~ Middle Earth Reclaimed ~
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Chapter 6 goes up amidst problems with ffn - hopefully the site will remain stable, because it would be a shame to waste the treasury of fanfiction which I've found here -_-;;;
I am indebted to all reviewers for their continued interest in M.E.R - your praise has been overwhelming (especially since I am an amateur writer) and I only hope to keep telling this story in the best way I know how, dedicated as always to the enduring work which is LotR.
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Chapter 6:
"Just old tree roots." Faramir got up from his examination of the mystery object, dusting off his knees.
All afternoon they had made a rough reconnaisance of the fringes of the isle, paying especial attention to the eroded areas around streams. Now and then Glorfindel had seemed to consult the metallic instrument nestled in the bundle, but said nothing. Along one river they had come upon a line of large holes in the grey-green rock, but these were insignificant and they had continued onward.
They moved northward, but found no artefacts. Not a trace of settlement thus far, not even of the fuel depot mentioned by the cargo ship's first mate. Faramir was more relieved than disappointed. Eventually they returned to the beach to set up a rough camp, laying out Faramir's sleeping bag on the beach beyond the high tide mark. By this time it was early evening, and they opened the wooden crate to unpack the supplies. It held assorted foodstuffs which Glorfindel examined with an air of resignation, a few gallons of purified water in white tankbottles, and a large cylindrical object of stainless steel which Faramir recognised as a watermaker. They left the waterproof blankets sealed in their plastic wrappers, and the whole array was arranged in a rough pyramid over the empty crate. It cast a long shadow as the sun went down on Apihitam.
"Has today been wasted, then?" asked Faramir, tiredly climbing into the sleeping bag.
Glorfindel's reply came without hesitation. "No, it will be best if we find nothing. Still, my heart misgives me, and we have covered little of the island. Tomorrow we must traverse further in."
"Up the mountain...?"
"Yes." The elf sighed, the sound mingling with the wash of the waves. Then he added cryptically,"Till tomorrow, fear not stray nightmares."
A cool wind swept over them, damp with seaspray. Arranging his makeshift bed, Faramir leant back and began to drift off. It could have been an ordinary day at an archaeological dig - except for Glorfindel's voice, almost inaudible yet entirely captivating, as he began a conversation with the southern stars.
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He is too young, too young...
The Men of Minas Tirith must find their strength early. If not we, then which of the pathetic nations of this age would face the evil? Let not youth become excuse for weakness. He shall spend the night in the East-facing Tower. As his elder brother did. And as I did before him.
But were you so young when your father tested you?
I was.
Was Boromir?
The dark-haired little boy could hear the voices, low as they were, for this tower was empty of all comfort and warmth, and sound carried easily within its unfurnished stone chambers. He had serious grey eyes, large and long-lashed - once or twice he had overheard elderly serving-women say that there was a great likeness to the Lord Denethor in his childhood. The boy had blinked, surprised, for it was difficult to imagine his father as anything but stern-faced and tall, a grimly handsome figure in black and silver.
He went over to the window, not wishing to hear more of the unhappiness in his mother's words, or the steel in his father's. Already it was dark, with stars beginning to wink at him from the highest part of the heavens, while on the horizon was a spread of crimson. He let his eyes cross the river, over the dim ruins of a city the boy had never seen before, and beyond into lands which few spoke of. There was a pale shape amongst the shadowy mountains, almost like an ivory tooth.
Yet even as he strained his eyes to look, its blunt tip moved. The boy shrank away from the window, suddenly afraid, for he thought it resembled a face, turning slowly to survey its domain. And when he stumbled to one side, as if he could hide from the distant terror, he caught a brief glimpse of something even further beyond, a tiny red pinpoint in the jet-black night -
He shall see the empty shell that was Osgiliath. And behind it, a pale tower that was once Minas Ithil, once fair and moonlit; now it is Minas Morgul, desecrated abode of phantoms. His courage should not waver - must not waver. He is the son of the Steward of Gondor.
The darkness seemed to seep outwards; it knew him, mocked him, wanted to claim him. If it could swallow lands whole, what would it make of a five-year-old boy, locked into a bare lightless room? Did he cry out, or did the sound die in his throat as he pressed his small hands to the walls?
