Lord Celeborn's study was tucked into the north end of the great hall, looking out over Lady Galadriel's gardens, the end of the promontory, and the perfection of the great lake. It was not a large space, just big enough for his desk, a work table, and a shelf for a few books and scrolls.
I leaned over the table, examining the best map of Eriador I had ever seen. Clearly Celeborn's people had not been idle, in the years since they crossed the mountains and found their sanctuary. They had sent out scouts, had spoken to the Elves and Men who lived scattered around the countryside, had patiently gathered knowledge about the empty lands in which they dwelt. From the Blue Mountains to the distant Towers of Mist, the lands were laid out before me in careful detail.
"Men still come across the northern plains from the distant East," said Celeborn, "answering the call of their dark god in Angband. A few thousand each year, traveling in ordered companies. Most of them come over a high pass in the Misty Mountains, above the headwaters of the River Bruinen. Some circle far to the north to pass by the mountains altogether, although that road is harsh. Across the northern downs they march, to essay the Blue Mountains by the cold passes far north of Mount Dolmed. Then down into the plains of Lothlann, to join themselves to the Enemy's host."
"Do they give your people much trouble?" I asked, trying to envision that years-long caravan of Men, evil or simply misguided.
"No. We are well-situated. The southern shores of Evendim are out of their way, protected by rough country." Celeborn made a grim smile. "Once, they came to camp by the north shores of the lake, but we dissuaded them. Our reach here is not long, but that far, at least, we could make ourselves known."
I nodded. "What of the Elves and Men who live in their path?"
"Long gone. Most of them fled after the Unnumbered Tears, to take refuge with us or escape into the woodlands of the south. There are a few Men who are still of stout heart, living in the very far north, but even these take care to stay out of the enemy's way. The hirvi-haimo."
"I don't recognize that name."
"I'm not surprised. Their speech is hard to fathom. Even my lady wife, who is gifted with tongues, has never been able to search out the origins of their language. We see them rarely in any case. The Elk People, their name might translate into Sindarin. Perhaps you would know of them from Maglor's teaching; they are a remnant of the people of Bór."
"Ah! Yes, Maglor and Maedhros both always spoke highly of that people. Had all the Men of their allegiance been so faithful, the Unnumbered Tears might have gone very differently."
Celeborn snorted in grim amusement. "How like the sons of Fëanor, to give the Men of their following names in the Noldorin tongue, and forget that they ever had names of their own."
I kept silent, perhaps agreeing with him, but not wanting to be disloyal to Maglor. "What about these Wolf-men?"
"They are a new thing." Celeborn frowned, turning away to look out the window. "They first appeared perhaps twenty years ago, coming out of the East like so many others. Yet rather than cross the mountains to join the Enemy's host, they have lingered in the north of Eriador. Morgoth has sent werewolves of his dominion to drive them into a madness of rage. They raid southward, pursuing any who dare to travel through this land, or try to build a home here."
"Perhaps Morgoth is trying to secure his lines of communication," I suggested. "If the people of Eriador ever gathered together . . . perhaps under your leadership, my lord . . . they might stop the flow of reinforcements."
"Perhaps." For a long moment, he stood silently, his hands folded behind his back as he looked out across the lake. "Who can say what the Enemy is thinking? For all that we have built here, we have never had the strength to go to open war against him. Nor have we been able to inspire the people of Eriador to valorous deeds, even in their own defense. This country has long been left out of the reckoning of kings and Powers. Those who dwell here have been taught by ages of experience to look out for their own folk only. No one else has ever looked out for them."
After I left Celeborn, I stepped out of the great hall into the main square, to watch how the people went about their business on a bright summer morning.
Ost-in-Uial was not a large settlement: the great hall, perhaps a hundred houses, workshops and a smithy, piers for fishing boats that plied the waters of the lake. I doubt more than four hundred people lived there at the time. Most were Elves, Nandor whose folk had lived in Eriador for ages. Perhaps forty or fifty were Sindar out of Doriath, like Celeborn and Oropher. The rest were Men, descended from those who had turned aside from the march of the Three Houses in ancient times. All these diverse people seemed to live in well-ordered peace, respecting one another's ways, with Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel as their chieftains.
It seemed such a small place, set against the wide expanses of Middle-earth. Or set against the awful might of the Enemy. If Morgoth ever turned his eyes toward Eriador, I had no doubt that the people of Ost-in-Uial would fight valiantly against him. I was also sure that the fight would be a short one.
A young woman passed me, carrying a basket of clean clothes: pretty, blonde and blue-eyed, wearing a simple brown dress and a white bonnet. She had a look of the Men of Dor-lómin, a few of whom I had seen as a child in the Havens of Sirion. She stopped at the sight of me, a stranger in the town, and gave me a shy smile.
