Chapter Seventeen: Unexpected Shadows
The sun was warm against the nape of his neck, almost too warm as he heaved his arms to pull the blade of the axe out of the tree trunk that he had been chopping into for the better part of an hour already. He listened to the satisfying thump of iron against wood, waiting for the proper moment when the wood would start to creak – a sign that he had to get well out of the way, lest the tree come crashing down on top of him.
He allowed himself a small smile in satisfaction as he swiped a hand over his brow, wiping off the sweat that had collected there due to his exertions. He remembered the times before, when he had no need to do this, since the fire in his chambers was often maintained and prepared by his servants. Now, he appreciated the hard work that went into building a fire all the more.
He swung the axe one more time, and finally heard the much-awaited crack. He walked backwards rapidly, moving out of the way, and watched as the tree finally collapsed, the weight of its branches dragging it to the ground, where it landed with an immense thud.
He paused, closing his eyes as he murmured a prayer of thanksgiving and relief. He set aside his axe, and picked up the saw that he had brought with him. He worked somewhat slowly, but steadily, as he stripped off the leaves and foliage of the tree and was left with bare branches – enough to provide him with kindling for the next few months or more.
Gathering as many twigs and branches as he could, he placed them in the wicker basket he had brought with him, and started heading back to his cottage. He would store the kindling in the driest corner of his home, and after doing so, he would make trips over the next several days to cut the log down to size, cutting it down to manageable pieces so that they could be used for his fire, or for repairing whatever needed to be repaired in his home.
While some small part of him missed the intellectual and cosmopolitan lifestyle he used to have in Rûmenyen, he also had to admit that he enjoyed the peaceful way of life that he had come to know, living away from the city center. It gave him the stillness he had so often craved, and it gave him the chance to do what he wanted, when he wanted. Making a journey to Yaminah every six months or so to buy books and other such things could easily satisfy his intellectual leanings – the immense market in Yaminah often sold scrolls and codices from both in Khemet and in Rûmenyen.
He would have to visit Yaminah again soon, but it would not be because of his usual six-month trip to the market. The growing tensions between Khemet and Umbar had not escaped his attentions, and the stories that Anna had told him, of increasingly frequent and violent border skirmishes, confirmed his suspicions.
It would not be long now, he thought, his brow knitting together. There would be a war, and it would drag Rûmenyen and even peaceful Ma'yi into the conflict. The Umbarians would not be content with Khemet alone – they would want to expand their territory to occupy as much as they could of the South and East. If Khemet was unable to withstand their force, he was almost certain that all the other nations would fall. The Ma'yen were not familiar with the concept of war outside of their borders, and their tactics would be of no help against the Umbarians. As for Rûmenyen…
He frowned. A war was the last thing the Empire needed. While he could count on Xin to rule well during times of peace, he doubted if he would be able to handle a country at war.
Perhaps Wei is right, he thought as he placed the basket down on the ground beside his door. Perhaps he should go back. He was needed in the Empire; his expertise in war tactics would be important if ever Khemet fell – though he hoped that the gods would not allow that to happen.
He stopped suddenly in the middle of the kitchen, sensing that something was not right. He looked around, taking in the layout of the area. Everything was as it had been when he had left early that morning. Even the thin layer of dust at the top of one of the shelves was undisturbed. Nothing had been touched.
No, he thought, there was something here. He slid his eyes half-closed, and focused on cloaking his energy, while at the same time, casting around to find the presence of others.
It did not take him long. In a few moments, he sensed a hot, fiery presence – the aura of a Fire mage. He broke off from the spell, and whirled around to face the source of the aura.
Wei Ting Kuoh was standing there, looking at him with a serious expression on her face.
"Wei!" Magtò sighed in relief, before he smiled at her. "Why have you come?"
She sighed, and bowed her head. "Magtò, there is something that I wish to say to you."
The smile disappeared immediately from his face. There was something wrong here, but he could not pinpoint, exactly, what it was. "Wei?"
She looked up at him, her eyes dark and moist with tears. "I am sorry, Magtò. Please forgive me."
He sensed the sharp crackle of energy from behind him. He whirled around, and came face-to-face with a young woman – a Water mage, judging from the blue light around her. He had no time to even counter; the spell was already resting on her hand when he faced her.
The Water mage reached out to touch him, her fingers resting on his arm. Lethargy washed over him like a gentle wave, and before he knew it, he had fallen into the tight embrace of sleep.
