Chapter XII: The Change

'Even nothing cannot last forever.'

Neil Gainman, American Gods

Water trickled down into his eyes, and he blinked it away, but there was more, flooding over his nose and mouth, dripping down his beard. He sputtered, coughed, pulled himself dripping from the deep pool of his thoughts.

He forced his eyes to see, and the desert drew itself into existence around him. He was facing West, he realized, and the sky was alight with a sunset like none he had ever seen. The sands raced away, colored plum-purple by sundown shadows, and it seemed to him that the Sun-Bearer sat upon a throne made of summer.

"Éomer?"

He decided, vaguely, that it would be too much effort to answer. His tongue was too swollen to move.

"Éomer?"

A hand forced his mouth open and poured water down his throat. His stomach bucked and roiled. He shook the hand off, turning away so he could retch.

"Keep it down," warned a voice. "There is precious little left."

He clamped his teeth shut and steeled his stomach, doing as the voice commanded. After a minute, his stomach settled again, and his tongue seemed to shrink a little. His lips were parched and cracked; flesh carved like the fissured deserts.

"More," he rasped, groping for the hand and the waterskin.

"In a minute," said the voice, and he recognized it as Aragorn's. "Be still for now."

After a long, long time Éomer gathered his strength together and turned his head. The world swam, blossoms of red and gold came together and burst before his eyes, but he held his chin straight with his hands, and they were gone again.

They had built a small fire, and Atkiray sat by it. His lip was split, one eye was swollen nearly shut, and there was a dark purple welt on his cheek. He glanced up, saw Éomer, and smiled painfully at him. Then he turned back to the fire, added another stick to the blaze, and came over.

"How are you faring?" he asked quietly, crouching down beside the man. There was concern in the one eye that Éomer could see.

"I feel as if I have fought a dragon," Éomer answered wryly. Atkiray did not smile. Éomer understood he would have, as by duty-bound, but now the gesture was too painful to repeat. "And you?"

Atkiray lightly touched the bruise on his cheek. "Like I have fought a Dwarf with an axe," he replied. "Uncanny how such things mirror the truth," Éomer agreed.

Atkiray was looking at him again, and Éomer read more than concern in the Prince's gaze. There was uncertainty, even wariness. "Tell me what happened," he demanded at last. "Tell me what you said to the dragon. What language did you speak?"

Éomer was aware that Legolas and Gimli were coming back from the direction of the horses, a tall, slender figure and a short, stocky one outlined by the pale starlight. Aragorn too, had drawn near.

"I know not," he answered slowly. "I called out Melian, Melian Mablui, Moonlit Queen. And then I said her name again, and then…." He trailed slowly off, and Aragorn took up the tale.

"You called out Melyanna the second time," the man said. "And you spoke in the Old Tongue then. Quenya, I think, but it was old, very old indeed. I think that of those who still remain in Middle-Earth, only Mithrandir might have understood it."

Éomer looked up. "So you do not know what I said?" he asked wonderingly.

"No," Aragorn answered.

"Neither could I understand the words," Legolas added. He sat down by Éomer; his forearm bandaged with a strip torn from his tunic. "But I think I understand in spirit. Melian loved her Nightingale as the earth loves the sun, and she will guard the children of her child until the stars fall from the sky."

Far away, an owl called, a sound so lonely and so beautiful it felt like to cut Éomer's heart out. It was as though his flesh had been peeled away and his bones cracked open. He felt everything-every word, every whisper of the wind, every ray of sun and beam of star-more deeply, more keenly. It was a hurt, but a sweet one.

He turned to Legolas then. "What was the dragon speaking of to you?" he asked.

Legolas looked away. His face was like a shattered mirror, taut and ghostly. "I suppose secrets fester," he said at last. "For me, at least, time has made it no easier to bear. A short while ago, perhaps eleven autumns by your count, Aragorn captured a creature called Gollum, who had once borne the Ring and now was a shriveled, twisted thing of spite. He was brought the Woodland Realm and put into our care. We judged that he was not all evil, and were kind to him, and called him by his chosen name. As time passed, he grew to endure and even enjoy the sunlight and we thought the darkness was seeping away. As Warden of the Realm, I ordered that the guard on him be loosened, ignoring the tales of the Woodmen. Our kindness was swiftly repaid when Orcs came and set the creature free. He left the Woods, but he found the dwelling of one of our people and took with him a child. We found its bones, cracked so that all the marrow might be sucked out."

