned Estel’s attention back to what he was meant to be studying, and away from than whatever had distracted him to begin with. 

Otherwise, though, Maglor seemed to withdraw into himself, while earlier in the season he had seemed to be opening up like a flower in the sun. He spent a great deal of time with the potters, though he gave few pieces over to be fired in the kilns. When he was not there he could often be found wandering through the woods. Elrond did not fail to notice that he was now avoiding the river, when before he had often sought it out, spending hours sitting by the banks watching it flow. 

“Will you tell me what’s troubling you?” Elrond asked when he finally managed to catch him alone again, walking through a secluded part of the gardens, behind the vegetables where thistles and brambles were let to run a little wild.

Maglor did not answer at first. He was rubbing his thumb over the scars on his palm again, and Elrond had to resist the urge to reach out and stop him. “I’m afraid,” he said finally, “and I don’t know why.”

“What is it you fear?” Elrond asked. 

“I don’t—” Maglor stopped himself. He kept his gaze on the ground. Elrond kept his on Maglor’s face, on the tension in his jaw. “Where did that harp come from?” he asked at last, abruptly. “The one in my room?”

“It was brought here from Lindon long ago,” Elrond said. “Erestor brought it out when we were first preparing your room. Do you not like it? I can find another for you.”

“It isn’t that. It’s…” Maglor was digging his thumbnail into his palm now, and Elrond did reach out to stop him, taking the scarred hand in both his own. “My brothers made it,” Maglor said. “Curufin and Caranthir. I do not understand how it survived…everything.”

“Many things in Himring survived,” Elrond said. Several trips had been made from Lindon to the island, after the coasts had stopped shifting and changing and the seas had calmed. He had not gone there—he had been busy elsewhere on a more hopeless search—but he had handled many of the records afterward, preserving and copying them. The harp had not been one of those things, but he could not think of where else it had come from. Nothing of Thargelion or Himlad had survived. 

But Maglor shook his head. “I do not remember it. I had never seen it before I came here. And none of them…none of my brothers played.” 

The simplest explanation was that it had been intended as a gift, Elrond thought. Perhaps it had been made in anticipation of victory after the Fifth Battle, but of course they had not been able to return to Himring after that had gone so wrong. And for whatever reason the Enemy had never bothered to lay waste to it, and so the harp had sat, alongside other trinkets and treasures, until Gil-galad’s people had come for it. Elrond said none of that aloud, unsure whether Maglor would agree or whether it would be a comfort or only a cause for further pain. “Do you wish to keep it?” he asked instead. 

“I don’t know.” Maglor looked down at their joined hands. He had clay underneath his fingernails, and Elrond saw a small smudge of it on the bridge of his nose. “Someone else might make better use of it. I cannot…I cannot bring myself to play.” 

“Is that what you are afraid of?” Elrond asked. “That you cannot play as you used to?” For it was clear that the fear Maglor had spoken of was connected to the harp, at least in part. 

Maglor shook his head. “No. No, that isn’t it. I thought for a time that it was, but…I can learn again what I have forgotten.” 

Elrond looked at the scars on Maglor’s face, and at his hands that had remained untouched and unbroken throughout his long captivity. He thought of Celebrimbor’s broken body. He had seen it only at a distance, but even then it had been clear that every bone in his hands had been broken, with single-minded and awful intent. Sauron had cursed the voice out of Maglor only at the very end, and it had been a curse that sat very lightly. One meant to be reversed someday. 

Saruman had suspected a connection to the rings, perhaps the One Ring, in Maglor’s capture and captivity. Elrond still believed it was only chance that had gotten Maglor caught, but he had thought at first it was only some kind of revenge, or horrible delight in having caught the last son of Fëanor that had kept him from being tossed away to starve, or killed outright. He did not think so any longer—there had been a larger purpose. 

“Maglor,” he said, “what is it that Sauron wanted of you?” 

“Gandalf asked that of me, too,” Maglor murmured. His eyes remained downcast, and he was trembling ever so slightly. Elrond would not have noticed if he were not holding onto his hand.

“Did you answer him?” 

“No.”

“Will you answer me?”

For a long time Maglor was silent. Elrond waited. Nearby a nightingale burst into song, somewhere hidden in the roses. Red and pink, they grew up untamed around them, covering the walls that had once enclosed this part of the garden. Bees and butterflies went about their business, uncaring of the woes of larger beings. Theirs was a world of pollen and of nectar, of flowers and leaves, with no dangers greater than a spider’s web. 

At last, Maglor said, “Me. He wanted me—my voice. My power. In his service.” His tone was bleak. He looked up at last, meeting Elrond’s gaze. “But you had guessed that already. What does it matter? When he is victorious—”

“If,” Elrond interrupted. Maglor looked away again. “If he is victorious. You fear that he will come for you again, I know, but—”

“I know that he will. As he will come for you, and for Galadriel, and all the others who have stood against him. My strength is gone, Elrond. I will not withstand him a second time. I am no longer the prize he wished for, but I would be a prize all the same.” 

“He will not have you,” Elrond said, catching Maglor’s hand again as he pulled away. “Even if the worst happens as you fear, we will have time enough to prepare, time enough to flee. I will see you to the Havens and onto a ship, whatever bans may still lie upon the Exiles. I will not let him take you again.”