The frog stared back at him with large, inquisitive eyes. Its body was of a color he had never seen before: black mottled with stripes of green, and the slick skin gave it a jewel-like sheen in the waning daylight. He found the creature quite charming, and reached out to touch it.
"If I were you, I would not touch that frog with bare hands, Telpeär."
Telpeär glanced up at Sinag-Tala, puzzled. "And why would that be, Sinag? It is only a frog, not a snake or a spider."
The young woman smiled as she approached him, leaving her place at the head of their group to stand beside him. She spared a momentary glance for the green-and-black tree frog, and answered: "Because the frog secretes a poison through its skin. We use that poison for our darts and arrows, but even we know never to touch them when we catch them."
The frog in question uttered a musical croak, before it climbed up into the branches above.
Telpeär, seeing what he had just narrowly avoided, recoiled as if he had been bitten, causing Sinag-Tala to laugh quietly, and pat him in a reassuring manner, before she returned to the head of their group, and nodded towards the forest ahead of them. "Come, let us move on."
Telpeär nodded, falling in step behind Ecthelion and in front of Glorfindel as they continued on their journey through the Jungles of Harad. They had been traveling for four days now, and the other side was nowhere in sight yet. While Sinag-Tala had assured them that she would lead them through the shortest and safest paths, sometimes those two words did not coincide, especially if, during the night watch, someone had caught sight of ocelots, jaguars, or panthers – gigantic felines that prowled through the thick underbrush for deer and large birds.
"I did not realize that the creatures here were as dangerous as they have turned out to be," Glorfindel remarked, looking up at the sky suspiciously every time he heard the chirping croak of a frog. "First many-legged red fire worms (1); then poisonous snakes which disguise themselves as vines; and now frogs covered in a venomous slime. Is there not any creature here that does not pose a threat to one's well-being?"
Sinag-Tala laughed as she continued walking ahead of them. "Not all things are deadly, Glorfindel. Some of them, like the vipers and the fire worms, can indeed be hazardous to one's health, but there are some creatures that can be beneficial. We use the leeches we find in the streams, for instance, to draw out blood from an infected wound. And the frogs, as I have said, provide our hunters with an invaluable aid in hunting. We would not be able to bring down our game efficiently enough if it were not for the poison we extract from the frogs."
Ereinion winced at the mention of leeches. "I find the frogs rather beautiful at a distance, Sinag-Tala. And while I understand the necessity of leechcraft, I do not see why you would find them so interesting outside of a situation that requires them."
Telpeär snickered, hearing Glorfindel and Ecthelion echo his reaction, as a memory from the day before returned to them:
"By the Valar!"
Telpeär looked up from where he had been attending to the cooking pot, startled by the rather…anxious cry that had been uttered from the stream not that far away. "Who was that?"
Maedhros, who had just come back from the stream and was currently re-braiding his hair, cocked his head to one side, listened for a moment, and when the same voice bellowed in frustration, he blinked. "That was Ereinion."
Telpeär was about to open his mouth to wonder what was wrong, but he was taken somewhat by surprise when first Ecthelion's laughter, and then Glorfindel's, burst through the cooling twilight air. He was perplexed by this reaction, and when he glanced at Maedhros he saw that the Noldo was just as puzzled as he was.
Their curiosity was satisfied when Ereinion, being assisted by Sinag-Tala, came into the clearing, with Ecthelion and Glorfindel still snickering behind them.
The former High-King scowled blackly as he tried to look over his shoulder, while at the same time walking forward, making for a rather amusing sight. "It is not in the least bit funny."
"But it is only three leeches," Glorfindel replied, and promptly dissolved in a fit of laughter.
Telpeär blinked. Leeches? What were they talking about? He noticed then that Ereinion seemed to be favoring his right leg. When Telpeär looked, he saw three fat, shiny objects attached to the flesh. As Ereinion drew closer to the light of the fire, he realized that those things were, in fact, large leeches.
Ereinion sat down carefully on the ground, staring long and hard at the worm-like things that were attached to his leg. He glared across the fire at Sinag-Tala, who seemed to be busily poking at the fire. "You would have done well to inform me that there were leeches in that stream, Sinag-Tala."
