Clear Pebbles of the Rain by StarSpray

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Nine

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The winter seemed to pass with agonizing slowness. Snow blanketed the valley, to Estel’s delight, and he spent his days building snow fortresses and digging tunnels in the deep drifts, and ambushing anyone who happened to walk by with a flurry of snowballs. When he tried it on Gilraen she gave as good as she got, and the two of them came stumbling inside afterward, covered in snow and red-faced both from the cold and from laughter. 

Elrond put on a smile, but his thoughts remained far away. He scoured his library for accounts and reports of those who had suffered under the Black Breath during the Angmar Wars, and even older accounts of prisoners rescued or escaped from Angband. He learned nothing knew; most of the texts he had written or copied himself. 

Glorfindel had returned to Imladris at the start of December, having come up the Greenway from Isengard through the Gap of Rohan, bringing a more detailed picture of the events at Dol Guldur and also of Maglor’s state. Silent and in pain and afraid he had been, shrinking away from them in the darkness of his deep cell rather than believing it to be a true rescue. Elrond had not been able to listen to the full tale in one sitting, and even months later it was hard to think about. The knowledge that Maglor had been languishing in the dark, in pain and alone and forced into silence, while Elrond had been enjoying the sunlight and the starlight and the music that was ever present in his valley, laughing with his sons and singing in his halls—it made him want to scream and throw things. He did neither, because he knew it wouldn’t help, and it would only worry those around him. So instead he buried himself in old accounts and old remedies and songs of healing and of peace, and tried to tell himself that this time they would work.

Spring came, with snow melt swelling the river and turning all the garden paths to mud, which Estel then tracked all over the house before Gilraen scolded him into being more careful in what had become a yearly ritual. It also brought Estel’s eleventh birthday, which was a merry affair—even though Elladan and Elrohir were not there. They had never missed Estel’s birthday before, and though he was old enough to understand that it could not be helped, Elrond could see that he was disappointed. Still, he had all his favorite songs and stories sung and told in the Hall of Fire after a merry feast of all his favorite foods, and fell asleep halfway through the tale of Túrin Turambar. Glorfindel carried him to bed. 

Later that night, though, as Elrond sat in his room sorting through several treatises on athelas, he heard a soft knock at the door. “Enter,” he called, and was not surprised to see Estel. “Something amiss, Estel?”

“I dreamed,” Estel said. His hair was sleep-tousled and tangled, and his slightly too big nightshirt hung off one shoulder, making him look smaller and younger than he was. 

Elrond set the papers aside and gestured for Estel to join him on the bed. Estel darted across the room and crawled up to curl himself against Elrond’s side, as he had done since he was very small. “Tell me about it,” Elrond said, smoothing a stray curl back from Estel’s forehead.

“I stood on a high place,” Estel said after a moment, speaking slowly and haltingly, reluctant to remember the dream, “and there were green fields and hills before me—and towering over all of them was a great wave, and the sky above it was dark. It was coming in fast, and I couldn’t move or speak or do anything—” He broke off, shuddering, and turned his face into Elrond’s shoulder. “It means something,” he said, voice muffled, “but I don’t know what.”

“It is a memory of Númenor, Estel,” Elrond said gently. 

“Not my memory,” Estel said. “It happened so long ago! Why should I remember it?”

“It is a memory of the Dúnedain. You are not the only one to dream of it, and you will not be the last. Try to put it out of your mind—as you said, it happened long ago.” Elrond himself dreamed of it, sometimes. He was never able to return to sleep afterward, especially on rainy nights. 

Estel turned his head and looked at the papers on Elrond’s lap. “What are you reading about?”

“Athelas.”

“But you already know everything, don’t you?”

Elrond couldn’t help but laugh. “I know much, yes, but not everything. And even I need to refresh my memory at times. Elladan and Elrohir are bringing someone here soon who will need all of the help that I can give him, and I want all of my knowledge fresh in my mind.”

“Who are they bringing? Is that why they did not come back in the fall?”

“One who was rescued from Dol Guldur,” Elrond said. Estel knew something of it, though Elrond had been careful not to speak in detail of its horrors when he might overhear—or eavesdrop. “And, yes, that is why they have tarried east of the mountains. I hope they will return very soon, as the mountain passes clear.” He shifted so that he could pull the blankets up over Estel. “Try to sleep, Estel. It is late.” Estel murmured a protest through a yawn, but his eyes were already drifting shut. As Elrond picked up the papers again he hummed a lullaby, and before long Estel was sound asleep, again a tired young boy rather than the heir of Númenor, with all its glories and all its troubles. Time was passing too swiftly, Elrond thought as he stroked his hand over Estel’s hair. Too soon Estel would be grown, and ready to shoulder his name and title and all that came along with it. He spoke often of wishing to go with Elladan and Elrohir when they left the valley, to cross the mountains and to follow the river all the way to the sea, and Elrond knew that he would do all of that and more—that his feet would carry him far from Rivendell and to dark and dangerous places, as the Shadow grew again—like the wave that had overrun Númenor. 

