Chapter Text
Fingon woke and immediately screwed his eyes tight shut, because something much too bright was shining down on him. He felt very stiff all over, and there was something heavy on his legs. A poor night’s rest and a poor waking, he thought: and he had had the strangest dream!
Then he remembered the dark gate.
His eyes flew open. He was lying on a grassy bed under a grove of trees on Estë’s isle of Lórellin. The very bright thing shining on him was the Sun, and her light was in fact filtering dimly through the green leaves overhead, with only the occasional bright shaft illuminating the drifting pollen in the air: yet to Fingon, whose eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness beyond the world, it seemed like the brightest thing he had ever seen. How extraordinary to have a Sun!
Maedhros lay with his head in Fingon’s lap. He looked just as Fingon had last seen him on the other side of the gate: thin and ragged and barefoot, with grey streaks in his tangled hair, and old scars plainly visible through the ruins of his clothes. He was curled up as small as he could get, his face buried in his folded arms. Fingon laid a hand on his shoulder and felt him tremble. He was awake. But he did not move. Fingon thought: not this again! “Maedhros!” he said, and would have said more, but a sudden awe fell on him. He knew himself in the presence of one of the Powers, and was silent.
Out of the air and dappled sunlight a soft-shining shape gathered itself. Then Estë the Healer stood above them, all arrayed in grey: she who was seldom seen abroad by day. “You are awake!” she said with delight. But she stopped speaking abruptly as she saw who else was there. Then it was that Fingon saw a sight which very few had ever seen: one of the Queens of the Valar, wide-eyed, lifting her hand to cover her mouth in shock.
Still Maedhros trembled and did not move. Fingon could feel how afraid he was. He looked up mutely at Estë and tightened his comforting grip on Maedhros’s shoulder. There would be a judgement, he knew: there would have to be. But now? Here?
“O brave!” said Estë at last, and she smiled. “This was a rare deed. And would you defend him even from me? You need not. None who suffer need fear me – though many do.” She knelt down in the grass. “Maedhros,” she said, “look up! It will not hurt as much as you think. Look up, son of Fëanor. It is morning!”
Fingon thought of how the Sun had seemed too bright to him. How unbearable must she seem to Maedhros, who had been in the darkness so much longer? But though Estë softly called his name again, Maedhros still hid his face. Estë looked at Fingon. “Tell him!” she said.
She was among the gentler Powers, and her commands had not the fearsome weight of those given by some greater and sterner than she. But it was a command nonetheless. When she spoke Fingon felt as though air and sunlight and the green grove all spoke too in her soft voice, and all together they said that the world was good, and might yet be made better, given help, given time.
“Maedhros,” he said softly, “she’s right. Look up! Remember the star-glass – it wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be either.” He shook Maedhros’s thin shoulder. “Come now! Do you mean to lie here forever? It won’t get easier if you wait, and besides I shall need my legs back at some point. Look up!”
Maedhros shuddered. But Fingon reached for his hand, and gently tugged it away from where it was curled protectively about his face, and held onto it. Then at last Maedhros lifted his head.
He did exactly the same thing Fingon had done and screwed his eyes shut at once. Then he said, “Oh!” and opened them again. He blinked hard several times, and rubbed his eyes with his maimed right arm, and then stared about him. “It’s bright!” he said. He looked around at the trees, the dappled green shadows, the shafts of sunlight piercing the canopy. “It doesn’t hurt,” he said. He swallowed audibly. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you,” said Estë. “We do our best!”
Maedhros paled as he looked at her. Fingon squeezed his hand. “Thank you,” Maedhros managed, in a small voice, and Fingon did not think he was only talking about the grove.
Estë inclined her head gravely. Then she laid her shining hand on Maedhros’s brow. It did not seem to trouble her at all that he was ragged and dirty – that he was indeed the only thing on her green isle that was not fair to look upon. She spoke no word, and her expression was solemn. Maedhros closed his eyes. Fingon wondered what he was hearing. He did not think he would ever know.
“There!” said Estë at last, and she stood up again, and dusted off her grass-stained skirt in the most normal way, as if she was only an ordinary Elf-maid. “That is much better already: though it will take time, and plenty of work. And it will be your work far more than mine!”
“Thank you,” said Maedhros again. Fingon echoed him softly. Then he and Maedhros looked at each other, and Fingon saw something that made his spirit swell with joy. Not a trace of shadow remained in Maedhros’s eyes, nor of that old red flame. He looked at the world now with the eyes of one of the Sindar or the Silvan Elves of Middle-earth. Perhaps they were not so bright as they should have been, for a High-elf born in the light of the Trees: but they were infinitely better than they might have been. After a moment when they only gazed at each other Maedhros quirked an eyebrow and smiled at him a little. Fingon smiled back.
Then he glanced up at Estë. She gave him a small conspiratorial nod.
“I do not think Lórellin is the place for you anymore,” she said. “Either of you!”
“I understand,” said Fingon. He stood up, and offered Maedhros a hand to get to his feet.
Maedhros swayed a little where he stood, and did not let go of Fingon, but he did not actually fall over, which Fingon had half-feared he would. “Where are we going?” he said.
“It must be Eressëa,” said Fingon. Then he stopped as he remembered just how far it was from Lórien to the coast – the coast where they needs must borrow a boat from the Teleri to sail out to the Lonely Isle, and the thought of that awkward conversation was unnerving enough by itself! But as if that was not bad enough, between here and there they would pass many curious onlookers. The garden of Lórien, though quiet, was seldom empty, and other busier realms lay beyond it. Would Maedhros have to walk the whole way as he was – barefoot and ragged before all those watching eyes? Fingon’s penitential road from Mandos to kneel at Olwë’s feet had not been half so hard!
“I can’t!” Maedhros said faintly.
But he looked at Fingon and something of the old stubbornness came into his expression. His shoulders straightened: his jaw firmed.
“I must,” he said.
“We can wait a while!” said Fingon. He gave Estë a beseeching look. “Can’t we?”
Estë lifted her brows and said nothing. It would not get easier, Fingon knew, if they waited. It might even get harder.
“I said I would be brave,” Maedhros said. He grimaced. “I did not realise I would have to start straight away. But it won’t get any easier, Fingon. Will you be with me at least?”
“Of course I will!” Fingon said.
“Then we had better go.”
They both bowed to Estë, who lifted a hand in grave farewell. Hand in hand then they walked towards the gap in the trees that led away from the grove. Just as Fingon caught a glimpse afar off of curved white bridge that was their road, Estë cried behind them, “Wait!”
