Maybe a day later, no – it's the next morning, before noon, in Rivendell, finally. Oh, by the way, this first part is a memory, coming to Cali in a dream. It really happened. Well, if Cali were real, then this would have been real too. But she's not real, so this really didn't happen. But it really did happen to her. Actually it happened to Nemonlyna and created Cali. Well it didn't really create Cali… (give up folks it will never end). Thank the Lord, we have left the road at last!
***
The color of green assaulted her senses. It was not as it should be – too dark, too dull, and yet too much alive. It seemed like a cruel mockery, a shade of sardonic silence, too much like laughter.
The grass was wet. She sat, crouched, leaning on her hands. She was exhausted, she was sickened, she was brimming with rage – anger that ebbed and flowed like a furious tide within her veins, pummeling her skin without mercy. She looked at her hands. They were red. Red ran over them in tiny rivers, gathering lakes of red in the cup of her palms. Red dripped off of her and flooded the earth. It ran to the water, it fled to the sea, where it would forever taint that vastness with the silent, serene voice of death, with nameless memory whose fallen faces would never be remembered.
The color of it was too bright, too blinding in a world where all other colors seemed bled of their light. And then even that assaulting red dried and became a dead color as well. An ugly brown that seemed to scream of death; the blood of already forgotten heroes was running over her hands. The blood of men, women, and children. She had failed to save them. Failed to see – failed to see until her eyes were torn open to watch them all die around her a she in turn dealt death to save them. But it was not enough, and yet, too much.
She tired to stand once more. The bodies of horses and oxen and a hundred women and their children lay about her in the savage color of the vale. A baby was crying in the distance, so pitiful in its mewing, not capable of coming to the tormentive realization that his mother would never wake again. And then that too was silenced.
All of them were slain. Every woman whom she had talked with, laughed with, cried with! Every child into whose eyes she had looked and seen the promise of all the world to come lay staring blankly at the sky. Broken vessels, cloven shells lay about her, still warm with the memory of the life that had filled them such a short time ago.
Hideous men walked among the bodies, defiling and pillaging the dead. She yearned to kill them all, bursting her veins with the desire to hear them scream and cry to some god that would never help them, to deliver them from this white witch whose burning sword drew their blood like water forced from a drying well. Was their blood even red? Was it even warm?
But she could not. She could not move. Not fast enough to kill, not well enough to even stand. Her body too was broken, all of her muscles screaming with their pains, cramping and clenching, attacking one another as her own exhaustion drove her mad. They were coming. They had seen her as she tried to stand. They were coming to take her as well. Leave her body there! Let her die! It was not worth the life within it anymore.
They were coming. They had seen her momentary attempt to stand, and they had seen her fall. Now they came – to defile, to torture, to kill. No. No, she could not let them find such victory! But death, sweet death, she deserved her release. Let it be foul to punish her, and then fair to comfort her loss. Let it be!
No! Again that echoing voice of reason, that commanding council of her own heart. You are not yet finished with this world! You are not finished Nemonlyna!
No, she was not finished. There was no release, no release by the hands of these murderers! They would never find the victory that they most sought, they would never be free of the Light and its protectors. Never would they drive her life away, and never would they kill this last remaining who could remember those fallen that day. She could not let those eyes that stared at her so emptied of life be lost so completely. She would not let them be forgotten; she could not let them down again.
She could see his face. She could see his wicked eyes, his rough skin twisted with what might have been a putrid smile, or what might have been nothing more than yet another battle-earned deformity. She could have counted his every strand of oily dark hair. In his hand he held a cudgel, a crude attempt at a wooden mace. Yes, he was smiling, appalling yellow teeth like knives revealed as his lips curled in satisfaction. He was coming to kill a woman, and yet just the pleasure of killing was enough.
She clasped her sword, unable to stand but turning to meet him to the face, to make him look into her eyes. But he took no heed – he did not care. His hand rose, the cudgel poised above her head. He moved forward to strike, and she had never been more pleased to witness sheer surprise light upon a person's face. The sword ran him through as if it truly was a burning brand. She pulled back, and let him fall. But the mace was not in his hand.
Time seemed so suspended as she watched it dance toward her in the air. She held up her arm to deflect the blow, and it broke. Her bone splintered with such pain that she could have never helped but let that horrible scream shatter her lungs, riveting the valley with her wordless exclamation of utter, intense agony.
