"God is the Lord of angels, of men--and of elves." -JRR Tolkien
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The color of the skyline gleamed a soft shade of violet as the sun came up over the river. Though it was usually a murky brown, the water took on a blue-gray cast, as if in this soft light of dawn it could pretend to be what it is not: a pure, raging vein of water in some mountain forest, instead of the stagnant Mississippi in the middle of New Orleans. The glint of the sun shone on the parked cars in the lot below, the metal shimmering and fading with the mist of the early morning.
The wind whipped my hair as I turned my head, looking down-river. Someone was staring at me from the park on the other side.
I narrowed my eyes, adjusting my vision to focus in on his face. There shouldn't have been anyone there at this hour. He was on one of the benches--standing up on the seat, not sitting--looking towards my side of the bank. He could spot me on the bridge if he so desired, or if his vision would take his eyes that far.
I didn't fear being seen. The walk on the bridge is closed every night by large gates, bars, and security guards. Any shape he would see could only be construed as a ghost brought on by dim light, or rather large clustering of pigeons. The light of the sun bounced back to light up my face, reflected by the water of the river.
"Thousands of years I have been on this earth, and I have never seen the sea." I blinked, the sentence coming into my head unbidden. I shook my head and stepped back into the shadows, disappearing from view. I did not know if his eyes followed me.
***
The diner was crowded at six am. I took my seat towards the back, sticking my feet in the booth facing me, and the firm glance that I shot around the place secured my privacy. Sometimes truckers get too forceful in their searches for company, and I didn't want to have to do anything that would jeopardize my anonymity. I dug in my pocket for change, making sure my hands closed around the right amount of coins before ordering a cup of coffee. The waitress, an old dame of about thirty that had been ridden hard and put away wet, smiled at me in that absent way I've come to recognize as a public kind of familiarity. I contented myself with looking out the window. Soon the conversation of the diners to the back of me attracted my attention, and I let myself get caught up in their hissed and quiet insults as they worried about things I did not have. It was a way to pass the time, and it wasn't if I had any extra change to drown out the silence with a song from the jukebox machine.
As I was thinking this, it kicked on--Linda Ronstat, a slow and heavy tune. I raised my eyes to it, but no one stood near it, or was making the sort of movements to suggest that they were the cause of its resurrection. I scanned my eyes about the room, but all the people that met my gaze were the same haggard, worn-out truckers that I always saw at this time in the morning. Though the atmosphere had changed--something was about to happen.
The bell rang, signaling that someone had entered the diner. I raised my eyes. He was young, with a bag slung over his shoulder; though his clothes signaled that he had a long journey behind him, his even gait and clear eyes showed no signs of weariness. I didn't recognize him for what he really was until he spoke a couple words to the waitress, asking where he should sit. The lilt in his voice, the faint accent, was something that I hadn't heard in... oh, an uncountable number of years.
I steadied myself; let my eyes revert back to my coffee. He was looking this way.
I listened to the music for a while, spoke a kind word to the waitress as she came around for another refill--even though I knew it was coming, I was still pressed to conceal my surprise when he walked up to my table. "Greetings." To any ears but my own, the words would be mae govannen. "May I have a seat?"
"If it pleases you." My voice skipped back into the tongue as quickly as if I had never stopped speaking it. I saw a couple truckers cast their eyes my way--they were the sort of people who were suspicious of any who did not speak the same language as their own. I paid them no heed--it was glorious to twine my voice into that tongue again after so long. "I did not expect to see you here. In fact, I thought I was the last."
"As did I, once." He looked at my cup. "Just that for breakfast? Coffee?" No word for that in our tongue, so he called it 'black-drink.'
"I don't have enough money to afford much else." I watched him for a moment. "Was it you I saw at sunrise?"
He nodded. "I knew you recognized me as soon as I came in, so I decided to make myself known to you. I have been watching you for quite a while."
This startled me. I took in the stranger, trying to match his form to those I've seen wandering the streets these past years. He looked young, as I said before; perhaps a teenager in the years of the Atani, the younger race that populates this world when the Eldar, the star-people--my people--have all but faded away. His hair was cropped short, a dark blonde that brushed past his ears, half-hidden underneath a stocking-cap. His eyes were blue, the eyes of all of our kind that come from the northern forests, and the gaze was clear and serene. The beauty of his face was half disguised by a glamour that I could feel at the tips of my fingers--I was not surprised to feel it, for I am pressed to cast one as well. It is needed; for without it him and I wouldn't be taken as the children of Men we made ourselves out to be.
His garb, as I have spoken about before, was dirty and worn--a patched shirt of green, dusty breeches of denim, and boots of leather and rubber. Overtop it all was an army jacket. His long fingers grasped the glass of water that the waitress passed to him--there was dirt underneath his fingernails--and he skipped back into English to thank her before returning his gaze to me.
"May I know your name?"
"Faewen," I said. "Fitting, I suppose, for my new life." The name means spirit-maiden. "I am called Morgan here."
"I am Celeb," he said. "Caleb, here." He smiled at me as I raised my eyebrows. "I did not pick an entirely different name. Since it is but a rendering of 'silver,' replacing a letter, it will do for me." For a moment he stayed silent and looked at me intently, as if I had moved to speak and he was waiting for me to continue. It was only now that he made direct eye contact with me.