Fingon and Maedhros stopped and turned. The Healer stood under the trees smiling. As they looked upon her smile it gave way to soft laughter like the sound of flowing water. “Very well!” she said. “Why not? But mind my trees!”
Maedhros gave Fingon a confused look. Fingon shook his head, just as baffled.
Suddenly they heard a wild glad call above. It was the same proud fierce Eagle-scream that had long ago given Fingon reason to hope when he thought all hope was gone. There came the sound of great wings beating, and a moment later a mighty Eagle crashed through the canopy in a flurry of bright feathers and scattered green leaves.
“I said mind my trees!” said Estë.
The Eagle folded its wings and looked, so far as such a great lord of the upper airs could manage it, sheepish. Then it tilted its head and fixed one brilliant golden eye first on Fingon, and then on Maedhros. It said nothing; but it was perfectly obvious what they were meant to do.
They both climbed onto the Eagle’s broad back. It was not quite so great as Thorondor had been, but still many many times larger than any normal bird. Just as he had long ago, Fingon made sure that Maedhros sat before him so that Fingon could hold onto him. “I am not all that likely to fall this time!” said Maedhros over his shoulder.
“Indulge me!” Fingon said.
The Eagle gave a cry and made what should have been an impossible leap up into the air. Its wings spread wide, but it scattered no leaves this time. It circled and rose steadily above Lórien and then turned its course eastwards, and the cold wind of its swift flight blew Fingon’s hair back from his face.
Fingon felt that on the whole it was a very great indulgence to be under the Sun and carried on these broad wings with his arms around Maedhros’s waist. And if he closed his eyes and rested his face against Maedhros’s shoulder, well, Maedhros already knew how he felt, and the Eagle was not likely to tell anyone.
The Eagle carried them over land and sea and set them down on top of a low hill on the eastern shores of Tol Eressëa. Fingon was very grateful. He had half-expected to be brought before the throne of Manwë and ordered to explain himself immediately, and it was clear from Maedhros’s expression that he had thought the same. But the Eagle simply left them there without a word and took off again. Soon even to Elven eyes it was only a dark speck in the clear sky.
Fingon looked around, slightly confused. There was no one in sight. It took him a moment to recognise where he was. But there was the stand of tough fir-trees the Elves had planted as a windbreak, now grown tall and strong: and there was the white stone path winding down to the coast road, and there the garden gate. And there was a garden under the green hill, beautifully laid out and well-tended. There were hyacinths in bloom, and the golden daffodils were beginning to open. All about them was the good green growth that promised fair flowering all through the year, and here and there strong young saplings growing tall: and there was a bench at the far end of the garden, angled to catch the last of the westering sun at eventide. Close under the foot of the hill lay a vegetable patch. There and only there everything was laid out in strict rows and growing accorded to the practical-minded preferences of a purely Hobbitish tradition of gardening: for Hobbits feel it is much more sensible to have your potatoes and your carrots and your beans and peas and lettuces where you can get them quickly when you want them, and so they prefer to grow their vegetables and herbs in neat rows, ideally right outside the kitchen door.
This was Sam’s garden: well, Sam’s and Frodo’s, but Fingon suspected mostly Sam’s. Fingon and Maedhros were standing on top of the low hill that looked East and West, and the Hobbit-hole was right under their feet. This was not where Fingon had expected to be brought, but he smiled to see it. It was a homely place!
“Come,” he said to Maedhros. “You must meet the Halflings. Without their advice I should never have found you.”
“Very well,” said Maedhros, “though I can’t imagine I look like the sort of guest anyone wants in their home.”
“They won’t mind,” said Fingon. “Come on!”
They went down the hill together and found the round front door open. Fingon knocked and called out, but no one answered him. “What’s that smell?” said Maedhros.
Fingon breathed in deeply. “Bacon!”
He knocked again, but he did not expect an answer now. Hobbits at mealtimes were not easily distracted. “We had better wait,” said Maedhros.
“The door is open!” Fingon said. “They won’t mind, I promise.”
“They might!”
“You haven’t met them. They are a friendly folk.” Besides Fingon had heard Maedhros’s stomach grumble at the mention of bacon: and the smell was making him hungry too. He had to duck his head to get through the door, but Finrod and Turgon had designed the dwelling with ceilings high enough to accommodate Elven visitors. Maedhros misjudged the doorframe and said, “Ouch!” but once he was inside he could stand up straight. Turgon was taller than he was, after all.
“This way!” said Fingon, and raised his voice a little. “Frodo?” he called. “Sam?”
Still there was no answer. Fingon led Maedhros down the hall and peered around the door into the warm cheerful kitchen.
There he saw a merry sight: a table laden with good food cooked Shire-fashion, and one white-haired and rosy-cheeked old Hobbit seated at breakfast, and another silvery and upright and busy with the tea. The kettle was making such a racket as it boiled that neither Frodo nor Sam had heard them come in. Fingon rapped politely on the door. “Hello!” he said in the Westron-tongue, raising his voice above the song of the kettle. “We are very sorry to interrupt you at breakfast; but may we come in?”
Sam and Frodo both looked up, and Sam gave a shout of surprise, and Frodo nearly dropped the kettle of boiling water: which might have ended very badly indeed, but he recovered himself just in time and hung it carefully back on its hook above the fire. Then he turned to Fingon with a glad exclamation. “I am so very pleased to see you!” he said. “We thought – that is – my goodness.” He had just spotted Maedhros hovering nervously behind Fingon. His eyes went wide. But immediately he switched to speaking in Quenya; for of course Maedhros had not spent the last few ages amusing himself with strange languages as most Elves did now and again, and he did not know a word of Westron. “Welcome!” Frodo said, in his careful educated accent. “Welcome, welcome: of course you must come in! It’s second breakfast, and there’s plenty left. I’ll make the tea.”
Sam was on his feet too now, though he had levered himself up more slowly. “Why, you found him!” he said in Westron, and his broad smile crinkled up his bright eyes.
“Will you introduce us?” Frodo said.
Fingon came further into the room, and brought Maedhros with him. “Here are Frodo the Ringbearer and Samwise the Brave, two Hobbits of the Shire,” he said, “great heroes of the Third Age! And this is my cousin and very dear friend Maedhros.”
He was about to repeat himself in Westron for Sam’s benefit, but Sam said in creditable if broadly-accented Quenya, “At your service!” and bobbed his head in a half-bow. It was plain that his aged bones would not let him do the full courtesy.
“At your service!” said Frodo too.
