Chapter 15
Perhaps an hour or more later, Erin was woken by the sounds of the others stowing gear and Gimli extinguishing the fire. She pushed herself up from where she had fallen asleep, half curled next to her sister, who still slept on. Erin did not like the paleness of Rhian's face, and there was a faint sheen of sweat across her forehead. She blotted it away, then forced her cramped limbs to a standing position.
"Surely," she turned to Aragorn, "surely we aren't going to go on?"
The Ranger faced her, and she could see the weariness and grief he was controlling. "We must," he said.
"But Rhian-"
"We will carry her, but we must move on. When we reach Lorien she will be properly tended, but now we have to continue."
Erin looked worriedly at her sister, but nodded. She went to help Aria obliterate the last signs of their presence.
It did not take long to make all ready. Frodo, Sam, and Aria were all much better, and declared themselves fit to walk at a fair pace, though Legolas and Gimli both had instructions from Strider to walk behind the hobbits at all times, lest they be lost. Rhian still had not woken, and as Erin added her sister's pack to her own she saw Boromir stepping forward, even as Aragorn bent to lift the sleeping girl like a baby. The warrior said nothing, but Erin wondered at the look on his handsome face.
For three hours they walked, as the sun sank behind the westward peaks, and long black shadows were cast down from the mountainsides. Dusk fog rose up about them, putting Erin in mind of the mist clad isles of her namesake. Soon it was dark, deep night falling, dotted with bright stars. But the moon above was waning and cast little light. Rhian woke sometime during the long trek, and though she was in great pain the made no sound, once again gritting her teeth on a fold of her cloak. When they paused to rest a moment Aragorn looked grimly at her shoulder, washing it again with an infusion of athelas, the scent of which seemed to ease her pain, although this time she remained awake. And they went on.
There was chill night-wind blowing up to meet, out of the valley, which was spread out like a grey shadow, and the soft, endless rustling of many leaves filled the mind of Erin with peaceful memories of other forests she had explored, walking barefoot with her sister.
"Lothlorien!" Legloas cried reverently. "Lothlorien! We have come unto the eaves of the Golden Wood. Alas that it is winter!"
Rhian lifted her head from where it rested on Strider's shoulder, and looked up with wonder at the trees, standing tall before the beneath the night, arching over the road and the stream, running suddenly beneath the spreading boughs. The star light turned their stems grey, and the trembling leaves pale gold.
"Lothlorien!" said Aragorn, and Rhian heard the glory in his voice. "Glad I am to hear again the wind in the trees! We are still little more than five leagues from the Gates, but we can go no farther. Here let us hope that the virtue of the Elves will keep us tonight from the peril that comes behind."
"If Elves indeed still dwell here in the darkening world," said Gimli.
"It is long since any of my own folk journeyed hither," said Legolas, "but we hear that Lorien is not yet deserted, for there is a secret power here that holds evil from the land. Nevertheless its folk are seldom seen, and maybe they dwell now deep in the woods and far from the northern border."
"Indeed deep in the wood they dwell," Aragorn murmured, and when he sighed Rhian remembered that for many years Arwen had lived in the Golden Wood. "We must fend for ourselves tonight. We will go forward a short way, until the trees are all about us, and then we will turn aside from the path and seek a place to rest in."
"I approve of that idea," Rhian mumbled. She was weary and aching despite being carried, and her shoulder throbbed once again.
"Indeed," Strider said, a tiny bit of humor edging his voice. He went forward, but behind them Boromir stopped and would not follow.
"Is there no other way?" he said.
"What other fairer way would you desire?" said Aragorn.
"A plain road, though it led through a hedge of swords," Boromir said bluntly. He eyed the great trees above them with distaste and distrust. "By strange paths has this Company been led, and so far to evil fortune. Against my will we passed under the shades of Moria, to our loss. And now we must enter the Golden Wood, you say. But of that perilous land we have heard in Gondor, and it is said that few come out who once go in; and of that few none have escaped unscathed."