Maglor wouldn’t look at him. “And if he finds his Ring?” he asked, so softly that Elrond almost could not hear him. “What then, Elrond?”

“I believe I have strength enough in me to take Vilya off before he can ensnare me,” Elrond said. “And if I cannot—” Maglor flinched. “—I can live without a finger. Glorfindel will do what he must.” They had spoken of it many times, Elrond and Glorfindel and Erestor. If the absolute worst happened—well. Elrond would come to Valinor one way or another. But he truly did not think it would come to that, and the last thing he wanted was for Maglor to worry about it. “But I do not believe it will come to that. I do not believe that he will be victorious. And if you must face him again, you will not be alone.” 

“I cannot hope as you do.”

“I know. But can you trust me?”

“You know that I do. But I cannot…”

“You have been out of that place less than a year,” Elrond said. “And when you came here this spring I did not expect you to have made such strides toward healing in just a few months. Indeed, I expected—” 

Maglor squeezed his hand. “You expected me to fade away,” he said. “I know.” 

“I feared it.” He feared it still, having seen it too many times before, and always there was Celebrían haunting his thoughts. “You have been withdrawn these last few weeks.”

“I am too used to only my own company.” Maglor offered a smile, but it was a small and fleeting thing, more worrying than reassuring. “I’m sorry.”

“You do not have to apologize for it.”

They walked in silence for a time, passing out of the garden and down a path toward the river. Maglor’s steps slowed, but Elrond caught his arm before he could turn down another path. “Why do you keep away from the water?”

“I feel as though I have become deaf. I could once hear the Music without trying. It was just—just there, like birdsong or the wind.”

“You were locked away too long in the dark and silence,” Elrond said. “The Music is still there.” He could hear it himself, faintly, running through the river and the streams and the fountains in Imladris. If he paid attention he could hear more of it, and he knew that if one day he woke up unable to hear it, he would find the world a stranger, duller place, as Maglor must find it now. “You need time, Maglor. That’s all.” It was poor comfort, he knew, but it was the truth. Some things only time could mend. The feeling of safety was slow to follow the knowledge of it. To sing, to make music, to call upon the Music that had shaped the world—that had all failed him in Dol Guldur, and to lose it had been the last way for Maglor to defy the Enemy and deny him what he wanted. Was it any wonder that he could not find it again? That he had been hesitant to even regain his voice, when it was his voice that the Enemy wanted? 

“Perhaps.”

Time continued on, uncaring of whether it was what anyone needed or not. The summer was lazy and lingering, all warm sunshine and flowers; honey overflowed in the hives and evenings were spent singing beneath the stars. The Wandering Companies came and went, and Gildor appeared with a long letter from Bilbo, looking very amused. “You did not tell me when last we spoke that I would be playing messenger, Elrond,” he said as he handed it over. “And do I understand rightly that I may be taking books back west with me come spring?”

Elrond laughed. “Very likely! But if you cannot, or do not want to, I can send someone else. Erestor might like a small holiday.”

“Erestor is quite happy where he is, thank you,” said Erestor, who hated travel, as he passed by the doorway. Estel, sitting in a nearby corner with a book, giggled when Elrond winked at him.

“I don’t mind,” Gildor said. “As long as it is a reasonable number and not your whole library. I was quite surprised to find Master Baggins awaiting us at Woodhall—but pleasantly so. He is very polite. But I have never met another halfling so keen for news of the lands outside his own.”

“Nor shall you, I think,” said Elrond. “Thank you, Gildor. I promise to only send one or two with you this time.”

“This time!”

“Have you other things to be doing in your wanderings?” Elrond asked, laughing. “Other errands in the Shire, or the Old Forest?”

“I do, as it happens,” Gildor said. “Círdan has asked me to take some letters to Isengard in the south. I and a few others will leave here in a few days, and I hope to be back before Midwinter, so don’t worry! And if you have anything to send to Saruman, so long as it isn’t books, I will be glad to take it.”

“Thank you,” said Elrond. “I have nothing to send to him, but Gandalf may, if you can find him.” Gandalf was nearly as elusive as Maglor, wandering in and out of the house at all hours, only regularly appearing at supper, often found laughing with elves in the woods, giving as good teasing as he got, and blowing smoke rings up into the branches, and just as often in the darkened Hall of Fire, silent and thoughtful. 

In the end, Gandalf went to Isengard with Gildor. “I wish to speak with Saruman myself,” he said, “and I can answer any questions he has regarding Maglor, though by this time I think his interest has waned somewhat. And it has been some time since I visited Gondor and Rohan. I would see what is passing there.”

Elrond smiled. “Farewell, then,” he said. “Should you pass through Lórien, take my greetings to the Lord and Lady.”

As the bright colors of autumn faded to the softer browns of winter, the household retreated indoors, and the Hall of Fire was filled with songs and storytellings more often than not. Maglor slipped in and out, sitting at the edges of the firelight and listening intently to all that was said and sung, though he spoke little and, of course, never sang. It was enough that he was there, Elrond thought as he took up his own harp at Gilraen’s request. He played in the manner that Maglor had taught him, and sang the songs that he had taught him long ago, songs of the Blessed Realm and of starlight on sea foam. Out of the corner of his eye he saw something shimmer on Maglor’s cheek, and pretended not to notice when he turned away to wipe his eyes.