Author's note:
I am dreadfully sorry for the unforgivable long delay. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.
I had a crisis of sorts over this fic that sucked the creative energy right out of me, and I had more or less decided to kill the story, but my Muse is a stubborn old thing that wouldn't give me any peace until Maeldhuin and Gilthaethil had fulfilled their quest.
At the risk of being long-winded, I feel a need to explain a few things about these characters and the genesis of this story. PlasticChevy, the gifted author of LoTR fics Where Dreams Take You, The Captain and the King, and The Steward's Tale (if you haven't read them yet, shame on you), asked me to compose a story about her OC Gilthaethil's namesake. The only constraint was that this Gilthaethil had to be an Elvish heroine of the Second Age.
I knew from the outset that there would be a risk of Gilthaethil being perceived as a Mary-Sue. As Chevy pointed out, any female, heroic OC runs that risk, and if she turns out to be the hitherto unknown daughter of a cannon Elf lord, well, she's practically doomed, I might add.
To those who persist in seeing Gilthaethil as a Mary-Sue, there's nothing I can do but to beg your indulgence, and ask that you keep reading and reserve judgment until the end. Then if you still see her in that light, so be it.
Okay, enough blabbering, and on to chapter seven.
Enjoy! (And I still want to know what you think.)
Annys
P.s.: Thanks for the lovely reviews Lucideye, and Erunyauve. They are what drew me out of my creative funk.
P.p.s.: Those of you who read the ends of stories first, and want to read the very abridged version of this tale, can find Faramir's telling of it in Chapter Seventeen of The Captain and the King, also on ff.net. Cheers, Annys.
* * *
Chapter Seven – The Road Less Travelled
Maeldhuin was beginning to believe he would surely see the passing of the age ere his task were done. The leagues that separated him from Mithlond were crawling by with agonizing slowness as he and Gilthaethil plodded their way northwards.
He understood the risks they faced, and knew they could travel no faster without raising suspicions in every village they crossed. At Gilthaethil's insistence, he had agreed to travel in sluggish stealth. He'd said nothing, but every fibre of his being ached to have done with this funereal pace, to kick his horse to a full gallop, and disappear down the road in a billowing cloud of dust.
He gave a long-suffering sigh and fought the urge to glance over his shoulder at his companion. He could picture her air of detached contentment without looking. Doubtless she rode in blissful serenity, taking pleasure in the bucolic surroundings, giving little thought to the urgency of their mission or the dire need of his people.
Gilthaethil gave a shrill whistle. Maeldhuin, startled, spun 'round and watched with annoyance as the circling kestrel alighted on her outstretched arm. With her free hand, Gilthaethil reached into her pouch and drew out some bloody dripping thing, which she fed the bird with much cooing and murmuring.
"If this little bit of squirrel meat offends your delicacy, how will your stomach endure the task ahead?" she laughed, catching his sidelong look of revulsion.
"Pray, do not concern yourself for my stomach, Lady. 'Tis not the meat that offends me, but the surfeit of clucking baby-talk." Gilthaethil laughed and turned her attentions back to the bird.
Eru's teeth! Did she think him some untried novice who would let slip his disguise at the first hint of danger? He was no stranger to subterfuge and had no qualms about travelling under a borrowed guise. He could endure whatever task duty set to him, but why, in the name of all the heavens, must he pretend to be a healer? They had debated the point one entire day's ride, until, grown weary of arguing, he had reluctantly agreed to pose as Gilthaethil's apprentice.
Thus they would travel tending to the ills and ailments of the simple folk who dwelt in scattered settlements on the western bank of the Lhûn, holding the villagers' interest for a day or two, then quickly forgotten as soon as the road carried them to the next hamlet.
After the first day's halt, rumour of their coming had flown before them, and at the end of the second day's journeying, they had no sooner dismounted, that villagers crowded about them, begging cures for the ills and infirmities that so readily plagued the Second Born. With an inward sigh, Maeldhuin slid from his horse, wincing only slightly as his rapidly healing foot touched the ground. He stamped his foot once to set the blood flowing, then giving no further thought to his injury, made his way through the throng.
A horde of peasants pressed close about him, and he regarded them with equal parts of pity and revulsion, even as they wheezed, and coughed, and waved their lesions in his face. He was not without compassion, and he had no desire to appear uncaring, but heavy as it was, his heart could not bear the added misery of Men. And so he turned away, holding himself aloof, wondering all the while how Gilthaethil could lavish care on creatures that would still age and sicken and die.
