Part Seven
“…what’s wrong?”
Erestor was of an age to have his share of bizarre bedroom memories, but this was the first time someone had stopped in the act of nuzzling his stomach, shot out of bed and started dragging on the first clothes that came to hand. Glorfindel paused briefly in the act of trying to pull a tunic over his head that in fact belonged to his partner, glared at the offending garment and dropped it back on the chair. “Can’t you feel it? It’s like – like this giant hand hovering over us… you have to feel it. Where is my tunic, damn it?”
“Hanging up where it belongs,” Erestor said absently, trying to split his concentration between Glorfindel’s startling behaviour and any hint of giant hands or spreading clouds. There was nothing, just his own sense of confused outrage. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Fin, I can’t feel anything.” Something struck him. “Except the trees are quiet – Findel, why are the trees quiet?”
“Because they’re smarter than you? I don’t know, you know they don’t like my reborn state and won’t talk to me. Come on, we need to go outside, find it.”
Glorfindel was heading for the door, barefoot and wearing leggings with an unbelted tunic. Erestor stopped blinking, got up hurriedly and pulled on the robe he had worn to work that day, then followed the rapidly receding figure with the swaying fall of golden hair. He soon had to jog to catch up and keep pace with Glorfindel’s longer stride.
“Where are we going?”
“Outside.”
“Yes, but where…”
“I don’t know, just outside. I’ll know when I get there.”
“Yes, but…”
“Hush, I’m trying to concentrate.’
“I know, but…”
“Erestor…”
“I know, I know, shut up, I talk too much.”
“Yes.”
“No one has ever done that to me, you know. We’d better find something.”
“Erestor.” Warningly.
“Sorry. I’ll be quiet. No, down this way. There’s a door no one uses. It’s quicker.”
The shortcut took them outside into a patch of garden filled with scented shrubs and with little climbing roses covering a trellis against the wall. A triangle of grass faced the stone path that went around the House and down alongside the river. The sky was clear, the moon high, and the stars big and bright in indigo darkness. Glorfindel stopped in the middle of the grass and stood looking up at the sky. A faint but unmistakeable glow surrounded him, a soft blue shimmer like starlight. Erestor joined him, this time needing no prompting to be silent.
Faintly, an echo of an echo, he felt something unknown brush his skin, and the night took on a darker, more ominous tone. He stood still, feeling for the earth energy beneath his feet to ground him, and reached out with his mind. It was not a thing he did well, he thought he was too pragmatic to blend in with the unseen as Glorfindel could, but he was an elf and part of the fabric of Arda. If there was something wrong, he should be able to feel it.
The darkness drew in around him, the air felt thick…
“Damn!”
Erestor physically jumped. “What?”
“It’s gone. It’s like someone closed a door, shutting off the light coming out of a room. There’s nothing, nothing at all.” Glorfindel punched the empty air in frustration.
Chewing on his lower lip, Erestor pushed back a loop of black hair and tilted his head slightly, an unconscious, listening gesture. “I can hear the trees again.”
Glorfindel put an arm round his shoulders. “Any point in asking them what was wrong?”
“Not much,” Erestor said, shaking his head. “They’ll just talk about badness, you never get much sense because they see the world so differently. ‘Bad, water darkener’ isn’t much of a clue, is it?”
“Not a lot, no.” Glorfindel bent his head to breathe in the scent of Erestor’s hair. “Is that what they’re saying?”
“Mm, something like that. I don’t think they know either, Fin, just that something was wrong and unsettled them.”
“You believe me now? That there’s something wrong?”
Erestor looked up at him, his head against Glorfindel’s shoulder. “I – there was something. I had to reach for it, which I never find easy, but – the night was very dark for a while. The only light was where you were.”
“I’m sorry I told you to hush.”
“I talk a lot, I know. It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone in my life I could babble away to, it goes to my head sometimes.”
Glorfindel ducked his head to kiss him quickly. “I like it – usually.”
“Do you want to go and tell Elrond?” Erestor asked him, turning in the curve of his arm and reaching to trace the line of his jaw with a finger.
“It’s late,” Glorfindel said after a moment’s thought. “I’d not disturb him now. Tomorrow – maybe see if he says anything. I’m in charge of what’s left of the garrison, so the valley’s safety is as much my responsibility as his. I don’t want to run to him with problems I can solve myself.”
“It’s my responsibility, too,” Erestor nodded. “Elrond might have a lot on his mind, but if there was a threat in the valley, surely he’d know about it?”
“He’s looking outward at what might lie beyond our borders,” Glorfindel pointed out. “Something here, right on our doorstep, might be too close for him to notice.”
“Yes, but what danger could threaten from here? There’s no one in all of Imladris who would betray us in any way or bring danger onto us. You can’t really believe there is, can you?”
“No, it’s – something else. I’ll know it when I see it.”