I let out my breath. I knew how I might appear to him--my brown hair cropped to my shoulders, tied back, my garb as worn as his and my feminine form marred by the breeches I wore--but I knew that the overall demureness of my disguise could not conceal the elven-light, the consciousness that spoke of older times. Yet to that light is his eyes, mine was no comparison. Those purer in line the light is brighter, the birth nobler, their own lineage closer to what was lost. In his eyes there was a depth that spoke of millennia far past and a time out of my reckoning. In his eyes the starlight was not dimmed. "You do not belong here," I said finally.
He raised his eyebrows. "Why do you say that?"
"You have no shadow over you." I looked away, growing increasingly uncomfortable under his stare, and was luckily relieved by the waitress coming back with my check. I reached to take it from her, but she held her hand upon it for a moment.
"Did you need anything else, dear? Pancakes, bacon, some doughnuts?"
"No, thank you." I must have seemed overly pressed, for her manner turned startled, scolded. She left me with the ticket. I moved out of my seat, dipped my head to Celeb. "I take your leave, Prince. Perhaps we'll see each other again."
"All rivers lead to the sea." The statement was made to sound like something spoken in passing, at farewell, but it made my heart ache for something I could not name.
***
I unlocked the door to the apartment. The stairs were steep, wet with the rain that had fallen when I was inside the diner--the roof leaked--and even now I marveled at being able to sleep indoors. Top floor. It was sheer luck that I secured this residence at all, so near to the guard-patrolled French Quarter (or the three or four blocks that was tourist-proclaimed as such). Though that it was guard-patrolled did not matter--I dared not to even venture outside and down the stairs to get something to eat after nightfall, not even with my dagger stowed safely at the small of my back. There are too many predators waiting in the darkness, some of which are not human and none of which I wanted to stumble upon.
I shut the door behind me and cast my eyes about the room. A mattress sat on the floor in one corner, covered with blankets--a small desk sat nearby, cast about with papers. A makeshift bookshelf made of boards and bricks traced the outline of the apartment and there, hanging on a hook, was my quiver.
I went over to it, tracing my fingers over the soft, supple leather. It was daunting to think how old this was. The protection spells over the stitching must be great, to last so long. I took out an arrow, laid it in my palms so it ran parallel to the ground. The feathers were still hard and true, the head still keeping its wicked point. They have served me well and I still have the twenty-five that came with me through the years. The wood of this arrow--it came from trees that no longer grow in this world, and have not for thousands upon thousands of years.
This thought made me smile a little. I am hard pressed to find things older than me. Even the river that flows nearby, it is not as old as me. It was but a trickle-out of a lake, a mere rain-wash in the days when I was young. Perhaps even the lake did not exist at that time, or even the glacier that fed it. "All rivers lead to the sea," he had said. Yet the sea that the river knew and the sea that I knew were two completely different things.
One thing I had refused to get when I leased this apartment was a television. I had seen the boxes before, had been there when they were just a display at the World's Fair in Chicago. Something to be gawked before and wondered at. I had seen the insides of them and marveled at man's magnificence of invention--no longer do they learn the names of things from the Elves. They fashion, make, display, destroy their own things, and with it make a new past and future far away from me and my kind. It was too easily learned how removed I was from this world when I used it and their other inventions--how much I didn't belong. How much smaller the world is, and how much it has forgotten.
How much I had been forgotten.
I climbed the ladder at the far side of my room and left the apartment through the skylight in the ceiling. It was more of a door than a skylight, really--I had converted it to a trap door soon after I moved in, finding that in doing so I had an unchallenged claim to the roof space of the building. Up top, the view to the river was unobstructed, and through the haze I could see the bridge and, across the water, the park. Could I see a shape there? I did not know.
"He said that he had been watching me for a long time." I made myself uncomfortable by the sound of my own voice against the silence, but old habits die hard. I fingered the plants that filled the roof-space, the nubs of which would soon become flowers as the weather warms. They lay cast about in their pots, left over from the summer residents, a small garden all my own. "That I believe. Yet the purpose of that vigil is still to be understood."
I climbed up on the wall that surrounded the garden and sat upon it, tucking my knees up under my chin. It was then I let loose with my glamour, letting the ugliness fall away, and I looked upon the city with clear eyes as the wind blew my long hair around me. From above I could hear the swallows chittering and swooping and I looked up at them, marveling awe descending upon me. Thousands upon thousands of years, and I still cannot believe the miracle of flight.
Above them hung the sky, darkening slowly with the approach of night. I fancied that I could see the stars, though the clouds were thick with the approach of rain. Elbereth, Star-kindler, protect me from the darkness that descends upon me. Give me a light to lead me. The prayer came to me unbidden, and I wondered at it.
I looked down towards the street: he was there, standing on the sidewalk, looking upwards. He did not beckon, did not wave, and I did not ask how he found me. I simply rose, descended the ladder, and let him in.
He followed me up to the roof again. I assumed my previous position while he walked about the garden; examining the brick, the plants, and the mats that I had laid out to sleep on when the weather allowed it. "How can you afford this?" For some reason he spoke English to me. I was reluctant to answer back in kind--the words fell off my tongue so much easier when we spoke before.
