Sylvanlight, Book I by slflew

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Chapter 16. The Trial of Elwing.

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Elwing stood before her judges, unable to see them. Her hands clenched the folds of her dress as the crowds behind her murmured and whispered, hundreds of stares drilled into her back.

Gwen held her breath as she waited for the charges to be levied against Elwing. She had certainly not expected to see this forlorn woman again after being led away by scores of troops, but now she wondered what the outcome of such a trial could be. She leaned over to her temporary master. "What's going on? Are the Valar just going to read her mind?"

He shook his head. "The Valar do not know how she got out. She broke their bonds, but there were no witnesses, so there is no proof of wrongdoing. That's what this trial is for." At this point, noting Gwen's interest, he continued. "I can roughly translate for you what's going on, but we cannot neglect our duties. Write while I talk."

And this she did, as he translated for her.

"The charges," the herald read aloud from an edict, "are breaking the sacred bonds which the Valar laid upon you. Do you, Elwing, daughter of Dior, understand these charges?"

She lifted her chin boldly. "I do."

Namo looked her straight in the eye. "Tell us, Elwing, how you escaped the tower."

A brief smile flitted across her face. "I go down the stairs of my tower every seven years to see if my bondage has been lifted. This time when I went down, I discovered the door unlocked, and escaped."

"Was it truly that simple?" Namo asked, frowning.

The Vala at Namo' right hand, Orome, clad in elaborate armor, stirred. "Why then were you seen exiting the library with the children of Melian?"

Elwing's tight grasp on her clothing loosened. "They found me walking the labyrinth and recognized my name when I gave it. They were kind enough to take me to their parent's home."

"You were aware of our judgment - why did you disobey it?"

"I thought perchance you had changed your mind!" Elwing protested. "My husband's craft has fallen out of the skies; of this I am fully aware! I thought that since my husband's exile is over - "

"Silence!" hissed the other Vala, Vaire, the spouse of Namo. "Your husband disobeyed us as well, by returning from exile."

The crowds stirred and murmured, but fell silent when Namo put up a hand. "He is currently paying for his disobedience in the Halls of Mandos."

Her new master stopped writing for a moment. "So it is true," he said. "Earendil and his crew died when they landed here."

Gwen's eyes widened, and she glanced at Elwing to see her reaction. She stood there, still as stone, face expressionless. "Ever have my husband and me borne the brunt of your wrath, "she said softly," for an offense that could well have been avoided. If my husband had known that Morgoth would be let loose to roam Valinor, he would have never sailed here - "

"Do not forget the reason behind your exile," Namo said coldly. "You are descended from a human, and they are not allowed to come to Valinor."

"That doesn't really apply now, does it?" Elwing's words cut through the air. The tension in the room was palpable.

The Valar turned to one another, presumably discussing what course of action to take. Gwen hurried to finish as she tried not to drip inkblots onto the paper.

The Valar finished speaking and turned towards Elwing. "We have decided. You will return to exile in your tower, until we have cause to bring you out of it."

"Please!" Elwing slumped to her knees, broken. "I can't go back there. You don't know what it's like - the solitude, the empty whistle of the wind, the faint noise of the city below. I've only the birds to keep me company, and my husband, but now even he is gone."

Namo motioned to the guard. Gwen held her breath.

"Please, I have a son," she sobbed. "He's come back - I haven't seen him since he was just a child. I've done no wrong."

The crowd was motionless, watching the Valar.

Namo closed his eyes, thinking.

"Quite an emotional defense," said Gwen's master. "But passionate."

Namo shifted under the scrutiny of the crowds. "Very well," he said. "We release you from your doom. You are free." He gestured, and her wings dissolved like dust, and her eyes cleared, so that she could see for the first time in years. She wept quietly, drained, and left.

Gwen leaned over to her master. "What about Earendil, though?"

He looked at her strangely. "My lord's judgment still stands."

*

That night, Gwen tossed and turned restlessly. The stone floor was cold, and perhaps the hardest thing she had ever slept on. Apparently the priests of Namo slept on the floor, the majority on thin pallets. How this could possibly be related to justice, Gwen was unsure, but it was, perhaps, part of their training. Around midday, her master had been relieved, retreating with her to a room where novices were practicing their calligraphy. He sat on one of the benches and indicated that she sit next to him. What followed was an intense afternoon of language, such that her head was still reeling from the bombardment of foreign words.

The court proceedings, her master informed her, were only for Elves and their matters. Traditionally disputes about slaves were decided amongst their masters, or taken to a smaller court presided over by the priests in the service of Namo. At the court proceedings that morning, she had seen Elves found innocent or guilty, with an endless variety of punishments - she had even seen an Elf transformed into a centaur for a hundred years before her eyes.

Dinner had followed, all the priests dining in a great hall while the Onlies served, then her master went to a frost-covered garden to meditate in the cold. Before going to bed, he finally gave her his name, Erumollien.

