The Ransom of the House of Fëanor
Eirian Erisdar
Chapter 1: The Last March of Maglor Fëanorion
Music for this chapter: Siúil a Rúin, Clannad
Maglor Fëanorion had thought he knew death.
He had thought death was known to him since the waters of Aqualondë ran red with the blood of Teleri and Noldor alike, since the falling away of his father's body to ashes on the slopes of the Ered Wethrin, since the fires of the Dagor Bragollach, the tears of Nirnaeth Arnoediad, since Doriath, Sirion, and the blood-choked plains of the Anfauglith.
A sweep of raven hair over his rapidly fading vision. A hand in his, familiar fëa blazing like a warm hearth at the edge of the slowly spreading pool of blood that cools underneath him.
"Atar." A hand at his cheekbone, lined with a scholar's callouses.
His heart twists.
Maglor had thought death would come for him as he stood alone against the might of Sauron, one last, great song on his lips, fair and terrible, the last fading shadow of the host of Fëanor that had landed at Losgar so long ago.
He had thought it time. Time, for the song of Maglor Fëanorion to find its ending at last – in the Eternal Darkness as his father and brothers had once sworn long before.
He had not thought his foster-son would be here.
He had not wanted to cause Elrond further pain.
He opens bloodless lips to whisper an apology, but darkness rushes over him, as though Ulmo has come at last to send one final wave to bear him away West, to the judgment of Námo.
As the waters take him, his final thought is of Elrond, and to wish him joy.
(:~:)
The ending begins with a change in the wind, as the Elven winter stirs anew.
He turns from the shore on the first day of Coirë, when inland birds fly seaward with new counsel.
The song of this age is coming to a resolution – be it in death or in victory.
The ridged scars across his right palm ache as he packs what little he owns in a small self-fashioned pack – made of leather he tanned himself, two score years ago from the hardy deer that wander the foothills of Ered Luin. He works around the pain in his hand with familiarity; it has ached so for two ages of the world, now.
As he stands, he spares a moment to look west across the whispering waves – the wide expanse of grey water under which Beleriand sleeps, one Silmaril clutched deep in its breast and another ever lost in the roiling currents above.
If he looks north-west a little, here on this fine morning with a strong easterly wind driving the dawn mists from the shore, he can just about pick out the shape of Tol Himling above the waves, seven leagues and a little more off the coast. Six millennia of rain and wind have rendered the towers of Himring unrecognizable, where once the eight-rayed star of Fëanor had flown from its lofty battlements in open challenge against the forces of Morgoth.
Maedhros.
Another old ache; this one deep behind his breastbone, the remnant of the raw-throated scream that had torn itself from his lips when his brother leapt into the flames.
Maglor closes his eyes against the shore and its memory.
He cannot go south, for south lies Forlond, and the fair Elven-road on the northern shore of the Gulf of Lhûn that leads to Mithlond, the Havens. A remnant of Gil-Galad's people still dwell there under Círdan, they themselves a remnant of Gondolin and Doriath, and together Sirion; they would not look kindly to him going there, and indeed he would deserve no such kindness.
So he turns east, through the foothills of the Ered Luin, which the little folk of Eriador beyond call the Blue Mountains.
He spends two days climbing the passes between the mountains, the air limning the edges of his ragged clothing with frost. At night, a few daring wolves approach his meagre cook-fire, only to dart away yipping with fear at the lost light of the Trees burning fey in his gaze.
He climbs further, singing softly of sun and stars, until at last the rock and snow fall away before his feet and the green fields of Eriador unfurl before him like a scroll of Yavanna's making, where the Hills of Evendim roll from the north in misty waves down to the ruins of Annúminas, the dawn light glittering like gold on the shores of Lake Evendim. South-east the downs tumble away to the green hills where the Periannath make their home. Further east the land lies still and shrouded in mist, but in the distance, bright and towering above even the thickest of the winter clouds, rests the silver-white line of the Misty Mountains.
There, nestled among the foothills of the Misty Mountains, lies Imladris, and Elrond.
The yearning in Maglor's chest catches him by surprise, even after all this time.
Maglor takes a breath of the frozen air, the winter wind seeping into the thin cloth of his ragged tunic like questing knives, and turns his gaze down towards the smoke rising above the settlements of the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains. Smaller settlements here than in the south, beyond Mithlond, but these would serve for his purpose.
He must look much the aberrant figure, standing there on the ridge in rags and windblown braids, only the gleam of his sword in its sheath at his left hip marking him as anything but a wandering vagrant.
Unbidden, his hand slides down to his sword-hilt; rests on the eight-rayed star of Fëanor etched in the pommel, which Fëanor his father had wrought in star-silver under the light of the Trees when Valinor was unstained; the blade which Curufin his brother had further improved upon in their early days in Middle-Earth.