"Wipe that hangman's look off your face," Gilthaethil whispered in Sindarin. At Maeldhuin's blank response, she explained, slowly, "They will think they are dying."
"Are they not?"
She was trying to think of a suitable reply, when a tug on her sleeve drew her back to her duty. Even as she busied herself with a pale and listless child, she considered Maeldhuin's reluctance to deal with Men. She could not understand his disdain. Only the coldest of hearts would be indifferent to the suffering plight of these simple folk.
From the moment of their birth, Men were carried inexorably towards the grave. For some, the journey would last full measure of years, while others, like this small, frail child on her knee, would see but a handful of summers and be gone. She swallowed hard to ease the tightness in her throat, ruffled the poppet's hair, and, forcing a smile onto her lips, she pressed a bundle of herbs in the mother's callused hand.
Maeldhuin watched wordlessly from the shadows, until the woman herded the last of her scrawny brood out of the alehouse, then stepped forward. "Why trouble yourself? The babe will not live see another spring"
"Would you have me sit on my hands and do nothing? At the least, I may ease the boy's suffering."
"It is no mercy to kindle false hopes."
"It is not my intent that I should. They know what fate awaits their child, and they understand, better than we can imagine, how fragile is the thread that binds them to this life. And yet they would still have me try."
"Would not a swift end be kinder?"
"Then you must pray that the Valar will be merciful, for that is one kindness my oath will not allow me to administer."
Cowed for the present, Maeldhuin drew back into the shadows, and pondered new questions that would, like all the others before, remain unanswered. The crowd grew as the evening wore on, and the herald had no choice but to swallow his revulsion and spend the hours of darkness cleaning wounds, changing dressings, and rubbing salves into joints rendered stiff by age and hard use.
When the sun rose again, they packed their medicines, mounted their horses, and made their way towards the next settlement.
As he rode, Maeldhuin considered all that he had seen tending to the ills the Men. From behind the folds of her hood, Gilthaethil regarded him thoughtfully. Had he not been so enwrapped in his own thoughts, he would have noticed the healer's eyes shining with an uncharacteristic gentleness.
"You begin to understand, Herald," Gilthaethil said some time later, when they stopped to water the horses. "You have had few dealings with Men, and none, I deem, with the common folk. Have you never allowed yourself to befriend even one of them?
The Herald shook his head. "To what purpose? The sorrow of parting would last longer than the comfort such friendship might bring. Besides," he laughed mirthlessly, "they have cares and concerns of their own, and little time to waste on the starry-eyed dreams of the Eldar."
Gilthaethil gave a quiet chuckle. "We are not as different as you think. We share the same hopes, the same griefs, even the same dreams. But, while we may spend ages in their pursuit, Men are accorded but a few score of years ere they pass to the halls of their fathers. True, their lives are brief and filled with toil and sorrow, yet for all that their flame burns briefly, it gives a brilliant light."
"While even now," Maeldhuin sighed, "our flame flickers and begins to fade, and will leave behind only dimly-remembered tales for the children of Men to learn at their grandams' knee."
Gilthaethil glimpsed through his bitterness, the grief her companion thought to conceal behind a mask of indifference. His heart was not so cold. She would make a healer of him yet.
* * *
For all that he was growing into his assumed role, Maeldhuin never lost sight of his true purpose. Nor could he shake the feeling of cold eyes fixed on the back of his neck. Ever, as he rode, he strained to make out the distant hoof beats of pursuit. But the road was silent. Their flight, it seemed, had gone unchecked, unnoticed, even. Perhaps, the dreaded chase had not yet come, but still his instincts warned him against complacency.
The leagues lengthened behind them. Holdings grew scattered and then scarce. The road, a deeply-rutted thoroughfare near Mithlond, was barely marked this far from the Havens, and with the passing of the fifth night of their flight, long after the mists had swallowed the last desolate homestead, it came to an abrupt halt, leaving in its stead a single narrow track of beaten earth.
"Is this it, then?"
Gilthaethil answered with a shrug.
Spying a tall spruce, Maeldhuin sprang from his mount, and swung himself up into the tree. Leaping lightly from limb to limb, he soon reached the upper branches, where he cast his long sight across the bleak northern wasteland. As he did, he felt a surge of hope swell within his breast. North, East, South, and West: the countryside lay desolate and still.
One scar only marred the vast expanse of evergreens beneath his gaze. A patch of rough, treeless ground some distance removed, overgrown with matted vines. A dense tangle of winter dry foliage obscured the contours of the clearing, but even beneath its mantle, the circle stood out clearly, too clearly to have been drawn by some accident of nature.