Gwen shifted, clutching her cloak around her to keep warm. Its crusty edges, covered in city grime, chafed against her bare feet. The moonlight shone gently through windows, illuminating the sleeping bodies. She rubbed her eyes, trying to sleep.

As she lay there, pondering her circumstances, a hollowness grew within her. Even though she had entered Feanor's house with trepidation, she had considered this a grand adventure, finally having to be self-reliant and keeping house. Even meeting new and strange people, seeing monkeys as clerks, a woman with wings, and dinosaurs brushing past her in the streets, she had considered this an adventure, an escape from a world that had become stale, dull, and hollow. But now the immensity of her situation weighed on her heart like a stone.

She might never go back, she realized. She might never see the lake again, read her favorite books, see her relatives that had been left behind. She missed the music, the laughter, and most of all, her family. Tears slipped from her eyes as she held her breath to keep a sob from coming. What were her parents going through? Her brother, working in a factory or farm? She had read plenty about the conditions of factories or laborers in fields - she knew it would most likely be no different here.

She might never see them. They might even die at the hands of their masters.

She drew her hood over her head, shutting out everything, and, with the taste of salt on her lips, finally drifted off into sleep.

*

Gwen's dreams were restless, anxious nightmares about disappointing her masters, doing something wrong and being beaten for it. As with most dreams, people are more feelings than actual people, with barely a face but more the impression of anger, of jealousy or disappointment.

Then her dreams became deeper, and she found herself standing on the top of a mountain overlooking an island. It spread itself out beneath her, green trees and white cities - as star in the midst of the cerulean sea. The sun shone down brilliantly around her, and she realized she was standing on the roof of a large temple, built from shining black obsidian. The wind began to buffet her, and the sky grew dark with clouds. The sea turned from a refreshing cerulean to a turbid grey, and watching the ocean froth, she felt sick in the pit of her stomach.

The she saw it, the sea gathering into a great wave that grew ever higher above the horizon. The land seemed to crack and jolt beneath her, throwing her to the ground. She clambered up to look off the edge of the roof, watching in horror as the wave began to swallow the land beneath her, trees and cities alike disappearing underneath the sea.  The wave broke against the mountain, spray soaring above her, then raining down, as the land seemed to crack again and she felt it beginning to sink. Whirlpools and eddies formed in the raging sea as the mountain began to disappear under the waves; she blinked, and the landscape changed suddenly - she was standing on beach, the waves thundering into the sand, surrounded by thousands of people. Then she awoke, confused, as Erumollien shook her.

 

"Come," he said. "There are court proceedings we must attend to."

*

"Are we going to the Lower Courts today?" Gwen asked as her master stood in line for paper.

He shook his head. "I am not yet important enough to sit as a judge, but I am high enough to scribe in the courts of the Valar. I hope to someday become a judge." As he approached the person handing out paper, the priest shook his head. "We're out," he said.

"What?" Erumollien was astonished. "How am I supposed to do my job if I don't have paper?"

The priest shrugged. "I'm sure I don't know," he muttered. "There are fewer trees now than before, and the parchment-makers are on strike. Would you have them cut down the trees of Lorien to make paper?"

"If I can do my job, then yes!" He pulled out a watch, started, and turned to go. "Come on! We'll be late!"

They entered the court room, but instead of the scribes and audience sitting in their assigned sections, they were gathered in a group on the large floor. They quickened their pace to see what was going on.

On the white floor were characters painted in slick black, angry by their strokes. Gwen could spell out the words, but did not know their meaning. "'There is no justice,'" her master translated for her. "If Namo finds out who did this - " he was speechless. Already servants were coming with buckets of water and cleaning brushes, and as the scribes each began to scrub at the floor, Gwen followed suit, getting down on her knees.

The words did not come off easily - it seemed as though they were made of some kind of tar - and even though they began to come off, water smeared the black worse still.

Reluctantly, her master ordered her to run into the city and find paper. She had no idea where to look, or any money for the train, only for the paper. She immersed herself in the crowds, looking for the Elvish word for book, parma, which happened to have filtered down into Breech. eventually she saw a sign with the word book in it, a wooden sign, painted red with golden flowery Elvish. She waited for a cart to pass her, then entered through its doorway, open to let the unnaturally warm air for a winter's day inside. Inside were rows of books, and the rhythmic sound of a printing press.

The printer was leaning over the rack, assembling type stamps into a page for printing. When he noticed her, he stood up, wiping his deeply ink-stained hands on his apron. "What is it?" he asked.

"I'm in desperate need of paper," she said sullenly.

The printer raised his eyebrows, and gave her some, charging what was most likely an exorbitant price, but she paid it, running back to the courtroom. The guards stopped her from going in, and after telling them who her master was, they agreed to let her in after the first trial of the day was finished.  When the doors opened to let the audience out, she rushed into her master's side, laying the paper on the desk. He nodded in thanks as the next person was led in for trial. 

