5. Fate’s Choices
The Wood
It was mid morning and the birds were calling softly to each other in the little glade on the edge of the forest. Trees made tree-talk, too softly even for elven ears, and the river was an ever-present voice. Galadriel sat on the ground creating a design with pebbles from the river, balancing them one upon the other, minutely grading them for size and colour. She was picking through the greys, long fingers selecting, discarding, as she sought the darkest in that specific shade. The process was painstaking, but time was a commodity she had in goodly supply at the moment.
Stone art was a children’s pursuit back in Aman, but with age came other skills and what began as an exercise in design and observation could, with training, become something far more. She placed the grey stone where it almost but not quite closed a gap and something moved on the spring-scented air in the clearing, something that was the mental equivalent of the first whiff of smoke on a still day. Galadriel’s lips curved softly, almost smiling. She had not lost her touch.
The energy changed and she knew without looking that Celebrían was back from the river. A glance showed her, fully clad and wrapped from neck to ankle in her cloak. Galadriel bit off a laugh even as the hint of power faded back into the earth. They used a small, secluded pool to bathe in, and not only did Bri not trust the bushes to screen her modesty, she also insisted on hanging two cloaks tent-like from branches for added privacy and kept various items of clothing on at all times. Galadriel scandalised her by splashing around naked with nothing but her long hair to shield her from sight.
Sitting down hard on the bed of moss and reeds they had made, Celebrían started to dry the ends of her hair with the only towel they had between them, one of Celeborn’s rare oversights. She was scowling and her movements were jerky, discontented. “I am so bored, Nana. We are going to be here forever and ever, we will watch the Last Battle from under these trees.”
Galadriel smiled down at her stone creation. “Well, look at it this way. If that were to happen, at least we’d be well out of harm’s way? You could tell your grandchildren how most of their relatives were up there fighting the good fight.”
“Won’t have any grandchildren,” Celebrían grumbled. “Not if we’re stuck here till the end of days. I will never meet my soulmate so I won’t ever have children.”
“No?” Galadriel asked innocently. “But dear, we are surrounded by elves – brave, strong warrior elves at that. What about that nice young captain who told us to wait here? What was his name again? Haldir? I thought he looked over-long at you. He had very pretty hair – what there was of it.”
“Mother!” Celebrían was outraged. “His hair is not pretty at all, and he was most certainly not looking at me. And he was rude to us.”
Galadriel changed position, curling her legs to the left this time, and stretched to ease the tension in her back from bending over the stones. “Oh, I don’t think he was rude really. Firm, yes, but he spoke to us in his king’s name, so he had to do his best to sound determined.”
“Not contaminate their wood, he said…”
“Yes, I know.” Galadriel said cheerfully. “And you were furious. But he said it so well, don’t you think? And that sounded like Amdír’s choice of words, not his, and a pointed choice at that. No, Haldir did his job, Bri. And we must do ours.”
“Our job?” Celebrían looked around the little clearing as though expecting to see a pile of mending or a waiting loom or some other such definitively female occupation. “What is that?”
“Waiting,” Galadriel said simply, picking out a pure white stone this time. “We wait.”
“I’ve read through the final batch, they’re over there on the table.”
Glorfindel stood in a pool of sunlight over by the window looking out at the bay, a hand resting casually on the sill. The sun lit his hair to molten gold and it made him look alien, unworldly. Some days Erestor was more aware of the quiet, coiled strength in the newcomer than others, and this was one such day.
There was a stack of documents on the desk which Erestor turned minimally to look at titles. “Thank you, it’s been a great help. I hope you found something to interest you in that last lot, most of it was dry as Harad.”
“I’d quite like to visit Harad sometime – after the war, of course.” Glorfindel didn’t turn from whatever he was watching out there, but he sounded amused.
Erestor joined him at the window. “Hot, dry, dangerous. A culture ancient in mortal terms, many layered. Politics like that game they’ve given us, chess – devious, potentially fatal. Lots of colour and history… Yes, it would be worth a visit after the war. What are you watching?”
