"Here's a letter from Galathil" Finarfin remarked some weeks later over
breakfast. Artanis looked up with a start. Since her last return from
Ringlin, almost five weeks before, Finarfin managed to find enough errands
and projects to keep her from slipping off to see Celeborn. Celeborn
himself had sent her back with a list and money to acquire materials,
particularly bolts of heavy cloth for sails, which Artanis had asked a
servant to buy and have delivered to Ringlin. Looking over at her,
Finarfin added, "And he includes a note he'd like sent on to his brother."
"I'll bring it!" she managed to sound offhand, but Finarfin laughed.
"And you were being so good about not pestering me to let you visit Celeborn!" he teased. Artanis turned red and glared at him. She snatched the letter and stalked off. "Remember," shouted Finarfin after her, "You're not going up there without one of your brothers or your cousins."
Fortunately, Celebrimbor was in Tirion that day. Artanis paced about the stables impatiently while his horses were being hitched to the carriage. Celebrimbor carried a box out of the house and tucked it under one of the seats.
"I have what we need in here," he grinned and looked at the box. Artanis looked back at him blankly. "To take down the dam, silly!"
"Oh," she replied. In all honesty, she had forgotten the dam.
"You'll see what it is when we get there," Celebrimbor promised her, although she hadn't asked.
This time, one of the Teleri mariners was watching from the tower, and Celeborn had come up from the valley to greet them as they arrived. Artanis handed him his letter as he helped her from the carriage.
"Are you ready?" Celebrimbor demanded, taking his box from the carriage. The dogs sniffed it impatiently. Celeborn looked up from the letter. "The dam!" Celebrimbor reminded him impatiently.
"Do you really think you can take it down? I've got the longest logs and boards bundled and ready to go."
"Of course I can take it down. It would be best if I just destroy part of it and let the rest go on its own over the next few days, to reduce the flood..." Carrying his box, Celebrimbor headed for the platform.
Celeborn persuaded him to put down the box and wait while the sawmill was dismantled enough to lift the saws onto the roof and tie them down. Likewise, the bundles of logs to be sent downstream were fastened to some of the remaining trees. "These were a little too thick to fell," Celeborn explained to Artanis as he lashed the last bundle of logs to a thickset maple, "So I hope that they will hold long enough to withstand the flood." He looked back on the tree sadly. "But its roots will be underwater afterwards."
Celebrimbor had Artanis and Celeborn lower the platform part of the way down then hold it in place while he opened his box and pulled out a chisel and hammer and started chipping at the dam.
"Is that all?" Celeborn looked baffled.
"Of course not! I just needed a little space between these blocks." Celebrimbor had skillfully knocked off chinks of stone from the corners of the blocks and pulled them out. He took a small chunk of something brownish out of the box and wedged it into the hole he had made. He tied a string coming out from the chunk to the edge of the platform. He had them continue lowering the platform and repeated the task four more times.
"Hope you're not too attached to this contraption; it's going down with this part of the dam," he warned Celeborn as they returned to the top. He untied the strings, separating them out carefully as Celeborn and several of the mariners salvaged the platform, rope, and pulley.
"Go over by the tower and stay there." Celebrimbor ordered them and they retreated. He carefully lit the strings on fire, one at a time, counting between each lighting. The strings burned down over the edge of the dam. After he lit the last string, Celebrimbor leapt to his feet and sprinted towards the tower. There was a sound like a thunderclap, and the ground shook. The top of the dam where the platform had been crumbled and the trees fell over the edge. There was another thunderclap, and another and another. By the last one, most of the dam was gone and most of the lake with it. Celebrimbor sprinted just ahead of the edge of the collapse.
Celebrimbor reached the tower and collapsed at their feet. "I should have told you to do it," he gasped. "You're the runners." Artanis looked down into the valley below. It was filling with water like a bathtub.
"What was that?" she demanded, turning back to Celebrimbor.
"Not sure." Celebrimbor gasped. "Father saw a Maia use it to rescue some of our men who were trapped in a mine. He figured out how to make it,and I just snuck a little of his stash away. I know how it works. He's used it a bunch of times to clear rockslides and so forth. As you can see, there's definitely an art to it."
