Celebrimbor halted the horses well away from the tower. "Stay!" he told
them firmly.
Artanis jumped out of the carriage without letting him help her down. "Why are you doing this?!" she demanded.
"Quietly!" he hissed, darting a glance at the tower.
She glared at him. "It's because he likes me... As if that were any of your business."
He glared back, "That has nothing to do with it! Not for me, anyway. Just because he likes you... you're going to let him go sneaking around! He's up to something; he lied to us!"
"So what?" she demanded. "Who cares? His damned secret, whatever it is, has nothing to do with us!"
Celebrimbor gave her a pleading gaze. "Don't you want to find out though? I mean, what could it be? Do you suppose it has something to do with the Valar? Or with Melkor? He's been talking to everyone, you know. And he loves to stir up trouble; even your father says so. And wouldn't Celeborn be a perfect subject for his little games, unjustly disowned and all of that?"
A tendril of fear crept into Artanis' heart. "But Melkor likes to stay in town, with lots of people around." But she too remembered what Finarfin had noticed about the renegade Vala. Certainly he no longer killed or kidnapped elves or bred monsters. He seemed to have much more fun just saying a few words here and there and watching them turn on each other. Gossip is powerful stuff, her father had remarked, and power can be a heady thing. Why would Melkor want to go back to his cold, boring empire in Middle Earth?
"He wouldn't come out here," she insisted, more for her own benefit than for Celebrimbor's. But her nagging doubts reminded her that here was not far at all from Tirion, only half a day's travel for an elf, far less for a Vala.
They walked quietly to the tower, to be greeted only by silence. Cautiously, they circled around to the other side and looked down into the valley. Celeborn's long silver hair made him easy to pick out in the starlit valley. But Artanis did not recognize the elves working with him. Their slight build and lilting voices identified them as Teleri.
"I guess Olwë must have given him some henchmen after all." Celebrimbor sounded disappointed.
"No," said Artanis softly. "Celeborn would have told us. Instead he tried to make us think he was left here alone. And my mother was pretty sure he was alone. She would know about these things. Whoever they are, they're not supposed to be here."
Baffled, Celebrimbor began to sidle back around the tower, but when Artanis cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted: "Hello down there!" he slumped against the wall in defeat.
Celeborn looked up sharply, and two of the elves with him ducked into the woods, but the others stood their ground. Celeborn gestured at Artanis to wait and headed towards the rope and platform. The dogs returned with him, thoroughly delighted to see their visitors once more.
"So who are they?" Celebrimbor gestured to the Teleri, who had gone back to work below.
"Exiles from Alqualondë," Celeborn replied calmly. "I've given them refuge here."
"Would these be the sailors who mutinied against your father?" Artanis asked casually.
Celeborn nodded. "They tired of the hospitality of Valimar. They're hard workers."
Celebrimbor stared, shocked. "They mutinied? Why would you trust them? Aren't you going to get into trouble?"
Celeborn shrugged, "Depends on who hears about them being here. I was sort of hoping no-one would."
"But what do you need outlaws for?" Celebrimbor looked baffled, but Artanis had a terrible suspicion of the answer.
"To build a ship," she said, "To go to Middle Earth, right?"
Celeborn's dark eyes registered nothing but he looked back down at the valley and answered her. "Yes, they're able mariners, and as I said, hard workers. Their only mistake on that last voyage was to mutiny too late."
"Too late!" Celebrimbor sputtered, glaring at both of them.
"They had almost run out of water, and the winds were dying down. They demanded to turn around before they were completely becalmed."
Artanis protested "But they were overcome by loyal crewman, and your father discovered the Skerries, where there was fresh water to be had, and so everyone got back alright."
"Not exactly," Celeborn turned back to them. "The mutiny was overcome, but they were becalmed by then. My father decided to cast the mutineers overboard, to save water, and he was within his rights by the laws of the sea. But he had been missing from port for too long and King Olwë petitioned Ossë to search for him. Ossë found the ship just in time, and carried them to the Skerries. My father wanted to carry on, felt that he had to be halfway to Middle Earth, but Ossë demanded that he return to Alqualondë and provided winds to do so. So the mutineers were exiled, and without support from the King, my father has been unable to find crew for his ship since. She's been hauled up in dry-dock for forty years."
"Why didn't he let you have that ship?" Celebrimbor asked earnestly. "Does this have anything to do with why disowned you?"
