The Small and Secret Things by Dawn Felagund

A City in Light

Turgon contemplates the building of Gondolin. I have tried for an archaic, slightly overwrought style in this one because, well, today's word is archaic! It seemed fitting. Since I will soon be writing Turgon, it seemed the perfect opportunity to test his voice, which, in my mind is (you guessed it) archaic and slightly overwrought.

This piece is a quadrabble: exactly 400 words.

I will credit the skill of our craftsmen and our engineers for the city called Gondolin--nay, it does not yet exist--but the true architect of the secret city will be Memory. Memory: that omnipresent artisan, constant as the stars in the sky so unchanging that one may plot a course between worlds by them and err by not a foot. I sit upon the walls of Vinyamar, overlooking the sea. I stretch my hand to the west, toward Aman, where the sky blushes from the light of the setting Sun.

I close my eyes.

Memory does her work, and gone is the inferior light under which we now endure; gone is the bite of Winter just-arrived and fast to set his fangs into my suddenly damp cheeks. I sit now upon a different wall, as oft I did in days not so long past, and it is the Mingling. I am pretending to work. I came to Ezellohar often in those days, under the pretense of study, while in fact the pages of my book lay unturned with my palms flat upon them. I gazed across at a white city, its edges traced in light, until it was as though every rooftop, every spire had been etched inside my eyelids by stylus borne in Memory's masterful hand.

I used to stretch my fingers to trace the shape of Tirion. And she came once, laughing, to find me there, and caught my hand before I was fully aware of her presence; surprised me with a kiss to the palm, startling my eyes open. She was heavy with child, and in the Light, her hair was as spun gold. Beautiful.

That place on my palm bears still the memory. I trace the shape of Tirion, my eyes closed, seated upon a wall in Vinyamar with my city at my back--not Ezellohar, not the Trees--and wait for the kiss that does not come. My hand burns, waiting.

And then, something lands, something feather-soft and cold. My eyes spring open, and I watch the snowflake melt upon my palm.

On the horizon is a mass of clouds still gilded at the edges by the light of the departed Sun, piled in the shape of Tirion. And I know what I must do to keep my people from Elenwë's fate.

I will go to Gondolin betimes, before it is too late.

Chapter End Notes

betimes bih-TYMZ, adverb:

1. Early; in good time; before it is late.
2. At times; on occasion.
3. [Archaic] Soon; in a short time.

Betimes is from Middle English bitimes, from bi, "by" + time, "time."