Clear Pebbles of the Rain by StarSpray

Eight

Caradhras did remain asleep under them as they crossed over the pass. They had camped on the side of the mountain, looking down into a vale where a dark still pool lay, with a single stone beside it that jutted up as a monument. “That is Mirrormere,” Elladan told him, “and somewhere beyond is the eastern gate of Moria. It has been long since the Dwarves tried to return there, after they were driven out of the Lonely Mountain by Smaug. But Smaug is dead, and perhaps one day they will find similar luck in Moria.”

In the bright sunshine of a spring morning they rode up and over the pass, descending the western slopes late in the afternoon on the second day; Elladan and Elrohir pushed on quickly in spite of the fine weather and no sign of trouble anywhere on the mountain; they lit only a small fire when they camped, and Maglor suspected that neither of them slept. He himself only dozed fitfully; the winds were cold, and he did not like the whispers that he heard on them as they passed through the stones and around the cliffs.

“Here is the land of Eregion,” Elladan said, pointing out before them as they descended, “that Men call Hollin, though there is little holly here, now.” They came to the remnants of an old road and followed it. The land was overgrown with heather and stands of dark pine trees, and other copses of different trees just putting for their spring leaves. Birds sang, and puffy clouds drifted lazily across the sky. They camped beneath the stars, and Maglor slowly grew used to spending hours in the saddle again. The first few days were hard, especially in the mountains, all his muscles sore and knotted even though their pace was easy. Eager as Elladan and Elrohir were to be home, after the mountain pass they did not hurry, being as at home in the wild as they had been in Lórien.

When they stopped at night he lay on the grass and listened to the whispers of the waking trees. They had no memory of the Elves who had dwelled in that land long ago, and had thoughts only for the elves who passed by sometimes, on their way to and from Lothlórien, and of the wind and the sun and the rain. Only the stones remembered, and whispered to him as he lay atop them, mournful and melancholy. Fair they wrought us, high they builded us. Now they are gone.

There should have been ruins, he thought as he gazed about them when dawn came. Remnants of walls, piles of stone long tumbled down, or indentations in the land where once had been ditches or canals or streets—but there was nothing. More than time had ruined Eregion. This was deliberate, with malice behind it—a hatred that was more than just a conqueror’s ambition or a desire for treasure, no matter how powerful the rings made there had been. Sauron had hated the people of Eregion. Maglor turned away, pulling his hood up against the wind that picked up, coming down off the mountains and cold with the lingering snows from the peaks.

At last they came to the river, and turned north without crossing. The Gwathló was deep and wide, rushing ever on south toward the sea. Maglor listened hard to it as they rode along the western shore, but all he heard was the rush of water, and only the faintest whisper of music in it. It remained lost to him. He had forgotten so much in the dark; he could not even remember the sound of the waves on the seashore. Even when he dreamed of it—which was seldom—it was silent.

The lands of Eriador were quiet and empty. Maglor had been told once that they were covered in forest, but that had been long ago, and now trees were few and far between, with heather and long grass covering the rest. It was a lonely land that they traveled through on the way north. Once there had been much traffic, when the realm of Arnor still stood, Elladan told him, and people came and went often between the Northern and Southern kingdoms of the Dúnedain. But that all went up the road that was now overgrown with grass, though still firm and visible, and very few now traveled it. “We are going farther east, and have our own paths, else we might have crossed over the Gwathló to find the Road. In Bree they call it the Greenway.”

Maglor had been relieved when they had passed out of Lórien, looking forward to wide open lands and even wider skies, missing the openness that he had enjoyed in his wanderings by the Sea—but now that he was there he just wanted to find somewhere to hide. It was too open. Anything could find them. Maglor had to resist the urge to be constantly looking over his shoulder, and more than once he found himself thinking that at least in Dol Guldur he had had walls at his back, had been able to see who came for him. It was a terrible thought, and always it heralded bad dreams that had him waking up in the middle of the night, shivering and shaking until Elladan or Elrohir, whichever one was keeping watch, came to sit by him, a warm hand on his shoulder or on his forehead anchoring him again in the present. Daylight was a little easier; Elladan and Elrohir filled the silence with easy speech and with stories and sometimes with songs. Maglor was still often lost in his own thoughts, but the sound of their voices was a comfort even if he couldn’t focus on their words.

They passed very few other travelers—none at all, in fact, until they came to the confluence of the Mitheithel and the Bruinen and passed north and east of it. These were tall and fair-faced men and women, dark-haired and grey-eyed for the most part, hunters and wanderers. They traveled alone or in pairs and only rarely in larger parties, and greeted Elladan and Elrohir by name as old friends. Maglor drew his hood up, wary of strangers and not wishing to be stared at, though aside from a nod of greeting no one paid him much heed. Elladan and Elrohir asked after news of lands even farther to the north, with more names strange to Maglor—the Shire, the Angle, the Breelands, the Barrow-downs—and received word that all was quiet, all peaceful.

