I'm soooo sorry I haven't updates for so long! All weekend I was here or there and I had a history report and then a truckload of homework and my dear mother decided that it was time to cut my hair and the whole thing is just one big blur. I didn't get to write hardly anything during all of that time, so you'll just have to forgive me. Thank you Nebulae, though everything does seem to be a Mary sue anymore, I'm hoping not to make her too much of one. And thank you Valour, I always did like compliments, but Keith Urban… (j/k) And of course, thank you Keeper of the Shattered Mirrors! (Happy Danielly? Mwaha.)
Well, maybe I'll get it all to fit in this chapter after all. We'll just have to wait and see. I'm really getting sick of this blasted road! But this is a sweet chapter. Alas, poor hobbitses. Hey, Did you ever notice that the word "hobbit" is in the Word dictionary, but none of the names of hobbits or any other characters are? Strange, I know. -points- Oh yes, story now.
***
Caliasar watched as her hands gently explored the worn runes that trailed her staff. Though they were ancient in design, each one was still remembered by her fingers like the stones of a beloved path often walked. Through the darkness about her she could see little, but when beneath the shadow-filled overhang of some wind-worn cliff the outside world seemed somewhat less black. Asfaloth and Bill, the pony who traveled with the hobbits, stood both dejectedly as the heavy rains slicked their backs and once more starless night toiled above.
It was the scent of rain and the calm of night that drew contentment over her every feature, the cool winds of that weather shifting to caress her cheek with the touch of velvet night. It was not the night that was the wicked finger of doom, but the fear of night's great and harboring shores. As the ocean's dark waves it swept over the lands and was for that ever more perilous and ever more beautiful. Over her the darkness held no evil – it held only longing.
The air had never seemed so pure to her breath, cleansing the hurt and tire of the day from her body with its every chill whisper about stone and leaf. A rain so reverberating as the tears of weeping spirits strummed a song from some feigned wind chime at the world's edge, and danced its melodies above her with a serenity that brought all thoughts to the vales of her – home? But such was folly to even think. I have no home. I bear only the memories of such lands in which my heart had once found peace for a time. And those lands would fail for even that should I return. I have no home.
Sleep had evaded her that night, whether for fear of dreams or for simple lack of its need she could not tell. Into the cape of blackness Glorfindel had long ago disappeared, and Aragorn was not in her sight. But not so very far away there slept the four hobbits, all huddled together against the damp chill. She watched them for a moment, brushing a lock of moon-pale hair behind her pointed ear as the winds renewed with a sudden boiling of the skies. Her gaze was torn by a flash of brilliant light, and she smiled as thunder rolled across the land like the purr of some great sleeping beast. The clouds frothed like an angered river's foam as the wind tore at their darkened fabric, and for a moment the only perceivable sound was the sudden slow remembrance of earth's torments as they washed ever-changing over the world's ancient face.
And then as the great gust faded into the silence of things past, a murmur of wordless fear interrupted her solitude. Caliasar glanced quickly about, and saw that Frodo tossed in his sleep, his hands groping at his neck as if to find some trinket there, and his brow laden with cold sweat. Again some illegible sound alike to a whimper broke from his sleeping lips, and flinching wickedly at once his eyes burst open and he gasped the cool air as if he had thought himself to be in great danger. Seeing only blackness he struggled to rise up on his elbows, and at once caught sight of her as she watched him from her seat so near the cave's mouth.
"Ill dreams have found you this night, Frodo?" she asked once the silence between them had grown too much.
"Yes, night brings darkness and dark dreams to me – now." He drew his hands over his face for a moment and shivered at some fell thought. But then he glanced up at her with the look of a wary beast in his eyes. "Why aren't you sleeping?"
Caliasar watched that haunted gaze intensively as her own decipherings began to slowly gather for the piecing. The hobbit's words were slow and careful as if he thought her apt to spear him through with the staff in her hands. Putting it aside without removing her watch she spoke, "The elder of my world need little sleep – to sit in stillness of the mind is enough to bring vitality to weary flesh, and I have slept somewhat already. But why do you, Frodo son of Drogo, wake at such an hour, when you have been so worn all this day?"