"I can see that you almost got yourself killed! You almost went down with the dam!" Artanis snarled at him.
"How did you know it wouldn't take down the whole dam and the tower with it?" Celeborn asked more calmly.
Celebrimbor grinned back at them. "Just an educated guess." Artanis groaned and sat on the ground. Celeborn shook his head, then turned back to his men. They headed down the switchback. The floodwaters had already dropped quite a bit. For some reason, Artanis felt disappointed.
Celebrimbor stayed back in order to get a better look at the construction of the dam from what had been the inside of the lake, so Artanis went into the valley to watch Celeborn and the mariners assemble and pack rafts.
"We'll head down to the sea and build the shipyard there. We collected plenty of timber. See, there's the sailcloth and the nails you got me..." Celeborn gestured towards the rafts.
"How long will it take?"
"To build the ship? Only a few months. Some of the men have more experience than I do."
"I'm not going to be able to go see you out there, by the sea. Are you going to come up to Tirion?" Artanis looked back at him.
Celeborn blushed and looked down. "Well... I suppose I'll need more tools or we'll run out of resin... or something." He managed to look back up at her, "I'll come to see you." Artanis smiled and he looked away again.
***
Celeborn was never able to fulfill that promise. A couple of days later, Artanis' mother, Eärwen, returned from a visit to Alqalondë. "He's done it now," she declared theatrically, storming in as the family sat at dinner.
"Who, mother?" Finrod asked, more to be polite than because he actually wanted to know.
"Your kinsman, he used to be your kinsman anyway, until father let that idiot Galadhon disown him... Well, he's gone and knocked down a dam, a dam that Fëanor built, and of course Fëanor's gone howling to my father... I'd never have expected it, such a sensible lad Celeborn was."
Artanis realized that her father was looking at her, his expression betraying nothing. She kept her eyes focused on her plate and ate voraciously.
Of course, she couldn't depend on any degree of subtlety from the twins. "Isn't he your friend, Artanis?"
"That's right, you went up to the mountains to bring him stuff. You and Celebrimbor."
Artanis nodded and kept eating. They couldn't very well expect her to say anything if her mouth was full, now could they? Eärwen glanced over at her, then proceeded to tell them all of the other, far less interesting news from her side of the family. The boys did not dare interrupt her so that they could interrogate their sister, who escaped upstairs at the first opportunity.
But she couldn't stay in her room for long. As soon as her brothers' voices indicated that they had moved away from the stairs, she dashed to Finarfin's study. Much to her relief, he was alone there.
He sighed and put his book down. "I suppose you know something of this matter?" She didn't need to ask which matter he was referring to.
"What's going to happen to him?" she demanded.
"I had a chance to speak to your mother as she came in. By now, Celeborn has been summoned back to Alqalondë. Olwë knows that he has been sheltering outlaws, albeit on land from which they're not specifically banned. The destruction of the dam has permanently flooded the road that Celeborn was ordered to maintain, giving Olwë an excuse to rescind the fief."
Artanis sagged into a chair. "That's not fair! He can travel to the sea much faster on a raft now than he could have on the road with a wagon! And no one was using it anyway!"
Finarfin looked back at her sadly. "I know that and you know that. Olwë probably wouldn't even have cared about the outlaws until Fëanor sent one of his sons to complain, as loudly and shrilly as possible, about the dam. It was Celegorm, of course. Fëanor sent him to investigate the destruction of the dam and he tracked Celeborn and the twenty-three families with him in the direction of the sea. Once Fëanor told Olwë the number of men, Olwë figured out who they were. Fëanor added a few speculations that were just enough to frighten Olwë about Celeborn's ambitions, and the whole thing is spiraling outward from there."
"Ambitions?" Artanis sat up, shocked.
"Olwë was concerned about why Celeborn sheltered the outlaws and wanted a road to the sea. Thanks to Fëanor, there's now talk that Celeborn is trying to build another port settlement to rival Alqalondë." Finarfin leaned back and looked back at her.
"He's crazy," said Artanis weakly.