The brown roughness of the cudgel filled her vision. She could trace every separate grain of that coarsely hewn wood. It was oak, and it smelled of blood and sweat and wet earth. It could be no younger than three years cut, darkened by water and somewhat smoothed by use. She would remember that sight forever, for it was the last thing that Nemonlyna would ever see.
***
Caliasar swept her hand out to stop the cudgel as her own memories flooded her dreams. But there was no rough caress of knotted wood, no shock of sudden pain. The trust of her arm continued with no mace to stop it, and hit the smooth corner of some more intricate wooden craft. She woke.
The sound was deafening. A goblet of water rocked gingerly on the table, the sound as terribly loud as the river had been in its rage. It fell over. The glass shattered, and with that torturing blast of painful sound she must have screamed. She must have whimpered horribly, slamming her hands once more over her ears and struggling to be free of the bed in which she had been placed.
A single drop of water, spilled from the goblet, fell to the floor. The sound of it was as if thunder had been captured inside of her ears. She clambered, crawled, fell and crawled again, anything to be free of that so painful noise.
Another drop struck the floor. And another. It shook the very ground, laying the world out before her as if in the wake of lightening. Voices called to one another very near, in a language that she could not have understood if even they had not sounded like the screams of giants.
Another drop fell, and though she could not open her eyes she could see a figure running toward her, his feet falling like the footsteps of a dragon, outlined and unfeatured until he disappeared in silence once more.
Again a drop of water fell. One sound lead to another, and soon she was aware of all the world around her – people walked about with no idea of how much torture they caused her, wind kissing leaves and fluting about the every detail of everything around her like a savage gale. It was too much detail, too many layers. No one thing was clear – all was blended and masked by everything before it. Her ears must have been bleeding, lacing her pale fingers with red.
The figure knelt before her, grasping her wrists and calling her name. What's worse, he had pulled her hands away from her ears, his calls shredding her mind into fragments of sanity. She must have whimpered again, the sound lost in yet another shock of pain. Dripping water, the dripping water would kill her.
He gripped her shoulders then, and shook her slightly, calling her name in desperation. She wanted to know who he was, to tell him how much his voice sliced her ears. She wanted to see him, to truly see him. It was a breathless battle with her own mind, screaming within that the pain of it all would be the end. At last, with that burning thought, she forced open her eyes.
The sound faded away. All sound faded away. Blackness enveloped her in its cold peace. She could feel his long hands still on her shoulders. But she could not see.
"Glorfindel?" her voice was sharp though it was but a whisper.
"Caliasar –"
"Tell me, you are Glorfindel?!" She reached up, searching for his face. Had she ever been so afraid before, so lost in terrified panic? So lost in her own darkness?
"Yes, yes I am Glorfindel." He took her hand, releasing his grip on her shoulders. He had never sounded so fraught with concern.
"I cannot see you," she said, a pitiable smile curling her lips, only then beginning to return to their color.
"What do you mean, Caliasar? What is wrong?" he said, almost pleading her to be well. "Summon Elrond!" he called to those behind him when she did not answer, and then spoke again in his own elven-tongue.
"No!" she took back her hand, blinking wildly as she pressed her temples. "It was a dream! I'm alright, it was naught but a dream!"
"You are injured?" he asked her, speaking as softly as his voice could be forced, "You are in need of care."
"No!" Caliasar said again, struggling for calm within her own mind. Slowly it seeped back into her torn consciousness, and began to mend the cracks with its serenity. At last, as eons waxed and waned about her, sight returned. She looked up into his face, his eyes so close to hers that she could almost taste the bitter fear that frothed there, waiting for her to say some word as a lance to slay it.
"It was only a dream," she shook her head softly as she spoke her whispered words, ducking away from him and springing to her feet. She walked across the room by sudden impulse, and looked out through a great opening that led to a small terrace onto all the foreign and beautiful morning world below. "I woke from a dream and was startled, not knowing were I am. My hand hit the table, and the goblet broke. I was panicked by the sound of it, as only a dream as mine would make a mind to be. Where am I? This is Rivendell?"
"Yes," Glorfindel said, not yet certain that she was well. The elves that stood behind him drew their eyes wide as she turned about once more, seeming more than startled themselves by her every quality. "You are in Rivendell."
"It is morning. But it was just past noon when we reached the Ford. I was only surprised – I am well, I swear to you." She tried to smile once more, but her face would not obey.
"If we are to speak of surprise, then it is for your companions most of all to speak. You frightened us at the Ford, my lady, and here have frightened me again. What of you is not laughter and joy is fear – what are we to think of that?"
