Part Three
“Hermanus,” Erestor read, “the world’s foremost land based whale watching destination, is a thriving holiday resort offering residents and holiday makers all modern amenities, yet retaining its fisherman’s village charm. The popular resort town of Hermanus, situated between mountain and sea…”
“It’s a pretty town, or would be if it wasn’t overrun with tourists,” said Elrond, who had just come back from taking a few photographs.
“If I was a whale, I’d find another breeding ground,” Erestor agreed glumly.
“Where’s he gone?”
“Ice cream. He’s buying us ice cream. He said if I won’t go sit on the beach, at least he can get us ice cream.”
“Why won’t you go to the beach? There’s no wind. You just go through the town and around the curve there.” Elrond pointed to where the shoreline curved prettily round with the mountains rising behind it. “It looks a bit like Lindon, doesn’t it?”
“It doesn’t look in the slightest like anywhere I saw in Lindon and this damn stone is flat and dead. It doesn’t even sparkle like a normal topaz. Just – flat.”
Erestor had taken the pendant out three times since they arrived and glared at it. He put it in his pocket again and leaned back on the bench. They were on the cliff path, an informal walkway that went along the edge of the sea with a steep drop down into the water or onto some serious rocks for the unwary. It would have been pleasant sitting there looking out over very blue sea stretching out to reach misty blue mountains on the far side of the bay were it not for the hordes of people trampling past with their binoculars and cameras, attention fully on the water where so far Erestor had not seen a single whale.
The town was quite small but with a lot of expensive looking shops and cutesy little signs pointing people to whale watching vantage points and places of interest like the ‘old fishing harbour’ which had been done up to attract the cameras – there was even a restaurant down there, in a cave, just like that place in Italy he’d had food poisoning from once. According to Elrond and Google there was also a ‘new harbour’, from which boats left to take the curious out onto the bay and within barely legal range of the southern right whales.
They had driven out past the golf course and looked at the expensive houses near the main beach, even gone as far as the lagoon, but it was no use: the yellow gem gave no response. Which was why they were back in town, sitting on a bench beside a busy footpath.
“I got us all something called a boerevors roll – farmer’s sausage on a hotdog roll,” Gil announced, coming silently down the slope from the road behind them and bringing an odour of fried onions with him.
“I don’t understand you,” Erestor said. “The minute you get out of a suit it’s like a reversion to the wild. I can’t eat this. Where’s my ice cream?”
“It’ll fill you up,” Gil said firmly, pushing in between them when Erestor showed no sign of making space for him at the end of the bench. “Traditional food. Tastes even better than it smells too.” He took a bite to illustrate this.
Elrond sighed, put down his phone and delicately picked a few onions off to try first, then joined Gil. Erestor rolled his eyes and began nibbling along the edges of the bun, working his way in carefully.
“There’s a girl fire eater,” Gil said with his mouth full.
There was always a girl something or other. Erestor had learned not to react, he found out more that way. “Mm?”
“Oh, you’re eating it. Good. I knew you’d like it. Yes. She said if I was interested in seeing wild life outside of a game park, the best idea was to go back on the coast road and travel to Knysna.”
“Where?”
“Why?”
“Before you ask, I don’t know how you spell it, but I think it starts with a K. Nice holiday town, big lagoon, big forest, and – get this – the last of the Cape elephants. She said the British tried to wipe them out in the 19th century because the farmers said they were a pest and the few that survived hid so deep in the forest that hardly anyone gets to see them. The rangers don’t even know how many there are, but maybe no more than about ten?”
Elrond wiped his fingers on a paper napkin and tried to operate the phone with just his left hand. “Looks pretty straight forward, and a good road too, it says here.”
Erestor leaned over Gil to look. Gil angled the roll away from his hair and went on eating. As far as Erestor could see, he was pleased with himself. Two suggestions in two days -the only two suggestions. Elrond had found a series of very clear road maps with routes drawn in blue. Erestor frowned at unfamiliar place names, and then something drew his attention. “Look, there’s Agulhas. Down there.”
“What’s that?” Elrond asked, looking to see where it was.
“It’s the southernmost tip of Africa, where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet. There’s even a cute little lighthouse. How far is it? I want to go there.”
“That’s like beach,” Elrond said firmly. “This isn’t a holiday.”
“Good grief, there are beaches all over the world,” Erestor said. “There are even beaches in Aman – diamond sand or whatever, if you believe those stories. But there aren’t many places where two oceans meet. We’re going there first. That can’t be more than two hours.”
“It’s a complete waste of time,” Elrond insisted pulling his phone back.
Erestor looked hopefully at Gil. “No it’s not, it’s an important place and there’s probably an energy well too, or should be.” He had no idea if this were true, but Elrond was always intrigued by things like energy wells.
“How far is it?” Gil asked. “We can spare a few hours, Elrond. If it’s on our way, why not let him take a look.”
“Because it’s not really on our way. We’d have to go right off the national road to get down there and then drive all the way back…”
“We’ll live. Anyhow, you’re sitting in the back. I’m driving.”