“At yours and your family’s!” said Maedhros, so he must have remembered something of Hobbit-manners from Fingon’s tale of Turgon and the Hobbit-hole. He was looking at the two Halflings in great wonder. It occurred to Fingon that although he had touched on the story of the War of the Ring when he spoke of home on the edge of the chasm, he had not at any point mentioned to Maedhros exactly what size Hobbits were. When Frodo turned back to the tea and Sam went and fetched two more bowls, Maedhros leaned in and whispered, “Fingon, they are so small!”
“I know! But theirs is a great-hearted race,” Fingon whispered back. Sam summoned them to the low table, where they folded themselves up small to sit. Frodo set steaming mugs of tea before them. Fingon closed his hands around his and was heartily grateful for the warmth.
Frodo was smiling, with something wry and amused in his wise old eyes: Fingon rather thought he had overheard their whispers. “I suspect it’s been some time since you last had something to eat,” he said. “It had better not be the bacon, I’m afraid! Don’t tax your stomachs too soon. Remember how it was for us, Sam?”
“All that splendid food Strider laid on for the celebration, and I could barely manage a morsel!” said Sam mournfully. “Try the –” he gestured.
“Porridge,” said Frodo, giving him the word.
“Porridge!” repeated Sam.
“You have learned a great deal of our tongue!” Fingon said. Maedhros sat quietly next to him with his hand around the mug of tea. He was sitting close enough to Fingon that Fingon could feel the warmth of him all down his side.
Sam looked embarrassed. “Well, I do all right,” he said. “I’ve had some time to learn! I knew a little already: for reading, you understand. But there’s a great many words I don’t know, that didn’t make it into any tales; you never hear about Beren and Lúthien eating porridge, though I suppose they must have done now and again. And I know I get the sounds all wrong. Frodo here keeps trying to teach me, and even Lord Finrod gave it a go: but I’m only an old Hobbit, and I’ll admit that most of the time I can’t for the life of me hear the difference.”
Maedhros smiled at for the life of me. Sam did indeed have a very strong Shire-accent. But Fingon found he did not mind it: it was perfectly intelligible, and even a little charming. Then he frowned. “Some time?” he said. “How long?”
Even as he said it he was thinking of the spring flowers in the garden. It had been September when he set out through the ivory gate. Six months at least he must have been walking in the dark.
“It is seven years and more,” said Frodo quietly, “since we saw you last.”
Maedhros looked up sharply: no smile on his face now. Fingon stared at Frodo.
“That was the night you came to us and asked about the road, and we said we knew none, and I gave you the star-glass. I often wondered afterwards if I had done the right thing! Your brothers found you the next morning under the tree off yonder, asleep but not asleep, like one dead: and none could tell whither your spirit had fled, for Mandos himself said he knew nothing about it.”
“Irmo knew!” Fingon said.
Frodo looked grave. “He kept his counsel, then.”
Seven years! It was not that long by Elven-reckoning: but it was not nothing, either. It was long enough to grieve. And it was plain that Fingon had left grief behind him. His heart was sore when he thought of his younger brothers finding him lifeless, bearing him up and away to Estë, and learning that there was no help to be had within the circles of the world. And though seven years was not long to Elves, it was long enough for the Halflings. Sam’s face was more lined, his movements much slower, and he had not found it easy to stand up, nor to sit down again; there was a well-shaped wooden cane resting by his seat, and though he had not used it when he went to fetch the bowls, now and then his gnarled hand strayed to the handle. Silvery Frodo was plainly the stronger of the two, but he looked more transparent than ever. And Fingon thought of that well-grown garden, of those strong young fir trees all the stronger for seven seasons’ growth. Seven years: no, it was not nothing.
Maedhros leaned into him. After a moment he laid his hand over Fingon’s where it rested on the table.
“Well!” Sam said. “So it’s been a bit of time, that’s true. But here you are now, which is the important thing. Drink your tea before it’s cold, and I’ll serve you a bit of that porridge: and Frodo will go run you a bath apiece, for if you don’t mind my saying so it’s plain to me you need them!”
This was in fact a polite way of saying that Maedhros needed a bath: for Fingon had come out of the Void in more or less the same state as he went into it. Maedhros looked rueful but said, “I would be grateful!”
“As would I,” said Fingon, for the thought of hot water was very appealing.
Frodo laughed. “And you haven’t seen the bathroom yet!”
They drank their tea. Fingon managed most of a bowl of porridge, though his stomach did rebel eventually, and Maedhros could not eat more than half of his. “There now!” Sam said at last. “Let’s see about those baths!”
He braced himself on the table as he got slowly to his feet. When he stumbled Maedhros automatically went to catch him. “Thank you kindly!” said Sam, and picked up his cane. “My old bones don’t think much of these damp spring mornings: but come summer I’ll be right as rain.”
He conducted them to the bathroom, where two steaming baths were waiting in deep tubs. When Fingon saw the room he had to lean against the wall and laugh till his sides hurt. Frodo looked very pleased, and Maedhros quite baffled. The whole room was obviously of Turgon’s design. It was all properly plumbed according to the best ingenuity of the Gondolindrim, with hot and cold water that ran at the turn of a tap. Between the bathtubs, placed on its own very small and entirely absurd marble plinth, a small fountain was splashing cheerfully. There were polished sapphires set about its base.
“I know!” said Frodo to Fingon’s helpless laughter.
“What on earth is it for?” said Maedhros.
“Nothing at all!” Frodo said.
“My brother,” said Fingon, wiping his streaming eyes, “my brother thinks he is very funny.”
“Oh, that!” said Sam, coming into the bathroom behind them. “I always forget it’s there.”
Then Fingon and Maedhros stripped off and washed themselves, and soaked a long time in the hot water after. They heard the Hobbits going about their Hobbit-hole carolling a bathtime song in their own language, and at Maedhros’s inquiring look Fingon attempted a translation. He made a fair job of it, he thought: anyway Maedhros laughed at the bit about the fountain.
Long after they were both scrubbed clean and their fingers were wrinkled Maedhros was still trying to get the tangles out of his hair. Frodo came in at last with a pile of clothes. “Sometimes our visitors leave things behind. I think these will fit!” he said, and then he saw the problem and frowned. “Shall I fetch a comb?”
Sam looked over Frodo’s shoulder and clicked his tongue. “A comb won’t do it,” he said. “Better get the scissors.”
