Chapter Twenty-one: Night-Stories in the Firelight
The great arched doors to the feasting-hall were thrown open, a stream of laughing elves coming forth. Behind, slowly and more composed, Elrond and Gilraen bent their heads together to share a quiet word. Estel was in the midst of the boisterous elves, including the healers, Elladan and Elrohir, and several more from the household. Glorfindel and Erestor tried in vain to keep aloof, succumbing finally to grasping hands and dancing feet. They had all just finished a luscious meal, with plenty of wine and bubbles, the mood running straight towards song and play.
"To the Hall, quickly!" Erestor leaped through the archway, closely pursued by Ranon and Elladan, tussling in play for the choice seat before the great fire in the hearth. Estel landed on his little armchair, then dragged it to a more favorable spot. His, of course, was the advantage of smallness: his central position in the first row was permanently assured.
Glorfindel pulled up a deep cushioned chair behind the boy, and turned to Gilraen at the threshold, still arm-in-arm with Elrond. "For you, my lady. A suitable seat for your enjoyment of this night's revels."
"Revels?" asked Gilraen. "What happy occasion have we this evening?"
"There is none to-night fixed in our year-keeping, my lady," ventured Ranon with a twinkle in her eye, "but we are all in joy since the coming of the little one among us." She reached her hands out to Estel and exchanged a swift finger-game with him. The child screeched with elation upon winning the round.
"Buzz, buzz, buzz, my buzzy-bee came home!" sang Estel as the game ended. "Momo, Momo, look at my buzzy-bee!" Gilraen leaned over the tiny armchair to follow the gyrations of the finger-bee, laughing despite herself. Ranon collapsed in delighted defeat, her supporters fanning and reviving her.
Pressed by the company to share his day's doings, Estel recounted his trip up the mountain, his encounter with each bee, and finally explained the entire process from flowering veyat to the tasty cakes of Vaneta. The happy cook rewarded him with a morsel from her pocket, and all present applauded his productive efforts.
"Is there a song, at last, Milia?" asked Elrond as the laughter died down. The lady of the harp rose and bowed, then took her seat between the company and the fire. Her fingers strummed and plucked, perfect notes blending in the air to cover all with deep grace and beatitude.
"Flower of a single day, most lovely among them all," she sang, "flashing silver fish through falling waters, sparkle of a jewel in the sun, burst of flame as fire awakens…" The melody rose again, calling forth a sigh from more than one breast. Glorfindel shifted in his seat and gazed at Gilraen.
"We thank thee O Tintalle, for this time of sleep and waking, for this child and her child of her own, for this joyful task onto us delivered, for the day of just reckoning soon to come…"
Larat whispered in Lynael's ear, "Soon, in our count. There is still time to make him what he must become, but none to lose." Lynael squeezed her hand in answer.
It was hard to say if Milia's poesy was itself grasped by little Estel, but there was no doubt that the song, more than just music or verses, had found its way into the child's depths. He was strangely still and quiet, dipping his head slightly from side to side, his eyes riveted on the harpist and her vibrating strings. His lips seemed to puff out silent notes, following the sounds of plucking and strumming, until the final gliding chords. As the final quivering echo faded away, Milia lowered her harp and gestured lovingly towards the mortal girl.
"A rare song, dear Milia," said Erestor. "But so very beautiful. Thank you."
"Indeed," said Gilraen. "Take, please, my gratitude for this and for the countless acts of love that fill my days and nights, yours and your sister-healers'. And all of you," she said, turning to the each of the company, "each in her or his way, all of you are here with me in this great work, and although I cannot, and will not, deny the sorrow that will live in my heart forever, for my… loss… I wish to say to you all that I am happy, so very happy, that we are here with you and doing in this way that which must be done. Uncle," she turned to Elrond, "am I making any sense?"
"Always, my daughter," he said, smiling but earnest. "It is not given to you to speak nonsensically."
"I feel in these days that I should speak not at all, what with so many things that must not be said," she sighed, slipping again into sadness.