"Boromir!" Rhian exclaimed, putting off whatever reply Aragorn might have made. "Do they teach such poor discipline in Gondor that you question the decisions of your chosen commander? Here you speak of what you do not know, for it seems to me that lore wanes in Gondor, if they speak evil of Lothlorien. Do you of Gondor let the blind lead the blind? Aragorn knows this place and is known to it, and if he says it is a place of good, so is it." The sudden rush of Celtic temper seemed to sum up all of her discomfort, the aches in her muscles, the throb of her shoulder, and the weariness permeating her whole body.
Boromir was silent, and in the faint starlight only Erin who stood near him could see his stricken expression. Aragorn spoke more gently that Rhian had.
"Do not say unscathed, Boromir, but if you say unchanged, then perhaps you will speak truth. But believe what you will, there is no toher way for us- unless you would go back to Moria-gate, or scale the pathless mountains, or swim the Great River all alone." Despite his reasonable tone, even his weariness was close to the surface, and his patience thinned.
"The lead on!" Boromir said finally, setting foot over the borders of Lorien. "But it is perilous."
"Perilous indeed," said Aragorn, "fair and perilous; but only evil need fear it, or those who bring some evil with them. Follow me!"
And they did.
One mile more, until they came to another stream where it flowed swiftly from the tree-clad slopes westward. They could hear it splashing down a fall somewhere in the shadows to the left. The hurrying waters ran across the path and joined the Silverlode in a swirl of dim pools among the trees.
This was the Nimrodel, and Legolas waded into it gladly. Behind him they came one by one, and on the farther side they rested. Rhian, Aragorn set gently down beside the banks, and clumsily she unlaced her boots with one hand, and let the cold, clean water flow over her bare feet. Some of her weariness, at least, seemed washed away, and beside her Erin did the same. At some point all talking ceased, and in the quiet they could hear the music of the waterfall ringing sweetly off the trees. Rhian thought she could hear singing mixed in with the sounds of the water, and said so aloud.
"I hear it too," Erin murmured.
"You hear the voice of Nimrodel," Legolas said, "who lived here long ago." In a soft voice he began to sing, the story of the Elvin-maid Nimrodel, who lived beside the stream that bore her name, who wandered and was lost, somewhere perhaps in the mountains, and of Amroth, the Elven-king who, when a storm carried his ship away from the Grey Havens without Nimrodel, cast himself into the sea to return and search for her, and was never heard of again. As he sang, Erin leaned against her sister's unhurt shoulder, and Rhian heard her sigh. She squeezed her hand gently.
"But in the spring when the wind is in the new leaves the echo of her voice may still be heard by the falls that bear her name," Legolas said. "And when the wind is in the South the voice of Amroth comes up from the sea; for Nimrodel flows into Silverlode, that Elves call Celebrant, and Celecrant into Anduin the Great, and Anduin flows into the Bay of Belfala whence the Elves of Lorien set sail. But neither Nimrodel nor Amroth ever came back."
The talk flowed around them, but was, for the moment, ignored by the sisters. Rhian said softly by her sister's ear, "Has it been very bad of late?"
"No worse than since the beginning," Erin said, equally soft. "Though I can't help thinking that perhaps I should have bludgeoned myself in Moria."
"Either your sense of humor or your sanity is waning, and I hope it's the latter, because I can attribute it to your 'condition'."
Erin prodded her- gently- in the ribs, and their attention was brought back to the Company by Aragorn.
"Tonight we will do as the Galadrim and seek refuge in the tree-tops, if we can. We have sat here beside the road already longer than was wise."
A/N: So I'm detailing things ArwenAria18 skipped over, lucky me...no wonder this is taking me so long! SHE got them from Rivendell to Lorien in seven chapters! It's taken me six just to get them ALMOST to Lorien- I think it'll take another one to actually get them to Galadrial and Celeborn, so that'll make it eight, with me leaving out Frodo-pining-over-Aria scenes and cutting down on Caradhras. Oh well. I my be faster than a herd of turtles- sorta- but I'm havin' fun!