While Frodo fetched scissors from the kitchen Sam explained that his own daughter Elanor had once managed to acquire tangles nearly as bad playing with her Cotton cousins in the muddy fields down near Bywater. “All her pretty golden curls we had to cut off!” he said. “My Rosie near wept over it, though that was half because Elanor was crying so hard. And after that she went about shorn like a sheep for a summer, poor thing. But it’s only hair; it grows back! And here’s Frodo with those scissors. Let me!”
He picked his way across the wet floor and went to work on Maedhros’s hair. Snip, snip, went the scissors, and hanks of hopelessly matted red and grey fell away. Fingon watched it fall with a tight feeling in his chest. Sam knew what he was doing, for it was the custom of Hobbit-men to wear their hair short, and he had often cut his own sons’ hair. He did his best, but all the same when he was done Maedhros did not have very much hair left.
“Now you rinse that off!” Sam said bracingly, “and see if it doesn’t feel better!”
Maedhros ducked his head under the lukewarm water, and came up again, and scrubbed his hand back through the shorn locks. “It does!” he admitted, though his expression was very strange. He looked up at Sam. “Thank you – no, wait – thank you kindly!”
“You’re very welcome, lad!” said Sam. Frodo, waiting in the doorway, caught Fingon’s eye and smiled.
Then the Hobbits left them, and Fingon and Maedhros got out of their baths and dressed themselves in the clothes Frodo had found for them. Fingon thought he recognised the robe Maedhros was wearing. It looked to him like one of Turgon’s. Maedhros belted it loosely and made a face and scrubbed his hand through his short hair again. It was already nearly dry. “It feels so strange!” he said.
It looked strange, too. Even fully dressed, Maedhros seemed almost naked so shorn. Fingon watched him glance down at the matted tangles Sam had cut away and grimace. Then he looked up and met Fingon’s eyes. “How bad is the grey?” he asked, sounding as if he did not entirely want to know.
It was not nearly as bad as it had looked before. “It’s only at the temples,” Fingon said. “It’s not bad at all. I like it, in fact.”
“Really?”
“I do!” Fingon said. He finished belting his own robe – only slightly too big for him – and went to Maedhros’s side. “How do you feel?”
“Better. Much better – much. Though I think if I lay down to sleep I should not get up for a week. I am so very tired.” Maedhros smiled. “It is a better weariness than I have known in a long time.”
“I would be glad of some rest as well,” Fingon said. “It seems I have not slept in seven years. But I must find my brothers, and my mother too, and tell them I am well.”
“My mother!” said Maedhros in a soft voice. He swallowed hard. “My grandfather! And all of you – all the family. And –”
He looked frightened again. “Don’t try to worry about everything at once!” Fingon said. “It won’t help: you can only do one thing at a time. Rest first.”
“And a judgement,” Maedhros said. “I know there will be a judgement.”
“Yes, but not yet. The Eagle brought us here, remember!”
“It was kind of them,” Maedhros said. His mouth twisted a little at the corner. “They are kind! How did I forget they were kind? How could I ever forget?”
Fingon thought of the spider queen. Maedhros had many scars, and not all of them were scars of the body. He said nothing: only opened his arms. Maedhros with a laugh that was not quite a sob came to him and held on. “It will be all right,” Fingon said, though he was not entirely sure of it. But he hoped. “The worst is past. Everything will be all right.”
They broke apart eventually. Fingon sat on a low damp bench by the door and plaited some of the gold back into his wet hair. Maedhros watched him with a smile. “It is so long since I have seen you do that,” he said.
After that they went out in search of the Hobbits. Fingon planned to ask them for a bedchamber. He was sure they would have something suitable, for they were plainly used to regular hospitality, and he suspected that Frodo and Sam would agree entirely with him that the next important thing was to get Maedhros to sleep for a while. Then perhaps Fingon could go looking for his family: though he did not entirely like the thought of leaving Maedhros now. Perhaps Frodo or Sam would know of some way to send a message.
There were voices down the hallway to their left. Maedhros knocked his head on a hanging lamp and said, “Ouch!” again. Fingon snickered and took his hand to draw him on. There were many doorways opening off the hall to the left and right – the Hobbits seemed to have expanded their dwelling in the last seven years, Fingon did not remember digging all of these – but he could see sunlight ahead. At the end of the hallway they walked together straight into the bright east-facing morning room where Frodo and Sam were sitting in comfortable armchairs. Fingon said, “Frodo, could we perhaps –”
He stopped talking. The Hobbits had visitors.
Turgon leapt to his feet so quickly that the low stool he had been sitting on was knocked over with a clatter. Finrod stared in silent astonishment.
“– that is,” said Frodo lamely, finishing whatever he had been saying before, “well – I suppose I don’t need to tell you anymore!”
Turgon gave a low exclamation. Fingon opened his mouth, but he did not have time to actually say anything before his brother strode forwards and swept him up in a tight embrace. Fingon grinned and returned it whole-heartedly. He was strongly reminded of Elros. When Turgon stepped back, put his hands on Fingon’s shoulders, and stared at him, Fingon saw that the resemblance was just as marked as he had thought.
Then Turgon looked at Maedhros, who stood awkwardly in the doorway, and his expression became very hard to read.
Silence fell in the bright room.
Finrod stood up and came forward. He looked Maedhros up and down. Maedhros flinched before that calm look. Finrod reached out and took his unresisting hand and wrapped it in both of his. “Cousin,” he said. “Long has it been since we hunted together between Celon and Gelion in the youth of the world.”
“Long indeed,” Maedhros said after a moment, looking down at their joined hands.
Finrod smiled. “Too long altogether, Maedhros. Let me see your face.” Maedhros glanced up, startled. Finrod’s smile grew wider. “It is so very good to see you!” he said, and he pulled Maedhros in.
Fingon could see the shocked look on Maedhros’s face as Finrod embraced him. He was slow to return the gesture, and did it awkwardly at first, but their cousin did not let him go. Only when the tension had finally fled from Maedhros’s tall thin shape did Finrod step back, grinning, look him up and down once more, and finally kiss him soundly on both cheeks. At last he turned to Fingon, leaving Maedhros standing still shocked-looking behind him. “Fingon the Valiant once again!” Finrod said. “You must have a tale to tell, and it is a while since I heard a new one. Wherever did you find your road?”
“I –” said Fingon, but he did not carry on. Turgon was still looking at Maedhros, and his expression was still impossible to read. Maedhros bit his lip and met Turgon's eyes and did not look away. Turgon’s unreadable look deepened into a silent frown.
