Chapter Twenty-four: Hrissë
Glorfindel and Azshar re-joined the Fellowship in silence. No one seemed to notice that they'd been gone, except Legolas, though Azshar felt it had been the most obvious thing in the world.
She felt like she should be shouting, or hiding, or running for her life.
There was a silmaril in her locket.
She tucked it under her tunic and made sure her cloak was fastened. She felt hyper-aware of it at all times. There was a silmaril in her locket.
'Are you alright?' Aragorn asked her, coming over to bring her food. 'You look pale.'
'I'm well,' she said, pasting on a bright smile. 'Thank you.'
'I wanted to check you weren't injured after the warg attack too,' he added. 'I've seen to all the others, but not you or Glorfindel.'
'I wasn't hurt,' she said. 'I got lucky.'
'No, you didn't,' Aragorn said. 'You took out four of them without blinking an eyelid. It was a little bit terrifying.'
'Thank you,' she said, smiling slightly. 'I just… you know. We did what we had to.'
He nodded. 'Will you ask Glorfindel whether he was hurt at all? If there's anything I can help with, I will be happy to do it.'
'Of course,' Azshar said, wondering when she had become Glorfindel's spokesperson to the Fellowship. Aragorn clasped her on the shoulder and left her alone. Her hand drifted up to her locket before she caught herself and snatched it back down. She sighed and went to sit next to Gimli, who was staring with great concentration at the horizon.
'How are we, lassie?' he asked.
'Well enough. I feel I've barely seen anything of you since we left.'
'That's because you spend all your time around those elves,' Gimli muttered, not tearing his eyes from the sky.
'You could try talking to them,' she chided. 'We will lose nothing if the members of this group get along.'
'If that's so true, they can talk to me,' Gimli said. Then he pointed into the south. 'Look at that cloud. Isn't there something strange about it?'
Azshar looked where he pointed, and slowly got to her feet, frowning. 'Glorfindel,' she called. 'Legolas.'
The two of them stopped what they were doing and followed her eyeline. 'It's going against the wind,' Legolas said.
'Birds,' Glorfindel called.
He was right, Azshar realised. The black, swarming cloud was not a cloud at all, but a massive flock of birds – one that was heading right towards them. It didn't feel like a coincidence.
'Crebain from Dunland!' Legolas exclaimed, and Gandalf leapt to his feet.
'Hide!' the wizard bellowed. 'Hide yourselves and everything we have, quickly! They are spies!'
They sprang into action, scurrying over the rocky outcrop like ants, dragging their packs under the sparse bushes and throwing themselves in afterwards. Bill the Pony had to make do partially obscured by a large boulder. Azshar dived between a bush and a stone.
The breath went out of her lungs when she rolled to a stop, landing hard. She was beside Glorfindel, pressed into his side to stay as hidden as possible. He put his arm over her as the crebain blotted out the sky above them.
They swarmed over the Fellowship's campsite for what felt like an impossibly long time, shrieking and squawking. If Gandalf was right, and they were spies of the Enemy, there was very little chance that the Fellowship had gone undetected. The best they could hope for was to be dismissed as average travellers.
The birds finally passed, and quiet gradually fell as their cacophony faded into the distance. Azshar became aware of Glorfindel's arm holding her down, his slow breath, his face only inches from hers.
'There's no way they didn't see us,' she breathed, and he nodded, his dark blue eyes holding hers.
'We need to move faster,' he murmured. 'We haven't even made it to the Misty Mountains yet.'
'Out you come, little mice!' Gandalf called, and one by one, the Fellowship crawled out of their hiding places. Boromir pulled the hobbits out from under a bush and set them on their feet, one by one. Sam ran to check on Bill the Pony.
'Close call!' Gimli said with a grin, brushing himself off. Legolas looked at Aragorn.
'We should go. Now.'
'Agreed,' Aragorn, and Gandalf nodded too. 'Come on, everyone. We're moving out.'
'So much for sword lessons,' Pippin grumbled.
'Next time,' Boromir said consolingly, ruffling his hair. Pippin ducked out of the way. Boromir did it again, and the hobbit ran away, laughing. Azshar smiled.
They made it to the Misty Mountains at last. Merry and Pippin whooped for joy when they reached the foothills, despite Gandalf's scolding.
'It felt like we were walking in place for a while,' Sam said philosophically. 'I mean, we could see the mountains from the Last Homely House, and it still took us weeks to reach them.'
'It feels like we've made an achievement,' Frodo agreed. 'Like the first part of the journey is over.'
No one said anything to that, but Azshar saw Aragorn grimace, and Legolas and Glorfindel exchanged a glance. Part of their journey might have been behind them, but it was an exceptionally small part.
Their packs were growing lighter as they slowly ate through their rations, and exhaustion was beginning to take a toll, especially on the hobbits. The warg attack and the crebain had put them all on edge. Azshar hadn't forgotten about Maglor, either; at night, avoiding sleep, she would scan the darkness obsessively.