"Long ago I purchased paintings from artists struggling in Europe. I kept them, saved them, and they gave back to me." It was not the only way I survived, but it was the most pleasant-sounding. "I have a bank account, supplicated in many ways. But it is running out now." I gestured around me. "In the old days there would always be something that would help me--I would find some way to live without paying other people money for twenty, thirty years so I could replenish my reserves. But here, everything costs so much. And there is nothing left to sell."
"Why do you stay?" he asked softly.
I looked at him sharply. "I have nowhere to go."
"That is not true. You could come with me."
"With you? Where?" He did not answer, but drew away again, looking outwards towards the river. "Why do you watch me, Celeb?" I asked him, letting my tongue slip into Elvish again. "I am old. I feel it in my bones--though our kind do not feel the ravages of time, only grow more beautiful and powerful with age," here my tone grew cruel, "my heart is turning as black as night. I tire of it all. I want to ... to leave."
"So leave," Celeb said.
I laughed at him. "Leave? Leave! Where would you have me go?" I gestured outwards, towards the river that flowed nearby. "There are no boats. I cannot pass along to the Last Shore. That door closed long ago, and there is no way to open it again."
"All rivers lead to the sea," he said.
"Fool." I turned on him. The power was unleashed in my eyes. "Did you follow me to mock me, Prince of the Far Shore? Did you come to tell me what I already know? That I am too late, that there is no hope, that I am forgotten?" My voice broke. Thunder boomed, and the laden clouds poured out their tears on the open rooftop.
Though the storm I could hear him shouting. "You are not forgotten! You are not forgotten! Listen to me!" Though I could not stop the storm, I could lessen it, and he finally found enough air to speak through the rain. "Do you know why I sought you out, Faewen? Do you know why?"
"Because I am the last," I said.
"No. Not only because of that." He gestured upwards. "Your power has gotten stronger, as all of our powers have, with time on this earth. We are growing far faster than those on the Far Shore."
"They sit at the feet of Manwë and become like children," I said, bitter. "It wouldn't be hard."
"You were never destined for that," he said softly.
"Ah, bright as the stars you are." Elbereth, Star-kindler--
"You were destined to lead. God has a higher plan for you."
***
I glanced at him. "God? Iluvatar?" I spoke the name with more than a little reserve. I had not thought about him in a great while. "He bothers about me?"
"You are his song," he said. "Why is that surprising? And not just Iluvatar. There is another God you are meant to serve."
This last remark came from a blind side. "Do not mock me." I turned away. I am weary of Celeb now, and wanted him to leave. "Every time I meet new people on this earth they tell me of this Jehovah, this God of the Desert, and his virgin-begat son. I will not hear of it."
"Listen to me." He drew near to me, stood in front of me. I took in his form again--his hair had grown since our last meeting, falling down to brush his shoulders. I knew then that he had shed his glamour as I had, and we looked at each other with no screen between us. "He exists, you know."
"I do not doubt that. But I do not serve him."
"Say it not!" He cried. I looked at him, startled. "You say that you do not serve Him, and you say that you serve the Other. Sister, listen to me." I stood silent as he placed his hands on my shoulders, refusing to meet his eyes. "I am one of those that left the Blessed Lands, Faewen. I was never left behind. I came back of my own accord."
"Madness," I say. "How is that possible? If you go to the Shore, you are not allowed to return."
"That is true, in most aspects," he said. "But I have a mission."
"To find me? Was that your mission?"
"Yes. And others like you."
"What, there are more?" I remember hearing him say something like this before, but now it hit me. "I am not the last?"
"Far from it." His gaze was soft now. "But there are others you must find. Those who are as lost. And with me, you can find them." He waved his hand--the rain that had lessened to just a light drizzle now stopped completely, and a bright sun shone out from a crack in the clouds. At my feet the grass, in between the cracks of the pavement, sprouted little flowers with faces turned upwards towards the light. I looked at him, shock in my face. "But you have the old magic," I said. "If you had passed on, you would not have the same power as I."
"It is not old magic," he said. "It is new magic, one that is brought on by my new role in life. You feel it, too." He smiled at me, and through the haze of steam that the new sun made, I could discern the faintest outline of wings at his shoulders.
My eyes widened, and my voice was a whisper. I saw now that everything on that rooftop had burst into bloom, ripe as full summer. "What are you?"
"A messenger," he said. "Iluvatar wants you, my spirit-maiden. He and Jehovah are the same, and his Son is the ruler of this new world."
"I do not believe it," I said.
"Whether you believe or not, it doesn't make him exist any less," said Celeb. The wings were more substantial now. "Though you believe, I can feel it. I can see it inside you. Do not refuse it."
"And what if I do?" I ask. Though his words stir something inside me, something that makes my heart ache, I push it away for the moment. I meet his eyes. "What happens if I refuse this?"
He met my stare, and then looked past me, towards something behind my shoulder that I could not see. He focused on it, nodded. Slowly the brilliance faded, the wings disappearing from view into the fog until I was not sure that they were really there to begin with. "As I have come to you, so will They," he said. "You have the free will to choose either. But it is impossible to choose none at all." And with that he disappeared. Only the flowers marked that he had been there at all.
***
I stood on the shore of the river again. His words ran through my mind, and I sat pondering them until my mind was filled with flashes from the past. It was not the first time I had seen his face. Long, long ago, at the shore of the Gray Havens, I had seen his form staring at me from the top of one of the great ships. He was on the poop, looking at the shore, and I stood in the shadows of the deck, watching him. I did not know if he saw me ... yet now I guess I know that he did.