He had to look up as he spoke. Glorfindel was Gil-galad’s height though not as broadly built, a presence but without that same sense of filling the space around him. Grey-blue eyes caught his for a moment, then moved back to the bay beyond. “The Númenórean has returned.” His sparse, eloquent movement of fingers and wrist accompanying the words spoke of royalty and Aman-born nobility, whose graceful gestures Erestor sometimes tried, with middling success, to duplicate. Gil-galad used them, as did the Lady. Even Gildor did – especially Gildor, Finwë’s grandson, who wore his royalty with the unconscious ease of a comfortable old cloak.
His mind had not used to skip and wander in this way before. Impatient at himself, Erestor pulled his attention back and watched the Númenórean ship coming in to dock at Círdan’s haven, guided by a pilot boat from the harbour. The sails had already been lowered so they could bring her in under oar. “That was quicker than I expected,” he remarked. “Either they had an easy time coming up the coast or he’s in a hurry to get home.”
Glorfindel dipped his head briefly. “That is likely. I doubt he will stay longer than to take on food and water – and the king’s emissary, of course. He seemed a man of his word.”
“Círdan liked him, and that’s not easily won. Have you any idea who His Majesty plans to send? Arvarad says he’s been tight lipped on the subject.” He had an idea they talked, Gil and the Reborn. Gil-galad was hard to predict, but he might tell an advisor sent by the Valar things he would not feel ready to share with his administrative assistant. The chances of Glorfindel sharing such a confidence were slim, but Erestor was a firm believer in there being no harm in trying. It wouldn’t be the first time surprise had caused someone to let slip information that would otherwise have been dearly bought.
Predictably Glorfindel gave a small shrug. “He was looking at a few names, that’s all I know. I assume he’s decided by now.”
“You wouldn’t consider going to Númenor yourself?” Erestor was curious mainly, he doubted Glorfindel would have been an obvious choice.
Glorfindel shook his head almost regretfully. “He mentioned it, but I pointed out that my brief involved offering what aid I could on this shore. They went to some trouble to get me here and nothing was said about travelling West again, which I think the Mighty would see as outside of their charge to me. Anyhow, it’s no great distance from Númenor to Alqualondë and my lady – it would be a hard thing to be so near and yet so far.”
Ah. This was new. “I hadn’t realised you were married, my lord. It must have been a hard parting. Your lady is Telerin then?” He wondered how her parents felt about it, considering the history between the Telerin of Alqualondë and the Noldor.
Glorfindel’s face grew grave. “We’re not married yet, though we had the day chosen – and for the second time, too. The first was interrupted by Fëanor’s business.”
“You had to leave her behind too? Like Finrod?” Erestor vaguely recalled a story he had heard in childhood about Finrod, how he had been forced to leave his heart’s love in Aman.
“Something like that. Elenwë was my cousin, someone needed to go along to watch out for her and the child,” Glorfindel said quietly. “I thought Turukáno would be too busy, he was always a perfectionist. Of course none of us knew how bad the Ice would be. In any event, there was no welcome for one of the Noldor, not while the old people who remembered life in the East were still explaining how to bury the dead… We met outside the city, there was only a short time for me to tell her what I was doing and why and Elsúrië said she would wait, she understood… possibly more than she did this time.”
His face changed while he spoke about her, the lines softening, his eyes hazy with distance. Erestor had seen Gil-galad’s eyes follow Glorfindel a few times with unmistakeable interest and wondered if he knew about the girl across the water; he assumed he did. Well, there was no harm in looking, he supposed. He looked at Lindir, who was easy on the eye, and that wasn’t going anywhere save for that one chaotic night.
“When you get back,” Erestor said, his voice soft to match the expression on Glorfindel’s face, “perhaps you shouldn’t take time to set dates and get families organised. Just bind and have done with it before anyone can find another urgent reason for you to leave.”
Glorfindel grinned fleetingly. “That’s advice I could have used when I left the Halls. I’ll keep it in mind, Erestor. Thank you.”