Elrond took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. "Your silence is not to be absolute, or life-long. Record everything in your own wise poesy, and he will know then all that has passed."
She smiled a bit and said, "Yes, that suits me now. I have little use for speech…"
"Ah, perhaps," said Milia cheerily, "but certainly you have great use for song!"
"Yes, yes!" all around them clamored, "a song, a song, sweet lady!"
She blushed and hid her face in her hands for a moment, then faced her strange socii, her partners from another world pledged to sail her ship through all storms. "I will," she said. "I have a song." She dropped her gaze to her hands resting on her lap, then straightened up and lifted her arms in a coming embrace.
There is life, around us there is life…
Even my sadness awakens each day
and must smile… And my joy!
Tears wait, each day, for quiet moments…
Some days pass without one…
And more such will come, I know:
days of wild running in springtime meadows,
of hot bodies soothing in shaded pools…
Will love ever awaken again?
Gilraen's song would surely have been applauded, though it was heavy with mystery for the elves unfamiliar with mortal sorrow. However, it was Estel that suddenly jumped up from his chair, wild-eyed, and cried out, "Dada! Where is Dada?"
Not a one among them moved a finger. The child's ringing question was a blow with no answer: there was none made ready for such occasion, rather it had been hoped to avoid, altogether, the hurtful point. They saw now that this hardly could have been.
Gilraen knelt before him and took him in her arms. He was stiff-armed and did not return the embrace. "Momo," he said, "where is Dada?"
"Part of him sleeps in the mountain, where we said to him farewell… do you not recall this, my son?" Gilraen called up from within her, strength yet unknown.
"Part of him, Momo…?" the child shook his head in bewilderment.
"And part of him is here with you and with me," she whispered. "We cannot see him, but if we close our eyes we can feel him near. I believe he is with us, now and always. We make a home for him in our thoughts."
The child slowly relaxed and finally raised his eyes to his mother's, listening closely to the words of her own comforting. The elves sang softly the hymn to Elbereth, always soothing and hopeful, and the hour passed. Smiles returned, a round of sweet brew was served and shacorot for Estel, washing away his final bits of sadness.
Glorfindel finally stood and came forward to the center of the space before the fire. He tapped a silver cup with his spoon, and announced a rare event. "Elladan and Elrohir, the twin sons of Master Elrond, Lord of Imladris, will now recall for us a wonderful story, a story matchless, beyond compare, a story of the beginning…"
The brothers appeared as if from nowhere, although they had been for hours among the company. Estel sat up and blinked, his interest suddenly taken. The twins were each wrapped in a gray elven-cloak, identical as always, but one, Elladan, had on his forehead a jewel of bright yellow light, and the other, Elrohir, had one of clear white luminescence. They crouched and swerved each to one side, their gaze travelling over either half of the company, then circled each other almost imperceptibly to finish the round of eye contact with their listeners: now, a captive audience.
"We bring for you this fine evening," began Elladan, "a story of great delight. Have you, Master Estel, heard tell of Two Trees… the Two Trees of Valinor?" The child, wide-eyed, shook his head.
"In the land of Aman, Master Estel, all was made in beauty under the light of the glowing stars." Elrohir seemed to reach a handful of stars and spread them before the boy's rapt attention. "Who made all the things of beauty? Great Makers, tall as an oak-tree, strong as a mountain... the Valar, beloved of Eru Iluvatar... made their homes as mansions, huge halls..."
"They had to be!" Elladan rose suddenly, seeming to float behind and above his brother, "for the Valar as tall as an oak-tree must needs have high ceilings and wide, wide doorways; and their stables must so be huge for their horses as big as a house! As big as a house!"
"As big as this house?" crowed Estel in lively amazement amid the gaiety.
"Maybe not quite," whispered Elrohir, "but surely as big as this great hall, our Hall of Fire..." His pointing finger led Estel's eye to view the outline of the giant horses.
