Music for this chapter: Mentions In Dispatches, Thomas Newman

Chapter 3: To The Uttermost Chord

"There," Fëanor says, fitting another silver bracket into the uneven wall of fallen debris. "We cannot tunnel our way out safely, but if my calculations are correct, one more bracket will at least ensure the stone will not collapse further upon our heads."

Elrond eyes the last metal bracket there at Fëanor's feet, shining silver by the lonely light of the single flameless lantern. There is no reference for the passage of time in this place, but by Elrond's reckoning, it has taken Fëanor the better part of a day to sing the dozen brackets into being and fit them into the walls of the cramped pocket of space. Even now, Fëanor mutters rapidly to himself as he examines the last stretch of untouched wall, brow furrowed in intense focus.

Maedhros shifts uneasily in his sleep, and Elrond shifts carefully closer to his foster father, mindful of the grating pain of his own broken rib.

Swallowing past a throat completely dry, Elrond opens cracked lips to speak. "Atarinya?"

Maedhros's eyes flicker open, glazed with pain. "Elrond," he whispers hoarsely. "I do not suppose there is any water?"

Elrond shakes his head. "No. Grandfather attempted to sing some into being, but the result wasn't palatable. Is your leg paining you? I will sing again. I only halted for a moment."

Maedhros nods, and his eyes slip closed again.

Elrond opens his mouth to sing. Fëanor makes a noise of triumph as he snaps the last bracket into place, and with a great grinding of stone, the debris around them shifts.

Maedhros screams, one long, piercing howl of agony, eyes fluttering wide as a sickening snap sounds from behind the wall of debris that encases his right leg.

Elrond folds himself over his foster father as the cacophony of shifting rubble sounds about them; he curls his arms tightly around Maedhros, feeling every agonized twitch and shudder of Maedhros's form as Fëanor lunges across the enclosed space to throw himself bodily over his son and grandson.

Elrond shouts as he feels his broken rib shift, raw ends of broken bone scraping against each other.

Over the thunder of shifting rock and the ominous creaking of Fëanor's brackets, Maedhros whimpers without ceasing in Elrond's ear – the broken, desperate keening of unremitting pain.

Then, as abruptly as the thunder came, there is silence. The brackets have held.

Silence, save for the staccato gasp of Maedhros valiantly attempting to choke down his screams.

Elrond shoulders Fëanor off his back, uncaring for the long streak of fiery pain down his side, and runs quick-fingered hands over Maedhros's tearstained face; pulling back his eyelids, assessing spine, ribs, stomach, hips, and last of all, where fresh blood seeps from the stone where it meets Maedhros's right leg just below the knee.

"No," Fëanor whispers as Elrond works, the horror in his voice filling the small space with suffocating weight. "I did not intend this."

"This is not the time to discuss intention," Elrond says calmly, despite the thundering of his heart and the spear of agony in his side. "I need light. Bring the lantern closer."

Fëanor lunges for the flameless lantern where it lays on its side among the newly fallen stone dust. He thrusts the lantern into Elrond's hand, and, that done, clasps one hand tight about Maedhros's wrist and places the other soothingly to his tearstained cheek. Fëanor cannot hold his son's hand; both Maedhros's hands are curled into tight, bloodless fists at his sides, trembling with effort to hold his agony at bay.

Elrond closes his eyes, pushing another measure of his exhausted spirit into his foster father's injured leg, sensing the break behind the debris. "I do not think the bone has pierced the skin," he says. "But the break has almost certainly shifted."

Maedhros makes a horrible noise, and turns his head into his father's palm; he falls silent a moment later.

Fëanor makes an odd, choked sound, and Elrond turns back to his father and grandfather to find Maedhros has taken a mouthful of Fëanor's wide, bunched sleeve and bitten down hard.

Fëanor's eyes glimmer wetly in the dim light as he rotates his wrist gently around his tightened sleeve to press against Maedhros's cheek again. His thumb moves over his son's jaw, and Maedhros's fists slowly uncurl, trembling.

Elrond forces himself to take a deeper breath. His rib is afire, but it does not shift further, and for that he is grateful.

"I am going to sing again," he says. "I do not think I can afford to stop singing now. If I show any signs of faltering or exhaustion, you must wake me, grandfather. By any means necessary."

"What?" The horror is back in Fëanor's eyes.

"By any means necessary," Elrond repeats, placing his hands on the congealing blood on Maedhros's calf where the stony edge has cut into skin. "Strike me if you must."

