Thank you to all the folks who responded to the first chapter of this ficlet: Vicki Turner, Fluffy's fangirls, Youareevil (description of me or you—or both?), Kel, Tinnuial, Shelly LeBlanc, Dragonfly, Joee, Andi-Black, and Karri.
Beta Reader: Dragonfly
Blind Fate: Chapter 2
"First," Elrond was saying, "we should search the places where Anomen likes to spend time."
Glorfindel nodded.
"I will send some of my scouts to the stables. They will scour every inch of those buildings. Others I will send to each and every one of the trees that he considers to be his friends."
Erestor was wringing his hands. He was no tracker but desperately wanted to do something. Elrond turned to him.
"Erestor, I need someone to take charge here at the Hall. You must see to the housing of those folk whose chambers have been damaged. Will you do that?'
Erestor was glad to be given something to do and hastened off to the garden to determine who among the assembled Elves would need temporary quarters for the night.
"And I suppose," said Gandalf, "that I am to look after Elladan, Elrohir, and Arwen."
"If you wouldn't mind, my friend. You have a way of putting the young at their ease."
"Would that I had done so today," Gandalf said ruefully to himself as he walked away. "I pray that I shall have an opportunity to make things up to the lad."
Elrond, Glorfindel, and the scouts searched long and fruitlessly that night, for the lad in question was miles away from where they thought to search. Whilst running wildly through the woods, he had wandered further south than he usually ranged. So the Elves searched and shouted until dawn, but Anomen was too far away to hear them. The searchers came across many felled forest behemoths, and as the night wore on, they began to fear that somewhere within the woods surrounding Rivendell the elfling had been crushed beneath a toppled trunk. As dawn broke, Glorfindel at last reluctantly voiced that thought.
"I think," he said grimly, "that we need to work our way through the forest, investigating each and every fallen tree to see whether he is trapped beneath."
"Yes," Elrond agreed sadly, "we should do that. Let us return to the Hall and divide the scouts by quadrants so that each section of the forest is swept methodically. We must not overlook a square inch."
As they were reaching this decision, the morning sun was falling upon Anomen. Feeling its warmth, he stirred, unrolling himself from his tight ball and sitting up. His eyes were swollen with crying, so, even had he not been blind, he would have had difficulty seeing. As it was, however, after hopefully forcing his eyes open a few times to see if his vision had returned, Anomen gave up the effort and decided he might as well leave them shut. "At least," he said to himself, "if my eyes are closed I can pretend that it is for that reason that all is dark."
He remained sitting under the tree for quite some time. His initial terror having passed, he was conscious of the fact that he was lost. "I suppose I should stay here," he thought, "and let them come find me." Then he wondered why he hadn't already been found. He was certain that searchers would have been sent out once he was missed. "If I were anywhere near the Hall, wouldn't they have come across me by now?" he thought. It is true that he had fallen asleep, but he was sure that he would have awoken if anyone calling for him had passed near during the night. In fact, if he were anywhere close to the Hall, no doubt he would hear the sound of searching Elves at this very minute. "I do not think I am anywhere near the Hall," he thought soberly. "What if no one thinks to look here—wherever 'here' is! Perhaps I shall need to try to find my own way back to the Hall. But how am I to decide which way to go? If I stay here, no one may find me, but if I venture away from this place, how will I know that I am bettering my situation? I may very well wander even further from the Hall!"
He sat irresolute, incapable of making up his mind. "At least," he consoled himself, "the weather is fine and does not add to my discomfort." This was true. The morning sun felt very pleasant upon his face, and a breeze gently stirred his hair. Many birds sang nearby, and he began to idle away the time by identifying them by their songs.
"That would be a sedge warbler," he said to himself, listening intently. "It is a visitor here, but that other warbler, the cettis warbler, he lives here year round. Ah, I hear a grey wagtail, and a reed bunting, and a bearded tit. And that one, that would be a redshank."
Suddenly it occurred to Anomen that all these birds lived in or near marshlands. "The reed bunting," he mused, "is called that very name because it prefers to live in reed beds, and so too the sedge warbler is named for the marsh grasses in which it dwells. There is a marshy patch near the Bruinen, at the spot where a tributary flows into the river through low-lying lands. Sedges grow in that place, and that is where the ellith gather reeds for plaiting."
As he sat mulling over this fact, he heard another bird call, this time a little further off.
"That's a kingfisher," he said to himself excitedly. "I have seen many kingfishers perched in the trees alongside the Bruinen! It does not sound quite as near as the other birds. Very well, then, I must be hard by the marsh, and it must stand between me and the river. If I can get round it or through it, I will find myself upon the bank of the Bruinen. I must move toward the sound of the kingfisher!"