Awe awoke in him and for a moment the hobbit could think of no words as he held the gaze of her eyes, but with a final sigh he shook his head. Then braking suddenly through darkness he saw a light burning brightly, as if from within her very heart. And then as she breathed once more the light was gone, and then returned as swiftly. Moving closer he saw that it was a silver amulet set about her throat, shinning even when there was not enough light to bring any glimmer to the faces of her millions of other metal ornaments.
"The likeness of Iridren, some say, is the Flower of Lyonthel," smiling slightly, Caliasar undid the slender chain and set the amulet in his hand.
Frodo brushed his hands over the bright stone as if it were the heirloom of an ancient dynasty of kings. A shower of white light reflected upon his face, like the light cast by rippling water, and clearer than the purest elven spring. "Iridren? Who was she so fair that this stone is her likeness?" he asked looking up, though his eyes soon returned to the charm within his hand.
"Iridren, Frodo, was not a woman, but the spirit Nahalainia's most beloved star. She burned brightest ever in the sky, but her light was neither vain nor envious, but shinned for no purpose but to simply be. Lyonthel was of the fair Elendrith, and this stone was given to her when she wed. But her time was to be as the time of a star, and though bright were her years they ended far sooner than forever should be. This amulet was given me by the lady of Aragulorn when once I passed there, but it was lost – perhaps while I wandered alone in the wilds. How it was come to her I do not know, but that was many years under sun and moon faded away. It was not long ago that it was at last returned to me."
"You speak in riddles," Frodo let a smile warm his eyes in the light of that stone.
"It seems so only because you do not know of what I speak. All names of my word fall dead to your ears that would kindle the hearts of a thousand were they spoken in what lands they speak of. And all words of your lands are thus lost to me. It is a pity that words may die as such, and I must find a way to ease their loss. Perhaps I will find a more willing voice than Glorfindel's to speak with me of such things once we are come to Rivendell."
"Strider knows many tales, and he is not so close as the elves, I should think, though there is – something else inside him more than knowledge and time. I do not know what it is."
Caliasar smiled softly at the hobbit where he sat, so small and frail that he seemed when so cruel a world lingered at their door. He was getting worse – his eyes growing pale like the eyes of a demon, and the air of fear seemed begun to draw about him like a cloak when it should be a sword to his heart. "I fear that your Aragorn finds little trust in me yet, Frodo. But time will tell us what it will. You must rest, for tomorrow we make the last run of our journey, and Rivendell is yet far from us as our moment in which to come there now wanes."
Frodo glanced up once more and frowned. "I cannot… I cannot sleep any longer. It is too dark."
"Do not fear darkness. Fear not any thing at all that comes with the night, but if you must fear, fear for the dawn to come."
"I see not how it will come at all," Frodo sighed, and handed her back the jewel as if its light was blinding his eyes.
"But it will, whether you see it or no. And see how it rains? Soon we shall see the dawn. But yes, it comes, and far too soon for you to lie waking when night gives you leave to sleep!" Suddenly Caliasar narrowed her eyes and smiled. "I see it now. You do not fear the darkness, Frodo, you fear your dreams. But I did not think that the dreams of mortals were alike to the living dreams of older creeds."
"Fear is in my dreams, but they are truly of darkness. I cannot sleep, for I am too weak."
"There is power in all worlds, and not all is for evil. Do you wish me to sing you to sleep, and I will promise no evil dreams shall find you," Caliasar's smile softened with half-remembered thought, and to even Frodo's eyes the world seemed then far less dark, for greater darkness was yet to come.
***
Aragorn woke from his sleep, for what reason he could not tell. The world was dark and still, and for a moment he could see nothing until his vision grew used to the night. Glorfindel was sitting not far away, leaning forward and gazing intently at something before him. Lifting himself onto his elbow Aragorn began to ask what was amiss, but the elf pressed a single finger to his lips and glanced to him before reverting his eyes once more.
Shifting again Aragorn followed the line of his companion's gaze. They were not far from the road, but very near the wood, and sheltered by a cave and in it a bush around which he could see a white figure, both bright and dark. It was Glorfindel's companion, the one who was called Caliasar, and she was awake as well, though she did not seem to be aware of them.
"What is she doing?" he looked up at the elf, nearly afraid to move lest he startle her attention.
"Listen," Glorfindel spoke without words, and Aragorn turned to watch her again.