I do not know why I did not get on that ship. I was young, so young I was a baby in our reckoning; a toddling, wide-eyed thing not long on my feet. Though I missed my mother and was scared at being alone, I did not cry as the ship undocked, nor heard my mother shouting. I was scooped up into someone's arms, whisked away, and I never gave it a second thought until the ship had pulled away and many years had passed.
I suppose if things were different I would have been adopted and raised a child of Man, a Daughter of Eve as some say. But I aged slowly, true to my race, and was but a young child when my adoptive parents died. The kin of those parents knew then what I was--and feared damnation from the Lords of the West. The Elves were supposed to leave this earth. That was our path in the great song. We were supposed to leave Middle Earth to the Men, for good or ill, but I stayed. Whether it was foreseen by Iluvatar, Manwë, Elbereth or the others, I stayed. And in that I sealed my fate.
I heard the sound of an engine behind me, a gentle whoosh as the trolley settled into its lower gear. The car was wet and shiny with rain. The conductor opened the door: "Getting on, lady?"
I hesitated, then nodded. This trolley goes downtown--in the midst of my solitude, my loneliness, I wanted to be around people. I climbed the steps, paid my tokens, and sat down to await arrival on Bourbon.
Night soon fell. The tourists were slowly making their way back to the hotels, laden with packages and tipsy with drink. Loud music blared out of the jazz bars, and the car traffic slowly dissipated as the pedestrians filled the streets. I felt hands brush up against me, searching for money, and I brushed them away.
The atmosphere grew heavier as the lights of the clubs started throbbing. Women peered out from doorways. Men looked me up and down--by then I had disguised myself, and there was nothing to fear. I wandered into the nearest jazz club, ordered a drink, and sat down to listen to the squeal of the guitar and the raucous accompaniment of the sax. I had never cared for modern music, but there was an element to it that I liked. The music of the elves was made to remember things, to celebrate things, to mourn the passage of time and memory. The music of Men was made to express feeling: hunger, laughter, lust, rage. Through it, through its mindlessness, its living-in-the-moment, I found escape from the barrage of feelings and memories that threatened to drive me mad. I used it to help me forget.
After a while I left. The smells of the restaurants did not sway me from my walk down the street, though I hungered. I strayed from the brighter lights and the music onto a narrower path, and into an alleyway that I thought would lead me to the river. It instead presented me with a lighted window of a shop, a fluorescent sign--"PALMS READ, FORTUNES TOLD"--and an open door. I went inside.
I pushed aside the curtain. The shop was close, smoky, and filled to the brim with bottles, candles, and books. I felt no feelings of the Desert God in this place, and saw a shrine to the eastern side of the shop dedicated to an eight-armed deity with the head of an elephant. A pentacle was on one wall, and I could feel the soft thrum of magic on the backs of my eyelids. Incense was in the air, and also the smoke of the poor-man's pipe weed--I started walking towards the back.
The fortune-teller reminded me of the cafe waitress; they could have been the same woman, or at least close kin, but for the differences in age. Her skin was wrinkled, her hair long and gray, though there was emptiness to her eyes that could have been a semblance of peace--or perhaps her mind was fried. No matter. If she were a teller of fortunes, it would not matter what her mind could say. It would be the cards that would speak.
She sat me down at a table and made a big deal of unfolding a piece of velvet over the wood. "What is your sign, child?" I just looked at her. The expression in my eyes must have set her off-kilter, for she took my hand and stared into the lines of it. "You have an old soul. You are a Libra."
"That is correct." My birthday would have fallen into that month in the Roman calendar.
"Aah." She sat back, relieved that he power did not fail her. "This reading will be free of charge," she said, "unless you wish me to delve deeper. You can donate what you feel is necessary."
"What is the running price?" I asked.
"Five dollars," she said, and looked at me. I did not hesitate, handing her the bill. She stuffed it into her pocket. "Now." She handed me the deck. "Shuffle this until you feel the time is right."
I did as she was told. She pulled a couple cards out, set them horizontally and vertically in a pattern on the velvet. She studied them very intently. "I see love coming into your life, child. Do you have a boyfriend?" She raised her eyebrows. "Girlfriend?"
"Neither."
"Ah. You soon will." She pulled out a couple more cards. "You have had a hard childhood, and had to work hard to succeed in life. You're not doing too well now, but trust me, it will soon pass." She studied the cards. "Is there something you wish to ask the Great Beyond? Something that has been troubling you, a question that you need answered?"
"Yes." She scooped up the cards, passed them to me.
"Shuffle them and ask your question aloud," she said.
I did as she told. "Which path should I take?" She glanced at me, and I stared her down. "I need not say anymore. The cards will know what I mean."
"Very well." I had surprised her, and she took the cards back with more respectful air about her. "Let me see." She flipped them down, horizontally, vertically, over and over until the entire deck was laid out before her. She studied them intently, and I could almost feel her mind working.
She looked up again. There was puzzlement in her face. "I cannot see a yes or no answer, my child. The cards... they sometimes do not see all. Do you wish me to take a look inside my crystal?"
"No, that is fine." I rose. "Thank you." She rose as well, babbling a little bit about me leaving so soon, but I waved her away. Though the visit was short, I walked out of the shop with a lot on my mind.