'Are we to climb the mountains, Gandalf?' Merry asked.
'Eventually,' Gandalf replied. 'We are making for the Redhorn Pass, which is a little further south.'
'More walking,' Pippin said glumly. Everyone looked at him, confused as to what else he had expected instead, and he scowled.
'Might as well get underway,' Aragorn said consolingly, patting Pippin on the shoulder, and they set off.
Azshar felt more and more nervous as they walked on. It felt like the world was closing in on her. They were being spied on by birds, attacked by wolves, followed by Maglor, carrying a silmaril – and now they were headed into the Misty Mountains.
The last time she'd crossed that mountain range, she and the Company of Thorin had drawn the wrath of hundreds of goblins, and barely escaped with their lives. She and Glorfindel had been ambushed by orcs. She'd been strangled into unconsciousness. It felt like they were walking headfirst into a trap.
Glorfindel seemed to know what she was thinking, and when they stopped for the night, the mountains bathed in fading orange light before them, he sat beside her and took her hand. She sighed heavily and wrapped her fingers around his.
'We'll be alright,' he said quietly. She nodded.
'I know we will. I just – I don't know what it is. I think the last time I drank that enchanted water was one time too many. It broke something in me.'
'You're not broken,' Glorfindel said flatly. 'Fear is healthy. It's good.'
'Mine is unreasonable,' she replied, pulling his hand into her lap. Glorfindel didn't reply, but his eyes stayed on her. Azshar sighed. 'It makes me feel better, when I'm with you,' she said. His fingers tightened fractionally around hers at the words, and then they began to shake. He went to pull away, but she held on tighter, and he didn't fight it. 'When you're touching me like this. When you look at me. It keeps everything else at bay.'
He didn't reply, but he pressed his face into her hair for a brief moment.
The threat of her memories returning was still hanging over her like a dark cloud, keeping her awake during the nights and putting her further on edge during the days. She reached up and closed her free hand around the locket.
Glorfindel had read the scrap of paper. Glorfindel likely knew what her true name was, and she'd made him promise not to tell her.
It was a strange kind of torture, knowing that she wore her own name around her neck, but not being brave or stupid enough to look. She looped Glorfindel's arm around her and leaned against him, her back against his chest and her head resting on his shoulder.
'Is it a good name?' she murmured, staring out unseeingly at the darkening sky. 'The one you read on the paper?'
'It's a beautiful name,' he said. His chest vibrated when he spoke. 'I think it suits you.'
'Could you tell me what it means?'
She felt him shake his head. 'I don't think so. I'm sorry.'
'It's alright,' she whispered, letting the disappointment wither inside her. It was just a name; she had a new one now.
'I wish –' he began quietly, but he stopped and didn't go on. Azshar shifted.
'Hm?'
'I didn't look for you after Maglor took you,' he murmured. 'I wish I had.'
She tried not to feel disappointed at the revelation. Elrond had never told Glorfindel that Maglor was lying. He'd had no reason to follow her. He'd probably believed that if she wanted to be found, she would have found a way to let him know.
'It's alright,' she whispered.
'I wanted to,' he said. 'But I was angry at you, for choosing him over me.'
'I didn't think I had a choice,' she said quickly, meeting his eyes. 'Believe me.'
'I know. You're not the one who's at fault here.'
She shook her head. 'Neither are you. You need to forgive yourself.'
'I don't know that I will.'
Azshar thought she knew what he meant, so she let the silence go on, tracing Glorfindel's fingers with hers. The sun went down, and their camp fell into darkness. Azshar slept, and she dreamed of her mother's voice before the nightmare took over and Glorfindel woke her.
It seemed that the Redhorn Pass had been little used over recent years. What had once been a road had become a rocky, overgrown path which disappeared in places and grew treacherous in others. Nevertheless, they climbed.
Merry and Pippin forgot their joy at climbing into the Misty Mountains soon after they began their ascent. The slope was steep, and it was hard work to climb for hours a day. To the chagrin of some of the longer-legged among them, their pace slowed further still.
'It's freezing up here,' Boromir muttered. Azshar glanced back to see that he was holding his cloak tight around him with shivering hands. 'And we're not moving fast enough to warm up.'
'Speak for yourself,' Sam muttered, red in the face.
'It's winter,' Azshar said to Boromir. 'And we're getting higher every hour.'
'Don't I know it,' he muttered. Just then, it began to snow. Tiny white flakes spiralled down from a darkening cloud which hung above them. Azshar didn't much like the look of it.
Boromir laughed, a slightly grim edge to the sound. 'Well, when it rains, it pours, I suppose.'
'Or when it snows, it… snows,' Pippin tried.