And then the door opened, yellow light from the candle filling the room - and the familiar scent of roses enveloped him. It was his mother, warm and soft, her blue mantle sweeping round him as they embraced. He could feel her racing heartbeat, and knew that she too was afraid to be here; then in the next moment she took him by the hand, leading him towards the stairwell. They descended quickly, the candleflame flickering.
His father stood at the bottom of the stairs, framed like a statue beneath the stone arch, dark circles around his unforgiving eyes.
Faramir. You disappoint me.
Faramir awoke with a start. The predawn sky was a mournful grey-violet, thin sheets of cloud stretching over the horizon. For a moment he was lost, caught between dreaming and wakefulness, but a cool hand on his shoulder steadied him.
"How do you feel?" Glorfindel sat beside him, cross-legged, the bundle still in his arms. Faramir knew the elf might have stayed watching him all through the night, and felt almost embarrassed. He hunched over, the muscles in his shoulder cramping, feeling as if he had not rested at all.
"Terrible." Then ruefully, "And hungry."
Glorfindel handed him the roll of digestive biscuits from the survival pack, and then turned to study something on the ground. This was the instrument that had been hidden for most of the first day, a silver and blue disc about three inches across. Atop it was a fine rotating needle, and it swung this way and that, indecisive. Faramir realised that it was a compass, the inlaid letters on its edges indicating north, south and east - the west was marked with a luminous white stone. How he could have read those letters did not occur to him till afterwards. He wondered if it would ever find its bearings, or if the needle would spin on its axis till the end of time, pulled by the invisible forces of a fragmented Middle Earth.
"It has not yet attuned to the land below," said Glorfindel, divining Faramir's thoughts. There was a significant pause. "But perhaps you have, even if the compass has not."
- desecrated abode of phantoms -
The young man looked up sharply, almost expecting to see wan marble walls superimposed on the present-day ocean. What were dreams? Suppressed memories that escaped the brain's prison, or were they windows into other lives, just as death was the doorway? Trapped somewhere in his mind was a man of Minas Tirith, and before that a man of Numenor; like so many Egyptian coffins, one within the other. And suddenly he remembered yet another dream of his - half riddle, half command - which had set Boromir on the path to Rivendell. Once upon a time.
"I said there was great need for you to be here, not that it would be easy. I did not mean to deceive."
"I know..." Faramir broke a biscuit into three pieces. "... I know."
This was one of the dividing lines between Elves and Men; sleep and the visions it brought. Men were the aftercomers, weaker, coarser, more easily cowed by darkness. Maybe it was fitting that, in the darkness of slumber, they should be guided along hidden paths otherwise barred to them. Paths that might also be barred to Elves.
The biscuit was dry and fairly tasteless. Faramir washed it down with water, and even then it stuck in his throat. He extracted a second biscuit from the packet, breaking it into even smaller fragments than the first. A shower of crumbs scattered onto the ground, mingling with the sand. Just like broken Middle Earth, he thought, and glanced at the compass. The needle described a full circle before quivering to a stop.
And beneath their feet the ground stirred.
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The man in the brown shirt and white tie ran up the steps of the gallery, cursing at his watch. He strode round the paintings in the entrance hall once, twice, and then began pacing diagonally from one corner to the other, cursing some more.
"You'll have to keep your voice down," said the gallery attendant. "And objectionable language will get you thrown out."
"Have you seen a young woman in this gallery? Dark hair, grey dress...? I arranged to meet her here."
The gallery attendant gave the man a hard look. "You mean Miss Helen Lucien, the artist? Yes, she was here." His eyebrows twitched at the brown shirt, as if noticing it for the first time. "But she, er, left about ten minutes ago. With a man in a brown shirt."
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Well met, little one, you were not expected!
Green and blue pass us by while the world is broken.
Tom's house went wandering, taking Tom with it,
And my pretty lady stays where the water's clearer.
Time crawls slowly here. Have no fear! Draw nearer!
Circles should not join together, Eldest remembers
Those that left lands behind, those that sailed o'er water.
And Evening which comes again: Arwen, Elrond's daughter!