A curious thing, that this sword should be one of his only possessions out of Valinor that has survived three long ages of Middle-Earth – this sword, that first tasted blood mixed with the silver hair of the Teleri in Aqualondë, then orc-flesh and Elven alike in the War of Jewels after.
A good reminder. A reminder of what he has become – a kinslaying ghost soon to pass forever into the Eternal Darkness.
But that is a matter for later. He must seek fitting raiment for the battle ahead.
He feels the weight of many eyes on him as he makes his way through the stone-paved streets to the largest smithy in settlement, marked by the volume of metal-tinged smoke that belches from its chimney. He is not unwelcome, exactly – but these are a remnant of Thror's people from Erebor, and though a portion of their folk have returned to the Lonely Mountain since news of Smaug's demise, there are yet some who remember how Thranduil's doors remained shut to them in their hour of need, and they remain distrustful of Elves.
Maglor passes through the shadow of the smithy doorway, the scent of molten iron and the heat of the forge a jolt of memory: the fires of his father's forge in far-away Tirion and then Formenos, the stone-dust of his mother's workshop.
"What may I do for you, Master Elf?" The Dwarf that emerges from the writhing shadows behind the forge is evidently an important figure; the beads and braids of the long white-threaded beard tucked into his belt speak of heritage and skill, and his words, though spoken in Westron, ring with authority.
Maglor inclines his head politely – it would serve him well to be polite, given the uncertain nature of the deal he is about to propose.
"I find myself in need of armour," he says clearly. "Helm, cote, mail. Boots, if they too can be provided here. If not, I would be thankful for directions to a cordwainer."
The Dwarf's eyes widen for an instant in surprise, so that the whites of his eyes flash in the dimness of the smithy before his face sets into an inscrutable expression.
"I find your request puzzling, Master Elf," he says plainly. "If you are in need of cote and mail, why do you not go to your own people in the Havens?"
Maglor's left hand tightens of its own volition where it rests on the hilt of the sword at his hip, and he sees the smith's eyes dart to the blade and up again. The Dwarf's soot-lined face hardens as his hand drifts down towards the hammer set in his belt, and Maglor curses inwardly.
"I would not be welcome there," he says, because it is true. "Your question is understandable. I would not come to you unless there was pressing need."
The Dwarf considers him for a moment.
"What may I call you, Master Elf?"
"Tauglim Faeruinion," Maglor says, after a moment. Kanafinwë, strong-voiced Finwe; Tauglim, strong utterance. Faeruin, spirit-fire. Not the best translation by any means, but the connection should be distant enough that even the elves of Mithlond would not immediately think of Makalaurë Kanafinwë Fëanorion should they hear of it.
"Thrali son of Throfur," the Dwarf replies in kind. "Now, Master Tauglim, why would you not be welcome among your own people?" His hand still rests with casual ease on the heavy head of the hammer at his belt. "I have heard little of foul deeds amongst the Elves of the Grey Havens, even less that might lead to such a punishment. What deeds have you committed that you should be exiled thus? Theft? Murder?"
The breath catches in Maglor's throat.
–Elrond's small, vulnerable form curled in front of Maglor in the saddle, Elros similarly tucked before Maedhros on his horse, both young children weeping silent, bewildered tears as the Sirion dwindles behind them, flames still flickering into the evening sky–
–Maglor's sword coming down on the neck of Saeldin, who had once worn the star of Fëanor but had deserted along with so many others in the fall of Doriath, and now dies wide-eyed by his former liege-lord's blade as he stands defending the Havens–
Theft and murder, indeed.
Perhaps Thrali sees too much of this in Maglor's gaze. "Out," he says, and his words are hard, now, ringing with authority like hammer to the anvil. "Get thee out from our home, thief and murderer."
Pride wars with shame in Maglor's chest.
"Please," he murmurs, and bends at the waist to bow; lower, deeper, although the stubborn pride of Fëanor's house burns like fire in his veins. "I once fought alongside the Dwarves of these mountains, long ago. Azaghâl of Belegost counted my kin as friends."
A sharp inhale. "That is a name out of legend," Thrali says, wonder in his voice. "Ancient forefathers of our forefathers, before Belegost and Nogrod fell and the Dwarves of these mountains fled to Khazad-dûm."
"Yes," Maglor says, and threads power through his next words carefully, like the layers of a song. "I only wish to fight once more against the remnant of that same shadow that we once stood against together. I–" he does not swear, because he will swear no more oaths. "I give you my word I will bring no harm to you or your people."
"Hm," Thrali says, and turns to the forge. A flare of brilliant heat lances through the air as he deftly hooks open the metal door to the flames and stirs the embers within. The glare is almost blinding for a moment, and when the Dwarf-smith closes the forge-gate again, the chamber seems twice as dark and stifling in the absence of the light.