The young woman looked at him, her brown eyes wide and seemingly innocent in the glow of the flames. "But I had assumed that you knew, Ereinion. I am certain that, in your youth, you swam in streams and rivers. Are there no leeches in the rivers and streams where you are from?"
"There are, I am certain, but they never seemed to grow as large as these."
Sinag-Tala threw her head back, and laughed aloud, the sound carrying to the sky. "Forgive me, then, for neglecting to inform you of the size of the leeches here in the South." She reached over to the base of the fire, and drew out her knife, the blade of which she had been heating in the embers.
Telpeär raised an eyebrow at the red-hot iron blade. "What do you intend to do with that?"
"Remove the leeches from Ereinion's leg," Sinag-Tala replied matter-of-factly. She turned to the Elf-lord, who was now reclining on the ground with his legs outstretched. She offered him a comforting smile as she approached. "Come now, it is not that bad."
Ereinion glared at her, though it seemed to be half-hearted, if the small smirk curling on his mouth was any indication of that. "And do you speak from experience?"
"Yes, I do. I used to fish a lot in the streams when I was younger, and to get to the better fishing spots I had to wade in shallow water. Of course, that made my legs excellent targets for the leeches. Sometimes I would stand for a long time, and I would end up with more than three leeches on my legs."
Sinag-Tala lightly placed her free hand against Ereinion's leg, and applied the smoldering hot tip of the knife to one of the leeches. The creature squirmed and wriggled, and then dropped to the ground. With deft fingers, Sinag-Tala snatched the creature up by the tail, and threw it in the general direction of the stream. She repeated the same process with the two other leeches, and soon there was nothing left to indicate their presence, except the three bloody rings that marked where the leeches had been attached to Ereinion's flesh.
She smiled satisfactorily, looking up at Ereinion as she did so. "There, now. That was not so bad, was it?"
Ereinion smiled at her, shaking his head. "No, I suppose not."
"Good." She reached for her satchel, and brought out a clay jar. She reached into the jar with her fingertips, and carefully smoothed some honey over the wounds. "Wash the honey off when the wounds stop stinging," she told Ereinion as she replaced the cork of the jar, and placed it back in her satchel. "After you do, inform me so that I can wrap them in some bandages."
Ecthelion cocked his head slightly to one side as he attended to the cooking pot over the fire. "They are only small wounds, Sinag-Tala. I do not understand why you must bind them."
Sinag-Tala frowned thoughtfully as she returned to her place beside the fire. "It is not wise to leave wounds uncovered in the jungle. The risk of infection is far too great out here, and also, there are creatures that are attracted to the smell of blood, and will not hesitate to make a meal out of us if they smell it."
Telpeär noted a thread of anxiety in Sinag-Tala's voice, and it made him wonder what manner of creature precisely made her so worried. However, he did not bother to ask, not really wanting to know beforehand.
Just then, their little convoy came to a halt. Telpeär looked up, and noticed that they were now standing in a clearing ringed all around by the green, slender stalks of bamboo trees. It was apparent that the clearing had been used before, and frequently at that, if the ring of blackened stones sitting in the middle of the clearing were any indication.
"We shall make camp here for the night," Sinag-Tala announced as she lowered her satchel to the ground.
As during the previous nights, they settled into doing specific tasks. While Sinag-Tala went off to bring back some food before it got too dark, the rest of them set about to making camp, most of their time devoted to building the fire. Branches seemed to be surprisingly scarce here, though kindling in the form of fallen leaves was plentiful, and they sometimes had to range far from the campsite in order to bring back branches large enough to use as firewood.
Fortunately, however, they did not have to go far this time, or even to work hard, at that: Ecthelion found a small bundle of dried bamboo hidden in the crevice of a boulder, and they used that as their firewood. Sinag-Tala came back just in time, carrying with her six pheasants that were smaller than the ones in the North and in the Undying Lands, but with delicious flesh and fine plumage. Sinag-Tala took the feathers, which she used to fletch the darts made of bone or wood – whichever of the two was on-hand at the moment.
"How much longer until we reach the edge of the jungle?" Ereinion asked, after he had disposed of the bones of his pheasant by burying them in a small hole some distance away from their main camp.
Sinag-Tala paused, glanced up at the sky, and furrowed her brows. A moment later, she responded: "We should get there by late morning the day after tomorrow." She smiled as she looked at them all. "We have made relatively good progress. Some of the younger warriors cannot keep the pace that we have maintained through these past days."