Fifteen years or more after, the odd rhyming quality to those words was indelible, though everything else about the memory was hazy. She'd been a child then, wandering in the forest near her grandmother's house, in search of... something.
"Are you troubled?"
"No, I was only thinking back to my childhood." Once more she glanced briefly on his brown shirt, with faded patches at the elbows, and at the dark blue-grey trousers. The latter looked as if they had once been denim, but since then the material had been worn so smooth it had an almost silk-like sheen in places. This was not the polished exterior one expected from an art dealer. Or at least, not from the person who had spoken to her on the phone, oozing synthetic charisma. And she had thought he would be older - someone who would take pains to dress young, rather than actually be young. Instead of telling her about the string of glitterati he had rubbed shoulders with, he walked quietly at her side with his face upturned to the sun.
He suddenly turned, his eyes alarmingly green, and a different image of light pouring through a leafy canopy came back to her. It tugged on the edges of her mind, then flitted away before she could fully recall it. Strange.
"I'd like to paint you," she said, without thinking.
"A likeness of me - " The tone of his voice rose slightly, as if in delight and bemusement together, yet he did not smile.
They found themselves at the edge of the artificial lake in the park, where there was a small cafe set up under an old summer pavilion. She came here now and then, and the waitress recognised her, giving her a bright smile. "Just for one?"
"No, for two, this time." She looked to see if the man had wandered off in the interim. He was still there, his expression placid.
When they were seated, the waitress leaned over. "Would you like some tea or coffee while you wait?"
"While I wait?"
"For your friend to arrive."
Across the table, her companion was shaking his head.
"Tea then, thank you."
The waitress scurried off.
She looked over at the next table, where a middle-aged man in a suit was drinking from a tall mug; he turned to meet her gaze and the corners of his mouth tweaked up in the beginnings of a grin. Then abruptly his face became dispassionate - breaking away inexplicably, he became intent on his coffee.
The man in brown smiled for the first time. "Like the deer of Greenwood, they cannot see us if it is not our wish." The words had a haughty nonchalance to them, but he sounded uncertain, and his expression sought approval. "Is it your wish, Arwen Undomiel?"
Any illusions she held of his being an art dealer had evaporated. "You seem to believe you know me. But I do not know you."
"I know you to be one who has walked in Laurelindorenan and Eryn Lasgalen. And though I have spoken to you but few times, can you not remember them? Do you not remember this silver ring fit for a Queen? I begged you to keep it in friendship, for I could no longer gift it to you in love. And yet you refused me." He raised his left hand slowly, with the ring on his finger that was in the shape of a chain of leaves. "Will you refuse me this time, Lady Arwen?"
Her eyes dipped to the grass stains on his sleeves. "Someone once called me by that name, but it is not mine."
He flung down his hand in frustration, and the silver ring flashed for a moment. "What name cloaks you in the present, devised in the crude language fit only for mortal tongues? Helen, after the most beautiful of human women. But where are they now, those poets who created the myth of Helen of Troy? Where are the uncouth shepherds who left their flocks and olive groves, to wage war over a face they had never seen? She was nothing, nothing." There was a distant bitterness in his expression. "You are Arwen Undomiel, daughter of Elrond. Those that went over sea are lost to me, for Eldamar is hidden in the far West and unattainable even to an Elvenking. And Men once perished are said to dwell with Iluvatar, removed from the Circles of the World. Yet against the Doom of Men you are returned. I care not how, only that I have walked alone too long."
Pale reflections of white ships and lavender skies flickered around him. It was if he could bend her vision to see images of his making, just as he could wordlessly persuade the people around them to ignore his presence.
"They say all artists wish to escape this dull world," she murmured, as the phantom ships grew even more vivid than the pavilion they sat in. "But I feel as if I have wished for escape in past lives, always running, always - "
Without warning the images began to smoulder and disappear, like glowing embers burning through paper. She saw him look up in horror, past her shoulder into the space beyond - and then she felt it too, the soundless anguish of countless trees bursting into flame.
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End of Chapter 6
To be continued...
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AlexeCinz
August 2001
http://www.btinternet.com/~reitaira/izumi.htm