Á Avatyara
The four of them have formed a comfortable, easy acquaintance: Glorfindel, Curundil, the young mortal, and the old one. They banter during chores. Other times they work in the natural silence of each other's company. It had been close to a year before they talked of anything more portentous than the weather.
Glorfindel has noticed each of the three other mariners looking at him in turn, when they believe he is unaware. He has seen the question on the young man's smooth tanned brow, in the old man's furrowed eyebrows, in Curundil's clear green eyes. But they have never asked this question, out of respect for Glorfindel, for which he is thankful.
The months they spent together lengthened into years. Over their shared lunches, sunny days sitting on overturned crates on the upper deck, they've told their stories little by little: in snippets, in jokes, in remembered scenes.
The young man is of a farming town in the swath of continent east of the Misty Mountains. The old man has never spoken of his childhood, but he has followed the sea for a long time. Curundil was born to exiles of Doriath some years before the fall. And eventually, Glorfindel revealed for the first time that he had once called Gondolin home.
It is now an hour before high noon, when the young man asks, falteringly, whether Glorfindel has lived through the disastrous battle of the First Age that would later be known as the Nirnaeth Arnoediad: Elvish for "Tears Innumerable".
Curundil glances quickly and reproachfully at the young man. Elves consider it extremely rude to discuss the Nirnaeth in light conversation. Glorfindel, too, is taken by surprise. The young man bites his lip with regret instantly after the words have left his mouth. And the old man sits by, sharpening his knife with an air of indifference, but his ears are pricked up and listening behind his gray beard.
Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Just consciously thinking the name of the battle feels like probing a wound, like releasing an aching grief from the captivity of his memory of that has never been assuaged, only forgotten.
There is nothing poetic, nothing romantic about the story at all, though latter day storytellers always tried to make it so.
"Forget I asked," says the young man anxiously, his face flushed in shame, "I'm sorry."
But Glorfindel fixes him with his measured, inscrutable stare.
"Don't be sorry," he says, "You couldn't have known. If you still want to hear it, I will tell you the story. You've earned it, friend. But you must excuse me if it grows difficult for me, at times, to go on. It's a sad story, and one I've never told anyone before."
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It had all started when the Siege of Angband had broken. First the watch of the sons of Fëanor foundered in the East. A sudden torrent of flames lit the grassy plain, up to the very heels of the fleeing horsemen. A host of terrible creatures poured over the harsh face of the Iron Mountains, creatures Morgoth had created during the long siege to be his army: orcs twice as large as common; goblins in the thousands, roaring Balrogs and grunting trolls.
But towering above them all was the terrible dragon called Glaurung. Belching flame, armored in scales of crimson steel, Glaurung was Morgoth's masterpiece, a project he had worked on in secret through the four hundred years for which the siege had held. When he thrust his wings into the sky, an entire valley drowned in darkness.
Despite their valor, the elves under the sons of Fëanor were forced back to Himring, unable to subdue the rampaging dragon. The armies of Fingolfin and Finrod failed shortly after. Morgoth's army stormed all of Northern Beleriand. With the pent-up wrath of four centuries, he beat out a path of destruction, swallowing entire towns, slaughtering all who lay in their path. Balrogs chased down women fleeing the sack of their homes, snaring them with flaming whips and devouring them whole.
When news of the massacre reached King Fingolfin, he wept in rage and sorrow. He broke free from the hands of his son, Fingon, shouting for his sword.
Fingolfin rode for a full day, straight to Morgoth's door, as unflinching in his path as an arrow meeting its mark. The bugling of his chestnut stallion, rearing mightily on the steps of Angband, was his challenge to Morgoth to meet him alone in combat.
Fingolfin and Morgoth dueled. Over and over again the elven king was beaten down, and each time he stood up again to cross his sword with Morgoth's mace. But in the end he could not match Morgoth, who had once been one of the Valar. The dead king was snatched from the floor of Angband by the eagle Thorondor before Morgoth's fires could defile it completely.
South flew Thorondor with Fingolfin's body, over the Encircling Mountains and Tumladen, landing right on the steps of Turgon's palace. The king of Gondolin sank to his knees by the bloody bundle that fell from the eagle's talons. Idril and Maeglin, the grandchildren of Fingolfin, flanked him. They knelt on either side of him as he sobbed openly over his father's body, and how cruelly Morgoth had defiled it.