"Just a little," Finarfin agreed, "I think that's how one ends up as a king. But there is just enough weirdness in the facts to make it hard to come up with a theory that's a bit more reasonable. So do you know what he was doing?" "Nothing that exciting," Artanis muttered. Finarfin folded his arms and continued to look at her. "Look," she protested, "it's not my secret to tell, or believe me I would. It's nothing that important."
"But it required destroying a dam? How did he, or you, manage that anyway?" Finarfin raised an eyebrow at her.
"Well, it didn't... not really... That just sort of ended up happening." Artanis felt her face grow warm.
Finarfin picked up his book. "Well, you wiped out an abandoned dam, damaged Fëanor's uninhabited estate, and flooded a disused road. None of this really warrants any concern on my part as long as none of you got hurt."
Artanis voice rose, "But what's going to happen to him?"
Finarfin looked grim. "It's not yet decided. Olwë told your mother that he was going to send Celeborn and the outlaws with him to the Skerries for a few years to keep them out of trouble. That's why she returned and she'll be on her way back this week. She told Olwë that if he does any such thing, I'll bring it up with Ingwë and we'll put a stop to it. But I can't see him letting Celeborn leave Alqalondë again, which is almost as bad. Ah well, in ten years he'll be of age and Olwë will probably let him go.
"I want to go with Mother!" Artanis blurted.
"Very well, but stay out of trouble this time." Finarfin turned back to his book.
***
"You'll probably want to go visit Celeborn," Eärwen remarked as her servants carried their luggage up the steps of the townhouse in Alqalondë.
"Yes, mum, thanks!" Artanis dashed back into the street, then looked back.
"He's staying at the Palace, whether he wishes to or not," Eärwen called out the door.
Artanis nodded, then headed up the hill to Olwë's palace. Much to her relief, Olwë himself was out, and the servants led her to Celeborn. He was sitting in the library, far better dressed than she had ever seen him before, paging listlessly through a book.
"Hello," she said, awkwardly, as she walked towards him. He stood up, his face brightening, but did not smile. He nodded at her.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
He nodded again, and sat down. "I got to see my mother and my brother. They're looking after the dogs."
"Where are your men?" she asked.
"I ordered 'em to Valimar, until the King decides what he wants to do. If it's all that awful, they needn't come back."
"What is he going to do?"
"I don't know; that's the worst of it. He was going to ship me off to the Skerries, but he thinks your father will do something to stop him. He's really irked with me." The last was said without pride.
Artanis sat down next to him.
Celeborn added, "But he doesn't know about the ship. He doesn't want to know about anything having to do with me. And I don't much want to tell him. I'm afraid if he finds out about the timber, he'll take it from me. And I don't know where I'll ever get more. Not on the Skerries, that's for sure."
In a small voice, Artanis asked, "So what do you want to do?"
"I... have an idea. Look, do you know anyone who could get that timber to the Skerries?"
"What?" Artanis managed weakly.
Celeborn forged on, "I have everything I need to build that ship but time, and a place where Olwë won't stop me. Listen, if I agree to go be "governor" of the Skerries for a few months as some sort of penance or whatever, he'll let me take my possessions, including my tools and my men with me, because he'll be happy for me to have servants to keep up appearances in the bloody Skerries of all places. A few of the captains around here are friends of mine; they'll stop by on occasion, make sure I'm provisioned and so forth. They can bring the nails, sailcloth, resin, and so forth. But I can't trust them with the lumber. One of their crewmen is bound to report it back to Olwë and he'll want to know where I got it. Once I've got the ship built, I'll sail back, and then I'll be able to do whatever I want."
"He won't take the ship?" Artanis asked.
Celeborn shook his head. "He wouldn't dare. Building things... it's no different than with the Noldor. Once I've built it, it's mine, and no one can take it from me."
Artanis said miserably, "But how do I get the lumber to you? The Skerries are halfway to Middle Earth, aren't they?"
"You'll think of something," Celeborn assured her. "If not, your crazy cousin will. I just hope the wood will survive it. And if he doesn't, your father can make Olwë bring me back after a year. Maybe he'll just let me go then. But even a barren rock in the middle of the ocean has to be better than this place."