“They are called Rangers in Bree—not a kind name, really, but they’ve adopted it cheerfully,” Elrohir told Maglor after they parted from a group of half a dozen of them. “They are the Dúnedain of Arnor, sons and daughters of forgotten Kings that once ruled in Annúminas, and later in Fornost.”

“Descendants of Elendil, through the line of Isildur,” Elladan added, “and he descended from Elros, long ago. Our father has always held the Dúnedain as close kin, our cousins, and they are always welcomed in Rivendell. Many of their princes and chieftains have been fostered there in their youth.”

Maglor watched the Dúnedain disappear into the distance behind a hill, and thought of Elros, who had laughed and sang much like Elladan and Elrohir did. He had been filled with the fire of life, and the knowledge of his death, long ago and peaceful though it had been, was a constant ache in Maglor’s heart. But it was something to know that his line had not failed with the island’s foundering, and that his sons and his daughters still walked through the world and laughed and sang beneath the sun and stars.

As they went farther north, they drew closer again to the mountains. The weather remained fair. They came to a hilly country covered in pink and purple heather, and moved away from the riverside as Elladan and Elrohir found a path that Maglor would have never seen had he come this way alone; it avoided all of the sudden chasms and deep valleys that would have swallowed him if he had not been with those who knew the way. “Ah!” cried Elrohir suddenly one afternoon, spurring his horse forward. “There is Gandalf!” He cantered ahead to a trio of figures in the distance—two ponies and a horse, upon which sat a man in a grey cloak with a long beard, and a strange pointed blue hat.

For a moment Maglor was back in the dungeons of Dol Guldur, and that hat was but a shadow in the doorway, lit dimly from behind. He blinked and shivered, finding himself back under the sun beside Elladan, who was looking at him with concern. “Maglor, are you well?” He nodded. “That is Gandalf ahead, and with him is the Halfling he took on the journey with the Dwarves, to Erebor. I am glad that he’s made it back west safely. Halflings are not made for such dangerous quests.” Maglor shook his head, not understanding Elladan’s words until he looked again ahead and saw a small figure on one of the ponies, no bigger than a child. Elrohir had caught up to them and was exchanging words with both Gandalf and his companion, who rode on after a few minutes, away toward the Road heading west. “Well?” Elladan said when he and Maglor caught up to Elrohir. “What news?”

“Master Baggins is quite a wealthy hobbit,” Elrohir replied, laughing. “And he was named Elf-friend by Thranduil himself, if you can believe it! And all is well at home. Gandalf was surprised to see us, and he promises to return to Imladris later this summer. He very much wishes to meet you properly,” he added to Maglor, who looked up in surprise. He had been letting the talk wash over him as he examined a heather blossom by his knee. “Well, come on! It isn’t far now.” They pressed on, following a path now marked here and there by white stones. Some were half-covered by moss, and Maglor would have missed them if Elladan had not pointed them out. “You cannot rush up this path,” Elrohir said over his shoulder. “For it comes to—ah. Here.” He halted, and Elladan drew up beside him. Maglor came up on his other side and blinked, for the earth fell away before them, and below a valley opened up, nestled at the very feet of the mountains. Streams tumbled down the mountainsides beyond into the river that flowed through the valley, glimmering silver under the sun. The grass was green and the trees were tall, and he could hear fair voices singing far below, a merry song filled with laughter. The air smelled of fir trees, though lower in the valley they faded away to oak and beech, and birch, and other trees Maglor could not recognize at a distance.

“There it is,” Elladan said, all quiet pride and deep love for this place. “The Last Homely House east of the Sea.”

“Home,” Elrohir added.

The House was nestled amid gardens lush with spring growth; it was large and rambling, but not unpleasantly so, with many chimneys with smoke curling gently out of them. Before it over the river arched a graceful and slender bridge; Maglor could see small figures walking about in front of the house, and passing along the river, or through open walkways between wings.

It was truly a beautiful place, and Maglor understood why Elrond had chosen to make his home here. Yet now that he was come here he found that he could not go on. This was not a place for him, any more than Lothlórien had been. He had to fight the instinct to turn and flee, for he knew that his horse would not carry him far, and Elladan and Elrohir would find him quickly even if he slipped away on foot. So he sat frozen until Elrohir reached over to tug on his horse’s reins. The mare followed obediently, and Maglor tore his gaze from the valley to the path in front of him, which switchbacked down the steep hillside. It was narrow but firm, though he had to keep his gaze between his horse’s ears to avoid looking at the almost-sheer drop down the side. His heart beat hard in his chest.