She was sitting, her legs crossed and her knees pulled up before her. Her eyes, vast from even that distance, slipped from earth to sky and back again as if with her very thought she was painting the world with the moon's silver light as it every now and then escaped from the spiteful clouds. But as the winds shifted he could hear a melody so beautiful that even its foreign words seemed to overflow with meaning too deep and plenteous for any more known word to capture, and so quiet that he longed to move closer and hear those words more clearly. She was singing, her voice soft and low, and in a language that seemed as if it could not be understood by anything less beautiful than its words, and thus could be understood by nothing less beautiful than her.
Once more he was given reason to be envious of the elves, whose keen hearing could most certainly ensnare her every syllable. For a moment they sat like ghosts come upon a sudden voice whose words spoke in remembrance of their long-forgotten names, each listening as if through her voice they were being told the very meaning of the life which they had not noticed they bore until her voice made them live. At last Aragorn's question could go unanswered no longer, though any spoken word amongst that song was alike to the braying of a goat.
"Frodo woke in the night. His pain has been great, and it has been weighing heavily upon her throughout the day. His dreams have been evil when he may even sleep, and this night he is far worse. I had made ready to go to him, but she had awoken already and began to speak with him, if even she had slept at all. I have never heard such beautiful words before uttered by any living being, with such sorrow and such joy! He calmed once more and seemed content. I was then about to tell her to take rest, but she began to sing so that he might fall asleep. If she does not sing of those very fairest days of which she had told Frodo, then I am no elf indeed."
Aragorn watched her a moment longer. The hobbits were all asleep, huddled together in a slight depression in the earth, but Frodo was sleeping more deeply and with more peace than the ranger had seen in him for many days, if he had ever seen such contentment in a creature before. Even their pony, Bill, and Asfaloth, had lain near to hear her song. She stroked the great horse's neck with a hand like liquid silk, and glancing down at Frodo, now asleep, she let her song fade slowly away. To Aragorn it seemed as if a great light had been extinguished, and the world for all of its worth was then truly black. No, the light was simply hidden in the pale shroud of her skin, and he had no doubt that its radiance would burn his mind until the end of all days, however near or far that might be.
***
"You have become fast friends with the hobbits, I see," Aragorn said as he walked beside Caliasar the next day. They would soon reach the ford, and the tension between them seemed an ill omen of things to come.
Caliasar glanced up at Aragorn with little surprise in her gaze. She had felt the change in his opinion toward her as soon as she had awakened from her few brief hours of sleep, if she had not felt it even before then. He seemed to know not only that she was not of this Middle-earth, but also that he could now trust her. Indeed, he did not seem one who would be so slow to trust, seeming able to see a person's worth almost immediately, but for some reason he seemed unwilling to trust even his own often-used instincts when concerning the safety of Frodo.
Smiling, she replied almost sarcastically. "There was nothing 'fast' about that conversation at all, though I do suppose that I have gained a few friends, Aragorn."
He looked swiftly to the hobbits, still stumbling for their weariness, but now seeming more at ease, before daring the peril of meeting her eyes. "Aragorn son of Arathorn, Dunadan of the North."
"Pleased to meet you, Aragorn," and he wondered that she did not laugh.
"Likewise to you, Caliasar."
She smiled once more, still enough of a child in heart, at least, to make their words into her own little game, though he was certain that she was both ancient and wise beyond any among them, save perhaps Glorfindel, though his seemed so different a wisdom than hers. "Nemonlyna daughter of Favorace; my mother's name was Nemonhalia. What I am would take many years to tell, for I come of a world far beyond the reckonings of mortal mind, and yet, so near." Her laughter was soft, as if her jest was not to be of their understanding. "But I have taken the name Caliasar as my own for this life. In the ancient tongues belonging to the ancestors of my peoples, it would be the word meaning 'hope.' Which is odd indeed, for were you not once called Estel? That means 'hope' as well, does it not?"
"Yes –," he replied, seeming stunned. She never did enjoy anything more than surprising people with the useless knowledge that she was not supposed to possess.
"It is amazing how the tongues of elves will wag, is it not? And much may be gathered by an ear that has so often relied upon things left unrevealed in plainer speech."
It was Glorfindel's turn to arch his brows once more. "You are clever, Caliasar. Though many years lie upon your head, I would say that you are not much more than a child yet in your heart."