He reached over and took her hand. Artanis leaned over towards him, but he pulled back and let go. "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely, looking away from her. "But I'm not going to be able to see you... for a while, no matter what. And I'm in all kinds of trouble anyway. It just doesn't matter."
"I'll bring it!" she managed to sound offhand, but Finarfin laughed.
"And you were being so good about not pestering me to let you visit Celeborn!" he teased. Artanis turned red and glared at him. She snatched the letter and stalked off. "Remember," shouted Finarfin after her, "You're not going up there without one of your brothers or your cousins."
Fortunately, Celebrimbor was in Tirion that day. Artanis paced about the stables impatiently while his horses were being hitched to the carriage. Celebrimbor carried a box out of the house and tucked it under one of the seats.
"I have what we need in here," he grinned and looked at the box. Artanis looked back at him blankly. "To take down the dam, silly!"
"Oh," she replied. In all honesty, she had forgotten the dam.
"You'll see what it is when we get there," Celebrimbor promised her, although she hadn't asked.
This time, one of the Teleri mariners was watching from the tower, and Celeborn had come up from the valley to greet them as they arrived. Artanis handed him his letter as he helped her from the carriage.
"Are you ready?" Celebrimbor demanded, taking his box from the carriage. The dogs sniffed it impatiently. Celeborn looked up from the letter. "The dam!" Celebrimbor reminded him impatiently.
"Do you really think you can take it down? I've got the longest logs and boards bundled and ready to go."
"Of course I can take it down. It would be best if I just destroy part of it and let the rest go on its own over the next few days, to reduce the flood..." Carrying his box, Celebrimbor headed for the platform.
Celeborn persuaded him to put down the box and wait while the sawmill was dismantled enough to lift the saws onto the roof and tie them down. Likewise, the bundles of logs to be sent downstream were fastened to some of the remaining trees. "These were a little too thick to fell," Celeborn explained to Artanis as he lashed the last bundle of logs to a thickset maple, "So I hope that they will hold long enough to withstand the flood." He looked back on the tree sadly. "But its roots will be underwater afterwards."
Celebrimbor had Artanis and Celeborn lower the platform part of the way down then hold it in place while he opened his box and pulled out a chisel and hammer and started chipping at the dam.
"Is that all?" Celeborn looked baffled.
"Of course not! I just needed a little space between these blocks." Celebrimbor had skillfully knocked off chinks of stone from the corners of the blocks and pulled them out. He took a small chunk of something brownish out of the box and wedged it into the hole he had made. He tied a string coming out from the chunk to the edge of the platform. He had them continue lowering the platform and repeated the task four more times.
"Hope you're not too attached to this contraption; it's going down with this part of the dam," he warned Celeborn as they returned to the top. He untied the strings, separating them out carefully as Celeborn and several of the mariners salvaged the platform, rope, and pulley.
"Go over by the tower and stay there." Celebrimbor ordered them and they retreated. He carefully lit the strings on fire, one at a time, counting between each lighting. The strings burned down over the edge of the dam. After he lit the last string, Celebrimbor leapt to his feet and sprinted towards the tower. There was a sound like a thunderclap, and the ground shook. The top of the dam where the platform had been crumbled and the trees fell over the edge. There was another thunderclap, and another and another. By the last one, most of the dam was gone and most of the lake with it. Celebrimbor sprinted just ahead of the edge of the collapse.
Celebrimbor reached the tower and collapsed at their feet. "I should have told you to do it," he gasped. "You're the runners." Artanis looked down into the valley below. It was filling with water like a bathtub.
"What was that?" she demanded, turning back to Celebrimbor.
"Not sure." Celebrimbor gasped. "Father saw a Maia use it to rescue some of our men who were trapped in a mine. He figured out how to make it,and I just snuck a little of his stash away. I know how it works. He's used it a bunch of times to clear rockslides and so forth. As you can see, there's definitely an art to it."
"I can see that you almost got yourself killed! You almost went down with the dam!" Artanis snarled at him.
"How did you know it wouldn't take down the whole dam and the tower with it?" Celeborn asked more calmly.