"No," Fëanor says. "You are my grandson–"

"I do not have the time to argue with you," Elrond says shortly, fighting back a grimace as his rib protests. "If you wish your son to live, you will listen to me. My exhaustion is irrelevant."

Fëanor makes to protest again, but Elrond opens his mouth and sings, and the world dissolves into the rasp of breath in his burning lungs, the slow, insidious ache in his side, and his foster father's blood-slick shin beneath his palms.

(:~:)

Maglor inhales sharply and presses a hand to his side.

The phantom pain vanishes as abruptly as it came.

His horse senses his discomfort and turns her head to look back at him with one bright, rolling eye; Maglor exhales and presses a hand to her mane to calm her.

"Makalaurë?" Fingolfin shouts over the cacophony of pounding hooves. "Are you well?"

Maglor shields his eyes with one long hand as he twists in his saddle to look behind him.

In the east, the sun is rising over the towering trees of the forest. Finarfin, Fingolfin, Neldoriel, Celebrimbor, and all five of Maglor's younger brothers all look back at Maglor with grim, determined faces. Each of them is leading a secondary unsaddled horse behind them; they have already stopped to switch horses twice during the night, so as not to overtire their steeds.

"I am well," Maglor calls. As the words leave his lips he is aware it is a lie in all but the simplest of meanings; none of them are well.

Maglor knows that long leagues behind them to the southeast, Fingon is directing a line of wagons with more supplies, and Finrod has taken over his father's duties for the next few days in Tirion; but the knowledge is tampered with the sickening pool of dread that still weighs in Maglor's stomach.

No matter how they search with their minds to the northwest, with all their knowledge of ósanwë combined, Finarfin and Fingolfin cannot sense Fëanor's mind, and Maglor cannot sense Elrond or Maedhros's.

There are only a few possible explanations for this. None of them wish to voice the most obvious.

The riders thunder out of the treeline to the edge of the wound in the forest that Ungoliant carved long ages ago, and turn north towards Formenos with the rising sun.

(:~:)

"Father," Maedhros whispers urgently, straining against the arm Fëanor has wrapped around his chest. "Father, you shouldn't be here."

"Hush," Fëanor murmurs into his son's sweat-soaked hair. He has curled on his side on the uneven ground beside Maedhros, and holds him close. "You were injured, Nelyo. Try to rest."

Elrond draws another breath into his aching lungs and continues to sing. Maedhros's brow burns beneath his left hand, and the skin of Maedhros's right leg is bright red with infection. Elrond sings now to fight his foster father's fever, and to keep the blood trickling through the shattered mess that is Maedhros's leg beneath the stone.

"No," Maedhros says, his voice low and horrified as he shrinks back against the ground. "What trickery of Morgoth is this? My father passed at Mithrim; his body fell to ash and his spirit went west to the Halls. We all saw it."

Elrond looks sharply at Maedhros's face, notes fever-bright eyes and the high, scarlet flush on Maedhros's hollowed cheeks.

"I will not yield to you," Maedhros hisses, bucking like a wild thing. "My father named you jail-crow of Mandos, and a craven jail-crow you shall be forevermore. Hang me on Thangorodrim again; blind me, torture me. I will not yield to you, and when my brother Makalaurë comes for me you will know what it is to be unmade with song."

Elrond turns away to hide his tears.

Despite years of attempts and many lives lost, Maglor had been unable to retrieve his brother from Thangorodrim; after thirty years of the sun, Fingon had succeeded at last, and Maglor had never quite forgiven himself for leaving his brother to suffer.

Fëanor closes his eyes painfully and presses his forehead into his son's temple. Maedhros cringes away, his teeth bared in pain as his trapped leg moves; he writhes an arm out from Fëanor's grasp and flings a fist into Elrond's side, directly over Elrond's broken rib.

Elrond's vision blinks out, and time–

–halts.

When Elrond comes to, it is to the low, broken sound of singing, and a hand upon his wrist.

He takes a wheezing breath, and feels fingers tighten on his wrist – fingers calloused with smith-work.

Elrond opens his eyes and turns his head to his left, towards the soft sound of singing.

He is laying beside his foster father. Fëanor has reached across Maedhros's chest with one arm to hold Elrond's wrist; his other hand cradles his son's head. Fëanor's brow is pressed to his son's, and he sings halting, broken notes, familiar melodies with simple words, promising deep sleep under the stars, safety, and warmth.

It takes Elrond a long moment to recall where he has heard the song before – it is a lullaby Maglor used to sing to him and Elros on stormy nights, when the memories of Sirion drew too close and Elrond and his brother required comfort.