"In which life?" she smiled once more. "Yes, many are my years. But as Caliasar I am still young. I think you would find Nemonlyna much less to your liking. But in the company of those I have left, and in the company of those I have joined, there seems more reason for joy while life may last. Dark times are not the times for dark thoughts, but for laughter and joy! The night grows darker if you think only of darkness! But morning comes swiftly for those who laugh as they await it."
"Many might name those words wisest of all, if their thoughts did not already linger on darkness," Glorfindel returned. "Though I remember saying nothing of Aragorn to you before." Elves – they never did forget.
"Ah," she tapped her forehead slightly, "the mysteries of a perilous mind. You spoke of searching for a query, and I knew that you meant those that I had first sought out. A man and his brood, I had thought you," she did not laugh, but shook her head in amusement. "Yet you spoke also much of language and of your people. You spoke of Elrond, and of the few mortals who are known as elf-friends. What you did not say is easy enough to reap, though if you said nothing of the name Estel, then I might have read it in Aragorn himself, for names have a tendency to linger in the eyes of mortal and immortal alike. Even I cannot explain all of my ways."
"Indeed," Aragorn chuckled softly, no longer certain that he was right to let her begin such a game, much less a game against an elf. She seemed to have gathered his mentality into a jar, and was using it against him. But Glorfindel laughed, and she seemed to have stored that jar away once more for use another day.
"Then you are mortal?"
Caliasar looked up at Frodo, startled out of her smile. Both man and elf fell silent, for both had wondered this same thing, though even before they had truly met her they had not actually wished to know the answer.
"Yes, I am mortal," she said, a much softer expression lighting her face. It was not quite a smile, and yet it was no frown. "But my mother's people are very long-lived. I do not know when I will die – it could be in five seconds or in five thousand years. But do not think it so cruel, for all lives are promised as such. No creature immortal or otherwise is guaranteed his next breath."
The very air seemed to thicken with their silence. She would probably outlive him by many years, and yet Aragorn felt as if she had been deprived of some quality in life that he was not. To Glorfindel, a lord among elves, the very tone in which she spoken the word "death" seemed impossible to comprehend. Was it something good, some wonderful release, or was it something terrible, some path into a prison whose gates had been shut to his people? To take such a life from any world seemed a horrible thing. Then was death horrible, or was life the horrible chapter of a book many chapters longer?
"We are but leaves," she said then, and all of the company looked to her eyes, though she saw them not, dwelling far away, "bloomed into beauty for but a stolen season. All seasons must end, and all things are but fallen leaves, passed forever into winter, and though spring may come again, the leaves that return are not the leaves than have fallen. Or are they? But always the leaves past have decided the path of fate for those to come, though what way in which those new leaves grow is for their own decision as they seek the sun."
Her eyes returned from their sightless wandering, and seemed to gaze into the very souls of her companions. Suddenly she spoke again, all urgency in her voice. "Nine – nine what?" They had begun to pass under the shadow of a thicket of wood, and echoes ran about them like many following footfalls.
"The nine great servants of our great enemy," Aragorn touched her shoulder as if to stop her from speaking and yet as if to push her words on.
"Five behind, four await us," she looked to Glorfindel and he nodded his solemn reply.
Suddenly, as if through a gate of light, the road ran out again from the end of the tunnel into the open. There was a sharp incline, and then beyond there was a long flat mile that stretched to the very Ford of Rivendell. Glorfindel stopped to listen behind them, but Caliasar had already told him what he would hear.
"Fly!" he called, "Fly! The enemy is upon us!" He sprang forward, and the white horse leapt away.
They raced down the slope in his trail, and were halfway across the flat when suddenly there was the sound of many horses galloping. Out of the gate in the trees that they had just barely left there appeared a rider cloaked in black upon a great black horse, and he halted as four more of his likeness came to his side. Again Glorfindel called for Frodo to ride, but the hobbit checked the horse to a walk. He drew the long knife that he used as a sword, glaring at the riders as if his hatred alone should be enough to spirit them away.
"Ride on! Ride on!" cried Glorfindel, and then realizing that Frodo alone would do no such thing, he called to Asfaloth instead. At once the great horse sprang away with the swiftness of the very wind. At that same moment the black horses leapt down the hill in pursuit, and from the riders came a terrible cry that shook Caliasar to her very core. It was answered by another, and to their dismay the other four seemed to materialize from the trees and rocks about on their left, two rushing toward Frodo as two made to cut him off from the ford.