Celebrimbor grinned back at them. "Just an educated guess." Artanis groaned and sat on the ground. Celeborn shook his head, then turned back to his men. They headed down the switchback. The floodwaters had already dropped quite a bit. For some reason, Artanis felt disappointed.
Celebrimbor stayed back in order to get a better look at the construction of the dam from what had been the inside of the lake, so Artanis went into the valley to watch Celeborn and the mariners assemble and pack rafts.
"We'll head down to the sea and build the shipyard there. We collected plenty of timber. See, there's the sailcloth and the nails you got me..." Celeborn gestured towards the rafts.
"How long will it take?"
"To build the ship? Only a few months. Some of the men have more experience than I do."
"I'm not going to be able to go see you out there, by the sea. Are you going to come up to Tirion?" Artanis looked back at him.
Celeborn blushed and looked down. "Well... I suppose I'll need more tools or we'll run out of resin... or something." He managed to look back up at her, "I'll come to see you." Artanis smiled and he looked away again.
***
Celeborn was never able to fulfill that promise. A couple of days later, Artanis' mother, Eärwen, returned from a visit to Alqalondë. "He's done it now," she declared theatrically, storming in as the family sat at dinner.
"Who, mother?" Finrod asked, more to be polite than because he actually wanted to know.
"Your kinsman, he used to be your kinsman anyway, until father let that idiot Galadhon disown him... Well, he's gone and knocked down a dam, a dam that Fëanor built, and of course Fëanor's gone howling to my father... I'd never have expected it, such a sensible lad Celeborn was."
Artanis realized that her father was looking at her, his expression betraying nothing. She kept her eyes focused on her plate and ate voraciously.
Of course, she couldn't depend on any degree of subtlety from the twins. "Isn't he your friend, Artanis?"
"That's right, you went up to the mountains to bring him stuff. You and Celebrimbor."
Artanis nodded and kept eating. They couldn't very well expect her to say anything if her mouth was full, now could they? Eärwen glanced over at her, then proceeded to tell them all of the other, far less interesting news from her side of the family. The boys did not dare interrupt her so that they could interrogate their sister, who escaped upstairs at the first opportunity.
But she couldn't stay in her room for long. As soon as her brothers' voices indicated that they had moved away from the stairs, she dashed to Finarfin's study. Much to her relief, he was alone there.
He sighed and put his book down. "I suppose you know something of this matter?" She didn't need to ask which matter he was referring to.
"What's going to happen to him?" she demanded.
"I had a chance to speak to your mother as she came in. By now, Celeborn has been summoned back to Alqalondë. Olwë knows that he has been sheltering outlaws, albeit on land from which they're not specifically banned. The destruction of the dam has permanently flooded the road that Celeborn was ordered to maintain, giving Olwë an excuse to rescind the fief."
Artanis sagged into a chair. "That's not fair! He can travel to the sea much faster on a raft now than he could have on the road with a wagon! And no one was using it anyway!"
Finarfin looked back at her sadly. "I know that and you know that. Olwë probably wouldn't even have cared about the outlaws until Fëanor sent one of his sons to complain, as loudly and shrilly as possible, about the dam. It was Celegorm, of course. Fëanor sent him to investigate the destruction of the dam and he tracked Celeborn and the twenty-three families with him in the direction of the sea. Once Fëanor told Olwë the number of men, Olwë figured out who they were. Fëanor added a few speculations that were just enough to frighten Olwë about Celeborn's ambitions, and the whole thing is spiraling outward from there."
"Ambitions?" Artanis sat up, shocked.
"Olwë was concerned about why Celeborn sheltered the outlaws and wanted a road to the sea. Thanks to Fëanor, there's now talk that Celeborn is trying to build another port settlement to rival Alqalondë." Finarfin leaned back and looked back at her.
"He's crazy," said Artanis weakly.
"Just a little," Finarfin agreed, "I think that's how one ends up as a king. But there is just enough weirdness in the facts to make it hard to come up with a theory that's a bit more reasonable. So do you know what he was doing?" "Nothing that exciting," Artanis muttered. Finarfin folded his arms and continued to look at her. "Look," she protested, "it's not my secret to tell, or believe me I would. It's nothing that important."