"What you will, for I cannot tell you what to think," she sighed. "But I will explain that at least to you someday, though I do not find now the time. It lingers too near – I would not dare to speak of such things, not until I am grown more accustomed to this earth."
Suddenly she remembered the goblet. "I cannot repay the damage of such a thing," she held the broken stem of the cup in her hand. It looked as ancient as the very water that it had once contained.
"The answers to your mysteries would be payment enough for its loss," he took the stem of glass from her hand and brushed his fingers gently across the smooth length of it. "Indeed, what things you could tell the lords of our realm I am certain would make this ancient glass unworthy of your hand to break it."
"If such things are possible to speak, then they shall be spoken. But I am well; do not worry for me. The concerns of your world seem far greater."
Glorfindel stared at her intently, his eyes like the fingers of a reader's hand as he follows the words of a book not easily read. "Very well, there is much time for talk once you have been well rested. But if you feel so well, then you will not reject to being cleaned up at once. I will summon a maid to draw you a bath, and then you will sleep. I shall visit again when you are more composed." He waved away the elves that stood at the door, and once they were gone he turned to give her a victorious smile.
She was trapped. Sighing she could not help but smile. "I have taught you too much."
"That, my lady, was a device of my own. You merely helped in its achieving. Sleep well."
"Well indeed." Caliasar turned back to the open world before her, but the sound of Glorfindel's retreating footsteps never came. She glanced briefly over her shoulder at him, and he was watching her as if she were some foreign bird that had landed on his windowsill. Stepping to lean against the cool stone railing she sighed once more. "So this is Rivendell? It would make such a fine painting. I hear often that a painter must stalk beauty like a hunter if they are ever to capture it. I have never believed that, for if such a thing were true, than any painting of this place would be a lie."
"You are a painter then, among so many other talents?" the elf stepped forward as if to join her, but stopped suddenly short and clasped his hands behind him.
She smiled softly and shook her head. "No, sadly. I will sketch at times, but I cannot paint. The – colors…"
"You fear that you will not paint them as they are." Now why was his voice so somber? The smile had faded from his lips, and she felt suddenly cold in the brisk autumn air.
"Yes," she said. "It seems a folly to paint when one cannot bring truth into their works. What if a child should pick the painting up in some many odd years, and think then that a place such as this looked some other way? It is a torment to my heart."
Glorfindel narrowed his eyes as he watched her long fingers play over the age-worn carvings of the stone. She was always that way, always exploring the details of her environment, glancing into every dark corner and examining every black cave. Had that not been a quality he had wished himself to have? Well, perhaps he had not wished, perhaps he had only thought of what beautiful things might be found where defiling feet had not yet trod. But did she see the dangers in the darkness as well, or was her heart finding more peril in the light? And why indeed did the future grieve her so much, when she seemed ever at peace with the thought of death? But no, she was thinking always of children it seemed, the children of the future, who were the future, and who bred the future. Smiling to her he turned at once and left, having much to think about, and for once in his long life feeling that he did not have enough time.
***
Caliasar managed to chase away the elven maids that had been sent to her and soaked for many hours in the bath, though she was then even less inclined to favor water. The world seemed utterly calm and still as she let herself be enveloped by the warm waters, and if she closed her eyes it felt as if she were home again and lying in the sun. In the water's embrace all time and sense of "here" was gone, and the mind could wander paths untraveled or many walked, finding no boundaries in the lines of time or in the fleshly constraints that the waking world was forced to obey. In that realm she was without name and without past or future, but simply as she was, and unjudged for even that.
And then her lungs would begin to burn and she would be forced to surface once more, shoved away by that more splendid realm once more into her own cold reality. Unable to face that waking any longer she rose and drained the water away, freeing it to be as it should in the vast calm of the ocean once more. It was not hers to hold for even those few moments of peace, as it told her in its whispered screams that slid between her fingers though she grasped with all her might.
She let herself be dressed in a long gown of white, for though it was a single skirted dress she could not make her fingers remember how to let their movements tie such constraint. Her old garments she aloud to be cleaned before stowing them under her bed, along with her staff which Glorfindel had cared enough not to take. Why she was dressed even in such plain garb she did not know, for it was obvious that the elves intended for her to stay in that room and not leave.
The room was pleasant and airy, which seemed even more a mockery. The ceiling was high and all that furnished it was draped with endless ages of memory, each carving and every curve filled with the voices of their makers and those whose fingers had brushed their surfaces with love, and fear, and hope. Their voices were soft and flowed about her in an endless river of undecipherable song. It was her sweet and tender torment.