Elrond had not known that Fëanor used to sing to his children.

Maedhros has stilled. His face is turned into Fëanor's cheek.

Fëanor finishes his song, and presses a kiss to his son's filthy hair.

"Don't leave me, Atto," Maedhros whispers suddenly.

"Never," Fëanor murmurs.

Maedhros relaxes into exhausted sleep, and Elrond blinks; he forces himself into a sitting position, and bites back a scream as his ribs stretch.

"Elrond," Fëanor says urgently, looking up at him.

"I am fine," Elrond hears himself saying from somewhere far away, beyond the sickening spin of the dimly lit space. "He caught me by surprise. I am perfectly well now."

Fëanor frowns, exhaustion writ plainly on his face. "Are you certain?"

"I am a healer," Elrond says. He uses the pretense of lowering his head to examine Maedhros's leg to hide his face. "I am as well as can be supposed in these circumstances. I am sure you are as hungry and as thirsty as I am. But Atarinya needs my singing."

When Elrond chances a glance back at his grandfather, Fëanor is brushing Maedhros's long, dirt-stained fiery hair back from his face.

"I did not intend to shift the stone when I set these brackets," Fëanor murmurs. There is a terrible ache of guilt in his voice.

Elrond tears a strip of cloth from his sleeve to dab at the weeping wounds where the edge of stone meets Maedhros's leg. "There is no way of knowing whether the stone shifted naturally or by your intervention," he says, blinking when his vision greys at the edges; he makes a mental note to speak more slowly. "It is just as likely that your work saved us all from being crushed."

"You speak the truth," Fëanor sighs. His shoulders rise and fall in a long breath as he looks down at the slumbering face of his son. "I should never brought you both here, and I wish I did not have to ask this of you, Elrond. But you must save him."

Elrond nods. There is no question regarding this; he had known from the moment he rose with stone-dust in his throat and a lance of pain in his side and seen his foster father's trapped leg that he would have to do everything in his power to save Maedhros; everything, even if it should mean Elrond should himself fall. He will accomplish this, if it should bring unspeakable grief to Celebrían, Eärendil and Elwing, and his children eastward in Middle-Earth.

It is why he has kept his injury secret; the only way for Maedhros to remain alive until rescue arrives is for Elrond to sing.

And sing he will, broken rib or none, even though he finds it increasingly difficult to breathe.

When his grandfather turns away again, Elrond taps a casual finger against his left side, well away from his injured rib; there is no increase in the hollow echo compared to his right side. His hand flutters up to the notch at his throat; his windpipe has not shifted.

A small blessing.

He opens his mouth to sing again, but thinks better of it a moment later. There is something he must have Fëanor remember for Maedhros in case Elrond cannot voice it later.

"I love him very much, you know," Elrond says, looking down at Maedhros's slumbering face. "As much as I do Atar."

"Of course you do," Fëanor says, brow furrowing. "Why do you feel the need to tell me so? Did Nelyo mention anything about–"

But Elrond begins his song again, looking determinedly down at his work, and Fëanor falls silent.

(:~:)

It is lashing rain as Maglor and his companions race through the ruined gates of Formenos in full gallop.

A day and a half has passed since they left Tirion; the light of the stars and moon is hidden behind rank upon rank of grey storm clouds.

"There!" Finarfin shouts, raising his lantern. Fëanor's tall, seventeen-hand black horse has appeared through the sheets of driving rain; it regards them with intelligence in its gaze, and whickers a greeting as it trots closer.

Maglor reaches out to greet it, and presses a hand to its neck.

"Where are they?" he murmurs into one flicking ear.

The horse whinnies. It turns, plump saddlebags swinging, and trots deeper into the city. Maglor follows, his companions in tow, and soon finds himself looking at the shadowed, half-collapsed ruins of what had been his home for fifty years of the sun before the destruction of the Trees; his home, with his grandfather, father, and brothers.

"Damn," Curufin whispers audibly.

Maglor looks sharply over at his brother. Curufin shakes his head; there is already grief in in his gaze.

Maglor grits his teeth as he dismounts.

Fëanor's horse paws at the rubble with a hoof. Elrond and Maedhros's horses appear out of the rain; one of them is chewing on a mouthful of wildflowers.

"Curvo?" Finarfin calls, flinging his soaked braids out of his face. "What do you think?"