Though it had not been a cool day to start with, it grew even warmer as they descended. Maglor could feel a power in that valley, too, though it was gentler and—not weaker, but less of it was put forth than the power of Galadriel was put into Lórien, or at least it was of a different kind. There was a timelessness in her realm that was absent here. There was a closed off feeling there that here, too, was absent. This valley was hidden, but meant to be found by those who needed it. The warm breeze was a soft caress over his face, and the smell of pine settled over him like a blanket. And there was something else, a feeling of warmth and of comfort, the way a much-used childhood blanket felt when wrapped around small shoulders by a parent’s hands.

Elrond loved this place.

As they approached the bridge over the river, unseen elves in the nearby trees burst into merry song, teasing and laughing at the Sons of Elrond arriving home at last, many months after they had been looked for. Maglor looked at them, startled at this sort of greeting, but they were both laughing, and Elladan turned in his saddle to call back to the singers with the same kind of jokes. One elf dropped out of the trees and bowed to them. “Your father has been pacing all through the house for a week and more, awaiting you!” he said. “Hurry on now, before he wears a hole in the floor and falls into the wine cellar!”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Lindir!” Elrohir replied. “Adar knows all the best places to pace in his own house, and none of them are above the wine cellar!” Lindir laughed. “Is Glorfindel home yet?”

“Glorfindel returned before Midwinter,” Lindir said, “and has been out to the Ettenmoors and back twice since then.”

“To the Ettenmoors?” Elladan said—and there was a note of alarm in his voice rather than of laughter. “What’s been happening in the Ettenmoors?”

“Nothing, so far as I have heard,” said Lindir. “Glorfindel can tell you more.” With that he vanished into the trees, and a great peal of singing laughter erupted from the branches. Under different circumstances Maglor would have loved to linger, to listen or even to join in, for it was much like the music of his youth, when all had been merry and bright in Tirion. Even on that afternoon he might have lingered, had Elrohir not glanced back at him with a beckoning smile. Across that bridge lay a meeting that Maglor was not ready for.

Still, his horse carried him over the arching stone. Below the water flowed swiftly over a stony bed, and violets and daffodils bloomed on the banks. The house rose up before them, with ivy growing on some walls and pink and white climbing roses on others. A courtyard opened up, and their arrival was heralded by the sound of hooves on flagstones. Around the perimeter of it many paths branched off, some graveled, some paved with flat stones, others only dirt, winding away into the gardens and beyond into meadows and woods, through hedges and stands of trees, and passing under arches of stone or of wood where more flowers had climbed and hung, curtain-like. The scent of trees was replaced by flowers of all kinds, and of woodsmoke from several of the many chimneys above them.

Maglor dismounted slowly as both Elladan and Elrohir sprang from their saddles to hurry up the steps to the door, which swung open. Maglor did not see who emerged, because they disappeared into the double embrace of the twins. He turned away, pretending to take an interest in a nearby statue. It was Nienna, veiled and with her hands held before her, open as though in welcome or entreaty. He could see bits of her face through the carven veil, so skilled had been the sculptor. Moss grew about the hem of her robes. Someone had placed a river stone in one hand, and a small bouquet of chamomile flowers in the other. Wisteria grew behind her, draping over her shoulders in a gentle purple embrace.

Then his name was spoken, in a voice he had not heard since before Beleriand had broken and sunk into the Sea. Maglor turned, and there was Elrond, descending the steps. He had been only a youth when Maglor had last seen him, scarcely an adult even by the measure of Men. Their parting had been bitter, for both Elrond and Elros had begged Maglor to go with them to Gil-galad, and he had refused—because Maedhros had refused, and he could not leave his brother. He had refused to promise, also, that he would find them when the war was over, and that more than anything had infuriated them, and the last words they had shared had not been kind.

Maglor had not believed the war would end in their favor, then. And when it had—when the West had won…well. There had been no going back after that.

Elrond was of course full-grown now, in body and in power and wisdom, one of the Wise, an ageless child of Lúthien’s line, a lord among Elves and Men. He wore no jewelry or ornaments, but he needed none. His hair was long and dark and his eyes were grey and held the light of the stars. Maglor’s first instinct was to look away, to shrink back, but Elrond crossed the courtyard with swift strides and pulled him into an embrace so tight it was startling. Maglor’s arms came up on reflex, holding Elrond close as he had long ago when Elrond had been smaller and younger—the one in need of comfort rather than the one offering it. His head dropped to Elrond’s shoulder, tears burning his eyes and escaping to soak into Elrond’s fine robes. Then it was as though a dam inside him had burst, and he was shaking and shuddering in Elrond’s arms, silent sobs wracking him as the tears spilled, and spilled. His knees gave out, and Elrond knelt with him on the stones.

“Maglor,” Elrond said, and there were tears in his voice also. “Oh, Maglor, I have missed you. Let this be the end of your long exile.”