Celeborn let out a harsh laugh, the first laughter Artanis had ever heard from him. "The simple answer to your question is almost certainly 'yes'. If you want a longer answer, you'd have to get it from him. I never will."
"Why do you want to go to Middle Earth?" Celebrimbor went on.
"Why not? Why would I want to stay here? Some of us are still there, you know. Elwë, the original king of the Teleri, and most of our kin. Melkor's been gone for a long time, so I suspect they're doing pretty well. If I can set up trade between here and there, I'll need no-one's approval to go on with my life."
"I thought Elwë was dead!" Celebrimbor commented. Artanis wandered away from them, looking up at the dam and wondering how far the valley below it extended before it reached the Sea.
***
The two of them ended up staying the night, Celeborn giving up his bed for Artanis. Much to her relief, Celebrimbor was excited enough about the project to be sworn to silence in exchange for being let in on the plans.
"I'll need to borrow more horses to drag these logs down to what's left of the river," Celeborn explained the next morning, as they walked along the valley. "But the trees up here are tall enough to give me the masts and long boards I'll need, while the ones by the river are only fit for shorter pieces."
Celebrimbor fretted over the difficulties of forging blades for the sawmill without being noticed. "We could borrow some," Artanis proposed. "Everyone is always sending them back to my father for sharpening. Half the time, he'd rather give them new ones from the stores than rush around getting sharpened right away."
She looked up at the dam above them, "If we could get part of that down, we'd have a falls and rapids right near the best lumber. You could power a pretty good mill with that."
Celeborn shook his head. "I have no idea how to even put a dent in that kind of stonework. On the other hand, I'm terrified that if I do manage to take a little off the top that the whole thing will come down all at once when I least expect it. Then I'll have a great deal more of a rapids than I want."
"It will have to be the whole thing or none of it," Celebrimbor confirmed.
"That's the end of it, then," Celeborn remarked. "I can think of no way to bring the whole dam down at once. I don't know how it was even built to begin with!"
"With the help of the Valar," Artanis speculated, "Especially if it was King Finwë who built it."
"The Valar... I may have a solution." Celebrimbor smiled up at the dam and Artanis knew that there was no way to make him tell them what he had planned. But that dam's days were numbered, that was for certain.
***
Finarfin calmly accepted Artanis' explanation that Celeborn was working on several projects at Ringlin and would be unable to join them until the end of the year. He also seemed unsurprised when she announced her intention of visiting him again later that week. "You'll need an escort," he remarked.
"Since when?!" she yelped.
"Since you're old enough not to be visiting a young fellow with no one else around." Finarfin didn't even look up from his toast.
"You let me go out with Celebrimbor..."
"He doesn't worry me, at least, not with respect to you. See if he'll go visit Celeborn with you."
Fuming, Artanis sent Celebrimbor a note. A day later, he arrived at Finarfin's house, full of complaints. "You wouldn't believe how annoying they are. Grandfather's been shut up in his forge for a week, Father's too busy to talk to me, and the rest of them have been unbelievably tiresome. Hunting, of course, except Caranthir, who's locked himself in his room."
"You can bring these to Celeborn," Finarfin indicated a couple of huge mill blades being laden onto a cart, and tossed a small bag in beside them. It clinked when it landed. "I won't take any money for them; they're used, and he's welcome to them. Guess he's putting in some bridges, not that anyone will be using them, but I suppose it's good practice."
Celebrimbor grumbled further about driving up to Ringlin on the cart instead of in his carriage, so Artanis had riding horses saddled and told him that they would lead the cart horses.
Celeborn was not at the tower when they arrived, but a nervous Teleri woman was there, sweeping the floors. "His lordship's at the river, my lady. They're building a mill."
"Can I go, Mum? I'll show them where it is," a raggedly dressed girl of no more than thirty-five demanded from behind her mother.
"Let's go then." Celebrimbor sighed. The girl ran ahead of them and jumped into the cart. Artanis wondered whether to be amused or annoyed by her. It took longer to bring the cart down the switchbacks into the valley than it did to reach the remains of the river, fed by a tributary from another valley. They found the sawmill without help, as the girl forgot about her self-assigned mission and chattered about herself and her family the whole way there. She had been born and raised in exile, Artanis realized, pitying her, and she had no idea of who Artanis and Celebrimbor were or who she herself was in relation to them.