Erestor nodded, smiled. As one they turned back to watch the ship dock. “I wonder who it’ll be,” Erestor murmured, more to himself than Glorfindel. “To see Andor – that would be the experience of a lifetime, even for an elf.”
“We’ll all know soon enough,” Glorfindel said. “As soon as Gil – or more likely Círdan – has words with the captain, I’d imagine.”
Erestor resisted the urge to pace. A page, not someone from Arvarad’s office but one of the house pages, had come to tell him he was wanted by the king and would he please go up to the little reception room just off Gil-galad’s private office and wait. He had duly done so, long enough ago that he was starting to wonder if there had been a mistake or if this was someone’s idea of a joke.
His surroundings in themselves were not troublesome. This was the room where Gil-galad received visiting envoys and the like for less public exchanges and was furnished accordingly in sumptuous style with a good deal of brocade and velvet. If anything it was overdone: he recalled the understated elegance that had been the mark of Galadriel’s home in Ost-in-Edhil. The window looked out onto the side garden which lay in shadow as dusk drew in, colours fading in its wake. It looked rather as he had felt since his return.
He was almost ready to go and find someone, anyone, to see if he should stay, when the door opened and Gil-galad came in. He was dressed informally and carried a scroll in one hand. He looked surprised for a moment, then nodded a greeting. “Erestor. Why did they have you wait here?”
“I was told — well I suppose the page didn’t think it appropriate for me to wait in your office.” He was glad he hadn’t been pacing.
“No, that makes sense. Sorry I kept you, I was talking with Círdan and Callonui. Círdan isn’t a happy man.”
There was just a hint of diffidence in both their voices. Erestor had attended another musical evening and a casual dinner, gone hunting once and been part of a group walking with the king in the garden, but this was the first time they had been alone since Erestor had told him the full story of Annatar and about Badger. Neither a kiss nor a touch were appropriate greetings now, but they would never be just casual acquaintances: the shadow of past intimacy would always overlay the present.
“Not the first time he’s been unhappy and it won’t be the last,” Erestor ventured, trying to find the right balance, the new lines.
Gil-galad shrugged ruefully. “He’ll get over it, yes. He never seems to get the idea that he can’t always be right.” He glanced at the scroll again, tapped it against his hand. “Sorry – I need to put this away before I leave it somewhere and forget where.”
He went through to his office, leaving Erestor to watch out the window as two of the grounds staff passed through the garden, lighting lanterns. He remembered the exquisite Fëanorian lamps of Ost-in-Edhil, shedding light that sparkled and glowed throughout the city and closed his eyes for a moment, swept suddenly by an unexpected depths of sadness for all that had been lost. He opened them again at the sound of a door closing and footsteps. Gil-galad came in frowning and rubbing the spot where the circlet tended to bother him near the end of the day. He looked tired, Erestor thought, and in no hurry to get down to details. He wondered idly if something had happened and he was about to be exiled after all.
“I want you to lead a delegation to Númenor.” There was no preamble; the words came out briskly, with no more drama than as if he had asked Erestor to ride down to Forlond and deliver a letter.
Startled, Erestor struggled to get the words out. “You — Númenor? Me?” A little voice asked if Glorfindel had known and he told it firmly that was none of their business, Gil-galad was free to confide in or seek advice from whomever he chose. He no longer asked Erestor, but that was the way of the world. “You want me to go to Númenor for you?”
“You’re slow today. That’s what I said, yes. Go, state our case, be persuasive – you can be damn persuasive when your mind’s set on it.”
Erestor’s recent past was dubious, there was Annatar and the matter of Badger and the chance of it coming back to haunt not just him but Mithlond in general, and there was no pretence of him retaining his old place in the inner circle. Even if he had, he would not have expected this: he was an investigator – all right, a spy – not a diplomat. There were a dozen questions jostling for first place, but they all came down to one word. “Why?”
Gil-galad’s eyebrows rose, he was plainly out of the habit of having an instruction questioned. But Erestor had always been the one to ask why, and if that was lost in the morass of the past few decades, he thought he might as well leave court.