Like most seers these days, she relied mostly on observance to create her fortunes. She believed she had power, and perhaps she did, but the stoniness of her beliefs bordered on delusions, made her twist her reality until she believed that all observances are fortunes, that every roll of the dice were signs from the Great Beyond. There was only one moment of truth in her cards--that when she could not find an answer. Yet I could tell she was well established in the business, for she never skipped a beat. She just tried to move me on to deeper things; to those I did not have the time--or the money--to have used upon me. But I learned what I needed to learn. The Void has told me as much as it could, and it basically told me to leave well enough alone. Things will pass as they will.
I walked out into the street. The time must have flowed more quickly than I first imagined, for it was devoid of any people and the shops were all closed. The strangeness of that did not reach me immediately. I walked across to the park, sat down on one of the benches, gazing up at the stars.
I heard someone in the grass behind me, but I did not turn--I did, though, straighten my back, preparing to flee. The dagger was in my belt, hidden underneath my coat, and I folded my arms as if cold to lay my hand upon it. The form took a seat beside me. I could now see it was a woman, a little older than what I appeared to be in human years. She had long black hair and a long white dress, and her face... it was familiar to me, somehow.
"Mae govannen." I straightened, looked at her closer. The light of the streetlamp fell upon her face, and I knew then who she was. She was my mother.
***
I suppose she read that thought, for it was bright in my face, bright in the intake of my breath. "No." She smiled at me. "I am not your mother. I took this form because I knew it was pleasing to you." She held out her hands. "The last time you saw her, she was on the ship, wearing the dress you see now." Her elvish was fluent, without accent.
"This is true." I looked at her, marveling. There were tears in my eyes. Even her shoes were the same, and the way her hair smelled--it was like the image was plucked from my mind.
"You can see her again, you know," the lady said.
"I know. If I go with Celeb."
She shook her head. "No." I stared at her. "He will not keep his promise, Faewen. Though he was a prince once, he is no better than a man now. And from so long on this earth, you know as well as I do how they treat one another." I just looked at her, waiting for her to continue. She smiled at me, leaned back, and sighed. As if changing the subject she said "Look at the stars. And the moon. They are so pretty tonight."
"They are." I looked up again. "The constellations have not changed from what they were at the end of the Third Age; though they seem more dim, somehow. I wonder if the stars are the same here as they are in the Blessed Realm."
"You can find out." I glanced at her. "This is true. You can go back."
"That is impossible, Mother." I knew she was not my mother, but I felt as if she wished me to call her that.
"No, my daughter, it is not. If you wish it so, you can go back." She motioned to the trees behind us--behind them, blocks away, the river lie sleeping. "Already there is a boat waiting for you. But do you really want to go back?"
"Of course I do," I said. Yet her words made me doubt.
"Your heart does not say so." She smiled, laid her hand on mine. Her touch was cool, yet it warmed me. I realize now that for years no one has ever touched me. "And why go back? As you said to Celeb, you would be just as your brethren, reduced to the minds of children sitting at the feet of elders. Do you really want to spend the rest of eternity sitting as an audience to the great movements of the stars? Or be among them, plotting their movements?"
I shook my head. The nuances of what she meant made my head spin. Though her speech was fair, though my religion of the Valar has faded from what it once had been, her words still felt like sacrilege to me. "You have the power, Faewen," she continued. She leaned in towards me. "You are getting so strong. Who is to say that, as of now, that you rival these beings of the Valar themselves?"
"Folly." I rose abruptly, my hand on my dagger again ... and from above me, the sky rumbled.
"Listen. From your anger, the sky quakes." The woman rose again, and I could see a light in her eyes now that was not Elvish, or mortal. It was beyond it, and through it I could hear the baying of hounds at a full moon, the falling of water over silver crystal. Her voice was as rich as chocolate. "Think hard and well, Faewen. Celeb would have not asked you to join him if he didn't feel as if you were a threat to him ... and perhaps to this new religion as well, don't you think? You still worship the Valar, Iluvatar--Celeb worships the Desert God and his cult of steel. They keep their women in chains, did he tell you that? Their soldiers go on rampages, shedding the blood of innocents for their Holy Church. You, who have seen all the ages of this new world pass, know that better than anyone." She let out her hand to me. "I come here on behalf of the Lord of this Earth to make an offer to you. The Desert God Jehovah is failing. His Church has corrupted itself into idiocy, and its values are being left behind as technology grows. It is almost ready to fall. He can grant your every desire, Faewen--he can take you to the Blessed Realm, and even make you ruler of it if you wish it so."
I said nothing. I only looked at her; saw the power that was hidden before behind the facade of my mother's eyes. I was reminded of the magic in the seer's shop, but it wasn't this potent, or this subtle. She almost seemed to purr. "You are his messenger, I assume?" I said.
She smiled. "One of them," she said. "There are many of us. We were watching you, too, as Celeb was. But we don't want to make you a servant--we want to make you a queen. So what about it?" She asked, leaning forward. "Who do you serve? Do you serve the God of the Earth?"