I smiled back, and tried not to think about what might happen to her, if the gauredain ever passed the gates of the town.
Then I saw my brother, approaching along one of the streets of the town, walking while deep in conversation with the Lady Galadriel. She took the time to acknowledge the people she passed, but Elrond seemed barely aware of the world around him, so attentive was he to the Lady and whatever she was telling him.
"Elrond!" I called as they came near.
Galadriel smiled at me, made a gracious gesture to Elrond, and then departed on her own business. My brother walked up, still looking bemused. I laughed, took him by the arm and guided him into the great hall.
The two of us had been given a guest room on the hall's west side, small but adequate to our needs. I kicked my pack aside and sat down in the room's one chair, while Elrond found the edge of his bed. He still looked starry-eyed. "Just what has the Lady Galadriel been telling you?" I asked.
"Tales of old Doriath." Elrond took a deep breath. "Do you know, the Lady knew our foremother, Lúthien? They taught one another songs of power, in the twilight under the great trees, long ago. Both were pupils of Melian the Maia, Lúthien's mother . . ."
I cocked my head at him. "That shouldn't surprise anyone, brother. Lady Galadriel lived in Menegroth for hundreds of years before Beren came to throw King Greymantle's happy little family into chaos. It would be positively unnatural if she and Lúthien had nothing to do with one another."
"I know, I know. Still, it is one thing to know such a thing as a dry fact, safely locked up in a dusty tome in Maglor's library. Quite another to speak to one who was there, who has seen so many of the events we know only as lore." Another deep breath, and a distant look in his eyes. "The Lady is the wisest and fairest creature I have ever had the good fortune to meet."
"You," I accused, "are in love with Galadriel."
Elrond hurled a mild imprecation at my face. Also, a small cushion, which I caught. At least his attention seemed firmly focused in the here-and-now once more.
"Nonsense," he said firmly. "To be sure, she is very beautiful, and she has much to teach us, but she is Celeborn's wife. Not to mention something like a hundred times your age or mine. True, I admire her greatly. Someday, if it ever comes time for me to seek out a wife of my own, I might well look for someone who reminds me of her. That is all."
"Elrond, do you suppose either of us will ever be in a position to seek out a wife?" I shook my head ruefully, remembering the pretty maiden I had seen in the common square. "Our lives are like to be short and full of struggle, as with too many of our forefathers. I doubt either of us can expect ever to build a household into which we would dare to bring a bride."
"There is a more fundamental matter." Elrond caught my eye, and his face was so solemn that it set a chill in my heart. "Elros, are we Elves, or are we Men?"
That stopped my train of thought. I realized that neither of us had ever brought up the subject before. Although I, for one, had certainly wondered about it.
"Can you see that we dare not make any plans until we know what fate has been allotted to us?" Elrond spread his hands, as if laying out the terms of a geometric proof. "If we guess wrongly, we condemn either ourselves, or the women we come to love, to loss and bereavement beyond the circles of the world."
"We would not have been born," I objected, "if our ancestors had not had the courage to take such a risk. More than once."
"True. Not to mention that too many of our ancestors were wickedly slain before they ever had a chance to discover what fate Ilúvatar had decreed for them." Elrond shook his head. "You can see, I think, why I am in no hurry to contemplate love, or anything that might come afterward."
Slowly, I nodded in complete agreement.
Galadriel's garden was set at the very end of the promontory, surrounded by the waters of the lake on three sides. There she had raised a small paradise, full of growing things, all of them of great beauty or virtue. Elrond and I walked there in the evening, as the first stars came out overhead, breathing the scents of herbs and clean night air.
Then we saw the Lady standing a little way ahead, clad all in white, the starlight shining in her hair. She smiled, and raised a hand to beckon us. As we approached, she turned and led us along a little-used path, down toward the shoreline on the western side of the promontory.
Before long, we had passed through a green hedge, into a small enclosed space that was hidden from the rest of the town, but open to the sky. Above the darkling hills in the west, Gil-Estel shone clear and bright. At the bottom of a stone path, not far from the lake's shore, we saw a low pedestal carved like a tree, whose branches upheld a shallow basin of silver.
The Lady picked up a silver ewer, and filled the basin with water from the lake. When the basin was full to the brim, she bent forward and breathed upon the water, and then waited until the ripples of her breath had died away.
"This is a secret I learned from Melian, long ago, when we all still lived in the Thousand Caves and the Enemy was still kept under siege in the north." Her voice was like cool music in the starlit dusk. "The Queen learned much for Thingol's guidance in this manner. If you look, perhaps you will learn something to your profit."
"What will we see?" asked Elrond.
"Who can say? The Mirror shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may come to pass. Not even Melian could always turn the Mirror to show what she desired to see, and I am by no means a master of this art to compare with her. Perhaps you would do best to leave the Mirror free to work, trusting that what you see may be strange, yet more like to be of use."