Glad at having resolved upon a course of action, Anomen leaped to his feet and began to move cautiously in the direction from whence came the call of the kingfisher. His first steps were very tentative. He held his hands out before him and feared that at any minute he would crash into some obstacle. Yet he soon discovered that he was very adept at feeling out the way. Whenever he passed underneath a tree, the vegetation thinned out underneath its shade, and so he knew whenever he neared a tree. But the trees dwindled the nearer he drew nearer to the marsh, and he began to pay close attention to the softness of the ground. After he had walked awhile, his right foot several times sank a little bit into boggy ground, so he knew that he was skirting the marsh.
"Keep your left foot on hard ground and your right foot on soft," he said to himself, "and you cannot fail to pass round the marsh. By that means you will reach the river."
As he walked, the call of the kingfisher grew louder, and Anomen began to hear the sound of rushing water. At length he felt sand under his feet, and only a few moments later he stood upon pebbles. Before him he heard the sound of water tumbling over rocks.
"This is indeed the Bruinen," Anomen said to himself. "None of the streams hereabouts are as fast or as noisy as that great river. I am facing the channel. That means that I am looking west, and my back is to the east. My right shoulder at the moment must be to the north, and my left shoulder to the south. Now, I have surely not crossed the Great East Road, for it lies to the north of the marsh. If I follow the river to the north, keeping my left shoulder to it, I must come to the Road. Then, if I turn my back to the river and hold to the road, I will be heading toward home!"
Emboldened that he had thus far been able to find his way without the aid of his eyesight, Anomen set out with remarkable cheerfulness. He kept to the sand, where the way was clear of brush, and from time to time he stopped to drink from the river, thus having all the more reason to be glad that he had chosen to stay by its banks. As the hours wore on, however, Anomen began to suffer from hunger. It had been a full day since he had last eaten. "I wish I had my bow," he lamented to himself, "so that I might try to bring down some game. But I am being foolish," he scolded himself a second later, "for I cannot see to aim my bow!"
As he walked on, he mused upon the many foraging excursions that he had joined in. Glorfindel was quite insistent that all the young Elves learn to live off the land, and the elf-lord had supervised the preparation of many a meal that had consisted of nothing but the roots and leaves, nuts and berries, that had been gathered by his pupils. "I am probably surrounded by food," Anomen moaned to himself, "but as I cannot see it, I cannot gather it."
Then he bethought himself of how he had found the river even though he had not the use of his eyes.
"I used my ears and sense of touch to find the river. Why may I not find food without my eyes?"
Of course, he was not going to able to find his lunch by listening for it, but he thought he could make use of his nose and his hands. "And then," he said to himself, "whatever I find by those means, I will carefully taste in small quantity to make sure that I have truly found what I think I have found! Now, what would grow hereabouts? Arrowroot, of course, but that's no good—its rootstock must be cooked before it can be eaten. The rootstock of the spatterdock, though, it may be eaten raw, although it sometimes has a bitter taste. I have passed several inlets where the water stands quiet enough for that plant to flourish. I would have to venture into that water, of course, but only into shallow places, and I'm sure if I were careful I would be able to find my way back to land. There is also the ordinary water lily. Its rhizomes are thick and fleshy and would be tastier than the spatterdock's root. Unfortunately, though, I would have to find some way to remove tough rind. I wish I had my knife!"
Anomen walked on, cataloguing in his mind the many plants that grew near the margins of a waterway.
"There's watercress and wild dock and wood sorrel, but I should have to gather much of their leaves to satisfy my hunger—and then I would probably only end up with a sour stomach anyway! I might be able to make use of the roots of the wild dock and the sorrel, however, for they are rather like carrots. It would be time-consuming to dig them up. I should have to linger awhile. Blackberries, raspberries, and dewberries are in season and would be tastier than the leaves of the watercress and the others, but, again, I should have to gather many. I think after all it would be best if I were to gather the stems of cattails, preferably young ones, which will be tender. They are edible uncooked. Likewise the stems of reeds may be eaten uncooked, again, the younger the better. They will be very easy to find, as well as plentiful."
Just then he heard the beat of wings and a splash as a kingfisher snapped up a fish in his beak.
"Of course," Anomen thought to himself, "one may forage for more than plants. I do not think I could catch a fish, but there are other edible creatures in the water that are not so swift and that may be found in the shallows. The twins and I have often amused ourselves in hunting crayfish. But more filling would be mussels. I have no knife to pry open a shell, but I could smash them upon the rocks and so get at them that way."