Legolas's voice had been hard and clear as he had told the tale, but now he covered his face in his hands. "We found the mother as well," he whispered. "She would not let us take the bones. She kept cradling them, singing lullabies." Each of his words fell flat and dull, like pebbles being dropped into a deep, dark well. Aragorn laid a hand on his friend's shoulder.

There was a long silence as they sat still, trying to lend Legolas some meager comfort with their presence. The moon, Éomer noticed, was shrinking. It would be carved away by time until only a sliver would be left, thin as a whisper. But it would also grow again, forever bent on infinite rebirth. He did not know whether to dwell on the sadness or the sweetness of it: the cruel mummery of growth and the final uselessness of it all, or the eternal perseverance. He realized, too, that the moon was shining down everywhere. It shone on far white shores just as brightly as it shone on them. It shone in on Lothíriel's window, and down upon the night-silenced hall of Meduseld.

They began to slip away until only he and Atkiray were left. There was no reveling in their victory, no wassailry this night, as there would have been in his Éored after such a triumph. He felt no joy, only a resignation and a sorrow for what the world had left behind, a heart-sick desire for one more glimpse of what had never been given to men. And yet, he supposed, men had been given their own gifts. We will grow like ivy, bursting up over all. The thought was bitter-sweet in his mouth.

He turned to Atkiray. The boy was sitting silently, his arms wrapped around his legs, his chin resting on his knees.

"What did the dragon tell you?"

Atkiray looked up, startled out of his own thoughts. He eyed Éomer carefully, and then said, "Nothing more than all the courtiers have said behind my back. That I am a beggar's bastard brat, the hedgeborn son of a common-kissing strumpet."

"Do their words cut you?"

Atkiray's suspicion and reticence were gone, at least for the night. He only shook his head. "Not so deep as you would think. But there are times when I wish my mother would have….kept better company. It is all very well hiding behind her skirts, but when I have the crown, I will have a bitter time of it." His mouth twisted in a kind of stony smile. "My mother set a pretty precedent for bastards as it is."

"Does Habiba know?"

"Of course. It is common knowledge. But beggars may not pick and choose, beggar-kings most of all. She would marry me if I were ten times the bastard."

"She could do far worse," Éomer observed.

There was a brief silence, then Atkiray said, with a touch of his old mocking manner, "I suppose I should thank you for your kind words."

Éomer shrugged a shoulder. "Do not exert yourself overmuch."

They slept without a guard that night, and Éomer woke late in the morning. He ached from head to toe, and when he tried to rise, he nearly fell.

The day was already hot, the sky empty and blue. He had dreamed of birds last night, dreamed of nightingales and rooks and finches that sang in fay voices, filling the air with sweetness and sorrow.

Atkiray was prodding dead coals with a branch when Éomer come upon him.

"Have you already eaten?"

"Which meal, Master Sluggard? The sun is high in the sky." Atkiray demanded, gesturing towards the brazen blue dome above them.

"Khüü?" Éomer asked, rummaging for food in the haversacks Legolas and Gimli had brought back with them.

Atkiray stared at him and then laughed. "No," he said. "Nar."

Éomer smiled. He found dates and roasted locusts in the pack and sat down to break his fast.

He saw Gimli on the other side of their small camp, sharpening his axe with a tender hand and a hard stone. Aragorn was sitting in the shade of a boulder, his legs stretched out, his pipe between his teeth, his face very thoughtful. Legolas was not to be seen. He chewed the dates carefully, savoring their taste. There was a certain richness to them he had not noticed before, a depth in their sweetness. When he overcome the soreness of his muscles enough to walk, he found the Elf looking East, thoughtful and silent as a young sapling.

"What do you see, Master Elf?" he called.

"The tree," Legolas answered. "Such a strange tree it is. See, it moves a little, and yet there is no wind."

His words roused the others, and they gathered around him, curious. Atkiray shaded his eyes, and there was a wondering look on his face. "We should go to it," he said at once.