He withstood a kingly glare before Gil-galad relaxed, a half smile tugging at his lips. “You always have to analyse things, don’t you? Why? Because you understand the urgency of this as well as anyone, better than most. Because royalty won’t unnerve or intimidate you, you’ve travelled with Gildor and served Galadriel. Because you can make our cause compelling, you can make it their cause.” He paused, his eyes on Erestor’s face. “And – because I trust you. There are very few people I would let speak for me and you’re the only one who can make this trip.”
Erestor tried to get his mind around the breadth of the responsibility – and the trust – that he was being offered. “Gil, I don’t know. I won’t know where to start. And let’s not forget, I’m no one, I have no title, no status…”
Gil-galad shook his head, interrupting the rush of words. “You don’t need a title, you’re my envoy, that’s all that matters. You can present yourself however you see fit, the main thing is you’re there at my bidding and in my name. There is nothing complicated about this. You’ll spend the next few days studying everything we know about Númenor, you’ll organise a wardrobe that looks fit for a king’s emissary, and I’ll throw in a few gifts for the queen and her co-regent – he’s her nephew, apparently he does the real work. Then you’ll sail west, explain our need, remind them the treaty was never actually rescinded, and come home.”
Erestor mentally shook himself and focused. “How do we get home?”
“Hopefully with the Númenórean navy,” Gil-galad said, his voice grim. “Don’t worry, they won’t keep you there. If nothing comes of it I’ll have Círdan send someone for you. Just – it can’t afford to fail. That’s why I want you doing this. We’re outnumbered and if – when – Sauron’s army reaches the mountains, I’m not sure how long we can hold them.”
No one said this publicly, of course, but it lay heavy on everyone’s minds. Erestor gave the rote answer rather than engage with the reality of a vast army possibly even now approaching Lindon. “We’ll hold them for as long as we have to.”
Gil-galad winced. “Quite. Well, I wanted action – I’m likely to get my share of fighting before the end at any rate.”
“They have a saying in Harad: be careful what you wish for, you might find it.”
“Very eastern, yes,” Gil-galad said dryly. His body language remained strong and confident, a Noldor prince trained from childhood for leadership, but his eyes were deathly tired. Erestor wondered what that kind of responsibility felt like – a whole kingdom’s survival on your shoulders, your people’s future dependant on your judgement. Judgement that was sending a kinslayer – Sauron’s former bed mate, no less – over the sea in search of help. He could not be sleeping well at night.
And there was nothing Erestor could do about that, not anymore. “When do I leave? And who else are you sending?”
Gil-galad moved past him to the window and looked down at the garden as Erestor had done earlier. “We’re still finalising that. You’ll leave in a couple of days. Gimilkhâd has to provision the ship so we’ll try and string it out as long as we can, give you time to prepare. There’s not much anyone can help you with – a few basics from sailors who broke the rules and stopped off on the way back from Tol Eressëa, a couple of essays I wrote based on what I could learn from Aldarion, that kind of thing. It’ll all be out of date by now, except for the geography which is probably wrong, Círdan won’t be much use to you, he asked about ships.”
“Of course he did.” Erestor dredged up a smile. “I suppose my best source will be the captain himself then. Need to make do with what we have. It’ll be all right, they won’t expect too much of me.”
“I need them to be impressed,” Gil-galad said quickly. “I need us to seem worth the alliance…”
“I know that, Gil,” Erestor said softly. “I will impress them into the ground, I promise you. Just wish we’d shown more interest in what was going on over there. Down south too. I’ll need anything we have on their settlements.”
“You’ll have it. And I know you will.” Gil-galad stepped back from the window and reached a hand to Erestor’s cheek, cupping it lightly. “You’ve never broken your word to me and you won’t now.”
His touch was warm, grounding. Erestor took an unsteady breath. “I’m sorry. For everything that’s happened, I’m truly sorry.”
Gil-galad caught his arm and pulled him into a sudden rough hug. “Shut up, all right? We’ve talked it through. It happened, stop saying sorry. ”
Familiar strength enveloped Erestor, but the barrier between himself and the rest of the world held and he was unable to sink into it as he had in the past. He shook his head, more to clear it than in denial, but Gil-galad read it as such and released him, stepping back so that scarlet velvet framed him, kingly indeed.