Within two days, Turgon conjured an army of ten thousand, prepared to march for Angband to fight at the side of his brother Fingon. The Seven Gates of Gondolin opened wide, all at once, and the Gondolindrim rode North to the Iron Mountains.
In their absence, Idril Celebrindal ruled as regent. Turgon had approached Maeglin first, but to everyone's surprise, Maeglin refused to remain behind, vowing instead to fight by his uncle's side. Within the two days it had taken for Turgon to assemble his army, Maeglin, Thénarion and the other smiths of Gondolin had run the forges all through the night to supply them with arms. Swords, shields, helms, cuirasses, and vambraces of galvorn and mithril poured from the smithy.
What would come to be known as one of Maeglin's greatest inventions came to light: weapons that would glow blue when enemies were near, heralding danger.
As they rode up to Angband, the dead already carpeted the ground so densely the charred plains were barely visible beneath. Turgon had fought with terrifying ferocity, hewing through orc after orc in his search for Fingon amidst the carnage.
Maeglin had just turned one-hundred-fifty-one years old, and had never seen battle. Many of the Noldor had wondered if he might be killed quickly for his foolhardy decision to leave the safety of Gondolin. Instead, he proved to be an astute warrior, quick and sure. On his nimble mare, he weaved swiftly through the ranks of the orcs, his black sword darting into flaws in armor. With a practiced, almost mechanical grace, he pulled arrows from his quiver and loosed them so fluidly that no one ever saw him draw back the string.
He fought almost with an air of dispassion- not once did he blink or grimace as he hunted down his foes, even as all around him, cries of despair rang out from his kin. But in the end, he retreated in exhaustion with the rest, as wave after wave of orc appeared over the hills to replace those that were killed.
By then it had ceased to feel like warfare. They were throwing their swords and their bodies against a force that could not be stopped, an enemy that had appeared to be an army but truly was an insurmountable infinitude.
It was futility, pure futility, Glorfindel thought, as the battle raged on and the flames burned higher. He commanded his battalion toward the Southern front, bolstering a small brigade of mortal men and dwarves. Together they stood against orc, troll, and Balrog. Red and black blood mingled over the earth, miring the fields. The roast-meat smell of burning flesh bathed them as they fought on, without rest or food.
A bitter defeat was their reward. Fingon was long dead by the time Turgon reached him. So many had died along with him. Glorfindel ordered the retreat with tears streaking the ash on his face. But for the valor of the mortal brothers Huor and Húrin, the remaining Gondolindrim would not have escaped alive.
In defeat they turned back toward Gondolin, culled in number like summer lambs. Maeglin's arms had served them well, or they would have been fewer still. Through the gates they brought the wounded, with no infirmary to hold them. They lay beneath tents in the city square, groaning through the night. Oromen, Khildur, Tiromer and Gilwen went without sleep, draining belly wounds, amputating ruined hands, mixing medicines as their apprentices sprinted from cot to cot, hurrying to inject morphine through crusted needles before the next patient began to scream again.
The living soldiers carried their fallen friends from these tents to the city wall in a steady stream, day and night, and kissed their foreheads before casting them over the rock. There was no time to dig graves for all of them.
For a year or more, there were no more songs sung in Gondolin, no more feasts, no more balls. The silence of the dead hung in the air. Black cloth replaced the gleaming cerulean banners once flown from the palace windows, in commemoration of Fingolfin and Fingon, and the many thousands lost. The fountains sat neglected. Moss grew over the eyes of the statues and algae covered the tepid surface of the pools. That year was an endless funeral, and the Great Market became a wake. Where were you during the Nirnaeth Arnoediad? Whom did you lose?
Matters fell into disarray. With the farmers dead and gone, the unplowed fields grew thick with weeds. Orphans and widows went about on their streets, begging, their caregivers slain.
Even in their own mourning, all Gondolindrim turned their hearts tenderly toward the plight of their Turgon, their king. His father and brother now buried, the Crown of the High King of the Noldor now fell upon his grieving brow. There had been no coronation, no ceremony, for the passing of the bloody crown.
Idril, of all people, was the one who saved them. In truth, she was regent still, for she knew that her father had not truly returned from the Nirnaeth. She gathered the Council, extracted pensions for broken families from the royal coffers, and built up orphanages throughout the city. She paid destitute women to assume the work of their dead husbands, enough for them to put milk and lembas on their tables once more.
She went into town every day, gathering children around her for such tasks as sweeping the littered streets, painting little murals for the fallen on the walls. While her friend Gilwen toiled to bathe the wounds of the soldiers, Idril took upon herself wounds of the soul.