The day drifted on lazily, Gwen's monotonous copying made her drift into a kind of stupor. The Valar presiding that day were, along with Namo, Ulmo and, coincidentally, the other Valar she had met, Nessa. Her hand had become used to forming the Elvish characters, and she no longer even glanced up to see who was being tried. The sunlight through the windows shortened and moved through the course of the day, darkening as the shadow of the Great Wall was cast on the court. Her master had not been relieved at mid-day, as she had expected. Rather, they stayed on throughout the afternoon, not eating lunch. There were trade disputes, grievances filed, murderers jailed. Executions were given out more often than she expected, but for Elves such a thing was hardly trivial.

After the day's activities were concluded, Gwen began to clean up and categorize the papers. Erumollien noticed that Ulmo motioned aside the herald, murmuring something to him. After the Valar left, the herald approached the scribes, speaking to Gwen's master. After she was finished cleaning the desk, she turned to Erumollien.

"Ulmo holds his court tomorrow," he said, "and we have been asked to be his scribes."

"I hope this will not hurt your career," Gwen said, turning to go.

"No, it won't!" Erumollien said, eyes shining. "It shows I'm moving up in the world."

The next morning, her master woke her up early in the morning, at about four. She trudged behind him wearily, squinting to see in the early morning light. The lamp flames flickered quietly, the streets shrouded in fog as the lamplighters did their work, dousing the lamps.

"Why must we go so early?" Gwen asked, hurrying to catch up.

He barely looked at her. "Before serving the Valar in such intimate closeness, we must purify ourselves. That may take some time.'

As they approached the temple of Ulmo, they did not go through the main entrance, but rather through another, smaller entrance. There they stood, waiting, as a woman dressed in blue approached them. "Good," she said. "You're here."

Gwen waited as the woman took Erumollien down the corridor, disappearing out of sight. Then she came back for her. As she led Gwen down the hallway, she glanced at her with a bemused expression. "It is very rarely that my lord Ulmo has slaves so closely in his service. But the scribes of Namo are of great renown, and those slaves in service to his priests must be of great worth as well." She opened a door into a room where five maidens stood, dressed in white. Their arms seemed to shimmer in the light of the gnat-lights, and as Gwen looked closer, she noticed they were covered in scales.

The room was obviously a bath-room, a pool of warm steaming water set in the floor. The room smelled fresh, clean, as though it were spring and the earth awakening from its slumber. The woman beside her nodded. "Disrobe," she said.

"I beg your pardon?" Gwen stuttered. There were, after all, six others in the room.

The woman snorted. "It'll be nothing that we haven't seen before."

Gwen looked at her balefully, but nevertheless did as she was told. The woman in blue gathered up her clothes to be cleaned thoroughly, as the other women checked Gwen's hair for lice. She bathed, the women making sure she washed thoroughly, her long hair soaped and cleaned. Afterwards her hands and feet were scrubbed, the dirt under her nails scraped away.

Her clothes were given back to her, soft and clean, and she donned them, still self-conscious. They gave her a leaf to chew, freshening her breath. Then she was escorted to her master, into the presence of Ulmo, who was sitting on a throne of coral, fully clothed in deep blue velvet, so dark it was nearly black. He looked at them, expressionless, then indicated that they come up on the dais. Low desks and rugs were brought, and they sat cross-legged before them, Gwen handing her master the paper they had bought that morning. Erumollien made his ink as the priests made ready for the crowds to be brought in. The herald of Ulmo came and stood before them. "It is the request of Lord Ulmo that a copy of the records be written in the English tongue." Her master snorted, but nodded. "I'll translate for you," he told Gwen, "and you must write in English. I do hope your handwriting is good." The doors leading into the black-pillared hall banged open, and a man of vigor walked in, striding before the dais. He was fair of face, not unlike the Elves she had seen on her own world. "Osse," her master said for clarification, "a Maiar, and servant of Ulmo."

The man bowed, and related something in Quenya. Gwen was able to catch a couple words, but Erumollien leaned over. "He's reporting on the state of Valinor. There's been general unrest throughout the land ever since the star of Earendil fell. The wreckage of his craft has been combed over several times, but the Silmaril he bore aloft has not been found. Some have even begun mining around the area, to see if it has been thrown into the ground. The rebellion was beaten back in the town of Islena, but has taken most of the western forests, what's left of them. The general fish population has continued to drop, and the silt in the major farming delta, Nenruyn, will soon cause the river rising, which will deposit silt on the farming grounds in the south. The mountain of Meneltarma on the rising island of Numenor has spewed fire once more, increasing the size of the island, and cooling the air, so that we will have more days of winter than expected." He sighed. "I had hoped it would be a short one."

The man bowed once more, leaving the way he came. Then the masses were let in.