The sawmill itself was an unfinished log building, with a water wheel already in place. Celeborn came outside as they drew near, accompanied by one of the Teleri, who pulled the chattering girl roughly from the cart and began to scold her. Celeborn looked over the saws with satisfaction, but stared when Artanis handed his money back to him. "They're used, like I said," she told him and he nodded blankly.
Artanis rode back to Celeborn's tower alone for the night. She woke early the next morning and, on a whim, she braided her hair on top of her head and went on a long run for the first time since the race. She sprinted back and forth along the switchbacks but took the miles from the dam to the sawmill more slowly. Celeborn was there, splitting shingles from the end of a rough-cut log with an axe. He was wearing only a light kilt. Artanis managed not to stare as she ran up beside him.
Two of the Teleri mariners, dragging a short log into the mill looked at her in alarm. "Are ye alright, milady?" one of them asked her.
She nodded, forcing her breath to return to normal, "Just training, for a race."
The Teleri nodded, looking unconvinced. Celeborn looked up from his work. If he was amused, he certainly didn't show it.
"It's true, you know," the mariner's partner muttered to him in the dialect of the Teleri, "She runs against the men and those Vanyar girls. Her mother, our princess, named her Nerwen, for she's a match for 'em."
Artanis felt her cheeks grow hot. Celeborn looked back at the log, but did not resume chopping. "She did that to me when I was born," Artanis growled, more frustrated with herself than with Celeborn. "I know babies are kind of androgynous, but that's ridiculous." Especially when she was taller than most of the boys she knew, even Celebrimbor, and would still be taller than them once they were grown.
"You don't care much for your father-name either," Celeborn observed sympathetically, handing her a water-skin. "It does seem a little... bland for you," Artanis looked away from the quiet admiration in his eyes. How could he look at her like that when she was sweaty, windblown, and exhausted?
He stood beside her, fidgeting for a moment, then looking back at her. "Galadriel," he said suddenly, then just as abruptly turned away, hacking at the log more enthusiastically than before. 'Maiden crowned in radiance'... he meant her.
She felt her cheeks grow hot again. "That's much too fine a name for me." Celeborn did not look up.
Artanis jumped out of the carriage without letting him help her down. "Why are you doing this?!" she demanded.
"Quietly!" he hissed, darting a glance at the tower.
She glared at him. "It's because he likes me... As if that were any of your business."
He glared back, "That has nothing to do with it! Not for me, anyway. Just because he likes you... you're going to let him go sneaking around! He's up to something; he lied to us!"
"So what?" she demanded. "Who cares? His damned secret, whatever it is, has nothing to do with us!"
Celebrimbor gave her a pleading gaze. "Don't you want to find out though? I mean, what could it be? Do you suppose it has something to do with the Valar? Or with Melkor? He's been talking to everyone, you know. And he loves to stir up trouble; even your father says so. And wouldn't Celeborn be a perfect subject for his little games, unjustly disowned and all of that?"
A tendril of fear crept into Artanis' heart. "But Melkor likes to stay in town, with lots of people around." But she too remembered what Finarfin had noticed about the renegade Vala. Certainly he no longer killed or kidnapped elves or bred monsters. He seemed to have much more fun just saying a few words here and there and watching them turn on each other. Gossip is powerful stuff, her father had remarked, and power can be a heady thing. Why would Melkor want to go back to his cold, boring empire in Middle Earth?
"He wouldn't come out here," she insisted, more for her own benefit than for Celebrimbor's. But her nagging doubts reminded her that here was not far at all from Tirion, only half a day's travel for an elf, far less for a Vala.
They walked quietly to the tower, to be greeted only by silence. Cautiously, they circled around to the other side and looked down into the valley. Celeborn's long silver hair made him easy to pick out in the starlit valley. But Artanis did not recognize the elves working with him. Their slight build and lilting voices identified them as Teleri.
"I guess Olwë must have given him some henchmen after all." Celebrimbor sounded disappointed.
"No," said Artanis softly. "Celeborn would have told us. Instead he tried to make us think he was left here alone. And my mother was pretty sure he was alone. She would know about these things. Whoever they are, they're not supposed to be here."
Baffled, Celebrimbor began to sidle back around the tower, but when Artanis cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted: "Hello down there!" he slumped against the wall in defeat.