Elrond gave Gil a dark look. “That’s the problem with going somewhere with a couple. You want to get laid so you always take his side, even though he said no to going to the beach.”
“Beaches are full of sand,” Erestor said, tucking into the sausage on a bun that was proving better than it looked. “And half of it would have found its way back into the car with us. I’m just being practical.”
A raucous sound drowned out anything else he might have said, so loud that he jumped. It was followed by someone shouting through a loud hailer. “What on earth?” Elrond asked, turning to look up at the road.
Gil –galad grinned. “Oh that’s the whale crier. We passed him down by the harbour? The noise means they’ve seen a whale.”
On cue, hopeful whale spotters came charging down the walkway towards the nearest path up to the road, which happened to be on the other side of their bench.
“The southern tip of Africa won’t be so bad, El,” Gil said cheerfully. “At least we won’t be at risk of being trampled there. Not sure about later though – just our luck, we’ll run into an elephant before we find Glory.”
—–o
They walked around for a bit trying to remember where they’d left the car – it turned out Erestor was right, but he knew that – and it took even longer to get out of town on account of the traffic and people charging across the street following the sound of the whale crier, but eventually they were on the road. It was late morning, close to lunch, but Erestor supposed the sausage bun with the forgettable name was lunch. Gil had said they could go and see where oceans collide, pushing him to stop for a meal too might be taking it too far.
The car’s GPS refused to work, so Elrond was delegated to track their route online. He claimed he was a better map reader than Erestor, who was happy to watch the scenery pass and leave it to him. They went through formerly sleepy fishing spots with names like De Kelders, Gansbaai, and Franskraal, that were now cashing in on the whale watching aspect of the tourist trade. Elrond read out that there was a small but thriving art community growing up in De Kelders, which Erestor’s Dutch told him must mean ‘the caves’. His phone was charging so he made a note to look it up later.
Agulhas was small, bare and windy. There was a lighthouse, more functional than cute but it was closed to the public till later in the afternoon. Elrond took photographs. Erestor also took a few with his cellphone and then went down to see the exact spot where the two oceans met. There was a stone monument with a plaque so he took a picture of that too. Elrond went to more trouble, framing it with a bit of sea in the background and tried unsuccessfully to get Erestor to pose for him. Erestor went down to look at the sea, which was pretty much the same as every other ocean view anywhere in the world. He wondered if one side was really warm and one cold but had no inclination to test this. The wind blew sand in his face and the sun was unpleasantly warm, but he had made so much fuss about coming here that he could hardly get back in the car yet.
Gil finally came over and put a sympathetic arm round his shoulders. “I got you a pamphlet about the lighthouse and a postcard with a good picture of it,” he said. “Think we can move on now? It’ll be almost dark by the time we reach Knysna and we still need to find somewhere to stay.”
“I just wanted to see it,” Erestor said with a sigh.
“I know, love. Sometimes we get what we ask for and it’s worth it, sometimes it’s – a bit underwhelming. Let’s go. You can drive for a bit if you want.”
Gil did not trust his driving. It was his way of saying he was sorry the southernmost tip wasn’t all Erestor had expected.
Which was why no one could quite believe it when they finally reached Knysna with just an hour of daylight left to them and found the pendant similarly unmoved by its surroundings.
Gil drove through to the middle of the town and found somewhere to park. They sat without speaking for a bit while after-work shoppers passed them and the rush hour traffic crept along.
“But he must be here,” Erestor said eventually. “Maybe I’m meant to be doing something with this stone, maybe I misunderstood her…?”
“We were all there,” Elrond said. “It’ll start shining when he’s near. She didn’t define what ‘near’ meant, but said it was probably when we reached a town? And we’re in the middle of this one.”
“Well, maybe we need to be closer. She was vague. Where would you go to look for elephants?” Gil asked. He was sitting back looking relaxed and not a bit worried. Erestor wanted to hit him.
“Elrond?”
“My battery’s about to die.”
“For god’s sake, use my charger.” Erestor’s solar-powered charger was an unfortunate shade of lime green. Elrond winced as he took it.
There was silence in the back for a while and then Elrond said, “All right. You need to keep going straight for a while and then take a left when you get to – drive, Gil. Or did you just want a general direction and to look at a picture or two?”
Gil-galad turned right round to look at him, then turned back without saying a word and started the car. Erestor knew enough to keep very quiet and let Elrond dice with death alone.
Eventually, after they’d driven around for almost an hour and it was already dusk, Erestor started looking up accommodation, with the chain of the pendant looped around a finger in case it suddenly started flashing. It didn’t.
—–0
They got rooms in a motel in amongst the trees on the edge of town; Erestor thought it would be quite pretty in daylight. The room was basic but clean, which was not something to be sneezed at. Elrond was down the passage in a space so small he swore he could barely turn around. When he started to complain, Gil reminded him that it could have been worse, they could have had to share. Dinner was KFC, the lesser of two evils, the other being McDonalds which Erestor did not regard as belonging to any of the known food groups.