But no. It was not yet so inevitable. Spring still came after winter, and the sun still rose each morning, and in the gloaming Gil-Estel shone bright as it ever had, out of reach of whatever shadows Sauron cast across Middle-earth. Elrond could not yet see how he would be defeated, but Estel would play a part in it—Estel the man, and estel, the hope that they call must carry within them.

The days lengthened and the sun grew warm; crocuses and daffodils burst into bloom along the riverbank, and were soon followed by budding leaves and other flowers. April passed into May—which brought Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins back into the west. Bilbo was quite a different hobbit from the one who had come to Rivendell the summer before, and Elrond was very glad to welcome them both back, and to hear the tales of their adventures. It was a distraction, if nothing else, from his growing anxiety for his sons’ and Maglor’s arrival, which must come any day. 

“Once I see Bilbo safely back to Hobbiton,” Gandalf said as he and Elrond walked through the garden under the blooming lilac, “I think I will go on to Mithlond, and have a bit of a rest by the Sea. But after that I think I will come back here for a spell, if that is agreeable to you.”

Elrond looked at him in surprise. “You are always welcome here, Gandalf,” he said. 

“I thought it best to ask in this case,” Gandalf said, “since Glorfindel had mentioned having several debates with Saruman over his desire to come north—which surprised me, as I thought him rather settled at Isengard, and also at your apparent reluctance to welcome him here.”

“He wishes to speak with Maglor,” Elrond said. 

“Ah. About his doings by the Anduin, I presume—before the Enemy caught him?”

“Yes.” Under normal circumstances Elrond would not begrudge Saruman taking an interest, considering his long study of the Rings, and of the One, but there was no reason to believe that Maglor knew anything at all about Rings, or even about what had befallen Isildur there at the Gladden Fields—and Saruman’s own belief had long been that the Ring had been carried down the current even to the Sea, and so there was no reason for him to come to interrogate Maglor, who could not even answer him, when what Maglor most needed was rest. From somewhere else in the gardens a peal of a child’s laughter reached them. Estel and Bilbo had become unlikely but fast friends, and no doubt Bilbo was entertaining him with tales of his exploits. If Saruman came to Imladris too soon he would have questions about more than just Rings and rivers; he was wise but fond of his authority, and while he appreciated Saruman’s counsel in many matters, and held him high in his confidence, Elrond did not care to hear his opinions on what he did in his own household concerning his own kin. 

Gandalf had probably already guessed at the secrets Elrond was keeping, but Elrond knew that they would not leave the valley on his lips. He was no stranger to secrets; Vilya rested heavily on Elrond’s finger, and he knew Narya’s weight was no less. 

“You have never spoken of Maglor,” Gandalf remarked as they continued to amble down the path.

“No one ever asks,” Elrond replied with a small, wry smile. “I did speak to Pengolodh, long ago when he was first recording his histories.” 

“Yes, I’ve read them, and I can see where you must have made a few rather pointed remarks to him,” said Gandalf, sounding amused. He would be. Elrond had apologized for his manner later, and Pengolodh had been gracious about it. But he’d said all that he was willing to put into the histories. No one else needed to know all the details of his childhood. “And Galadriel told me once that you used to search for him as often as you could managed to slip away from Lindon.”

“I did. I never found him.”

“Why do you suppose he never let himself be found?” Gandalf asked. “I confess, I did a bit of searching myself some time ago, but he kept himself well hidden.”

Elrond shook his head. “I cannot say.” He could not deny that it hurt to know that Maglor had been out there all this time and that he had never sought out Elrond, or so much as left a message or some sign that he was alive. He had begged Maglor, at their last parting, to come find them after the war was over since he would not go with them to Gil-galad. Maglor had refused to make any promises. They had learned why, to their grief, later. He and Elros had both gone after them as soon as they had heard what had happened, in spite of Eönwë counseling against it. They had come upon the casket that had held the Silmarils, and nearby a satchel that had belonged to Maedhros, but nothing else. The Silmarils were gone, and Maglor and Maedhros with them. 

Gandalf regarded him from beneath his bushy eyebrows. He puffed on his pipe, sending smoke rings floating lazily up over the lilacs. “I am sorry,” he said. “I did not mean to dredge up old griefs.”