Erestor reached out to him instinctively, then let his hand drop. What did he think he could do? He had nothing to give right now, just his word. “It’s hard to grasp you still trust me, that’s all. I thought our friendship would be dead and buried once you knew the truth.”
“If the friendship was dead, you’d not be going to Númenor, believe me.” Gil-galad’s tone was even, but his body was stiff with the awkwardness of rejection. Erestor wanted to explain, but he lacked the means or even the frame of reference.
“You’ll not regret it,” he said instead. “For our survival’s sake, and – and because I don’t have words for what I owe you. Anyhow. You haven’t told Captain Gimilkhâd yet?”
A pause, heartbeats long, and then they were back on solid ground. “No. We’re having a formal dinner tomorrow night. I’ll do it then, make it a public declaration. He’ll have those two young lords he went to collect with him. With luck they’ll be friendly – or curious. Give you some court background before you arrive.”
Erestor nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
Later, back in his rooms, he wondered who else had been on the list from which he was the only person available. Galadriel, perhaps, or Elrond or Gildor – though of the three, only Elrond could travel so far west. Círdan was no diplomat and in any case was needed here. And there had been Glorfindel. It hardly mattered, it was Erestor who had been selected to go and plead their case and reinforce a treaty that had been old when the ruling queen’s grandfather was a child.
He felt empty, not with the sense of disconnection that never quite left him but something even deeper, sadder. He had been brought up close to something he used to take for granted that was now over, nothing remaining but friendship.
Erestor wondered how long it took to reach Númenor. Adventure was all well and good, but he had never understood the Telerin passion for boats and the sea.
The stone puzzle had grown, it had levels now and little paths or tendrils leading off randomly. It had taken over an entire corner of the grove, and Galadriel occupied herself with extending and adjusting it, each section answering to the light of a certain time of the day. Celebrían looked at it with an expression that said she thought her mother had lost her mind, but asked no questions: clearly parental insanity was something to be suffered in silence. Her mother hoped that when she was older and had a little training, she would be more conscious of latent power. To Galadriel the stone maze had the destructive potential of an unlit bonfire.
Their watchers – she could not think of them as guards, it was too harsh a word – brought food morning and night: bread and fruit, stewed vegetables, and a honeyed drink that Galadriel found too sweet but drank anyway. Otherwise they were left to their own devices. Celebrían unpacked, sorted and repacked their bags twice and was currently looking for other ways to fight off boredom. She had tried talking to the Silvans, but to no avail; they were polite but distant, not prepared to engage in conversation. Galadriel thought Haldir might have, but he had not been back since delivering his message.
It was early afternoon, quiet and bee-drowsy under the trees. Celebrían was taking a nap, and Galadriel was busy with her pebbles again. She was so engrossed that it took a while to realise the air was cold and the light had begun to change. It became silver and misty, the dappled sunlight growing hazy-soft. The birds ceased their endless calling. After a quick glance around the grove, she kept her head bent over her pebbles and waited. There was nothing yet to see, just the pale grass and her sleeping child curled in the shelter of a tree’s broad trunk, but she could feel the energy, what mortals called magic, seeping in between the trees like fog.
One moment there was nothing, the next she could sense someone there, watching her. Keeping very still, she felt for the earth energy beneath her and closed her mind firmly around the Ring. The clearing was unnaturally quiet. She wondered if his guards were watching as well, but somehow she doubted it. The sense of other eyes on her had faded with the misting of the light. It was as though they were alone in the world now, she, Celebrían, and the unseen watcher.
She picked up a pebble with a reddish tinge, studied it, tried it against two or three others before coming to a decision and placing it on one of the trailing lines leading away from the main structure she was building. She chose the next one, more pink in this…
“Word has it that Finwë was king over the sea before the darkness came and his blood sank into the ground of the Undying Lands. The Iron King over the mountains takes his right from that line, it is said. As do you. What do you here in my wood, daughter of the Summerlands? There is no place for you here.”