"I will look," said Elrond, and I stepped back to give him his chance.
The Lady nodded, and stepped away as well. "Look only. No matter what you see, do not touch the water."
Elrond stepped up to the basin, leaning over it. Then he became still as stone, gazing at the surface of the water for a long time. He said nothing, but when he drew back at last, I could see tears streaming down his face.
"What is it, brother?" I murmured, but he only shook his head and turned away.
There was silence for a while, as the stars continued to emerge above us, and none of us moved.
"Do you also wish to look, Elros?"
I considered her for a moment, and then nodded. "Yes."
Stepping up to the pedestal, I looked down into the water. For a moment, it only reflected the stars above, and the last light of evening. Then the stars suddenly went out. The Mirror grew silver, and then clear. I saw a great battle, Elves and Men fighting valiantly against a horde of Orcs. Then a dragon strode across the land, blasting all about it with fire. I saw Maedhros and Maglor, in the last moments before their company fell upon the Havens. I saw Wolf-men running among rolling hills I thought I recognized, ravening for blood and plunder. I saw Aranrúth, shining clean and bright and deadly. Then a royal sceptre, all ivory and pale crystals, lying upon a field of dark velvet.
Then, suddenly, the stars returned. Yet I knew these were not simply the stars above where I stood, reflected in the water. Somehow, I saw what the stars might be like if one soared among them, in the cold darkness of Ilmen far above the circles of the Earth.
Far away, I saw something moving among the stars, small but bright and clear, like a child's toy seen afar off. It drew nearer, and I saw that it was a ship, shining more brightly than any of the stars around it. A ship I knew, even though I had not seen it since I was a small child, and it was now much changed.
Vingilótë.
I remembered the day my father sailed from the Havens for the last time, his sails slowly vanishing behind the misty horizon, leaving my mother, my brother, and me behind. I remembered watching, my eyes full of tears but wide, refusing to miss a moment of my father's departure. Some premonition had told my child's mind that I would never see him in the flesh again.
There he was, standing at the helm. He wore mail, a helm, and a cloak, all of elven make, shining with gemstones and diamond-dust. A great jewel was bound to his brow, from which came all the ship's light. Eärendil the Mariner, my father, sailing the oceans of heaven, keeping a watch upon Arda from the ramparts of the sky.
"Father," I whispered.
My father, and the Silmaril my mother had borne into the depths of the sea, taken up now and set among the stars. My father lived. He lived. He had become Gil-Estel.
Maedhros had guessed rightly. Doubtless my mother lived as well. in Valinor, the sacred land at the edge of the world. I had been right, the day Eärendil sailed from the Havens. Elrond and I would never see our parents again. Whether they had intended it so or not, they had abandoned us. We were alone.
"Father!" I shouted, wrenching myself away from the Mirror. I turned, staring up into the western sky, the light of Eärendil's star smearing in the tears that filled my eyes.
I felt a shock, as I fell to my knees on the very shore of Evendim. I covered my face with both hands, not wanting to see any more.
Then I felt hands on my shoulders, gentle but strong, pulling me into an embrace. Elrond murmured in my ear. "It's all right, Elros. I saw him too. I know."
"They left us behind."
"Not of their own will," said Elrond, his voice suddenly very certain. "You must remember. Even our father loved us, for all that he could never shut out the call of the sea in his heart. Our mother thought us already slain, when she cast herself into the waters. Neither of them would ever have chosen to abandon us."
I breathed deep, and felt stronger. "You're right, of course. Yet there they are, in the bliss of Aman, living under the protection of the Powers. And here we are, still in the trammels of Middle-earth, our fates uncertain and our lives likely to be short."
"All of which we already knew, brother."
"True." Slowly, I rose to my feet once again. I looked into my brother's face, and then back to where the Lady stood, waiting in patience. "Thank you, Lady Galadriel. For all that the vision was painful, I am glad to have had it."
She nodded. "So it often is, with the Mirror. Have you learned anything for your guidance?"
"Perhaps." I braced my shoulders and turned to face her. "Lady, our parents were of mixed blood, as are we. Yet it seems they are suffered to live in the Blessed Realm. Just as Lúthien was granted the Gift of Men, so Eärendil and Elwing must have been accounted among the Firstborn. What does that mean for their sons, do you think?"
"I cannot say." Galadriel sighed. "I went freely into exile, and although I am guiltless of the crimes of Fëanor and his sons, I still fall under the doom of Mandos and can never return to Aman. I have no special insight into the judgments of Manwë under Ilúvatar. You would do better to go to the Host of the West, as you plan, and present your case to those who lead it."
"Perhaps you're right." Then I remembered other things I had seen in the Mirror. "But I think we may have other work to do first."