“Do you think she could be wrong?”
Gil yawned. He lay behind Erestor, an arm draped about his waist. They had made sleepy couples love because it seemed wrong to waste a motel room, and should have been getting some sleep because tomorrow would be another early start. “Babes, my aunt has never been wrong. Why would she start now?”
“But she might have been. Maybe she meant the Eastern Cape. Or – or Swaziland. Or…”
“She meant the Western Cape, near Cape Town. All right? And we will find him. Stop worrying, go to sleep.”
Erestor sighed and obediently closed his eyes. The room was quiet, too quiet. All the worry he had been trying to suppress came crawling out to taunt him. There were six weeks left and then the elves would finally leave Arda for good, and they might well be sailing without Glorfindel – lost, alone….
“What’s wrong? You’re shivering.”
“I don’t know where to look next. He’ll be left behind, trapped here and not even realise it till he tries to get in touch with someone and finds we’re all gone.” Erestor turned to face him, burrowing in against warmth.
Gil wrapped his arms around him. “Ery, we’ll work it out. Back in Cape Town, in that suite you think is so economical, with space to stretch out and a laptop instead of a phone – and decent wireless – and we’ll find what we missed first time round. You two were just so sure about whales and then elephants that we’ve not looked further.”
“Well, it was you who suggested whales and then elephants, we just…”
“You just said oh yes, that’s him.”
“What if we don’t find anywhere else that says oh yes, that’s him? We don’t have all the time in the world anymore. There’s a deadline now. It’s like a death sentence.”
“Ery? Sleep.”
“But we…”
Gil sighed. “Ery, I love you but it’s enough now. It’s been a long, long day. We can worry about that next week if we still haven’t found him, but right now we need to sleep.”
—–0
At least the rain had passed and the sun was out. The view from the balcony of yachts moored on sparkling water became picture postcard perfect, even to Erestor who had enough experiences of sailing ships in his past to cordially loathe them.
Over the next two days Elrond got tickets to the cricket and spent a day at Newlands watching South Africa being destroyed by India, Gil went to look at the yacht basin and make friends, which ended in them having dinner at the Yacht Club with an Australian couple called Madge and Brian, and Erestor visited the aquarium and spent the rest of his time hunting down souvenirs that did not look as though they had been made in China. He had no idea why: he wouldn’t be able to take them to Aman. No one had any idea what to do next and no one wanted to admit it.
On the evening of the second day Galadriel phoned.
Erestor was lying on the bed going through a list titled Top Ten Rooftop Bars on a useful site called Cape Town Magazine. He was in no mood for a bar, rooftop or other, but Gil was getting restless and they had not been together long enough for him to take something like that for granted. Elrond, with his usual uncanny intuition, came in the door from their shared balcony. “Did I hear you say ‘Aunt’?” he asked, sitting on the end of the bed.
Gil put his phone down and frowned. “Do you spend your time out there listening in case one of us says something interesting?”
Elrond looked hurt. “I just happened to hear you say that. She’s my mother-in-law, I naturally react to her name.”
“What, Aunt?” Gil asked.
Erestor looked up. “Whatever, Gil. What was that all about?”
“She says…”
“Why didn’t you bring that along last time? It’s easier than using a damn phone to follow maps,” Elrond cut in, pointing at Erestor’s tablet.
“Because it’s not going to help much without the hotel’s wireless. I’d need to get a data card or something and it felt like too much trouble. Sorry, Gil. She said what?”
Gil was over by the door staring out at the harbour and ignored him for a moment but he wasn’t much use at sulking and came back to join them on the bed. “She said it’s a royal name, English royalty. She thought something like Albert, but that’s probably because I told her the full name of the waterfront was the Victoria and Albert. So all you have to do is find a place with a name like that, and he should be there.”
Erestor started Googling, then handed the tablet to Elrond. “I haven’t a clue where your map is,” he said. “But that’s all we need now.”
Elrond pulled a face and started typing. “Hope so. Don’t know how many English royal names we’re likely to find. Might be hundreds. The Cape was under British rule for a couple of centuries.”
Erestor raised an eyebrow. “Believe it or not, I did read the history. Go on. Albert or something-like-Albert. How hard can it be?”
“Got it!”
“What?”
“Where?”
Elrond held the tablet just out of reach. “Oh no, you’ll mess with the map and I won’t find it again. Prince Alfred Hamlet. It’s about — * He fed in new information. *– under two hours from Cape Town.”
“What’s the attraction?” Gil asked. “More animals?”
Elrond took a bit longer this time, going into a site and reading. Eventually he looked up and shook his head. “Historical buildings. Very small place, you can ride round town on an open top bus and it takes about ten minutes. But there must have been something recently that we don’t know about. A festival of some kind maybe?”
“Local colour, you mean?” Erestor asked. “Yes, that might be it. Anyhow I don’t care why he’s there. I just want to find him, tell him what’s going on and kill him for not answering my email.”
~*~*~*~*~
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