He scrambled down the tall evergreen, and leaving the horses in his companion's care, he went to make a closer inspection.
Fearing an ambush at any instant, he crept from tree to tree, until he stood on the very edge of the clearing. At its centre, barely visible beneath a brittle tracery of dead vines, a circle of stones lay charred and tumbled in drunken disarray.
Though the forest was silent and still, the circle itself seemed to cast a spell, moving his feet, independently of his will, drawing him to the very edge of the ruins. With the song of the stones wailing and thrumming in his ears, he stepped into the shattered circle. He stopped before what might once have been an altar of sorts, and lightly trailed a finger across the stained surface. The cold seeped from the stone into his veins, to touch his heart with a sliver of icy dread.
All of a sudden, pain and despair slammed into him, flooding his senses with such fear horror, that he cried from the very anguish of it, and recoiled from the altar.
He fell backwards, clutching at the pouch against his chest. Catching his breath, he tried to gather his wits about him. It made no sense. He struggled to picture the maps he'd studied in his master's study. Falathar would have known who had set these stones, and what power had brought them down, but Falathar was lost. And only the stones held the memory of the folk who had dwelt here and of the grief that had befallen them. Like the ruins of his own City.
Ost-in-Edhil would share this fate. The memory of its people would bleed into the earth, leaving only charred rock and desolation where once the City of the Jewel Smiths had glittered beneath the heavens.
He gave a strangled cry. With tears flooding his eyes, and the keening of the stones thrumming in his ears, he sped back to the place where Gilthaethil waited with the horses. He spoke not a word, but snatched the reins from her hands and vaulted onto the roan's back.
"Maeldhuin, wait!"
He had waited long enough and had wasted far too much time already.
"What is it, what did you see?"
The roan snorted and tossed its mane. Though no Elvish steed, it sensed something of its rider's need, and twitched with impatience. Maeldhuin crouched low over its neck, and the animal, needing no spur but a single whispered command, tossed back its head, and neighed a challenge to its princely companion. Then, like an arrow released from the string, horse and rider disappeared down the narrow path.
Gilthaethil's courser, not to be outdone by a common hostler's hireling, answered the challenge with a call of his own and an instant later, no trace remained of the travellers but a faint cloud of settling dust and a fading drumbeat of hooves.
* * *
Winter had not entirely relinquished its hold on these bleak lands. The fitful sun had yet to melt the ice on the lakes and ponds, and ragged drifts of muddy snow lingered endlessly, waiting for the spring rains to loosen winter's grip. Bare branches reached for the riders, whipped their faces and tugged at their hair and garments, trying to pull them from their steeds as they raced ever northwards.
With nothing in the dull landscape to hold the herald's interest, his thoughts wandered far from the road, back wards down a path of despair, leading him, as they always did, to the ruins of his home. Lost in his dark musings, he did not heed Gilthaethil's cry of warning, until it was almost too late.
A sudden lurch and the hard scrabbling of hooves jolted him from his sombre reverie. The horses neighed wildly, and far above his head, the kestrel, wheeled and screeched in alarm.
He steadied himself with a handful of mane, blinked away the remnants of his dream, and cast a quick glance around.
An arm's length away, a dense thicket of briars blocked the path. In his distraction, he might have galloped headlong into a wall of thorns, each as long as his hand, and razor-sharp. He slid from the trembling animal's back. "Hush, my friend," he murmured, stroking the animal's face, and turned to his companion. "How comes this here?
"How would I know? You are the seasoned traveller, not I!"
The way was impassable. The thicket rose to the height of a dozen men, and stretched, without a breach, from a smooth rock face upon their left, to the sheer precipice that dropped away on their right, plunging to the river far below.
Abandoning the thicket, the herald drew closer to the rock wall, and ran his hands over its flawless surface. An age ago, the river had flowed this way, and for years beyond count, its waters had tumbled over this face, scouring away knobs and outcroppings, polishing the stone to glassy perfection. He studied its surface from top to bottom, but nowhere could he see the least flaw, crevice, or handhold to help him reach the summit.
Gilthaethil's voice cut into his contemplation. "Surely, you're not thinking of climbing it?"
Maeldhuin grunted a vague reply. "Bah! It's hopeless!" he muttered a moment later, and turned around to consider some other way.
Standing on the very edge of the precipice, the tips of his boots overhanging the ledge, he peered over the vertiginous drop, down to the river a good quarter-league below. A gnarled and stunted tree clung to a fissure halfway down the cliff, but it was the only living thing that could find purchase on this barren rock. This side was no better than the other!
Which left only the hedge itself. There was but one thing to do.