Galadriel glanced up almost casually, placed her pebble with care upon the first one and nodded. “It would seem there is no place for me anywhere then,” she said calmly. “My city was burned and the road to the Land of Song is overrun by enemies. I came, a harmless woman with her child, to beg shelter from the only one of my kind within reach.”
“There is nothing harmless about you, woman. You carry peril about you like a cloak. it is a part of your blood, of the race from which you have sprung. You may try and hide it, but I smell power on you, dark and potent.”
He came further into the grove, the diffused light gilding hair, flashing off jewellery. His hair, an unlikely chestnut with streaks of brass, was long and curly. He was not tall, and looked partly though not wholly Sindarin, with a narrow, clever face, a wry mouth and slanting eyes. He was hung about with strings of glass and gems, crystals and beads. There were bracelets on his wrists, a crown of leaves on his head, and he wore a grey tunic over a dull green robe, a belt of golden links about his waist. Unexpectedly his feet were bare.
Galadriel rose slowly, careful not to look in Celebrían’s direction. She wished she had a sword. There was something quietly unnerving about this new arrival. The dagger at her ankle pressed and called for her hand but she ignored it. “I am perilous when threatened, yes,” she agreed. “I am Galadriel, Finarfin’s daughter, wife to Celeborn of Doriath…”
“There is no more of Doriath,” he interrupted, his accented Sindarin light and lilting as the nearby stream. “The land beyond the Girdle fell long past to your kind and to the Naugrim. Any title your mate holds is empty, meaningless.”
“Even so, he carries it with pride in memory of his mother’s home and the land he defended long and hard under the stars,” she retorted. “Beyond that, he has no further need of title; he is Celeborn, of Elu Thingol’s line.”
He was watching her, his head tilted slightly. His eyes were pale, perhaps green, perhaps blue, she couldn’t be sure. “Elu Thingol is no more, nor is the Great Mother of Menegroth. This is another time, uncertain. There is me, there is Oropher beyond the trees beside the river, and then there is your king in the narrow land the sea left beside the blue mountains. We are the new kings, Oropher and I, we guide our people and keep them safe from the intrigues of the Sea People.”
The game could go on and on, round and round, and she had no patience for it; it had been a long month. “We have not met, but I think you are Amdír then, lord of this wood?”
He turned in a tinkle of stones and metal, the ornaments glittering in the strange light. “Amdír I am to some, though at times I am Malgalad. Lord indeed of this wood I am, and I have already said there is no place for you here, neither you nor that which you carry about you. The trees whisper to me of you, the grass sings softly. This is a land of peace, Noldor woman. My people are the quiet ones of the land, those who the seas did not drown, those who were beneath the interest of the Mighty. We live outside the darkness of your kind, bide our own time, keep our own customs. I will not allow you to open my land to war.”
Galadriel nodded, her eyes on him while a part of her reached carefully for the edge of the little well of power she had been building, its tendrils and arches siphoning energy from the land, the trees, even from the sun, the watchfire of the Noldor in those first days in the new land. It was all ready. In childhood trying to tame the power of Arda had been a game she and Finrod delighted in, but childhood was long past and since then it had merged with the art she had learned from Melian, with a few added touches of her own. The power she could now tap was potentially lethal.
Amdír seemed to be waiting. She wondered how old he was, where he had been born, which of his parents had gifted him that Nandor colouring. She would be able to ask later. “I was here once before,” she told him quietly. “Then I was shown hospitality and allowed to explore your wood. This time – this time I come in need, seeking shelter for myself and my child. Would you truly turn her away? At least let her stay, for her father’s sake.”
“And if I do not?”
The air tingled, drew tight about the glade. Celebrían was sleeping too deeply, lulled by a glamour woven in light and air, potent but lacking the power to ensnare one who had studied at Melian’s feet. “If you do not, I will answer you magic for magic. What you sense is but a small part of my makeup. Finrod Rune-singer was my brother, and I have songs of power at my calling.”