"And the gardens! The gardens!" Elladan broke in, his hands hiding and revealing at instants, "flowers uncounted, every shade of every color hot and cold, every form of leaf in unnumbered greens and grays... Paths winding, some, and others straight and broad, hiding a shady bower, showing a living tapestry... and fountains, and pools, and streams cool and tuneful... each stepping-stone made with loving precision of shape, color, texture... The gardens, Master Estel, the gardens of the Land of Aman!"
The gardens lingered in the air for a moment, as all held their breath. Elrohir lifted his hands as in prayer. "He who raised up the mountains, built the great halls and mansions. She who caused to grow the tiniest moss and the greatest tree, laid the gardens and called them forth from the good, living earth floor of Aman."
"And all the varied shapes and forms of kelvar, beloved of Kementari but also of Oromë the Hunter, the sure-footed, the swift-winged, the songsters, the prancers, the fierce and the fearful... in the water, through the air, over the fields... ah!, the fields..." Elladan seemed to have the beasts and birds hidden in his fingers.
"Yes, the fields, the endless fields: food-plants hardy and self-grown, revelled together in a great order of their very own..." Elrohir drew the fields in the air, the company laughing and clapping. Suddenly he stopped and said in a loud whisper, "And in all Valinor, as the Valar called their home, there was nothing blemished, nothing rotten, nothing smelly..." his voice and gesture rising, "nothing harsh, not a single note of sound or color clashing with another... Truly, the Music devised by Eru Iluvatar was closely expressed in the harmony of Valinor."
The brothers seemed to blend once more into a single player, as each voiced his part, back and forth. "So it was pretty! Was it pretty? Who can say? There are none of us here who have seen Aman the Blessed... only stories have we heard, stories... One day, Master Estel, you will sit at the feet of one who may tell you true of the beauty of Valinor... for she saw it with her eyes, her own eyes, and she touched with her hand the radiance of the trees, the Two Trees, the Two Trees of Valinor!"
"Me?" asked Estel in wonder. "I will sit at the feet of... who?"
"The momo of our momo, Estel, the Lady of the Golden Wood, Queen of the Noldor in Middle Earth... the Lady Galadriel, of the noble house of Finwë." A pin would have dropped with a loud ring, within the reverent silence that greeted the beloved name.
"But until then...!" The twins leaped apart and became again the pair of storytellers, bandying to and fro sounds and images flashing between the enraptured group and the fire of many-colored flames. "The White Lady of the Golden Wood will speak of that which she saw in countless years gone past, but until that day you must not, our very dear Estel, go without this wondrous story." Elladan winked broadly at his little cousin.
"Indeed," Elrohir picked up the phrase, "after this night you will have them in your mind, as do we all... if you will..."
"Yes, yes!" cried the boy, "tell me, please!"
"Our gentle Lady Kementari, the Valier Yavanna..."
"...when all had been made ready in the divine city of Valmar..."
"...ascended the grassy green mound of Ezellohar, beyond the gates..."
"...the western gates..."
"...and before the thrones of the Powers in the Ring of Doom..."
"Máhanaxar!"
"Yavanna raised up a song, a song of power, and sat on the green mound to sing it through, to the end..."
"Nienna, the Lady of Dreams and Sorrow, brought for Yavanna refreshment, and sat with her for a long hour, watering the earth with her holy tears."
"The Valar came, one and all, and sat on their thrones to hear the song of Yavanna."
"In silence, they sat... for an age..."
"And then..."
"...from the ground before her..."
"...a silver sliver parted slowly the lumps of soil..." this, Elrohir with his white jewel.
"...a golden thread curled up after..." Elladan, painting in the air with his finger.
"One here! One there!" the twins, in unison, pointed each to a spot on one and on the other sides of the mound. Amazing, they made plant-sounds and then tree-sounds, as each described in turn the unfolding of the saplings and their first sparkling drops of light. "Yavanna raiiiiii...sed them up, out of the Earth and into the Air, and as she sang to them they grew, and they stretched their branches as we stretch our arms..."