"Very well. Cote, mail, and helm. And what do you offer in payment?" Thrali says abruptly.
Ah.
Maglor slips a hand into his ragged clothing, and places a small, cloth-wrapped object in the smith's extended hand. For a moment he almost believes he cannot let go – that cloth holds one of the last, dear memories he has of the brighter times of his youth. But his fingers open of their own volition, and he withdraws his hand a little too quickly, folding his fist under his cloak to hide its trembling.
Thrali unwraps the small bundle, frowns down at it, and moves over to a small worktable. Maglor follows as the smith lights a lamp and sets the object down in the pool of yellow-gold light.
Thrali's intake of breath is sharp, wondering.
The braid clip casts brilliant beams of refracted light on the walls of the forge as the lamplight falls on the white stones in their gold settings; the star of Fëanor shining as brightly as it did three ages of the world ago when the star's namesake had etched it into the metal as part of his second son's begetting-day gift.
It tears at Maglor's heart to give it up now, this small thing that would have been a trifle at Tirion and Formenos, one of dozens he owned then, all made with equal care; but now he must give this up as well, this treasure of his father's memory, for the sake of this last duty he has given himself.
"This is a master-work," Thrali is saying now, calloused fingers examining the gems with care. "This star here, it cannot be– Celebrimbor."
The smith is too absorbed in the fastenings of the clip to notice Maglor's flinch, and Maglor is grateful for it.
Of course. His nephew had kept the star of his grandfather's house, and had been great friends with the dwarves of Khazad-Dûm before the fall of Eregion. The star of Fëanor would be no unfamiliar sigil to the descendants of Moria.
Then, suddenly: "How came you by this treasure, Master Tauglim?"
The question almost catches Maglor unawares, so deep had he been in his thoughts.
"It was a gift," he says after a moment's pause. It had been. His father had wished him happiness on his begetting-day, kissed him on the brow, and fastened the clip into his hair – and they and their kin had danced that long golden evening away on the western face of Túna in the light of Laurelin.
Maglor's answer, it seems, is enough. Thrali tucks the braid-clip away and thunders for assistance, and in no time at all, three apprentices appear from the shadows, arms laden with stout wooden boxes lined with pitch.
Maglor follows the Dwarf-smith into another chamber, where sunlight pours in onto a granite workbench from a cunningly wrought gap in the stone.
"You find yourself in good fortune," Thrali says as he levers the first box open with a groan of cracking pitch and creaking wood. "These are from our recent delves into the ruins of Belegost. It will take some work restoring, of course, but short of forging mail anew this might be the only set that might be altered to fit you."
Off comes stout oak lid, close-fitted and lathered with pitch to keep out the wet; sunlight lances down on variegated, pitted metal underneath, and Maglor's breath catches in his throat.
Three ages of the world this armour must have slept, its first owner long gone to the Halls of Mandos, and yet through the rust and the wet, the tarnished metal is still recognizable for what it is: scale armour wrought at the hands of a Noldorin smith. Close-fitted scales of darkened silver alloy, dark enough to move as shadow under a starless sky but bright enough to blaze like starfire in the eyes of the Enemy. Maglor himself had worn such a set –with far more embellishments as fitting of his station, of course.
Thrali heaves open another box in a cloud of sawdust, revealing helm and vambraces, and Maglor stares.
The work of any Noldorin smith, he had thought.
He had forgotten–
He had not thought it possible–
It almost surprises him that his hands do not tremble as he reaches for the helm. Its distinctive scrollwork shifts under his fingers as he turns the helm over, runs a fingertip under its edge, until he finds what he is looking for.
He tilts the edge of the helm into the bright beam of sunlight that lances across the worktable, and finds the faint line of Tengwar only visible to Elven eyes:
I, Curufinwë Atarinkë Fëanorion, wrought this helm.
Curufin.
They had lost Curufin in Doriath; Maglor and Maedhros had found him glassy-eyed and still on the scarlet flagstones of the throne room of Menegroth, his blood mixing with Celegorm and Caranthir's, and the three brothers' blood together seeping slowly towards the silent forms of Dior and Nimloth, whose hands were clasped even in death.
And with Curufin's passing, the remaining sons of Fêanor had lost their master armourer. Their numbers had already been sadly reduced then, but without means to repair and produce mail, each battle only brought them lower. Amrod and Amras had marched into Sirion with armour that fitted best they could, but still left the smallest gaps where Curufin would have left none.
(Amras, his flaming hair sodden in his own blood, laying silent before the docks of Sirion, one gloved hand still clutching the wound in his side where an expert sword-thrust had found the infinitesimal gap between two scale plates; Amrod, flung beside his twin, a deep, already bloodless wound in his neck where mail should have met helm with little space to spare…)
"Will this serve?" Thrali is saying, somewhere that is far away but is also directly beside Maglor, in this chamber where the sunlight is warm on his cold, cold hands clutching the helm his brother made.