Celeborn looked up sharply, and two of the elves with him ducked into the woods, but the others stood their ground. Celeborn gestured at Artanis to wait and headed towards the rope and platform. The dogs returned with him, thoroughly delighted to see their visitors once more.
"So who are they?" Celebrimbor gestured to the Teleri, who had gone back to work below.
"Exiles from Alqualondë," Celeborn replied calmly. "I've given them refuge here."
"Would these be the sailors who mutinied against your father?" Artanis asked casually.
Celeborn nodded. "They tired of the hospitality of Valimar. They're hard workers."
Celebrimbor stared, shocked. "They mutinied? Why would you trust them? Aren't you going to get into trouble?"
Celeborn shrugged, "Depends on who hears about them being here. I was sort of hoping no-one would."
"But what do you need outlaws for?" Celebrimbor looked baffled, but Artanis had a terrible suspicion of the answer.
"To build a ship," she said, "To go to Middle Earth, right?"
Celeborn's dark eyes registered nothing but he looked back down at the valley and answered her. "Yes, they're able mariners, and as I said, hard workers. Their only mistake on that last voyage was to mutiny too late."
"Too late!" Celebrimbor sputtered, glaring at both of them.
"They had almost run out of water, and the winds were dying down. They demanded to turn around before they were completely becalmed."
Artanis protested "But they were overcome by loyal crewman, and your father discovered the Skerries, where there was fresh water to be had, and so everyone got back alright."
"Not exactly," Celeborn turned back to them. "The mutiny was overcome, but they were becalmed by then. My father decided to cast the mutineers overboard, to save water, and he was within his rights by the laws of the sea. But he had been missing from port for too long and King Olwë petitioned Ossë to search for him. Ossë found the ship just in time, and carried them to the Skerries. My father wanted to carry on, felt that he had to be halfway to Middle Earth, but Ossë demanded that he return to Alqualondë and provided winds to do so. So the mutineers were exiled, and without support from the King, my father has been unable to find crew for his ship since. She's been hauled up in dry-dock for forty years."
"Why didn't he let you have that ship?" Celebrimbor asked earnestly. "Does this have anything to do with why disowned you?"
Celeborn let out a harsh laugh, the first laughter Artanis had ever heard from him. "The simple answer to your question is almost certainly 'yes'. If you want a longer answer, you'd have to get it from him. I never will."
"Why do you want to go to Middle Earth?" Celebrimbor went on.
"Why not? Why would I want to stay here? Some of us are still there, you know. Elwë, the original king of the Teleri, and most of our kin. Melkor's been gone for a long time, so I suspect they're doing pretty well. If I can set up trade between here and there, I'll need no-one's approval to go on with my life."
"I thought Elwë was dead!" Celebrimbor commented. Artanis wandered away from them, looking up at the dam and wondering how far the valley below it extended before it reached the Sea.
***
The two of them ended up staying the night, Celeborn giving up his bed for Artanis. Much to her relief, Celebrimbor was excited enough about the project to be sworn to silence in exchange for being let in on the plans.
"I'll need to borrow more horses to drag these logs down to what's left of the river," Celeborn explained the next morning, as they walked along the valley. "But the trees up here are tall enough to give me the masts and long boards I'll need, while the ones by the river are only fit for shorter pieces."
Celebrimbor fretted over the difficulties of forging blades for the sawmill without being noticed. "We could borrow some," Artanis proposed. "Everyone is always sending them back to my father for sharpening. Half the time, he'd rather give them new ones from the stores than rush around getting sharpened right away."
She looked up at the dam above them, "If we could get part of that down, we'd have a falls and rapids right near the best lumber. You could power a pretty good mill with that."
Celeborn shook his head. "I have no idea how to even put a dent in that kind of stonework. On the other hand, I'm terrified that if I do manage to take a little off the top that the whole thing will come down all at once when I least expect it. Then I'll have a great deal more of a rapids than I want."
"It will have to be the whole thing or none of it," Celebrimbor confirmed.
"That's the end of it, then," Celeborn remarked. "I can think of no way to bring the whole dam down at once. I don't know how it was even built to begin with!"
"With the help of the Valar," Artanis speculated, "Especially if it was King Finwë who built it."
"The Valar... I may have a solution." Celebrimbor smiled up at the dam and Artanis knew that there was no way to make him tell them what he had planned. But that dam's days were numbered, that was for certain.