And they stretched, the twins, and they stretched and stretched so, that their listeners began also to stretch their arms and legs. Estel, laughing happily, stretched his entire, lithe little body in an arc between his own chair and the one next to him, where Milia sat twisting her shoulders back and forth, in an ecstasy of well-being.
"And their branches became great, and from them sprang branches smaller and smaller..." Arms and forearms and hands and fingers recalled the image, crossing and blending in the firelight.
"...and from these budded forth leaves, green leaves..."
"...and flowers... Ah! Wait!" The twins rooted to a stop, holding every elf and mortal in the stillness of the instant.
"The leaves," said Elladan, "first the leaves."
"The one tree had long, pointed leaves of darkest green, above, and below of shining silver," Elrohir produced a seeming leaf before all eyes present, then snatched it away as Elladan came forward with one of his own.
"The other had round, curling leaves of tender green all edged in glittering gold," he passed the leaf quickly, then held it up for the briefest moment. Estel strained to see, but even before the child was out of his chair the twins had once more closed in on themselves, re-emerging then with even more wondrous feats of finger-magic.
"Regard the flowers of Telperion! ...for that was his name, this great white tree of silver and green..." There seemed to tumble from Elrohir's hands a spray of countless little white flowers, each dripping a thread of silver light which disappeared into the shadowy floor. "From each single blossom, drop by drop, there came to be pools of shining silver light, gathered also in huge vats, like wells of water and light..."
"But the fiery clusters of yellow blossoms from the branches of Laurelin, the golden sister-tree, flowed over a bright rain of light," Elladan appeared from behind his brother with horn-shaped gatherings of aurean blooms bursting with golden radiance warm and glowing, seeming to emerge from his very flesh, as if he were, indeed, an elven rendering of that most beloved and lamented of trees.
Estel hung open his mouth hugely, his eyes popping so very wide, his little hands grasping the air before him. "Do you see the flowers?" his mother whispered to him. The child nodded absently, his attention riveted on the twins' subtle and magical movements.
Finally they stood still, one beside the other, and seemed to become, at last, Telperion and Laurelin themselves. A gentle glow surrounded them, silvery over Elrohir and golden on Elladan, as the two sang ever so softly in the High-Elven tongue a song of warm afternoons in the shade and the light of the Two Trees. "Telperion came first to full growth and flower, and his silver white light spread over the land and into each tiny nook and corner," Elrohir sang, now in the Sindarin of his birth, now in the Westron of his mortal cousins. "The count of six hours he glowed in joy and vigor, and in the seventh hour began to sink into himself..."
"But there was no sorrow or fear in Valinor for his fading!" cried Elladan, "for in that seventh hour of Telperion began the blossoming of Laurelin, slowly unfolding her living golden fire, until the sleep of her white brother went unnoticed in the glory of her yellow flame... again, six hours of radiance and warmth undreamed of..."
"And so went they, each from light to darkness in the count of six and six hours," said Elrohir, "and both times were beloved: the white and the golden." The brothers un-became the trees and gazed, rather, at where their unearthly light seemed to settle, called forth from memory of time before time by the skill of their enactment, but more so by the linking of their spirit to the bounty of the divinity.
"Both one light and the other were joy and pleasure, but it was in each seventh hour that the greatest love was fulfilled," Elladan's laughing face lifted the enraptured mind's-eye of his listeners, "and the air itself would be tinted by one fading light and one that was waxing, mingled and yet each still pure in its growing or shrinking threads..."
"Until one," Elrohir came forward with his whisper, "gave way totally to the other, and took his rest or her leisure..."
"And in this hour, each seventh hour, the most precious words were spoken, the most tender caresses given, the sweetest fruits shared among friends and lovers..."
There was finally silence, and all sat stricken save Estel, who verily seemed to bloom with the glory of his new great friends, the holy trees of the Blessed Realm. He flew finally from his seat and spun around the great hall, reliving instants of the story in his own pure and natural way. He told himself and answered himself and laughed merrily, until exhaustion took him finally in one great sweep and he climbed onto his favourite divan in time to collapse into oblivion.