Éomer shaded his eyes as well, and saw, a mile or so off, a tree, bone-white and oddly graceful. If it moved, he could not see.

They walked slowly, cautious of the immense heat. The porphyry field gave way to hilly scrublands after a short while, and small sandcats, unafraid of men, eyed them curiously from the shade of saltbushes and straggling shrubs.

They came to the foot of the tree at noon. It stood, shapely and stately, a sad old sentinel of a past Age. Wind and sand and years had conspired to scour it clean of all bark, and it was utterly white, utterly symmetrical, and somehow spectral as it stood there. Elegant branches, bare as bone, reached up their arms, and it seemed they did quiver at times, although the air was still.

Legolas stretched out his arm and laid a hand on the tree, tender as though the wood was living flesh.

"Ere Elf rang or hammer sang," he said softly. "Ere iron was found or tree was hewn, when young was mountain under moon; Ere ring was made or wrought was woe, you walked the forests long ago."

There was a long sigh that seemed to well up from the very heart of the earth, and eyes opened in the tree. They were green, dark and deep as a forest at sunset, and very old. Old and contemplative and silent and sad.

"Hmmm," it said, its voice soft and sweet like the susurration of a thousand leaves. "Elf-child and delving Dwarf and mortal man horse-master, all gathered here. These are strange times, very strange times." The eyes surveyed them with a patient, yet piercing, thoughtfulness. "So the old wyrm is gone. Yes, he is gone, root and twig, bole and bough!" There was a flicker in the deep eyes.

"He is gone, very far away," said Legolas. He was smiling softly up at the Ent-wife, a smile that was nearly as sad as weeping. "What is your name?"

The Ent-wife sighed again, and all her branches quivered. "Hasty, very hasty, yet I understand haste now that time is short. You may call me Fimbrethril, I suppose. And you have met my folk before, Master Elf. I see it in you. Have you walked in the forests of Ambaróna?"

"Yes," Legolas said. "I walked there, though only for a brief time, and I intend to return and see it in full."

"Hmm," said Fimbrethril, and smiled. "That is good, very good. And are the Ents still there?" Her voice was filled with longing.

"Yes," said Legolas once again. "Many Ents, and one named Fangorn, their leader. His leaves are many, his bark is strong, his roots go deep."

"Fangorn?" she mused. "Hoom, hm; hoom, hm. The name is strange to me, yet I think I know its wearer. Yes, I know him, the Old One, the Wide Walker, the first Earth-born." Her voice was so tremulous and sweet that Éomer felt his heart break a little. "If you are returning to the Forest, Master Elf, bring him a message from me."

"Gladly."

She turned her head, all her white branches swaying, from East to West, and back again. "The Old Wyrm gnawed on my roots while I slept, and my long winter draws nigh." She paused, and her eyes fell on Atkiray, who was gazing at her with wide-eyed wonder. "Your folk would come and stand at my foot, long ago," she said. "Hmm, yes, very long ago. Very hasty folk, and their horses were even hastier."

"Yes," Atkiray said. He sank to one knee, bowing his black head. "You are the World-Tree of the East."

"World-tree? Hoom, hm. Yes, I suppose you could call me that if you wish. It is good to see your people again. You left off coming when the wyrm burrowed in, more moons ago than I can count. Desert-folk are good to trees, they do not waste." She sighed and looked back at Legolas. "Take a message to Fangorn, good Elf, if you would. Tell him Fimbrethil says:

The sap has dried, who shall call back the spring?

The flower has died, who shall return the summer?

The berry is black, who shall remove the autumn?

The branch will crack, who will ward off the winter?

For East or West, all woods must fail. So I go to my long winter and hope that there shall come a time where we may walk together once more in the willow-meads of Tasarinan."

Legolas stepped away from the old Ent-wife, tears in his green eyes. "I will tell him every word. Go now, Fimbrethril. Go in peace and walk in the willow-meads of Tasarinan and let your branches be laden with butterflies. Nai elen siluva lyenna, kemennóna," he said in an old tongue, rich with beauty, and it seemed that the Ent-wife smiled as she closed her eyes, and her branches quivered one last time. Then all was still.

"The world changes," was the only thing Legolas said as he turned away.