Abruptly he stepped past Fingon, though Fingon snatched at him a moment too late. “Now then!” said Sam, and Frodo stood up with a disapproving exclamation, and Finrod looked worried: but Maedhros waited calmly. Turgon drew his arm back, and then his palm met Maedhros’s cheek in an open-handed slap.
Maedhros’s head snapped to the side. Turgon was strong. He worked his jaw a little. A reddening handprint was appearing on his cheek. “That is better than I was expecting,” he said quietly.
“That,” said Turgon, “was for my grandson, for my grandson’s wife, and for all her kin.” Then he laid both hands on Maedhros’s shoulders and gave him a good hard shake. “And that is for being too proud to keep living, and too stubborn to answer the summons of Mandos, and so forcing my brother to go chasing after you in the Void! And since it seems no one can talk him out of his affection for you, may I say on my own behalf and on my mother’s too, indeed on behalf of all the family, that we would all appreciate it very much if you stayed out of trouble from now on.”
“I intend to!” Maedhros said.
“You had better do more than intend!” Turgon shook his head, still frowning. But then his mouth lifted a little at the corner. He turned to Fingon. “Of course you did,” he said, “of course you did. I told you not to: but of course you did!”
“I am sorry,” Fingon said. Turgon lifted his brows. “I am sorry for causing you grief,” Fingon corrected himself. “Indeed for all the grief I have caused. I’m not sorry I went! You need not make such a fuss about telling me what to do. I am your older brother, you know: I am not likely to listen.”
“I know it, and yet I keep hoping,” Turgon said. He looked at Maedhros again. “I meant it! Stay out of trouble!”
“I shall,” Maedhros said, with something of that old determination about his eyes and the set of his jaw. Turgon gave him a swift stern nod.
“Why, Turgon,” said Finrod, amused, “this was an extraordinarily Mannish way of expressing yourself.”
“One of us has a Man for a son-in-law, and it is not you!” said Turgon in lofty tones. Then he looked at Maedhros and chuckled darkly. “Besides, it was nothing of the kind. Tuor would have knocked you down. And may yet!”
“Surely the very least I deserve,” said Maedhros.
“Your deserts are not my business,” Turgon said, “and you may be glad of that. Welcome home, cousin!”
The tension in the bright room seemed to disappear after that. They sat down together, and Frodo made them all tea. Finrod asked again for Fingon to tell the tale of his road, and Sam seconded the request. Fingon hesitated, looking at Maedhros. But Maedhros said, “You may as well.”
“It was a dark path to walk,” Fingon said.
“I know,” said Maedhros. “I was there!”
Fingon thought of the happy youth in Valinor who had known more than he admitted to himself of the spiders; of the Maedhros who had spoken of his scars at Himring. He knew Maedhros’s spirit had been imprisoned and tangled in the spider queen’s webs all that time. But the Void was not like the real world. More than one thing could be true at once.
He told the tale. It took a long time. He kept getting interrupted. Finrod wanted to know more about the voice which had questioned Fingon so often, though Fingon could tell him nothing; and Turgon wished to hear more of Elros; and Frodo and Sam were interested in everything. Maedhros looked down at his tea and said very little. He did add a word or two to Fingon’s description of the flood rising from the bottomless abyss. “If we had been swept away then,” he said, “I don’t believe I should have minded.”
Fingon thought about it. “No, nor I,” he agreed. “But I do not think we would be here now.”
At last Fingon reached the story’s end and the dark gate. He skipped over the argument at the sundering of ways. It somehow did not seem quite right to tell it. “And then we woke on Lórellin,” he said, “and an Eagle brought us here, and here we are.”
There was quiet in the morning room. The light from the eastern windows was not so bright. It was getting on towards lunchtime.
At last Sam drew in a deep breath.
“Well I never!” he said.
Well I never seemed to be the general opinion of all the Elves of the West, and over the months that Fingon and Maedhros stayed with the Hobbits a great many of them felt called upon to visit the Hobbit-hole and say it in person. “As gossipy as Shire-folk!” said Sam, but it did not trouble him much. Once only he came back from seeing off an insistent group of nosy visitors shaking his snowy head. “Sackville-Bagginses!” he said darkly: and this obscure but clearly serious term of disapprobation made Frodo laugh.
The Hobbits were very good at politely getting rid of unwanted visitors. Fingon indeed had never seen anything quite so effective as Frodo looking aggressively frail and pointedly failing to offer anyone any tea. Sam’s firm well-mannered good day! was also generally successful: when that failed, his usual gambit was to thank unexpected guests very much for coming to help him with the weeding, since being so old he could not tend his garden himself. This both saved Maedhros from immediately having to deal with crowds of curious acquaintances and gained Sam a few helpful under-gardeners: for Elves do appreciate the importance of looking after a flowerbed properly. Fingon too found himself put to work in the vegetable patch now and again. Frodo laughed at it. “Sam is a tyrant!” he said. “I am only thankful he’s finally sparing me! You must stay as long as you please, and not only to help in the garden. We are very happy to be your hosts, I assure you, and managing gossipy neighbours is a skill every Hobbit learns in childhood. It is our pleasure.”
There were some visitors whom the Hobbits did not fend off. The day after Fingon and Maedhros returned from the Void, at just the time when the first stars were shining out and Eärendil was rising in the West for his nightly journey, two tall and stately Elf-women with proud bearing and shining eyes came walking arm in arm down the coast road.
Fingon was then standing on the hillside, listening to the wind and water and watching the stars come out, with Maedhros sitting quietly in the grass beside him. Maedhros had slept most of a night and day, and eaten well at the Hobbits’ table, and for the first time he did not look quite so hollow. Fingon caught a glimpse of the approaching pair out of the corner of his eye and turned and smiled. His mother Anairë, seeing him, stopped and lifted her hand. Fingon ran down the hill to greet her and take her hands in his. She was laughing and weeping at once as she looked at him, just as she had when he had first come to her in Tirion on Túna after Olwë had sent him away forgiven. Fingon laughed and wept too. Seven years! Yes, it was long enough to grieve. “I am sorry,” he told her, “I am sorry!”
“I am only glad to have you home,” Anairë said.
Then she was silent, looking at the companion who had walked the coast road with her.
Maedhros did not run down the hill. He walked slowly. Nerdanel his mother watched his progress with a face as still as a figure carved in stone. Fingon had always thought her very nearly as alarming as her husband. But Anairë was smiling as she watched, and clutching tightly at Fingon’s arm: between his mother and his aunts, Fingon knew, there had grown in past ages a deep friendship forged in shared grief.