Only then did the company stir. The twins each removed the jewel from his forehead and sighed, while some whispered, and others stroked arms and heads lovingly. The hour advanced, and Gilraen crawled onto the divan with Estel, covered them both with her cloak and joined her son in the sweet sleep of the guiltless.
The elves remained at the fire, gazing, attempting to read into the glowing shapes and shadows. Elrond filled two cups from a flask and brought them to his sons. "You have taken us totally, master storytellers, to a time and place we none of us have trod. Yet we had, in tales and song, in the deep memory of our race and bloodline: but never as you have taken us this night. Long has it been since I wept for the Trees and joined my hand to the battle against their slayer... Now, at this time, my vows are as they have ever been, and twice-renewed.
"Each of us here, even to little Estel, has been struck and wounded by the arms of the very same evil that destroyed the Trees... and his foul offspring. We will never utter his name in this place, and we will never forget that these wars we fight today are but the present chapter of a long struggle. It is true that the designer has himself been chained and cast into the void, for a time... until the Dagor Dagorath, the final battle to end all battles... if such can be...
"But his venom has, through the ages, seeped into the earth and the water. Only the love of Yavanna and Ulmo have kept it at bay, tainting only parcels and then only for a time. There will come a day -though we be not here to witness- when even the wretched land itself where our enemy has raised his evil towers, will be cleansed of his corrupted workings. This I foresee..."
"Can it be, Master?" asked Vaneta sadly, "Can that sad land be brought back?"
"I believe so in my heart," answered Elrond, taking her hand. "Once the unclean fire is gone, the ashes settle into dust which mingles with fair specks riding in on friendly winds... If the way is clear, and not a one hampers her loving scheme, the workings set by Our Lady will recover the soil and lift up the olvar, with the winds and rains of Manwë and Ulmo. The Valar are always with us, and with all the troubled mortal lands of Arda."
"I, too, believe so, Master," Vaneta held Elrond's hand to her breast, "but as you say... not a one hampers... How not to encumber the wise workings of Arda the earth?"
There was true anguish in her eyes, and the elf-lord sent his thoughts back, far back, to the Dagorlad and the seven-year siege of the enemy's fortress. She had been there for a time, he remembered, serving her king Gil-galad and her brothers. Vaneta, a truly resourceful woman, had countless times enhanced their lot. When her brothers fell, at Gil-galad's side, he had sent her back to Imladris to heal her sorrow and her wasted body.
"Even in this, we must prepare the soul and mind of Estel," he whispered to her. "We will one day leave Middle-earth, and go over water to the Blessed Realm. We the Eldar will forego at last our task, somewhat in sadness for not delivering better, and the Atani will rule the land... as they do so now in many places... And I believe that Estel will rise to such heights that he may change and govern the doings of men."
Vaneta looked in surprise at Elrond, then at the sleeping child and mother. "This darling boy?" she wondered. "How so, Master?"
"He is Dúnadan, Vaneta," said Elrond slowly. "He will rise to rule. His brief years among us must empower him for this task, for the leading of free peoples into better lives, into peace and fulfilment."
"Elbereth," the elf-woman whispered, "every word, every step... not a leaf will fall that will not account in the sum of this man-child, of this little king."
"You speak true, my friend," Elrond sat back and gazed at the dying fire, "the stature of Estel will be the true test and final statement of Imladris. We must each and all do our part."
She patted his arm, cheerful once more. "I am happy, my lord. This child fills me with love and song, and now with purpose... as your deep words have led me to see. I thank you, and beg you to come on the morrow to break your fast with us. It may be you will partake of Estel-cakes..."
"I will, Vaneta, thank you. I believe we all will gather round your wonderful table, come the morrow."
The elves slipped away, some, others sank deep into chairs and divans to rest in their own way. The lingering hours of the night settled into silence, the long day was done.