The earth energy rose a little as she spoke, tendrils caressing her, and she drew it down firmly. “But I would rather we talk as two sensible beings should. These are dangerous, perhaps deadly times, and we should stand together against the darkness creeping across the land. The trees speak to you? Then you should know I need a very dark wood to hide within, that there are some things that should not fall into the wrong hands.”
“And if those hands come seeking your secret?” Amdír asked coolly. “All your power would not be enough to keep that child safe then. My wood would burn, and still they would come.”
“Your wood is old and wise,” she countered. “The trees would hinder every step, the undergrowth would give cover to your people. They would not burn the wood, they need me alive. There are questions their lord would have for me.” Unbidden a vision of searing flame rose in front of her and pain scalded her throat. She breathed in sharply and it was gone.
He was watching her, curious. “You see things, Noldor woman? Things to come?”
She shrugged, it was a familiar question. “Sometimes. Things near, things far in the future. Sometimes things past. Sometimes — sometimes I see things happening across the leagues to those I love. I saw my brothers die. I saw my uncle, Fingolfin the King, fall.”
Eerie silence, devoid of birdsong, settled over the glade while he thought about this. “That must be a hard gift to bear,” he decided finally. “I have known only a handful who have the Sight, and seldom in such strength. Look for me. What does your Sight tell you about the wood? Not the words you think I would like to hear, mind. The truth.”
The truth? What was truth, what reality had the strength to outrun the darkness? She cast around but there was no channel to draw on while she delved into the deep place where the Knowing lived. She shook her head. “I need water, quiet, to try and look, and even then deliberate scrying is only sometimes useful. Mainly it comes to me and I focus it. I – can tell you I do not see the mark of flames upon your wood except perhaps the trees along the very border. And that I am here early, but there will be others from Ost-in-Edhil. Will you turn us all away with no haven within reach?”
The picture that rose up before her without warning was crystal clear: a deep, green valley, one she had seen before, with the mountains towering snow capped around it and a river rushing, its voice mingling with children’s laughter. It was there, then gone again. When she had leisure, she would meditate on it, try and bring it back, track the path…. He was watching her, intent. She shook her head. “Some other place. A valley. A haven. I’ve seen it before but I have no idea where it is. For now, this is all we have. And you are all we have. Will you sentence us to death at the hands of the easterners?”
“Would you force my hand, Noldor woman? You and that little fire you are drawing from the trees and the ground – my land, my trees?”
Galadriel looked at him, at the way he stood out against the trees as though they were a painted backdrop of the kind used in theatres – when would she ever see a play again? She took a deep breath, and allowed the simmering threads to slip from her fingers. “This is your wood and you are king of its people, yes. Though not of the wood, the wood rules itself, as is right and proper,” she told him. “No force, just – please, at least let Celeborn’s daughter stay. She is more Sindar than Noldor and not yet grown.”
She waited, leaving her mind empty and calm. What happened next would happen, and she would decide then what her next move should be. Time hung heavy amongst the trees, and then the light started losing that silver hue and she could hear birdsong again. The air warmed, and Celebrían stirred in her sleep, murmured something.
Amdír crossed the glade on bare, silent feet till he stood no more than arm’s length from her. She was taller, but he had a stature that had nothing to do with height. “I know a place where the power of the earth gathers and near it lies a stream. Perhaps there you will see what the future holds for my people?”
“We can stay?” she asked, meeting his eyes, holding them. They were the green of the sunlit sea, she realised, an unlikely shade for a woodland lord.
He nodded, retuning her scrutiny, and she wondered what he saw and what he made of her. “You and yours may remain here, princess from across the water,” he said at last. “It would be ill-mannerly of me to refuse a child of Elu Thingol’s line, and as you say, some things are best not left where dark forces might find them. You and those of your people you can speak for may stay.” The lines of his face set determinedly and he moved a step closer. “In return I ask that not by word nor deed do you make me regret my hospitality. Now – wake the child and scatter your stones. It is time to go.”
~*~*~*~
~*~*~*~
Andor – Land of Gift
Callonui – the senior general remaining in Lindon