At last Maedhros drew near, and his face too was still as he stood before his mother. A little uncertainty crept into his look as Nerdanel took in his thinness, his grey hair, his scars. Very alike they were, tall and proud and copper-crowned, but the son looked older than the mother. Nerdanel drew in a deep breath and let it out again.
“My son has come home to me,” she said. She did not smile, but her eyes were bright indeed. She held out her hands.
Anairë clung to Fingon’s arm. She was barely able to contain her delight as her friend embraced her son. Fingon saw the twist of grief and joy on Maedhros’s face before it was hidden in his mother’s hair. They held one another for a long time. When they broke apart Nerdanel’s expression had not changed, but tears were pouring freely down her face, unregarded.
“At last – at last!” she said, in a voice that did not shake at all.
Long the four of them sat under the stars that night. It was Fingon and his mother who did most of the talking; but then, there was much that did not need to be said.
That was almost the hardest reunion for Maedhros. Fingon thought there was only one which was harder. It came two days later, just as the Hobbits were preparing for afternoon tea, which they meant to have as a picnic in the garden. Fingon and Maedhros were helping by carrying things where they were told. As they stood on the lawn discussing what exactly Frodo had meant by the sunny spot by the tree! – there were three or four places it might have been – Maedhros suddenly dropped the blankets he had under his arm. Fingon looked where he was looking and saw the trio who had just let themselves in by the white garden gate. His cousin Galadriel had her golden hair all loose about her face, and she was smiling. On her left walked Olórin Mithrandir, and on her right was Elrond Half-elven. Back near the kitchen door Sam called out gladly, “Why, it’s Gandalf!”
Maedhros swallowed. “He said it would be hard!” he said, but he was not even looking at the wizard.
The three visitors came up to them, and Gandalf stooped and picked up the picnic blanket, and Galadriel came and kissed Fingon’s cheek in greeting. But Elrond was looking at Maedhros, and Maedhros said nothing.
“Come!” said Elrond at last. Away they went together over the hill towards the seashore. Fingon looked after Maedhros’s retreating back.
“That is a private conversation, I believe. You must let him out of your sight sooner or later, you know!” Gandalf said to him. He unfolded the blanket and spread it carefully upon the grass. Then he paused and looked at Fingon and gave him a nod and what might have been a swift flicker of a wink. “Now where are those Hobbits?” he said. Off he went towards the kitchen door, only stopping along the way to admire the nodding yellow sweep of Sam’s daffodils along the path.
Fingon, chastened, was left with Galadriel. She laughed gently at him, and seated herself on the Hobbits’ picnic blanket with as much grace and dignity as if it had been a throne. She gestured to Fingon to sit beside her, which he did: and the wind blew in Galadriel’s golden hair, and she gave Fingon a sidelong look and smiled.
“Something I have heard of your journey,” she said, “though I should like to hear it all from your own lips by and by: for Finrod my brother is a fair rhymer, but he was not there! But first tell me, cousin: what have you done with the star-glass of Galadriel? For I was its maker, and shall never now make anything greater or fairer: therefore I have an interest in its fate.”
Fingon had said nothing of it in front of Finrod and Turgon and the Hobbits, but he nearly told Galadriel all: the sundering of ways and the argument there. And if he had, he did not think she would have been much surprised. But instead he said only, “I gave it beyond the world to one I thought was Olórin Mithrandir, and he said it should be given again to one who was in need. And yet,” – he paused – “yet now I wonder if it was him at all.”
He had not realised he was thinking it till he said it. It had been the wizard Gandalf. He was almost sure. But how had he ever come there?
“Mithrandir it might have been!” Galadriel said. “For he has been beyond the world, and Time has no meaning there. But then again, perhaps not.” And her smile grew wider till it seemed she might break out into laughter. Fingon looked on her with some wonder, and saw that it was very true what many said, that Galadriel of the house of Finarfin came closest of all the Noldor to what Fëanor should have been. For she was very great in spirit, and all her fairness in form was but the mirror of her fairness of thought, and there was a light in her which had not been dimmed by Middle-earth. Nay, it had grown stronger. Pressed upon by darkness for years beyond counting she had come to greater knowledge than any other living thing of the Light’s true worth: and she had been tempted, and she had not fallen.
“So my star is given again. Let it come to one in need!” she said. “For that is why I made it. Perhaps our cousin Maglor shall find it on the sea-shore: or perhaps some mortal yet unborn will carry its light into dim places we do not know. Finrod will have theories. I believe I shall content myself with hope.”
“I too,” Fingon said.
Gandalf came outside again with the two Hobbits, all of them laden with plates of sandwiches, and they all sat down to tea on the lawn. There were so many sandwiches that there were still a few left when Elrond and Maedhros came back from their private conversation, Elrond quite calm and Maedhros looking shaken but not unhappy. Elrond seated himself on the grass between Fingon and Galadriel. “Did you really meet my brother?” he asked.
“Yes!” said Fingon. “He killed a dragon.”
“It was quite unnecessary to tell me that part,” Elrond assured him. “Naturally he did.”
The Hobbits had put Fingon and Maedhros in the same chamber, which Fingon was grateful for. “Don’t mention it!” Sam said firmly, when Fingon tried to thank them. He plainly understood perfectly well why it was that Fingon preferred not to let Maedhros out of his sight for too long. Frodo looked amused and said nothing about it at all.
Maedhros slept a good deal, especially at first. The haggardness quickly left his face, and the hollowness more slowly. Before long he was eating better, though he was still very thin. His hair began to grow back, copper and silver, and Fingon liked it more and more. He worried that they were overstaying their welcome, but Frodo insisted it was nothing of the kind.
“It is in fact very convenient to have you here,” he said. “You can fetch and carry, and lift heavy things, and do some of the weeding, and we appreciate it very much. There is a reason your brother and cousin were visiting us nearly every day before you turned up, you know. Sam and I are old, and we are growing frail: Sam especially, though he will not admit it! He is older than I am, I believe, though I have lived longer if you only count the years. It seems to me that my life came to a pause, as it were, when Bilbo died, and did not begin again until Sam arrived in the West. I have lived more in the last eight years than I managed in fifty before that! But Sam has had many long full years in the Shire, and been a father and a grandfather and a gardener and a mayor and many more things besides: not least a mariner, which you may be sure was not at all to his taste, but he sailed the Sea all the same to find me again, and I am beyond glad of it! But he is old. We are both old, and I could linger longer, but Sam is getting weary. You must stay as long as you please, as long as you need. We who have been hosted so well are very glad to be your hosts. And when you go, I believe we shall too. We have one more journey to make.”