Taking a steadying breath, he turned slowly and drew his sword. With a searing cry born of grief and frustration, he hurled himself at the thicket, swinging his bright blade in a powerful arc and bringing it crashing down against the thorn-laden branches.
The shock of contact turned his arm to jelly, and with a clatter, the notched blade fell from his nerveless fingers.
Gilthaethil stood dumbstruck. The roadway was utterly silent save for the dying echoes of ringing steel. Mîm, startled into flight, settled back gently upon her mistress' shoulder, and both creatures, one staring with unblinking awe, the other in open-mouthed disbelief, watched the herald shake life back into his numbed arm.
Maeldhuin caught their look, muttered darkly in Noldorin, and drew himself to his full height with all the dignity he could muster. "Instead of standing, staring, and doing nothing, you might help us find a way out of here?"
"We might set it afire."
"And in so doing, cry out our presence to the world?"
"Then we must turn back, and retrace our steps until we find another way."
"There is no other way!"
"There is always another way."
"None that is open to us."
"Then we have no choice but to ride back to the last homestead we passed, and beg an axe."
"Nay, we have no time. What of the bird? Can you not command it to overfly this accursed wall, and tell you how deep it runs."
Gilthaethil threw him a look of pure disdain, and turned away.
He gripped her by the shoulder and spun her around. "Lady, I have encountered delay upon delay since stumbling into your glade. While my City languishes, we have done naught but dawdle, first in your cavern, then in Mithlond, we then dawdled our leisurely way through every godforsaken huddle of huts between the Gulf and Forochel.
"I have wasted too much time already, and cannot afford to turn back. My kin are dying!"
He took a shuddering breath, and when next he spoke, his features were composed, though his words kept their edge of steel. "I have no claim on your companionship. I do not hold you to my choice. If your heart tells you to turn back, then in good conscience do so. Take your horse, your goods, your charms, your potions, and hie yourself back to your glade."
There were daggers in Gilthaethil's eyes, but she clenched her fists, bit her tongue, and gave no voice to her most immediate thoughts.
She could not fault him his stubbornness. Though she had often wished for the waves to wash Mithlond and all its foolish inhabitants out to sea, in her heart, she knew that if Círdan were in mortal danger, she would be as single-minded in her quest to save him as Maeldhuin was in his.
She walked over to where he sat his back against the cliff, staring darkly at the dirt between his feet. "Thinking alone will not see you through that thicket," she said after a long silence. " 'Tis woven tighter than Melian's girdle."
He rose to his feet, and strode over to the unyielding wall. "I will not be thwarted by a simple hedge! Why, 'tis naught but a tangle of greenery," he said through clenched teeth. Bracing a foot against a knot of old wood, he began pulling and tugging at the briars.
Gilthaethil watched him for a moment, then kilted her skirts, rolled up her sleeves, and joined him at his the task. If her companion noticed her presence, he gave no sign, only muttering through gritted teeth as he did battle with the vines. The branches gave way, a little. "Ha! See? Let it never be said that Maeldhuin of Eregion was bested by a mindless, overgrown, houseplaaa—"
A resounding crack cut short the Herald's words. The briar wall shuddered, and herald and healer both, were sent tumbling and spinning. While Gilthaethil bounced once or twice on her rump and was still, Maeldhuin stumbled, fighting for balance, clutching a broken length of gnarled wood, until he came to a hard, inelegant stop with his nose pressed against the rock wall.
He felt his skin flush to the tip of his pointed ears. One more bumbling embarrassment to his discredit. Wincing in anticipation of his companion's inevitable rebuke, he risked a furtive glance over his shoulder.
But Gilthaethil gave no sign of having noticed. Her gaze was fixed instead upon the briar wall. Maeldhuin turned slowly around, and at once his dejected air was replaced by one of guarded hope.
In the centre of the thicket, a large portion of wall had split apart, revealing a low archway and beyond it, a path concealed in shadows.
They approached the entrance on silent feet. Maeldhuin took a step into the forbidding tunnel. "Nay!" Gilthaethil cried, and she reached for his arm, ready to pull him out at the first hint of danger.
"Let loose. I sense no malice here, only watchfulness, and ... fear?"
He tilted his head upwards, to the barbed canopy that closed a hair's breadth above his head. Staring into the tangled shadows, he gave a sour laugh. "Never have I seen the like of this. What do you make of it?"
Gilthaethil shrugged. She stepped into the archway, reached out a hand, closed her fingers around a twisted knob of wood, and grew still. Her eyes suddenly flew open. "They have voices!" she cried in alarm.