There was no lock on the door and no glass in the windows, but she did not dare to try their keepers' hospitality and attempt to leave. Once clad in this manner she slipping into the bed as the elves insisted, and only when they had gone did she sigh and go to the balcony, mindlessly toying with her hair. She was indeed tapped, like a bird captured by a child who wished to know how it could fly. But how indeed was a bird to fly when locked in such a cage?
Looking up she saw at once a dormant candle sitting cold in its holder, and smiled softly to herself.
***
Glorfindel turned yet another page in the ancient book that lay in his hand, and let his eyes rove over the alien map with little hope. He wished dearly to speak with Elrond, but the Lord of Imladris was long in the process of healing the hobbit Frodo. Perhaps he should speak with Erestor, at least. Perhaps together they might be able to corner Gandalf.
She did not seem ill, nor injured in any way, but Glorfindel could not help but feel that she was in some way afflicted with an evil too much for his comprehension alone. Though he had wandered far and lived long, the elf-lord could simply not understand all of the terrible things that lay just beyond the borders of his peoples' immortality. Or were they so very terrible – were they great gifts that had been denied to the elves, firstborn of the free races? He would most likely never know of that, either, and it seemed a sorry blow.
He himself had carried her hither, for she was like a feather in his arms when he was certain she should be more. Even the wisest of his companions had thought her dead, for they could not feel the shallow breath that she drew, and they could not hear the torrent of whispered words that spilled forth of her lips like water from a broken vase, leaving the flower it held to die. But the power of Rivendell was true, and soon her breathing had eased and she had fallen at last into true slumber.
But in her waking he read more than the reaction of a startled child. What was it she had said 'as only a dream as mine would make a mind to be'? Were her dreams then of the elven sort, more living than life itself, more true than memories of truth? Or were her dreams always nightmares, bringing her to awaken full of strife, trembling in warmth and flinching from the most friendly hand?
He simply had to find Gandalf, at least. Perhaps the Istari had more answers than he. But as he closed the book in his hand and quickened pace having now a destination for his feet, there came three elf-women down the corridor toward him, talking amongst themselves as if they had seen some great and astonishing thing. Noting at once that they were the three who had been waiting upon Caliasar, he lifted his hand in greeting to stop them. "Is something amiss?"
The younger of the elves before him clasped a hand over her smiling lips, but her elders were eager indeed to tell their tale. "The white-lady bid us away. She is such an odd thing! Had she any less courtesy I think she would have chased us out like a dog guarding a chicken house, as if we were foxes! But a dog who guards too well will starve if it bites a giving hand, so let her starve! If she hasn't already, so thin and gangling as she is. Where ever did you find such a thing?"
Glorfindel's glare silenced their laughter, but they could not be swayed. "You should not speak such of a guest in the house of Lord Elrond."
"A prisoner, you mean, and who knows what aught she is? But if you think us rude, then go and look in on her yourself! But do be prepared – I think she is a witch," the younger elf returned, and Glorfindel could not help but smile as her companions curled their fair noses at her. Witch indeed.
"Very well, have a mind and summon Erestor for me, and I shall take her something to eat, if you will not. Her road has been hard as any other of this company, and I will not have a guest be let to starve when she has helped us all so very much. Be away, and find Gandalf too, if you will."
Dismissed, the elf-women walked several steps before they dared to burst once more into prattling talk. What was it about the world, that when any knew thing should be discovered the elves would make such a foolish bother? But then a sudden vision of elvish foxes and Caliasar a vicious hound raced across this mind. And at that the elf-lord too was lost to a fountain of very un-lord-like – indeed, un-elf-like – laughter.
Recap: Well, that was a little freaked out. You have to realize that the dream event was all in her point of view, and to her it seemed much worse than it did to the elves. That's why I used the "must have" thing so much. To the elves it probably just looked like she was having a bad headache and was freaking out about the glass breaking. That's why they didn't seem too awful disturbed, and if they were disturbed at all it was just because they had probably never seen a person with a bad headache before. She was just startled, and you know how every sound seems magnified when you have a really bad headache – well I figured that for her it would be even worse. Not to mention that she hadn't completely shook off the feeling of the wraith reality yet. That's pretty much the just of it. And as for the end part there, I was getting a little too much caffeine in my system at the time, so don't hold it against me.