“They have already been dredged.” Elrond offered a smile. “I’m just—I’m not sure what I can say. I loved him, and I love him still. I have spent many years thinking of what I would say to him when we finally met again, but I never expected it to be under such circumstances.” 

“I have been trying to think of what I might have done differently in Dol Guldur,” Gandalf said. “If he was there then, as I fear he was. I tried to seek out anyone that I might help, since I could not save poor Thráin, but I was very nearly caught and only barely escaped myself.”

“What makes you think that he was there?” That would mean it was more than sixty years that Maglor had lain in the dark, more than half a century of needless suffering. Elrond had never hoped before that Gandalf was mistaken, yet…

“There were…cracks, you might say, in the Necromancer’s defenses. I was able to slip in undetected because of them. They felt rather like…” Gandalf paused to blow another smoke ring as he thought. “Like the damage water does to stone, when it seeps into cracks and freezes and thaws over time. But someone put them there, and I rather think it was Maglor. There was someone that I thought I saw in one of the deeper dungeons, but I cannot know if it was him, or even if that person was alive.”

“I wish that we had acted sooner,” Elrond said. “For many reasons, not least of all for Maglor’s sake.” Gandalf grunted agreement. “But I do not think there is anything you could have done. As you said, you barely got yourself out.”

“If I am right, and that it was Maglor’s power that stuck in the Necromancer’s and started the weakening, there is great strength in him yet—strength and defiance, for whatever the Necromancer wanted from him he never got. The fire of the House of Fëanor may burn low, but it burns hot, and does not go out.”

Gandalf and Bilbo stayed a week before Bilbo grew anxious to be home in his own home again. Elrond was sorry to see them go, for he had grown very fond of the hobbit. Bilbo had expressed a desire to read more of the great tales and histories, and Elrond foresaw a great deal of correspondence to and from the Shire in the near future. He would ask Gildor to take some books to Bag End when next he came to Imladris; he thought that Gildor would find it very amusing. 

Elladan, Elrohir, and Maglor arrived mere hours after Gandalf and Bilbo departed. Elrond had thought himself prepared. He had thought that he would know what to say, how to assure Maglor that he was welcome there—more than welcome, that he had been loved and missed and longed for. In the end he did not know if his words were enough, or even if Maglor truly heard them. Tears, Elrond had expected. For Maglor to appear to crumble and break down before his eyes, he had not been prepared. He knelt on the flagstones before the statue of Nienna as Maglor shuddered and shook in his arms. He had known to expect silence, but it was still a shock. Maglor had never been silent, not in all the time that Elrond had known him, except when absolutely necessary. There had always been humming or quiet singing, or speech, whether teasing someone to make them all laugh, or whispering to Maedhros, or calling out an order or a warning. 

He had known that Maglor had suffered and was still suffering, but somehow Elrond had still not expected to see him diminished. He loomed so large in Elrond’s memories that it seemed almost a different person had come to Imladris instead, wearing his face. 

Elrond got him inside and to the room that had been sitting, cleaned and fully prepared for him, for months now. Elladan and Elrohir had gotten everyone else out of the way so that Maglor would not have to suffer an audience, though Elrond wasn’t sure that Maglor would even have noticed them. He did not seem fully aware of anything but Elrond, even if he wouldn’t look him in the face—which was just as well, because Elrond did not think he was doing very well at hiding his own feelings.

Once in the privacy of Maglor’s room, Elrond sat him in a chair by the hearth, which had a fire crackling low even though the day was warm, and knelt in front of him. There were lines on Maglor’s hollow-cheeked face that had not been there before, and scars—one over his cheekbone, and other smaller ones that were only truly noticeable up close, around his lips. Needle marks, and indentations where the cords had bit into his skin which had then healed around them. But even those were not as distressing as the look in his eyes, of exhaustion and despair and fear and loneliness all rolled together. Elrond’s heart ached for him. “Maglor,” he said, but had to stop to gather himself. “Maglor,” he tried again, “you are weary. Will you let me help you rest?” 

Maglor’s eyes fell closed and he nodded. He let Elrond wash his face and hands and undress him, and then lead him to the bed. It was nothing Elrond had not done hundreds—thousands—of times for so many others, but it was as hard to care for Maglor in this way as it had been to care for Celebrían. He sang a quiet lullaby, putting forth his power into the words. It was not a lullaby that Maglor had ever sung to him—those were too burdened with memory for the moment—but one Gilraen had sung to Estel when he had been a baby. Slowly, Maglor relaxed, and slowly he drifted to sleep, his hand in Elrond’s going slack, and his face softening a little in rest. Elrond placed his hand on Maglor’s forehead, singing words of dreamlessness and deep rest, which Maglor sorely needed. He was too thin, too, even after months in Lórien under Galadriel’s care. 