“Not so soon!” Fingon said, much grieved by the thought. “Is this not a good country?”
“Oh, the best in the world!” Frodo said. “But we are guests here ourselves, really: and it is a poor guest who stays forever. And in fact it’s such a good country that it’s a little much for a mortal to bear. There’s a reason Bilbo and I asked for a house as far to the east as we could get! To live in the Undying Lands is like visiting a house with a table that is never empty: all the food rich and good as a Hobbit could desire, and always more – and more – and more – and just when you think you are stuffed full and can’t manage another morsel, someone brings out the plum-cake! Even the most determined Hobbit can only manage so much cake. Isn’t that right, Sam?” Sam had just come in. He was walking with the cane today. Fingon went swiftly to help him to his armchair.
“None of my children were brought up to gorge themselves!” Sam said when he was seated. “Eat well when it’s time and say thank you when you’re done, that’s the proper Shire-manners. What’s this about, then?”
“I was only explaining how the West is like a plum-cake.”
Sam looked struck. “That’s just the way to say it, Frodo,” he said. “I couldn’t have put it better myself. Well, of course I couldn’t, for I haven’t your way with these things.”
“Now, Sam, you are the poet, not I!”
“Not a poet,” said Sam reproachfully. “A rhymer now and then, maybe!”
Fingon laughed. They were a merry old pair. He was all the sorrier at the thought of their departure. To have this homely house left empty seemed to him a very great shame. But Frodo was explaining the gist of his conversation with Fingon to Sam, and Sam was nodding. “And the further in you go, the richer it is,” Frodo said. “Though I should like to see it: I should like to travel to the mountains, perhaps, before I die! But I thought I had better stay here on the eastern shore and wait for you before I went.”
“You couldn’t have known I would come, Frodo my dear!” said Sam.
“No,” said Frodo, “but I hoped! In any case," turning back to Fingon, "yes, yes, stay as long as you please, for we are glad to have you: and when you will go, you shall go, and then we are for the road. And in fact, Sam, I knew you’d come. Even after all these years I don’t believe you’d let me make any sort of journey unsupervised!”
“Don’t you leave him!” was all Sam said, but his lined face crinkled up in a smile. “I’ve had my time, and my Rosie’s gone afore me. I’d be well pleased to see the mountains first, mind.”
They chattered to one another, planning their journey, and before long Frodo got up and fetched some maps for Sam to peer at. In the end Fingon slipped quietly from the room, leaving the Hobbits speaking to one another of Tirion and Valmar, of fair Lórien and the gardens of Yavanna: places that Fingon had almost begun to take for granted again, but to the Hobbits they were wondrous names. He went in pensive mood down the hallway to the chamber he and Maedhros shared.
Maedhros was asleep again. He slept these days as if it were the greatest luxury in the world to rest undisturbed for hours on end and he meant to take full advantage of it while he had the chance. There were two beds in the room, but Fingon lay down on Maedhros’s bed beside him and put an arm around his waist. The ends of Maedhros’s hair tickled his face, but Fingon only drew closer and closed his eyes. Maedhros stirred and said his name in a questioning tone.
“It’s nothing,” Fingon said.
“It’s not,” said Maedhros, and he turned over. Grey hair fell into his eyes. Fingon lifted his hand and pushed it back. Maedhros watched him seriously. “What’s wrong?”
Fingon paused a moment. Then he explained about the Hobbits and the journey they were planning. Maedhros looked grieved as well when he understood. He appreciated their kindly hosts as much as Fingon did. Now and then Fingon had heard him talking with Frodo late into the night. “But it is their road!” he said at last. “And at least neither will go alone.”
Fingon nodded. After a moment he said, “I would not have let you go alone.”
“I know,” said Maedhros. “But I am glad it was the greenway in the end.”
“So am I!” Fingon admitted. Maedhros laughed softly. “I know it has been hard.”
“Hard? No. Not hard: not really, not yet. When I think of –” Maedhros halted. After a moment he began again in a low voice. “Elwing,” he said. “Idril and Tuor. Melian, if she will permit me to stand in her presence. Olwë and all his folk; and all those who have come forth from Mandos of the peoples of Doriath and Sirion. I know there are many who have not, too wounded in their hearts to walk in the world again. That I should lie here beside you, and so many I wronged sit in lasting sorrow! And then – shall I list them all, those I disobeyed, those who warned me in vain? Then let me name my own mother first: and after her but not less than her all the Powers of this world. I might have argued with my father. You know I was not afraid to argue with my father. But I loved him – I agreed with him – I followed him! I raised him in my heart to what he never was, even before – even before.” He stopped. Then in a voice that was barely more than a whisper he said, “And O my father, robbed and wronged and unfulfilled! And O my ruined brothers! O Maglor!” Fingon reached for him. “And you!” Maedhros said. “At least that one is easy. Fingon, I am sorry!”
“You are forgiven,” said Fingon at once. “I forgive you; I forgave you already.”
“I never deserved it.”
“Will you never leave that alone? I love you. Deserving has nothing to do with it.”
“And I love you,” Maedhros said. Fingon began to smile. Maedhros’s eyes widened. “Had I not said it? I had not said it!”
“No,” Fingon said. “I did not quite like to ask. It has been such a long time.”
“That has nothing to do with it!”
Fingon laughed, for happiness and because Maedhros’s outraged look was easy to laugh at. Maedhros laughed with him, more quietly. At last they fell silent, still looking at each other; and Fingon brushed Maedhros’s grey hair away from his eyes again and leaned in and kissed him.
Maedhros kissed him back uncertainly. He broke away to say, “Are you sure?”
Fingon frowned. “I do wish you would stop asking such stupid questions,” he said, and while Maedhros was still laughing he kissed him again.
They did that for a little while. The sunlight that shone through the west-facing windows deepened into evening gold before it dimmed altogether into dusk, and they heard the Hobbits coming in from the garden where they sat each day to watch the sunset. At last the two of them only lay quietly in each other’s arms and looked at each other. Eventually Maedhros smiled and lifted his brows.
Fingon blinked. Had he just glimpsed a flicker of the old light in those dimmed eyes? Was it only his own eyes reflected?
While he was distracted Maedhros’s mood turned swiftly serious again. Now he looked grave. “There will be a judgement,” he said. “There will be. And I will face it. I will be ready, whatever it is.” He pulled a face. “It can hardly be worse.”
“It will not be as bad as you think,” Fingon said.
“You don’t know that,” Maedhros said, but held him a little tighter. “Perhaps it should be. There are some wrongs I cannot even try to right.”