The riders behind him fell back, no match for the elf-horse's great speed. But those before him were closing in. How could he make it? Again the shrouded creatures screamed as the white horse leap into the frothing river before them. Never had Caliasar felt such pain. She clasped her hand over her ears, but could not tear her eyes from Frodo. He was across, and Asfaloth reared, neighing his challenge to the Black Riders and their bulking horses below.
"The Ring! The Ring!" they cried in their fell voices, and their leader urged his wary steed into the water.
"By Elbereth and Luthien the Fair," said Frodo, and she could hardly hear him, "you shall have neither the Ring nor me!" Her held up his sword, but the leader stood in his stirrups and raised up his hand. The sword splinted in a shower of silver and fell to the ground. Asfaloth reared once more and snorted.
At that moment there came a great roaring and rushing, alike to the sound of loud waters rolling many stones. The river before her rose, and down along its course there came a cavalry of waves that seemed in truth to be of white riders upon white horses with frothing manes. The three riders that were still in the midst of the river swiftly disappeared beneath that angry foam, and those who remained on the shore drew back in dismay.
Their screams pierced Caliasar's ears like blades of ice, and she fell to her knees. These dark creatures were drawing her into their world, and into the Void. She could see their tormented, pale skin, and their eyes blazed coldly, at first not truly distinguishable but with every moment becoming more clear as their screams drew her into their realm. Glorfindel stood before her, and figures wielding flame ran to the waters. But they became like shadows, ever less clear, as the remaining riders became more real to her every terrified sense. She was not used to this world! How was she to anchor herself into this foreign reality?
She longed to close her eyes, struggling for that strength, fraught with the weight of three worlds descending upon her shoulders. Was pain ever more true? She must have screamed, she must have sounded so much like those deadly wraiths that stood before her like a circle of fallen kings long passed away, for Glorfindel at once forgot his task and turned to her, dismayed. He grasped her hand, but she would not be lifted. Bent like a shell void of all structure she watched the riders stare at her with their frozen eyes, thinking her their savior.
She reached out to them as if to push their world away, her full being placed into the syllables of some last great word, some echo of power that must have been known to Nemonlyna, surfacing to her mind as she became slowly crushed between three realities. What voice her companions heard she would have feared to ask them, for Glorfindel at once covered his own ears, and the six riders upon their horses screamed their last as they were buried in the water's white flame.
And then all was blackness.
***
Recap: WOOHOO! I made it! On to Rivendell! OK, now let's gather the facts. This chapter introduces the Flower of Lyonthel. Will it be important in future chapters? I do wonder… Oh, and Nahalainia is a celestial being. A goddess? No, I'd call her more of an archangel. And Lyonthel will come up again. Hers was a sad tale indeed. Now, just for good measure, was there any romance or the beginning of romance in this chapter? No, there was not. Aragorn and Arwen are staying together. And Frodo? Do be serious. He's practically a baby compared to her. Yes, girl's got a pretty voice. That will be explained better later.
Yeah, so Cali wins Aragorn's friendship as well as that of Glorfindel and the hobbits. I think you get to see a lot about parts of her character in this chapter – she's kind of childish and can turn the words of anyone either against them or into a game or both. But if you think about it, the elves are kind of childish themselves. She's not so different after all. Anyway, so when Glorfindel was supposed to have been scaring the other riders into the water with the help of his friends and their little flaming sticks, she is being drawn into the reality in which the wraiths dwell because she is not yet well rooted to this world. She falls, and as she tries to stay in the real world she is drawn into the alternative world that she knows best, the Void, and also into the reality of the wraiths. She's being crushed between them, and she screams, Glorfindel is distracted, and trying to get away from the riders Cali screams a word of power that had been taught to Nemonlyna. The horses jump into the water and die, and she goes unconscious yet again. Durn, it sounded so much better up there. :) This chapter was a little condensed, especially at the end, and I was getting a little giddy on their last conversation, so please forgive me. But I really need a) to get some sleep b) to get off of this blasted road, and c) to go purchase a life. Thank you. And once again, I'm sorry this chapter took so long, and hopefully I'll be able to get the next up very soon.