When the song was done, and Maglor asleep, Elrond sat by the bed and buried his face in his hands, allowing himself only few minutes to weep before regaining his composure to go speak to his sons. 

He found them washed and changed out of their traveling clothes, outside again in the garden where Estel had found them. There was much laughter and talking over one another as the three spoke. Gilraen stood nearby, watching them with a smile as Elrond stepped up beside her. If she noticed his slightly reddened eyes—and he had no doubt that she did, for Gilraen missed very little—she said nothing. “How is our new guest?” she asked instead. 

“Resting,” Elrond said, and had to cough to clear his throat when the word came out rough and broken. 

“Is it so very bad?” Gilraen asked softly. Elrond glanced toward Estel, but he was distracted by Elladan and Elrohir’s pair of late birthday gifts, which included a bow made by the Galadhrim, and a quiver full of arrows. 

“He was a prisoner of the Necromancer. It is very bad.” Elrond’s voice did not shake, but it was a near thing. 

Gilraen laid a hand on his arm. “Then he will not be here long?” she asked. Rivendell was often the last stop for Elves seeking the Havens, and it was not an unreasonable question—in fact it was one Elrond should have expected. But hearing it said aloud still felt like a blow, and all he could do was shake his head. There would be no ship awaiting Maglor at the Havens. Whatever happened, whether he faded or healed, or simply continued as he was—it would happen there, in Middle-earth. Elrond wasn’t sure that he would agree to go even if he had that choice. 

Estel came running over to them then, eager to show off his new bow and the knife that Elrohir had given him, made of sharp steel and with a carven handle made of mallorn wood. Gilraen immediately took the knife, saying that Estel could have it when he needed it, and no he did not need to carry it around with him at all times. Estel might have argued if Elrond was not there, but as it was he relented with only a little grumbling before forgetting all about it when Elrohir called to him. 

“Let’s go out to test your new bow!” he said, and Estel nearly tripped over himself as he scrambled after him, crowing in delight. 

Elladan hung back, and Gilraen went inside to put the knife somewhere safe. “I hope that makes up a little for missing his birthday,” Elladan said as Elrond joined him by the fountain.

“I think it does,” Elrond said. “He’s been very eager for you to return.” He put his arm around Elladan’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to his temple. “As have I. How is Arwen?”

Elladan leaned against him. “She is very well, but we are all worried for Maglor.”

“Thank you for bringing him here,” Elrond said. 

“It was easier than I thought it would be,” Elladan admitted. “We were half afraid he’d bolt somewhere in the middle of Eriador. I think it must be because Arwen asked him; he would do anything she asked. Well,” he added after a slight pause, “almost anything.”

“Tell me all of it,” Elrond said. They walked into the gardens in the opposite direction that Elrohir and Estel had gone, and came to a secluded spot where the paths were only barely kept clear of trailing roses. It had been Celebrían’s favorite place, and now Elrond and his children came there when they wanted a moment of quiet. Elladan told him everything, from finding Maglor in one of the deepest cells, to his various physical injuries, to the way that he seemed sometimes unable to keep himself in the present. His mind would drift, to where or when Elladan could not say. 

“But what Arwen most wished me to tell you,” Elladan said, “is that when Eleryn found a harp for him—just a small one, light and easy to hold on one’s lap—he would not touch the strings, and when it was placed in his room he moved it behind something else so that it was out of sight.”

That was troubling. Elrond stared at a half-bloomed rose without truly seeing it. “I’ve put a harp in his room here,” he said finally, “but it’s too large to be easily hidden.”

“Will you take it away?”

“No, not unless he asks. We can only hope he’ll find his way back to his music eventually.” It had been such a huge part of who he was, both pride and comfort wrapped up in it, at least when Elrond had known him. If the sight of a harp turned out to be truly distressing, he would have it moved, but he hoped that would not be necessary. “He was left alone in silence for too long.”

Elladan nodded in agreement. “We have tried not to leave him alone for too long,” he said. “But we also feared that giving him no solitude would do harm of its own. I think that he is getting better. He is more…he seems a little more settled in himself, now, that he was at first. And even from the beginning he has wanted…” He paused again, trying to find the right words. “He keeps reaching out into the world, rather than withdrawing from it into himself. One of the first things he did on his own, when he was barely strong enough for it, was to sit up and reach out the window to feel the rain.”

Elrond took a breath. “Then there is indeed hope,” he said.