I shuddered. Throughout that speech her words reminded me of something, long buried in the collective consciousness of my people, and at her last words the recognition sprung forth. Ages and ages ago, before the beginning of the Aftertime, a Deceiver had tricked three of my Lords into designing rings of power, and through them brought doom upon an age and, almost, upon an entire world. "I see through your tricks, Mouth of Sauron," I said, rising. I shed my glamour, looked at her full on, the light in my eyes blazing. "If the Mouth of Sauron you are not, you are the speaker of something as foul, or worse. Talking to me of ruling god-houses … are you mad? I would as soon take the sun from her lofty height and cast it into the sea. I serve Iluvatar, and only Iluvatar. My God is not the God of the Earth. My God is the God of the Universe."
The spirit left me, and I was in darkness once more. Feeling utterly alone, I began to cry, wondering if I had did the right thing. The stars, I think, were the only ones that heard me.
***
I stood on the bridge, looking down at the river. It was again the color it tended to be right after sunrise; a dark, dark gray that spoke of the Anduin, long ago. If I looked just at it, ignored the skyline, I could almost fool myself into thinking that it was so, that it was in fact the Anduin; that the sea that it let out into was not the Atlantic, but the Western. I gripped the steel of the cable, wondering if I'll have enough strength to let go of it when the time comes. It is all I have left to do.
When I came back to the apartment after my wanderings on Bourbon I found my door ajar, forced open. My belongings were scattered, my ladder to the roof broken in two. All my blankets were gone, my pillows and mattress ripped open with a knife, the stuffing scattered like so many feathers. And my quiver ...
I started to cry, the coldness of my tears doubled by the bite of the wind. My quiver was gone. I don't know why they wanted it--the men of this age do not use the bow for a weapon, they use guns and fists and intimidation. Perhaps they took it because they knew that it was the most valuable thing in that entire place.
I felt as if my heart was ripped in two. All my money was gone. When the landlord came around next month I would be out on the street. I had no more to buy food. All that was left in my pocket was a fistful of quarters; enough to wash the clothes on my back and that was all. I looked at the five dollars that I had given the fortune-teller with wistful sorrow. I started to cry again and gradually eased myself over the railing, until nothing separated me from the air and the water below. It was a long moment that passed before I felt a hand on my shoulder.
"Sister. Do not do it."
It was Celeb, though when I turned there was no one behind me. "There is hope," he said in my ear, his breath warm. "There is hope."
"I do not see it. Celeb, I can't see it." I started to cry harder, to shake. "All my life I had been alone. Never has anyone touched me, remembered me, seen me for who I was. I was happy, once. Oh, in the name of Varda, why did I not get on that boat?"
"Listen to me," he whispered. The feathers of his wings brushed my shoulders as he embraced me, though I could feel no one there. "Follow my voice. I will find you solace. I will comfort you. I will lead you to the still waters, and they all flow to the sea. Trust me, Faewen."
Sniffling, shivering with cold, I made my way back over the railing. "Where will I go, Celeb? Where will you have me go?" I cried. "Do not leave me alone!"
"I'll never leave you." He was there beside me and I could feel his hand in mine, leading me. Down the stairs of the bridge I went, through the streets of the city. I moved as if in a dream, passing by buildings until I was in an area of the city I had never seen before. I climbed the steps of a great building, pushed my way inside. It was warmer there, and for a moment or so that's all I could concentrate on: the warming of my hands.
When my eyes got used to the low light I followed the flickering candlelight--rows of them were lit, leading me down the hall--until it ended in a large expanse. Rows of long booths were flanked on both sides like soldiers in rank, and at the end was a long counter inlaid with gold surrounded by railing. A great wooden symbol hung over it all, and on it was fixed a man. I looked up, my hand to my throat. He looked as if he was hung there to die. "He was."
"Who is that, Celeb?" I asked. My voice echoed in the stillness, and all I could hear was the crackling of the candles.
"That is the Son of Jehovah," Celeb said. "He is my Master; and yours, even though you say you do not believe in Him."
"The Son of a God..." I said. "But he was killed. I know now what that is." I pointed at the great wooden thing to which he was fixed. "That is an instrument of torture the Romans devised. Why is that here, if this is a place of worship? Why is a thing of death in a place of peace?"
"Because through his death, we all received peace." He stood before me now, a slim shadow against the soft glow of the candles off of the gold. I could not see his wings anymore, and his appearance was like when we held palaver in the cafe. "Come. Get closer. I want to show you something."
I did as he beckoned, moved to the railing to kneel in front of the altar. "See the statue in the far corner? Who does that remind you of?" I looked as I was told. There stood a lady, clothed in a mantle of blue and white, her arms outstretched in a gesture of humility; of love. Her eyes were cast down in piety, and she had a crown of light around her head. And in the crown of light ...
"Stars. She has stars around her head." I lowered my eyes. "Elbereth. This is a statue of Elbereth."
"That is one of her names," said Celeb. There was a smile in his voice. "This is what they are in this new world. What you see before you is a statue of Mary, Mother of God. She is called the Queen of Heaven, as her Son is the King under his Father."
"And what is that?" I asked. I pointed to another statue--it was of a child of Man, but it had wings on its back.
"A cherub. That is I." A smile again.
"You are not a child."
"I suppose I am in Mary's reckoning, in the Lord's."
I looked at him in shock. "But you are older than they are! I am older than they are!"