Glorfindel smiled, and winked at her. "They say that it is not wise to keep a lady waiting. We merely try our best not to do so with you."
Ecthelion glared at him, though Sinag-Tala merely laughed. Apparently she was used to Glorfindel's attempts to flirt with her. "The last time I traveled this quickly was when my father first took me out to see the world."
Ecthelion turned to look at Sinag-Tala, a little surprised by her statement. How could she and her father have made the same progress as they had – if her father was not an Elf?
He shook that thought out of his mind. No, he was being ridiculous. Sinag-Tala had said so herself: her father was from Dol Amroth, hence, he could not be an Elf, least of all the one they were looking for. Perhaps it was because the Men of Dol Amroth, due to their Elven heritage, had also inherited the Elves' stamina. That would not have surprised him.
"When was this?" Ereinion inquired.
Sinag-Tala shrugged, and poked at the fire with the stick she had roasted her pheasant on. "It was a year before he died. My mother thought I was too young to go, but my father insisted, and he promised that he would protect me. He said that he wanted to teach me as much as he could of what he knew, before it was too late." She paused, biting her lip, before adding: "He seemed so sad, those last few days. Sometimes I saw him smile, and laugh, and I knew that everything was all right, but there were also times when his eyes would simply-" She shook her head, and said nothing further.
In some small way, Ecthelion felt for her. The greatness of the love she bore for her father and her mother was evident, and it was clear to him that she had taken on the responsibilities of leadership with that in mind. There was something carefree about her that seemed to say she would rather be doing things at her leisure, enjoying her youth, but duty had been thrust upon her at an early age, and, because she knew it was what her parents would have expected of her, she rose to the challenge and accepted what had been placed before her.
She has lost so much of her youth to duty, he mused sadly. He knew that all of them, even Ereinion, had had time to enjoy their youth. It was something that they could all look back on with happiness, if with a bit of regret occasionally.
But Sinag-Tala did not seem to have had much chance at that. At twenty summers she was still quite young, even by the standards of Men, and had taken up the mantle of leadership at an even younger age. Though it was true that she had allowed regents to rule in her stead immediately after her parents' death, she had learned her lessons quickly, and was able to rule her people at the age of fourteen. At that age, young mortal women were only beginning to learn how to be women, and what it was like to be in love. Sinag-Tala had not known those things, and instead learned all about politics and intrigue.
It was an admirable thing, and Ecthelion was very aware of that. There were very few, mortal or immortal, who would have had the strength of character to do what she had done. Instead of escaping for a time and returning when she was ready, she had learned as quickly as she could, and accepted her parents' legacy as soon as she had learned enough to do so.
And yet, it was a sad thing that she had not yet known the joys and pleasures that come with being young. She was no longer young; she had grown old in less time than it takes for a mortal to do so.
There was a soft crackle as she tossed her stick into the fire, and he watched as she stood up, and stretched. "It is growing late," she murmured. "I will take first watch."
"I will go on watch with you," Ecthelion said then, standing up as well and stretching.
Sinag-Tala looked at him, puzzled. "Are you certain?" she asked. "You might wish to rest."
He smiled at her, and shook his head. "I am well, Sinag-Tala. And two pairs of eyes are always better than one, especially on a night as dark as this."
The young woman held his gaze for a while, and the silver of her eyes brought to mind an image of Maglor when he was in a rather thoughtful mood. After a moment, she said, "If that is what you wish, I have no objections."
She always found the night sounds of the jungle a familiar comfort. Her mother told her once, that the whole world plays a melody at all times, though it can be heard only by the very attentive and the very patient.
Over the years, Sinag-Tala liked to think that she had learned to listen to this melody that her mother had spoken of to her. For her, the melody of the sea was the most beautiful, because the waters sang of things that she had never seen before, things that she would, perhaps, never have the chance to lay eyes upon. With the ocean, no tune was ever the same, mimicking the shifting surface of the water.
The jungle, on the other hand, was the opposite of the sea. It sang of constancy, of things growing and dying, and of life repeating established cycles everyday, every moon, and every year. It sang of how living things will live and die, only to have the earth renew and purify them that they may return in the next cycle, to repeat the process all over again.
"These forests speak of different things from the forests that I know."
Sinag-Tala did not take her eyes away from the dark fastness before her. "What do you mean, Ecthelion?"