Shortly after that bleak year had passed, Maeglin had founded his own House: the House of the Mole. He took in the fatherless and orphaned who demonstrated an aptitude for craftsmanship and smithing. They wore leather circlets around their heads, and mahogany tunics that bore the insignia of a mole with its claws outstretched, its snout turned skyward.
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With a sad smile, Glorfindel tells his companions how Idril recounted those days to him in the years after: how it was in the Year of Mourning she came truly to know her father, and the burden he had carried since the Exile of the Noldor.
She told him of the day she was standing up on the ledge of the King's Tower, leaning idly on her father's staff, looking over the roofs and spires of Gondolin, and all the orphanages she had built, over the fields of Tumladen once more verdant and fecund. And she had felt a hand on her shoulder. Beside her stood Turgon. The expression on his face was unbridled pride, and love. She embraced him joyfully, and placed the staff into his outstretched palm. The King of Gondolin, now High King of the Noldor, had returned to her at last.
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The sun is out and they are sitting on the deck, sharing lembas bread and riding a steady westerly breeze. Glorfindel's story comes to its end.
"What became of the elves who were slain in battle?" the young man cannot help but ask, "Isn't it true that elves don't sicken and die as mortal men do? That yours is the gift of immortality?"
"It is true," replies Glorfindel, "Though some would not call it a gift. Our bodies are not altered by time as are those of mortal men, whom we call the Edain, and many of the ailments that plague them do not affect us. When slain, we pass into Valinor, in the blessed realm of Aman."
"Valinor?" asks the young man, "Do you mean to say elves live on in this place even after they are killed in battle?"
"Indeed."
"The Undying Lands," he says with wonder, "To us it is mere myth. What I would give for elven immortality, to sail the sea on days like this until the end of the world."
"And yet, the end of the world would come," laughs Glorfindel, "Are you prepared to witness it? To carry your cares and burdens with you until the song ends, and all things die, and you along with it?"
The old man butts his way into the conversation.
"Wouldn't live forever if you paid me," he grunts, and to the young man: "You'll learn to see it as a gift when your bones grow as old as mine have. But, Glorfindel, what becomes of the wicked?" he asks, "The guilty and the sinful among the elven-folk. Do they, too, live on in paradise for eternity?"
Curundil answers this time.
"It depends," he says, "You see, we elves- or Eldar as we call ourselves- do not simply step off our ships into Valinor. Rather, the spirits of Eldar and Edain alike pass into the Halls of Mandos, that is, the Halls of Awaiting. There, the Eldar await, for a time, until the time is deemed right by the Vala Manwë, whereupon we are returned to our bodies, and walk once more among our kin in Aman."
Glorfindel tilts his chin up and watches the clouds somersault across the cerulean field, the color of Gondolin's banners once upon a time.
"It is said," he adds, "That the wicked repent as they await their rebirth. Some dwell in the Halls of Mandos for an age or more, thinking on their past deeds. Some remain there still."
He pauses.
"But those truly treacherous ones- murderers, kinslayers, traitors- theirs is a different fate. They may never walk in Aman, nor are they granted the release of a mortal death. Instead, their spirits are cast out of Valinor, and forsaken, to dwell in the wilderness like a beast and forbidden from ever again taking the form of one of the Eldar."
Curundil looks over at him skeptically.
"Glorfindel," he says, "That's a mere story told to frighten children into obedience. How did you come to believe it for yourself?"
Glorfindel raises his golden brows ironically.
"Because," he says, "I have died."
At this, the three mariners gawk at him.
"You've died?" says the young man, "You mean to say you have seen all of these places for yourself? The Halls of Mandos and the Undying Lands?"
"Yes," says Glorfindel gravely, "I was cast over a ledge during a siege. I awoke to colored points of light in an infinite darkness, and there was a voice that came not from within me, but from everywhere: it bid me to return.
"Glorfindel," says Curundil softly, "I did not know."
"Á Avatyara," Glorfindel continues, "Is Elvish for 'forgive.' To be given a new body is to be forgiven by the Valar for one's sins in life. We live a long time, and all of us have failed, and at times been wicked toward one another. To us, 'Avatyara' means not only forgiveness, but a second chance. A second life which we hope will be better than the last."
"Á Avatyara," repeats the old man, lapsing into his own thoughts.
They all lie back on the deck and watch the clouds.
"Life is beautiful," says the young man.
End of Part I