"There isn't any way of clearing this quickly without a significant amount of equipment," Curufin says, running a grim eye over the rubble in the pooling lamplight. He looks to Maglor. "Unless we all sing together. Even so, it will be dangerous. I helped design the place, so I know roughly which workshop Father must have been thinking of, but from the looks of it the entire internal structure is compromised."

"If there is anything I am sure of," Maglor says quietly, "it is singing."

Silence. Maglor looks about him, and sees a change come over the rain-slick faces before him, amongst the crash of the rain and the weak lamplight. There is a harshness on all their faces not seen since Beleriand; the knowledge that they must persevere, even if it should all end in grief.

Maglor allows himself a brief moment to consider his frame of mind should he lose his father, eldest brother, and son all at once.

He finds he cannot comprehend it. The grief would be too great; it hovers there beyond rational thought like a ghostly spectre.

Maglor raises his head to the weeping sky, closes his eyes, and as much as he abhors the idea, sends a wordless plea to Manwë for the rain to stop.

And, with a great breath of sighing wind, the rain halts.

Maglor opens his eyes to starlight; the clouds have parted. In the light of the stars, all is still and silver.

"Curvo," Maglor says into the sudden silence, "Tell me where to begin."

(:~:)

Water trickles unceasing into the cramped cavern; it runs in rivulets of filthy stone dust down Elrond, Maedhros, and Fëanor's faces.

Elrond's world has narrowed to the swell of water at his knees, his foster father's injured leg under his hands, and the song on his lips. He raises red-rimmed, exhausted eyes now to assess his foster father's face as he sings.

Fëanor has propped his son up against his chest, so that Maedhros is out of the water from waist upwards. But the chill of the water is like freshly thawed ice, and Elrond feels the ache of it in his rib like a frozen knife.

Maehdros does no better. He burns with fever under Elrond's cold-stiffened hands despite water around his hips and his trapped leg, and moans indecipherable words into Fëanor's collar.

Elrond's song is no longer the quicksilver river of notes it once was; he gasps short, shivering breaths between murmured phrases, the slow trickle of his words into his foster father's injured leg like the sanguine seep of blood.

Fëanor has stopped speaking; looking into his mind, Elrond sees the same thoughts as his own.

If help does not come very soon, Elrond's desperate efforts to save Maedhros will be for nothing; all three of them will die from the cold, or from the crushing weight of stone, or they will drown.

The harsh grinding of shifting stone above. Fresh stone dust trickles down with the rivulets of water to shower over all their faces. Elrond's eyes slip shut as he continues his song, and he hears Fëanor take up his own song beside Elrond – a commanding song of staying, singing strength into the fragmented stone walls of this little cavern.

The rumble of falling stone turns to thunder. Elrond looks desperately at Maedhros, dread rising to choke in his throat. If the rubble should shift against Maedhros's leg again, there will be no saving him.

Fëanor holds his son tighter as the screech of tumbling rock grows deafening, drowning out his song; he turns his face and buries his face in his son's fiery hair.

A sharp screech of shifting stone, and the silver bracket to Elrond's left gives way; it snaps in twain and ricochets off Elrond's injured side like a blow from a quarterstaff.

"Elrond!" Fëanor shouts.

Elrond's song breaks off in choked gasp; he has no more breath left even to scream. He presses a hand against his side, feels the sharp edge of his broken rib just under his skin. The other edge of the break is now too deep to be felt, and some faint part of his mind that still thinks in healer's terms sounds a deep, crimson note of alarm.

"Illúvatar have mercy," Fëanor whispers into Maedhros's temple. He reaches out with one arm to clasp Elrond's free hand.

The thunder of collapsing stone is very close, now.

Both Elrond and Fëanor brace for Maedhros's pain.

Sudden, blossoming gold in Elrond's mind; beside him, Fëanor's breath hitches.

Ten familiar minds leap into theirs in a convoluted cacophony of thought – shock, joy, worry, but most of all, relief.

Elrond! Maglor's thoughts are stretched thin, in the faraway manner his mind has when he is singing with great focus. Elrond, are you well?

Maedhros's leg, Elrond thinks numbly. The rubble cannot shift too quickly – if it does, the rush of poisoned fluids back from the injury will stop Maedhros's heart faster than the a sword-thrust.

If Elrond…could only…put that thought into words.

His injured side is afire, but the rest of him is so, so cold.

Fëanor's thoughts spear into the jumble of overlapping voices like a lance of flame; the thunder of stone slows, turns carefully methodical under Fëanor's sharp instruction.

Filtering through the stone above comes the faint sound of multiple voices raised in song; among them a dear, golden voice that had sung Elrond out of many a night terror as a child.