"This will serve," Maglor says hoarsely, and places the helm carefully down on the sawdust again. "You have my thanks."
He hears himself discuss and agree on arrangements, and walks quite calmly out of the smithy and into the cool mountain air, breathing in the new snowfall as he retraces his steps out of the town and into the treeline, and only when he is sure he has walked far enough to not be overheard, he puts his head in his hands and screams.
Birds scatter into the sky with alarm, and the trees weep evergreen leaves.
Chest heaving, Maglor looks into the skies above, unsullied blue between the gaps in the trees, and when his cheeks are finally dry, straightens, and goes to find the cordwainer.
(:~:)
In the end, it is ten days before the Dwarf-smith completes his work.
Ten days, in which Maglor's toils do not stop.
He sells what few furs he has for a bolt of sturdy cloth, and with this he fashions a new cloak, sewing the silver star of Fëanor across its wide expanse. He toils late into the night in his small, rented room; he has not the skill with needle and thread that the great weavers of Tirion and Valimar do, but he is patient, and the result will serve.
The cordwainer produces the boots Maglor had requested on the seventh day; double-soled, sturdy leather, fashioned to turn thinner blades and to guard the wearer against the mud and mire of the battlefield. Maglor thanks him, and hands over a handful of coins. It is more three quarters of what he owns, and he will likely go hungry for a day or two, but this is far too important for the twisting of his stomach to matter.
On the ninth day, he steps out of an insignificant establishment in the town market, carrying a small, vellum-wrapped packet in his hands. He makes his steady way up the street to his stifling little chamber, and closes the door behind him.
Out of the depths of his pack he brings a curved article wrapped in oilcloth; he unwraps it with care, and runs scarred fingers over the smooth silver surface, as though greeting an old friend. Then he takes up the vellum packet and shakes its contents onto his narrow cot, casting gleaming metal strings onto worn linen.
Maglor picks out the first, thickest string with a practiced hand, and by the flickering light of a cheap tallow candle, begins to re-string his harp, with which he had once wrought music to bring rain down on the dragon-fires of the Anfauglith at the turning of the War of Wrath.
(:~:)
He girds himself for war in faint starlight: cote, tabards, mail. Sword-belt last over all, and helm over his war-braided hair.
Down through the streets he passes, a gilded wraith in the cool blue hour before dawn; down through the mountain paths and the foothills, into Eriador proper.
Maglor does not look up to the stars; not at Gil-Estel shining above with the stolen Silmaril's light. He looks east, to the lightening sky, where crimson Arien climbs over the peaks of the Misty Moutains, and leaves a bloody trail in her wake.
(:~:)
Maglor had thought to go east to Dol Guldur, or south past the fords of Isen to the Morannon.
But the dream comes to him the fourth night of his journey, as he catches a meagre few hours' rest among the chalk downs west of the settlements of the Periannath.
Tempest-fire from the north, gouging the earth with fell yellow claws across the hoary ground of the Ettenmoors; villages of Men burning to crisp across Rhudaur, screams pursued by a relentless, advancing flames, that match the terrified flight of animals across the plains step by blazing step, consuming and devouring with cunning greed.
The fire is hiding something; it merely the vapour preceeding a greater flame, a foul malevolence that grows over the land.
Foul flame from the North! the stars cry, weeping glittering trails of stardust across the smoke-leaden sky. IT has awoken. From the uttermost, forgotten depths it comes, from the roots of the northern mountains to rain fire on the south! Flee, flee, all you children of Illúvatar!
The fire advances, hungrily. It laps at a ford of a river that almost seems familiar; swallows the river whole in one great steaming gulp, scorching the grasses to ash in its wake, and as it roars past the ford and up the foothills it comes screaming and smoking and burning to a fair valley that Maglor almost believes he should know–
Maglor shivers awake under a sky of stars.
He is clasping the hilt of his sword so tightly that the leather cuts into the fingers of his sword-hand.
It is not often that foresight comes to him thus. Foresight had plagued Elros in turn, but it was always Elrond who used to climb into Maglor's bed at night, shivering, whispering of fire and flame and the shattering of mountains. It had been Maglor's glad duty then to sing his foster-son back to sleep, singing of brighter, happier things.
Tempest-fire, from the north.
The fair valley he glimpsed as the dream-threads unraveled – a hidden valley in the foothills of the Misty Mountains.
The realisation spears him to his heart, flings him to his feet and sends him tearing east.
Fell-fire from the north, spreading unfettered southwards towards a fair valley; a valley he has never seen, but knows in the depths of his fëa.
Imladris.
Elrond.
Next up: A nightmare from the forgotten depths of Angmar, and for the first time in the history of Arda, the Star of Fëanor joins the House of the Golden Flower in battle.
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