"But it required destroying a dam? How did he, or you, manage that anyway?" Finarfin raised an eyebrow at her.
"Well, it didn't... not really... That just sort of ended up happening." Artanis felt her face grow warm.
Finarfin picked up his book. "Well, you wiped out an abandoned dam, damaged Fëanor's uninhabited estate, and flooded a disused road. None of this really warrants any concern on my part as long as none of you got hurt."
Artanis voice rose, "But what's going to happen to him?"
Finarfin looked grim. "It's not yet decided. Olwë told your mother that he was going to send Celeborn and the outlaws with him to the Skerries for a few years to keep them out of trouble. That's why she returned and she'll be on her way back this week. She told Olwë that if he does any such thing, I'll bring it up with Ingwë and we'll put a stop to it. But I can't see him letting Celeborn leave Alqalondë again, which is almost as bad. Ah well, in ten years he'll be of age and Olwë will probably let him go.
"I want to go with Mother!" Artanis blurted.
"Very well, but stay out of trouble this time." Finarfin turned back to his book.
***
"You'll probably want to go visit Celeborn," Eärwen remarked as her servants carried their luggage up the steps of the townhouse in Alqalondë.
"Yes, mum, thanks!" Artanis dashed back into the street, then looked back.
"He's staying at the Palace, whether he wishes to or not," Eärwen called out the door.
Artanis nodded, then headed up the hill to Olwë's palace. Much to her relief, Olwë himself was out, and the servants led her to Celeborn. He was sitting in the library, far better dressed than she had ever seen him before, paging listlessly through a book.
"Hello," she said, awkwardly, as she walked towards him. He stood up, his face brightening, but did not smile. He nodded at her.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
He nodded again, and sat down. "I got to see my mother and my brother. They're looking after the dogs."
"Where are your men?" she asked.
"I ordered 'em to Valimar, until the King decides what he wants to do. If it's all that awful, they needn't come back."
"What is he going to do?"
"I don't know; that's the worst of it. He was going to ship me off to the Skerries, but he thinks your father will do something to stop him. He's really irked with me." The last was said without pride.
Artanis sat down next to him.
Celeborn added, "But he doesn't know about the ship. He doesn't want to know about anything having to do with me. And I don't much want to tell him. I'm afraid if he finds out about the timber, he'll take it from me. And I don't know where I'll ever get more. Not on the Skerries, that's for sure."
In a small voice, Artanis asked, "So what do you want to do?"
"I... have an idea. Look, do you know anyone who could get that timber to the Skerries?"
"What?" Artanis managed weakly.
Celeborn forged on, "I have everything I need to build that ship but time, and a place where Olwë won't stop me. Listen, if I agree to go be "governor" of the Skerries for a few months as some sort of penance or whatever, he'll let me take my possessions, including my tools and my men with me, because he'll be happy for me to have servants to keep up appearances in the bloody Skerries of all places. A few of the captains around here are friends of mine; they'll stop by on occasion, make sure I'm provisioned and so forth. They can bring the nails, sailcloth, resin, and so forth. But I can't trust them with the lumber. One of their crewmen is bound to report it back to Olwë and he'll want to know where I got it. Once I've got the ship built, I'll sail back, and then I'll be able to do whatever I want."
"He won't take the ship?" Artanis asked.
Celeborn shook his head. "He wouldn't dare. Building things... it's no different than with the Noldor. Once I've built it, it's mine, and no one can take it from me."
Artanis said miserably, "But how do I get the lumber to you? The Skerries are halfway to Middle Earth, aren't they?"
"You'll think of something," Celeborn assured her. "If not, your crazy cousin will. I just hope the wood will survive it. And if he doesn't, your father can make Olwë bring me back after a year. Maybe he'll just let me go then. But even a barren rock in the middle of the ocean has to be better than this place."
He reached over and took her hand. Artanis leaned over towards him, but he pulled back and let go. "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely, looking away from her. "But I'm not going to be able to see you... for a while, no matter what. And I'm in all kinds of trouble anyway. It just doesn't matter."