She sensed her silver-haired companion shift slightly, but not much, and like her, he did not take his gaze away from the shadows of the jungle. "These trees speak, in their own way, of their lives. They have never known the cold touch of snow, but they are familiar – all too familiar – with the lash of violent rainstorms, and the crackle of lightning." He paused for a moment, and then continued, "Are the storms really so terrible here, Sinag-Tala?"
"They can get quite violent," Sinag-Tala replied with a nod, "but we have learned to adjust. As you may have noticed, the only permanent structures that we have erected are our houses, and those are easy to repair should they get damaged in a storm." She lightly patted the trunk of a bamboo tree beside her. "Apo Maya always said: be as the bamboo, that bends its back when the wind of adversity blows hardest, resisting only enough to remain undamaged, but standing tall and whole at the end of the storm."
Ecthelion smiled. "An excellent proverb. Your people are wise."
"Yes, after a fashion." She sighed. "But I fear that words and proverbs may not last us through this war. We may be as the bamboo, but sometimes, there are storms that uproot even the most flexible of nodes."
She sensed, rather than saw, Ecthelion's change of expression. "You are right," he said softly. "This war… It will be a great and bloody one, perhaps very much like the old wars of the North that is now gone."
Sinag-Tala inclined her head. "Wars of the North… My father spoke of them sometimes, of ancient tales and legends, of mighty kings and queens, and fair princesses who defeated Dark Lords." She shook her head. "I do not remember the names anymore. They are all part of a distant memory."
"Were they the tales of your childhood?"
"Yes and no. My mother often told me stories of our people, but I listened to my father's stories when I was too old to be sent to sleep on the wings of my mother's tales." She smiled slightly at the memory. "Sometimes, Father and I would stay up late into the night, he, simply telling tale after tale, and I would be there to listen."
"And-" Suddenly, Ecthelion fell silent.
Sinag-Tala could immediately sense the tension in her companion. "What is it?" she asked, her voice dropping down almost to a whisper, for fear of being heard and alerting anyone – or anything – that had come to their camp.
"There is something in the trees…" She sensed him leaving his position. "I will go and alert the others."
She could not hear his footsteps as he walked away from her, but she did sense his presence departing from her immediate area. In the meantime, she discreetly picked up her bow, and nocked an arrow – just to be sure. If something were to come from the trees, she would need to be able to aim and shoot quickly.
When she heard and saw nothing, she started to shift slowly, trying to keep her movements to a minimum. It was several heartbeats before she was crouched on her knees – a stable position, good enough for shooting a bow. She slowly lifted her arms, and tilted them towards the treetops.
And then, the presence was gone just as quickly and suddenly as it had arrived.
She relaxed, allowing the tension in her body to bleed out of her gradually. She listened to her heartbeat as it dropped in rhythm, until it was as steady as the ponderous thundering of the waves in the unknown caverns of the reef. She closed her eyes, and focused her energy, trying to sense the flicker of a living creature – whatever it may have been.
For a very brief moment, she thought she managed to catch what felt like a person – someone she knew, someone she was familiar with. And then, before she could grasp it completely, it was gone.
She felt a hand on her shoulder, the touch like the shock of hot water on her skin. She whirled around, and relaxed only when she realized that it was Ereinion, gazing at her with a concerned expression on his face.
"Are you well?" he asked, his voice soft. "Ecthelion told us that there was something in the trees."
Sinag-Tala nodded in response to his question, and then said: "Yes, he sensed something in the trees, much earlier than I did, and he went to warn you. It is gone now, and I do not know where it went."
Maedhros approached her then, and his face was serious. "What do you think it was, then?"
She fell silent then, unable to answer that question. What had it been, she wondered, and why had its presence felt so much like someone she knew?
At length, she raised her head, and shrugged. "I do not know what it was." She turned her gaze away, and looked instead at the glowing embers of the fire. "Whatever it may have been, though, it is gone now."
"Perhaps it would be best if we built the fire up again," Glorfindel suggested. "A blazing fire is one of the best defenses against wild animals."
Sinag-Tala nodded, and proceeded to help in building their dying bonfire up again, but deep in her heart, the voice of her intuition told her that whatever had attempted to intrude upon their camp would not be so easily scared away by fire, no matter how hot or how bright it might be.
(1) This is a reference to the giant, poisonous centipedes that are particularly prolific in the tropics.