Maeldhuin took a step farther beneath the shadows, and pressed his hand against the living wood. After a long expectant silence, he felt himself enveloped by a deep sighing longing. The air was still, and he could still hear the buzz of insects and the breathing of the wind, but from the soles of his feet and creeping upwards, he felt the wordless plea of the coppice whispering all about him."
He opened her eyes and met Gilthaethil's gaze. The wonder he felt was mirrored in his companion's features.
"Can you understand their speech!"
He swallowed hard, and shook his head. "Scarcely. It is as old as the earth itself, deep as the
wells of time, and as slow as the passing of the ages. They speak of fear, loss and betrayal. Their voices are chill with warning."
"There is great wariness here, and little love of strangers."
"They are fearful, but not of us. They will suffer us to pass, I think, if they know our hearts to be
pure."
"How can we trust them?"
"What choice do we have?"
Maeldhuin's horse approached the hedge, eager to nibble the first of the tender spring foliage. As Maeldhuin pushed it away, realization struck. "We must leave the horses behind," he said, his grey eyes wide with dismay. "The canopy is too low, they cannot pass unharmed. Gilthaethil, will you take them back?"
"And leave you alone? They are wise beasts. They can find their way home without my aid."
Maeldhuin's concern was not solely for the well being of the animals. Gilthaethil could not fathom the dangers they might soon face. And if he fell, what would become of her? Fear and doubt crept into his heart. Instinctively, he reached for he pouch at his breast. Courage and strength returned, and with them, resolve. "The road is fraught with dangers, Gilthaethil, the like you have never imagined."
"Aye."
"Why then would you do this?"
She shrugged. "I am called. I cannot tell to what end."
"Who will tend your shrine and care for the creatures of the forest if you fail to return?"
"A keeper will be found. A keeper is always found."
Maeldhuin gave a rueful smile. He reached for her hands and felt the tremor in her fingers. "Is there aught I can say that will persuade you to return to your hilltop?"
Solemnly, as if swearing an oath, she shook her head.
Maeldhuin shrugged, resigned, having expected no other answer. Knowing his companion's resolve to be unshakable, he turned his thoughts instead to the problem of the horses. They would have need of swift, sure-footed mounts if ever they found their way to the other side of the wall. Yet how would he persuade the animals to follow them down such a dark and treacherous path?
Gilthaethil tore the hem from her cloak. "There is no need to abandon them. If we bind their eyes they will not fear the thorns or the darkness." Maeldhuin seemed uncertain, but Gilthaethil continued, "Trust me, I know animals. They will suffer us to lead them through the thicket. We will take care that they come to no harm. The thicket itself will do the rest."
The going was slow and tedious. The pathway was, in truth, barely more than a narrow space between the briars that twisted first one way, and then the other, threatening to impale them at every turn. How far they traveled thus, even Maeldhuin, seasoned traveller that he was, could not fathom. He had lost all sense of time, distance, and direction after only a few short strides beneath the briars.
Beneath their blindfolds the two horses shivered, for they could sense their masters' apprehension. But they loved and trusted them to let no hurt touch them. That trust was well repaid, and whether it was due to their masters' skill, or to some magic of the briars themselves, not one scratch did they suffer, though the thorns were never more than a finger's breadth away from their heads and flanks.
For an age, it seemed the travellers picked their way through the thorns, until the horses stumbled with fatigue, and even the tireless Elves were bent with weariness. At length, however, the air became more wholesome, and soon thereafter, a faint silver light puddled around their feet. Soon, it swirled about their knees, until Maeldhuin pushed aside one last thorn-laden branch, and the pair stepped into a pool of shimmering starlight.
The world appearing suddenly before them was one of breathtaking beauty. The cliffs, so high and forbidding on the southern side of the hedge, were no higher here than a common pasture wall. And although both companions would have sworn to having made no great descent, the river now gurgling sleepily but a few paces away told a different tale. Stars danced across the sky, and below, their light was caught in the heavy dew to cast nets of bright stars upon the ground. The river threw diamonds from its quicksilver surface back to the heavens above. Creatures with wings of lace and gossamer flitted through the night air, carrying filaments of starlight to pale flowers nodding drowsily in the soft night wind.
Maeldhuin and Gilthaethil were lost in awe and wonder, when without warning and almost without sound, the thicket behind them trembled, as if touched by the merest breath of wind. In the blink of an eye, the dark passageway vanished, leaving no trace of its existence.
And as the last shivering leaf settled into place, a sound remote and chillingly clear cut through the air, riving the night with a cry of pain and despair.
* * *
To be continued.