"You're wrong, sister," he said. "They were here before us. God, Jehovah, was here before everything, and Jesus--the Son of Jehovah--is just a part of God. Mary was but a mortal woman, but her goodness made her higher than all of us. And we are all Children." He looked at me. "You forget we are all the song of Iluvatar."
"Iluvatar and Jehovah are the same thing." I marveled at it. "I … but ..." I found myself at a loss for words.
"Do not doubt it," he said. He smiled at me, touched my shoulder. "You are beginning to believe. Elbereth, Manwe, Iluvatar--they are but perceptions of it. But perception is the wrong word to use." He took in a breath, as if he was struggling to explain, but his voice was as cool and even as it ever was. "To say that they are but perceptions is folly, because that hints at them being something less than a reality. Elbereth... is how the Third Age 'saw' Mary. Iluvatar is how the elves 'saw' Jehovah, even though they all 'existed.' Do you take my meaning?"
"I think so. But I do not understand it."
He laughed. "That happens. That is why that there is so much riding on faith." He gestured to the statue of the Son again. "Long ago a part of God was made flesh, and He came onto the earth for the span of thirty-three years in the shape of a Man. His enemies captured him, upon betrayal by one of His most trusted friends. A kiss it was, and the price of a field, for which His doom was laid. He was fixed to the cross by nails driven through his wrists and ankles--you know of this torture already, you said--and died finally after great pain. He descended into Hell, then rose again in three days, his body disappearing from the tomb in which he was lain ... for nothing that is truly Holy can ever die."
"But why?" I asked.
"To save us," he said. "Mankind was unable to live up to the love their Creator bestowed upon them, and so he sent his Son to die in their stead. He was the only truly perfect mortal being that has ever walked this earth--man, elf, or angel. And since that perfection was put to death, it paid the enormous debt that was put forth every time a man sinned, an elf broke an oath, an angel turned from the Light. And so the way was paved into heaven. Believe that it happened, open your eyes to the Light about you, and nothing will bar your way. Wait. Watch. The knowledge will come in time. A misconception is that it comes in one big wave, with the certainty of a lightning bolt--it shall not, but gradually settle over you like the fall of snow."
I stood silent for a moment, and it seemed like ages before I found I could speak again. "What of the lady in the park?" I asked. "Where does she fit into all of this?"
Celeb's face grew serious. "You know what she was, sister," he said. "You told her what she was to her face. And since you rejected her, she left you, for her power is in making you doubt, making you prideful, making your feelings bend to her will."
"Was she one of Them?" I asked. "One of Those that you spoke of?"
He nodded. "She was a servant of the Lord of the Earth, she told you so herself--that is this world's Melkor." I shuddered at the name. I didn't need reminding of the horror that was held within that word. "He is the Sauron of all Saurons, for he is their sire. He was like I, an angel--yet one of a higher order, closest to God the Father. But he turned from the Light, and was thrown out of heaven, and took up with the spirits of the earth and made his home in the bowels. He hates all that God loves, and sows doubt in Men's hearts like a farmer sews wheat, reaping the crop when the sun is high and throwing it all into the Fire."
"He was an angel?" This shocked me. "What was his name?"
"He was called the Morning Star," he said. "But a star he never will be, not anymore. A foul father of lies is all he is now. He wanted to rule heaven, and that power-hunger corrupted him."
"But if he was an angel..."
"He was," Celeb agreed. "And probably still is, and though all the Light has left him, he has not ceased in being beautiful, or powerful. But all of God's children--Men, angels, and elves--were given the power of free will. This is to insure that we are his children, and not his slaves, for even though a father can tell his children what must be done, he will not do it for them."
"I want to be his child," I said. "I feel ... as if nothing is left within me. As if I had been stripped bare. If you found solace in his keep, then perhaps I will, too. Yet there is one thing I do not understand."
"The place of Iluvatar in the modern world," he said softly.
"Yes!" I turned to him. "He was so powerful in Middle Earth. The Valar were as well. Why did they feel as if they needed to change?"
"Perhaps they did not mean to," he said. "Perhaps they did not at all. Perhaps only the perception changed. I am not the one to question the mind of God. But at the beginning, before I was raised up, I wondered the very same thing." He took my hands. "Faewen, once I did not believe, and one greater than me, the one that lifted me up, asked me, 'Where in this earth do you see the Valar at work?' And I thought about it very hard. And the only thing I could see ... the only thing that appeared to me to even be close to the workings of the Valar is this!" He gestured, taking in everything in that chapel, and all of it reflected the light. "I think of all the things that Iluvatar did to create the world, how he used his words to create the song that spawned all of us, and it was in that act, 'let there be light, and there was,' I saw the Truth. The way that it all fit. Even the workings of Them, they are the same as Melkor, as Sauron. It is all the same. The world has changed all around it, but the song, Iluvatar's Song, Jehovah's Song--and the dissonance of it--remains the same." He peered into my eyes, and slowly I felt the glamour of the ages pass away from me, and we stood there, looking at each other, through eyes that saw so much sorrow, so much time pass, and all at once... I felt young again. "He loves you, Faewen. He created the elves as well as the Men; and as one of those children, He implores you. Use the life in you have developed from all these years on earth, the power that He has given you, for good--become more than what you were. Humble yourself before God, and He will raise you up."