***
Finarfin calmly accepted Artanis' explanation that Celeborn was working on several projects at Ringlin and would be unable to join them until the end of the year. He also seemed unsurprised when she announced her intention of visiting him again later that week. "You'll need an escort," he remarked.
"Since when?!" she yelped.
"Since you're old enough not to be visiting a young fellow with no one else around." Finarfin didn't even look up from his toast.
"You let me go out with Celebrimbor..."
"He doesn't worry me, at least, not with respect to you. See if he'll go visit Celeborn with you."
Fuming, Artanis sent Celebrimbor a note. A day later, he arrived at Finarfin's house, full of complaints. "You wouldn't believe how annoying they are. Grandfather's been shut up in his forge for a week, Father's too busy to talk to me, and the rest of them have been unbelievably tiresome. Hunting, of course, except Caranthir, who's locked himself in his room."
"You can bring these to Celeborn," Finarfin indicated a couple of huge mill blades being laden onto a cart, and tossed a small bag in beside them. It clinked when it landed. "I won't take any money for them; they're used, and he's welcome to them. Guess he's putting in some bridges, not that anyone will be using them, but I suppose it's good practice."
Celebrimbor grumbled further about driving up to Ringlin on the cart instead of in his carriage, so Artanis had riding horses saddled and told him that they would lead the cart horses.
Celeborn was not at the tower when they arrived, but a nervous Teleri woman was there, sweeping the floors. "His lordship's at the river, my lady. They're building a mill."
"Can I go, Mum? I'll show them where it is," a raggedly dressed girl of no more than thirty-five demanded from behind her mother.
"Let's go then." Celebrimbor sighed. The girl ran ahead of them and jumped into the cart. Artanis wondered whether to be amused or annoyed by her. It took longer to bring the cart down the switchbacks into the valley than it did to reach the remains of the river, fed by a tributary from another valley. They found the sawmill without help, as the girl forgot about her self-assigned mission and chattered about herself and her family the whole way there. She had been born and raised in exile, Artanis realized, pitying her, and she had no idea of who Artanis and Celebrimbor were or who she herself was in relation to them.
The sawmill itself was an unfinished log building, with a water wheel already in place. Celeborn came outside as they drew near, accompanied by one of the Teleri, who pulled the chattering girl roughly from the cart and began to scold her. Celeborn looked over the saws with satisfaction, but stared when Artanis handed his money back to him. "They're used, like I said," she told him and he nodded blankly.
Artanis rode back to Celeborn's tower alone for the night. She woke early the next morning and, on a whim, she braided her hair on top of her head and went on a long run for the first time since the race. She sprinted back and forth along the switchbacks but took the miles from the dam to the sawmill more slowly. Celeborn was there, splitting shingles from the end of a rough-cut log with an axe. He was wearing only a light kilt. Artanis managed not to stare as she ran up beside him.
Two of the Teleri mariners, dragging a short log into the mill looked at her in alarm. "Are ye alright, milady?" one of them asked her.
She nodded, forcing her breath to return to normal, "Just training, for a race."
The Teleri nodded, looking unconvinced. Celeborn looked up from his work. If he was amused, he certainly didn't show it.
"It's true, you know," the mariner's partner muttered to him in the dialect of the Teleri, "She runs against the men and those Vanyar girls. Her mother, our princess, named her Nerwen, for she's a match for 'em."
Artanis felt her cheeks grow hot. Celeborn looked back at the log, but did not resume chopping. "She did that to me when I was born," Artanis growled, more frustrated with herself than with Celeborn. "I know babies are kind of androgynous, but that's ridiculous." Especially when she was taller than most of the boys she knew, even Celebrimbor, and would still be taller than them once they were grown.
"You don't care much for your father-name either," Celeborn observed sympathetically, handing her a water-skin. "It does seem a little... bland for you," Artanis looked away from the quiet admiration in his eyes. How could he look at her like that when she was sweaty, windblown, and exhausted?
He stood beside her, fidgeting for a moment, then looking back at her. "Galadriel," he said suddenly, then just as abruptly turned away, hacking at the log more enthusiastically than before. 'Maiden crowned in radiance'... he meant her.
She felt her cheeks grow hot again. "That's much too fine a name for me." Celeborn did not look up.