Erestor put an arm round his waist and leaned against him, his cheek to Glorfindel’s chest. “So if he says nothing, we’ll just stay alert, track it down ourselves? You needed more time, that’s all. I’m sure whatever it is, this is something we can sort out, without troubling Elrond over it.”
Glorfindel nodded slowly. “Give it another day or two, see if it happens again,” he finally agreed. “For now, we have unfinished business upstairs.”
~*~*~*~
The air felt the way it did before a storm, but the sky was clear and there was no suggestion of rain. It was as though summer had returned for a brief, final foray. Erestor took the long way round to work, walking slowly along open verandas and taking in the ravine almost as a guest might see it, appreciating the mist from the waterfalls, the rushing river, the grey rock of the cliff with its patches of greenery, the scent of Imladris, a mixture of pine, wood smoke and water.
His destination was a sheltered balcony with a glorious view of the river, which was where he and Elrond had their morning meeting at this time of year. The order of business was one they had long since agreed to; there were two cups and a pot of coffee, and sometimes a few pastries if someone in the kitchen thought of it. They would drink coffee and talk and at the end of an hour Elrond would know if there was anything new of note happening in his valley, and Erestor would know what he wanted done about it.
This morning everything was as normal, the coffee waited, there was a plate of biscuits, the cushions had been shaken out and freshly arranged, but instead of Elrond, his chair was occupied by a slender woman with light blue eyes and silver-gilt hair; Celebrían, Lady of Rivendell. Erestor raised both eyebrows but went first to pour himself coffee. After adding rather a lot of sweetener, he finally said, “Good morning, Celebrían. Elrond not joining us?”
Celebrían looked at him over the rim of her cup. “Hello Erestor, I hope you slept well? You’re late, you know.”
Erestor laughed softly and sat down. He had known Celebrían her entire life and thought he loved her best when she was pretending to be her mother. “Yes I suppose I am. I took a bit of a walk first this morning, just looking around.” He sipped the coffee. “We’ll have to start rationing this, it might be a while before we can trade that far south again.”
Celebrían gave him an untroubled smile. “Yes. I thought you and Elrond might try tea in the mornings instead.” She had fallen in love with coffee while travelling in the south as a child with her parents and had a proprietary attitude towards their store of imported beans.
Erestor grinned briefly. “Yes, share and share alike. Is there some reason Elrond isn’t here this morning? Nothing’s wrong, is there?”
She shook her head and her hair shimmered as though with its own inner light. “No, nothing’s wrong, but he’s putting so much effort into keeping watch for us all that I offered to manage the general business of the day. I know you see to most of it, so that was just to make him feel better about taking a few days for himself. Harnessing Vilya for something this extensive takes time and energy and drains him.”
Erestor nodded and breathed in the smell of the coffee, which he liked almost as much as she did. “That’s wise, yes. Did – anything happen to tire him more than usual? Last night perhaps?”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Oh no, he just needs time to grow into the added burden. Such an unfair thing, to make him responsible for that ring. There must have been others…” Her voice drifted off for a moment. Celebrían loved her husband dearly and was open about her frustration at the toll the Ring of Air took on him even under normal circumstances where its main object was to preserve and protect their home. “Last night? Why? Is there something we should know about?”
Erestor decided to be more cautious in his word choice than he might have with Elrond. “Not really, no. Just – Glorfindel had a strange experience. And the trees were unsettled by something.”
Celebrían’s father had been born in Doriath, she knew all about trees. “Trees are always unsettled, if it’s not one thing it’s another. Some elm’s roots are gnawed at and the next thing you know…”
“I – don’t think it was something like that. And Glorfindel isn’t a tree and he said he felt something uncomfortable.”
Celebrían put her cup down, looking a little concerned. “What was wrong, what made him uncomfortable?”
“He felt that we were being threatened or watched by something…” Erestor stopped, recalling his original, sceptical reaction to that.
“Oh, Elrond was a little worried this might happen,” she said at once. “The similarities to living in Gondolin – I can quite see that making him uneasy, who wouldn’t be? Especially with all those lives lost. This must be bringing back terrible memories. Would it help if one of us talked with him, do you think?”
Erestor gazed into his cup, remembering the decision he and Glorfindel had taken last night. “Perhaps– wait till Elrond’s more rested and it won’t be just another burden? They can talk warrior to warrior, that might be good.”
Celebrían looked relieved. “Yes, I think that would be best. Now that you mention it, there were a few moments last night when I also felt a bit unsettled, but I think we’re building for a storm. And Vilya is also quite intrusive sometimes. That might even be what was bothering Glorfindel.”
“That might have been it, yes,” Erestor said, in no way convinced by Celebrían’s logic. He was now inclined to agree with Glorfindel that something was out of balance. It would be up to them to find out what it was and deal with it; Elrond had enough on his plate.
~*~*~*~*~
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Beta: Red Lasbelin