Fingon said nothing. There was nothing he could say: or at least, nothing he dared say.
“There will be a judgement,” Maedhros said again. “But even this much kindness is more than I could ever have hoped for. The Sun and the stars; this homely house; to have seen my mother again! And you: always you. You need not have done any of it.”
“I know,” said Fingon. “I know that! But I love you, so I did.”
*
At the point where a muddy road divided in two, an old man in a battered hat sat upon a grassy tussock. In his hand he held a clear phial that gave out a steady pale gleam of light. In his mouth he had a pipe. Now and then he blew a smoke ring, and the light caught the curling edges of smoke and made it shimmer as it dissipated. The wizard smiled at it, and began to blow more complicated shapes: a spray of flowers, a ship, a dragon. They shone briefly and vanished.
By and by a tall figure came striding down the road. The wizard looked up with a frown. “Elros Tar-Minyatur!” he said. “You took your time getting here!”
Elros looked only a little sheepish. “I was enjoying myself,” he said.
“So I see. And how many dragons have you slain?”
“Not enough for my taste: but to keep them all for myself would be greedy. And it is as well I took my time, sir. Look who I found!”
Two small shadows were skulking behind him as if afraid. Elros laid one hand on each of their shoulders and chivvied them forward, and as they stepped into the circle of light given off by the star-glass they became two small boys.
“Eluréd!” said the wizard to the one on the left. “Elurín!” to the one on the right. The twins exchanged a startled look. “I am very glad to see you!” said the wizard.
“There!” said Elros. “I told you someone would know.”
“Thank you,” said Elurín in a voice that was small but steady. His brother reached nervously for his hand.
“I have been waiting for you for a long time. A choice now lies before you both,” said the wizard. “You see here there are two roads. Both are open to you, and each may go whichever way he pleases. You must choose your paths.”
“Is there a right answer?” said Elurín.
Eluréd nudged him hard. “He just said it’s either way!”
The wizard smiled. “Yes, either way. There are no wrong answers here.”
The twins conferred in low voices for a moment. Then Eluréd looked up and said, “Do we have to go the same way?”
“Not at all – unless you want to!”
The twins argued a while longer. Elros and the wizard exchanged glances over their heads, and both smiled.
Finally Elurín turned to Elros and said, “What about you? Do you have to choose a road too?”
“I already chose,” said Elros. “I am going that way.” He nodded to the dark left-hand path.
“Why?” said Eluréd.
“To see what’s at the end, of course. Why else?”
The twins seemed struck by this. They whispered together a little more. Then Elurín – the calmer of the two, and so the spokesman – turned to the wizard and said, “We would like to go with Elros, please.”
“Both of you?”
“Yes!” said Eluréd, though he gave the dark path a nervous look.
“He has a sword, at least,” Elurín said to him.
“Oh!” said Elros. “I almost forgot.” He took off his swordbelt and long scabbard, and together with his bright sword he dropped them in the grass at the roadside. It was still just possible to make out the remnants of a harp lying there. The grass had almost completely grown over it. Elros paused when he saw it, and then laughed to himself and turned away.
The twins looked alarmed.
“You cannot take anything with you on the dark road!” Elros explained.
“What if there are dragons?” said Elurín.
“I don’t believe there will be: but if there are, we shall have to think of a different way to deal with them.”
“Will you still go that way?” the wizard asked.
“Yes,” said Eluréd at once.
Elurín took a little longer to think about it, but finally he said, “Yes,” as well. His expression was determined, but his mouth trembled a little when he added, “Though it is so dark!”
“It would certainly be easier if we had a light,” said Elros, and he gave the wizard an expectant look.
“You are incorrigible,” said the wizard. “It would break every rule there is: as you know very well! Besides you have no need of one.”
“Not I,” Elros admitted. He crouched a little to bring himself closer to the twins’ height, and said to them both in a loud whisper, “Ask him! He’s got a very soft heart really.”
Eluréd and Elurín exchanged another glance, and then they both went up to the wizard. As they drew close to the shining star-glass their shapes seemed to become more solid, though their eyes stayed dark.
“Please may we have a light, sir?” said Eluréd winningly.
“Please?” said Elurín, though he looked a little disgusted by his brother’s attempt at charm.
“They are only children,” Elros put in.
The wizard looked cross, and frowned very sternly, and puffed on his pipe for a long time, but finally he said, “Oh, very well, very well! Since you ask so politely! Here!”
He handed the star-glass to Eluréd.
“I can’t!” Eluréd began to say, and then cut himself off in astonishment as the wizard gently closed his fingers for him around the gift. His body did not turn to shadow. He looked more solid than ever. His mouth fell open as he stared at the light he held, and when at last he looked up the night had fled from his eyes. They were grey.
At once he handed the phial to his brother. Now it was Elurín’s turn to look shocked as the shadow fell away from him. “Oh,” he said. “But I thought we – I thought – oh!” He turned to the wizard. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you!” Something occurred to him. He elbowed his brother. “Say thank you!”
“Thank you,” Eluréd mumbled, though he was still staring at the star-glass his brother held.
Elros looked both pleased and amused. “You cunning old soul,” he said. “All that talk of breaking rules! I believe you meant to give it to them all along.”
“Nothing of the kind!” said the wizard with an innocent air, but he hurried quickly on. “Now you have wasted quite enough time. Your choice is made: your road is waiting for you. Off you go!”
Elros gave the dark path a considering look. “I don’t believe it’s wide enough for three to walk abreast. Who wants to ride on my shoulders?”
“Me!” said both the twins at once, and then they paused for some urgent discussion.
Finally Eluréd said graciously, “Elurín can go first.”
“Then you can hold my hand,” said Elros. He lifted Elurín up and onto his shoulders. “Oof! All right. Where’s the glass? Pass it up! You hold that, and we won’t have any trouble seeing our way. And you give me your hand – like that – good! Farewell to you, sir. And off we go!”
“Farewell!” said the wizard.
Soon Elros and the twins vanished in the dark, and their shapes could not be seen. But it was easy enough to work out which way they had gone, for the pale glimmer of the phial of Galadriel shone brightly in the Void. Sitting on the tussock at the sundering of ways the wizard smoked his Hobbit-pipe and watched its passage with satisfaction: one small star on the starless road.
*
Mistlice ðreala gebyriað for synnum bendas oððe dyntas carcernðystra lobban.
Various punishments are proper for sins: bonds or blows, prison darkness, spiders.
- The Law Of The Penitent