Anomen groped about on the ground until he found a rock that he thought might do to dig up and pry free mussels. Then he waded into the water and began to search with his hands. At last he had located and harvested several of the shellfish. Triumphantly he returned to the riverbank, placed a mussel upon a wide, flat stone, and cracked it open with a hammer stone. Then he fished out the meat from within, and, with a slight grimace, swallowed it.
"I would rather that they be steamed," he said to himself, "but I have seen Lord Glorfindel eat them raw with great relish. Erestor disapproves of the practice, I know. I heard Glorfindel tell him that mussels improve his performance, and Erestor mocked him, telling him that he has confused freshwater mussels with oysters gathered from the seas. Glorfindel, however, says that anything slick and slippery would do. Erestor looked quite shocked, I remember, but then it is easy to shock Erestor."
Anomen ate another mussel, and then another. Soon he sat basking in the sun on the riverbank, feeling comfortably full. As he sat there, a breeze carried to him a subtle and sweet aroma.
"Wild roses!" he exclaimed with delight. "And where there are roses there are rose hips!"
He arose and took several steps away from the riverbank until he encountered the thorny branches of a wild rose bush. Eagerly he stripped it of its rose hips, the acorn-size fruits that were both tasty and nutritious. Some he ate on the spot, but most he slipped into his tunic to snack on later. He congratulated himself on the fact that they were bigger than blackberries and raspberries and, unlike those fruit, would not bruise or crush easily.
Thus refreshed and provisioned, Anomen resumed his trek to the north, making excellent time, for he walked with both vigor and confidence. Not long after he had stopped to sup, his feet felt a sudden change in the ground. He had stepped onto a smooth, wide surface that had been hardened by the passage of many feet. He had, he exulted, found the Great East Road.
Now turning his back on the Bruinen, he set out for the east, toward Rivendell. It was even easier to walk on the road than on the riverbank, for there were no obstructions, and the grass to the side of the track felt very different from the packed soil of the road. Whenever he felt his foot straying on to the grass, Anomen moved back to the center of the road.
Anomen walked on and on. After awhile he felt the sun low upon his back, and he knew that dusk drew near. It seemed pointless to stop, however.
"After all," he said, with a rueful smile, "I can walk in the dark."
And so he marched on even after the silence of the birds and the coolness of the air announced the onset of night.
In the Hall, Gandalf was on his feet as well, pacing back and forth in his room. With the setting of the sun, the scouts had abandoned the search for the day and returned disconsolate to the Hall. Gandalf was stricken at the sight of Elrond's face when the elf-lord heard that the scouts had found no sign of the elfling, and the wizard had fled to his chamber.
"If only I had not been so short-tempered," he berated himself as he paced. "What harm was he doing, really? Distracting me a trifle, it's true, but much time must still pass before matters come to a head. The return of the king would not have been delayed one whit had I had the patience to listen to and answer his innocent questions."
Back and forth, back and forth he marched. At last the chamber could not contain his agitation, and he made for the outdoors, with slumped shoulders walking past the surprised door warden and setting out on a circuit that took him around and around and around the garden.
Anomen felt the sun upon his face as he came to the gate of the garden, and he knew it was dawn. He did not reflect upon the fact that, dawn or no dawn, he would have to walk the path in the dark, for he was so familiar with that place that he truly could have walked its paths in his sleep. Moreover, he had run through the garden with his eyes covered whilst playing Blind-Man's Bluff with Elladan and Elrohir. He quickened his pace.
Gandalf had completed yet another circuit of the garden, reaching the foundation of the Hall and turning round to once again trace the grounds. But who was that who now paced upon the path, coming quickly toward him?
Anomen heard footsteps running toward him. The steps were heavier than those of any Elf, but he smelled the lingering odor of pipeweed and so he was not afraid of the unseen being who approached him.
"Mithrandir," he cried, "Mithrandir!"
Arms were flung around him, and the elfling was glad, but he cried out in pain when the wizard rubbed his head affectionately.
"What is the matter?" Gandalf asked anxiously.
"My head hurts dreadfully."
Gandalf carefully searched his scalp.
"You do have a dreadful lump there. Perhaps you have suffered a concussion. Let me see the pupils of your eyes."
Gandalf took hold of Anomen's chin and lifted his face. The elfling heard a quick intake of breath and knew that the wizard had realized that he could not see. The Maia released his chin and took hold of his elbow.
"Come," he said gently. "I will take you to Elrond."