His smile was so tender, and through it light burst forth, until I had to shade my eyes and look away. His wings seemed to stretch forth ten, twenty times their length, until it seemed there was no space left in the church. I closed my eyes, and the light entered my mind, and though my sorrow did not leave me, I felt as if I could finally see beyond it.
***
It was dark. I stood at the edge of a river, but it was one far younger than the one that flowed past the park and under the bridge and through the heart of New Orleans. A ship sat in a harbor, lanterns burning on her deck and her masts rising up into the starlit sky. I felt myself being swept toward it, and on it I could see thousands of pillars of light. They started to sing:
A! Elbereth Gilthoniel!
silivren penna mirel
o menel aglar elenath,
Gilthoniel, A! Elbereth!
We still remember, we who dwell
In this far land beneath the trees
The starlight on the Western Seas.
I knew then that they were my people. I called to them: "You have not forgotten!" And I could hear the tinkling of laughter.
"Forgetting is not something we do, little sister!" one called out to me. "You should know that better than all of us. Now come aboard, little spirit! And choose your name anew, for nevermore you will dwell in the shadows of this realm but bask evermore in the light."
I looked up at the stars. They, indeed, were the constellations I knew.
"Elbereth, Star-kindler, protect me from the darkness that descends upon me. Give me a light to lead me."
I felt a hand on my shoulder and, even before turning, I knew it was Celeb. Now more than ever I could see the wings on his shoulders, glistening in the moonlight like spun silver. It was then I knew why he chose his name.
The moon shone bright on his face, and I could see a light in his eyes that was not just the serenity of our people. I saw something else, amidst the starlight and the years--my reflection shown back at me within the depths, and as I stood there he lowered his face and put his mouth upon mine. Our breath mingled. When he drew away he said "they are waiting for you."
I stood still; so afraid to speak for fear the happiness would leave me. "It was you who made this possible, for me to see our people again," I said. "It is you ... who laid claim on my heart." I grasped his hands. "Will you come with me?"
"For a little while," he said, "until He calls me back again. Will you take the yoke?" I ran one of my hands over his wings, the feathers like silk under my fingers. My question I dared not speak. "You will, in time," he said, smiling at me. "You must earn them, but yours will be as beautiful as the heart inside of you."
"I cannot believe it." I turned towards the boat again. The elves had lifted their voices again in song, and my heart leaped with the melody of it. "I thought I would never see this again. I feel as if I am made anew, like the hollowness is filled, the burden less." I reached up, traced his cheek with the back of my hand. "I will take the yoke, Celeb. I choose it."
He kissed me again. "I had hoped it would be so." He led me up the plank, and the elves to the sides of us bowed respectfully to him, as they would do to any prince of the race. If they bowed to me I did not know, because my eyes were turned toward the pillar of light that awaited me in the doorway. It was my mother, my real mother, and as she embraced me I felt like a child again. I twined my hands into her white skirts, her long black hair shading my face like a curtain.
She lifted me to my feet and said "do not ever again cast a shadow over your features, little one. Be as beautiful as Iluvatar meant you to be." My glamour melted away, and since then I have forgotten the words to cast it again.
"What name shall we call you?" Celeb asked me.
"Arëwen," I said. "For I found my saving in the sunrise." And a great cheer was let up from all aboard.
As we undocked and set forth from shore, I looked back towards the land and found my heart heavy. Celeb came near. "What is wrong?"
"My quiver and arrows," I said. "They were stolen. I would hate to think that they are trying to be sold right now. Or laying in some alleyway, discarded because they were of no monetary worth."
"Never fear, my love," Celeb said. "For as soon as it was taken from your apartment it dissolved into ashes." When he still saw that I was sorrowful, he traced my cheek. "Yet that is not really what is bothering you. You wonder what will happen to this world."
"I do." I turned to him. "When the woman tempted me, she said that the Desert God was ready to fall. What did she mean?"
"She is deceived," he said. "It was how she was brought into the service of the Dark, so she thinks that it is Truth. The things that she told you, they are the products of the evil filtering in to what is ultimately good, turning God-inspired works into abominations. The crusades the political agenda of a Pope, the church corruption the weakness of the human to sin, the abused Scriptures a spoken reality taken out of context and construed to fit the notions of a politician or an age. Though a war is going on between the forces, waged in the battlefield of earth and within the human mind, the Light will always triumph overall. His Face is sometimes terrible, sometimes wrathful, but He is the ultimate good, for He is above all things. Since we are all His Creation--men, angels, elves--and the Enemy is a perversion of that Creation, He has dominion over it for the sole reason that the potter has dominion over his clay." He looked out to the sea again. "The real battle is for the souls. There are innocents to save and traitors to turn back to the Light. God loves them all, would have us storm the very bowels of Hell to save just one child, and we must rescue all the ones we can from the coming darkness."
"You are a soldier." I don't know why I was shocked, for now I saw it was written in every line of his face, the stance of his body, the movement of his feet.
"This is true. And I fight ever against doubt, against darkness, against despair. It is my duty. And yours," and he kissed my hair.
I remember standing on board the ship looking out across towards the land, and seeing the lights of the city wink out one by one as the sun ascended. I remember the sky gleaming a soft shade of violet, and the water turning the purest gray-blue. The glint of the sun shone on the windows of the buildings in the world behind me, and as I turned towards the west the skyline shimmered then faded, as the darkness was replaced by the light of the eternal morning.
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