Listening to Maglor', Elrond finds he has the strength to place a hand on Maedhros's chilled skin and resume his song, even as his vision greys at the edges, and the pain in his side grows to a silent shriek.

The sound of voices grows closer, and then between one choked breath and the next, clear dawn light filters down through widening gaps in the stone.

Elrond does not raise his head. He is pouring every last drop of his spirit into his foster father's fëa; he feels the blaze of fever in Maedhros's head, the too-rapid, fluttering beat of Maedhros's heart, and the shattered ruin of Maedhros's crushed leg.

Elrond is in each ruptured vessel, each torn muscle, and broken bone. He sings the poison out of each with exact, careful phrases, even as his lungs scream for air.

And then the yellow-gold light of sunrise cascades down on all of them at once, the stones fall away, and Maedhros is free.

Half-blinded by the radiance, Elrond catches a glimpse of the pale, sickening angle of Maedhros's shin.

And then Fëanor has caught his eldest son up in his arms and scrambled up the slope of fallen rubble, into a knot of concerned faces and shouting. Elrond follows, stumbling unsteadily.

"Elrond! Elrond! Are you injured?"

Elrond looks into Maglor's face, and down to the ground where Neldoriel kneels by Maedhros, pressing urgent fingers into his injured leg as she pulls it straight. Maedhros flinches in his fevered delirium, but Neldoriel does not falter; she splashes sharp-smelling astringent onto Maedhros's calf from a bottle at her side and makes two deft cuts with a sharp, clean bodkin.

Good, Elrond thinks, half in a dream. What pressure within Maedhros's injured tissues is now gone – they can set the bones without fear of stopping the blood from flowing.

"Elrond," Maglor says. His hand is so warm that it almost burns against Elrond's cheek.

"I am cold," Elrond hears himself whispering.

It is true; he is so cold his very bones are numb. His side does not pain him any longer, and the edges of his vision are shivering grey.

Maglor breathes a sigh of relief, and kisses him on the brow. "The cold is easily remedied. Take my cloak."

Elrond barely feels the warmth of Maglor's cloak; he allows himself to be led to sit next to a blazing fire a few paces away.

Celebrimbor is there, and he helps Maglor settle Elrond against a crumbled wall.

"Atar," Elrond whispers. "Please. Tell me…how Atarinya fares."

Maglor nods. "I will ask Neldoriel. Rest and warm yourself, pityo. Your lips are blue." He presses another kiss to Elrond's brow, and turns to move briskly back to the huddle at Maedhros and Fëanor's side.

Celebrimbor hands Elrond a steaming cup; Elrond stares down at it.

"Tyelpë," Curufin calls in the distance. "Help me sing up this splint. Neldoriel requires specific measurements."

Celebrimbor calls an acknowledgement and steps away.

Elrond blinks dazedly in the silence.

His lips are blue, Maglor had said.

He looks down at his fingertips where they clutch at the clay cup in the dawn light, and notes detachedly that his nail beds are also blue.

Elrond's thoughts are as muddled as fog on a winter's morning, but the healer in him sounds a faint note of alarm.

His lips and the beds of his nails are blue. That should mean something – something related to the broken rib in his side…

The winter air is crisp and cool, but Elrond suddenly cannot breathe.

No – he is breathing, great, silent, gasping gulps of empty air that somehow enter his lungs without having any effect at all.

The cup falls to the ground, spilling fragrant tea across the worn flagstones.

A starburst of sudden clarity.

Elrond reaches up with frozen, numb fingers to the notch at the base of his throat.

His windpipe has shifted to the right.

All the others have gathered around Fëanor and Maedhros a dozen paces away; Maglor's head of midnight hair is buried amongst his brothers', murmuring urgently as Neldoriel works. Beside them, Curufin and Celebrimbor are singing pieces of metal into shape.

Elrond opens his mouth to call out, but finds has no breath for anything except a gasping wheeze.

He tries to stand, and his vision darkens; he crumples soundlessly to his knees as he heaves great, airless gasps of empty air, hands clutching at his throat and side.

Neldoriel's clear voice speaks among the huddle dozen paces away; there is a murmur of relief among those crowded around Maedhros.

Fingolfin is the first to raise his head. He turns towards the fire, smiling.

Elrond meets his great-great grandfather's gaze, and sees Fingolfin's eyes widen in horror as Elrond gasps one last useless breath, and the ground rushes up to meet him at last.

"Elrond!"

Next up: Panic.