The snowfall became a full-blown storm. Nothing could be seen through the flurry of white, and the howl of the wind blanketed any other sound. Their pace was reduced to a crawl.
As they walked, Azshar could feel the strange, uncomfortable sensation of pieces of her mind knitting back together. She remembered something about snow, about unrelenting cold, she just couldn't put her finger on it. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the sensation. It didn't stop.
She heard Gandalf shout something, but she couldn't make out his words. She waited for Legolas to turn back and shout in turn. The wind was whipping his silver-blonde hair wildly around.
'…stopping… impossible… go on… over!'
She turned back to Boromir, Pippin and Glorfindel. 'We're stopping!' she shouted. 'We can't go on like this! We need to wait the storm out!'
She saw Glorfindel nod, and Boromir waved his understanding. They waded through waist-high snow to join with the rest of their group, forming a close circle with the hobbits in the middle. Gandalf drew out his staff and pointed it at the ground. His lips moved, and after a moment, a blue flame bled into life. The hobbits huddled around it gratefully.
They settled in for the night. Without a word, Glorfindel drew Azshar to himself, wrapping his cloak around them both and resting his chin on her shoulder. The effect was amazing; after a few minutes, Azshar had stopped shivering.
But her unease was growing. A sharp, growing pain was stabbing at her temple, and her vision had begun to darken at the edges. Her breath started coming faster and faster. She felt like she had in Mirkwood when she'd first smelled the cursed water of the Enchanted River – and it had dragged her headlong into a memory.
'Azshar,' Glorfindel said, noticing something was wrong. 'What is it?'
She couldn't see anymore. 'Something has – been triggered –' she ground out. 'I'm having an episode…'
'Gandalf,' Glorfindel called, the undertone of his voice panicked. 'Azshar, please, stay awake. Stay awake. Come on.'
She could feel his hands on her face, and then her shoulders, shaking her. It was too late; she was too far gone.
She remembered walking through the darkness for days on end. They didn't stop for fear that they would freeze to death. Exhaustion clawed at her, but the cold was worse.
The cold permeated every bone in her body and turned them to ice. It hurt to breathe, and every movement was a struggle. But they couldn't stop.
She walked in a procession, but she couldn't see the faces of anyone around her. There was only starlight to see by, and she was too tired to lift her head.
Someone ahead finally called a rest. Azshar fell to her knees where she stood. Half-heartedly, she cleared the snow that lay around her. It was an impossible task; under it was more snow, then ice, then frozen ground.
She was so, so tired. After a few minutes, she realised with belated surprise that the cold didn't feel so painful anymore; she couldn't feel her fingers and toes, or even her arms and legs. At least that meant she couldn't feel cold, she thought numbly.
She was going to die. She knew that. She was going to die.
Someone sat down beside her. She didn't look up. The icy wind was hissing around them, but Azshar could barely feel it.
'I miss light,' she murmured. 'I miss the Trees. Darkness all the time… wears on me.'
'Azshar!' came a sharp voice, and she opened her eyes. She was in the snow, in the darkness – on Caradhras. She sat up with a groan, supported by someone's hands. She was back in the present. Whatever she had been through before, she had survived it.
'Thank the Valar,' Legolas muttered, and Azshar realised she was surrounded by the worried faces of the Fellowship. Gandalf, who had been calling her name, sighed in relief.
She closed her eyes again. She felt sick, and the pain in her head was worse. Her whole body was shivering violently.
'We should give her medicine or something,' Sam said to Aragorn. 'Shouldn't we?'
'I don't know,' Aragorn muttered. Everyone looked at Glorfindel, who stared down at Azshar, still helping her sit upright.
'How much did you remember?' he asked quietly.
'Nearly nothing,' she replied hoarsely. 'Something about snow and ice, that's all.'
'All that for one memory?' she heard Boromir mutter.
'Quiet, lad,' Gimli said.
'I'm fine,' Azshar lied, raising her voice so they could all hear her. 'I'm quite alright. Has the storm stopped?'
They were almost snowed in. While Azshar had been unconscious, enough snow had fallen to bring it well above their heads. The only light came from Gandalf's magical fire, and she couldn't tell whether it was because it was night, or the snow was blocking the sky.
'Not quite,' Aragorn said, glancing at the wizard. 'We might have a problem.'
'Indeed,' Gandalf said, sighing and sitting back. 'This storm does not seem to me entirely natural. Whether it is some work of the Enemy, or the mountain herself doesn't like the One Ring on her back, or there is something else malicious at work…' he shook his head.
'What are you saying, Gandalf?' Frodo asked.
'I am saying that if we go on, we need to be prepared for conditions to worsen considerably,' Gandalf said.
'There are other ways to get past the Misty Mountains,' Boromir said, leaning in. 'We could stay this side of the mountains, go further south and take the Gap of Rohan.'
'That takes us very near to Saruman, a wizard of whom I am not overly fond right now,' Gandalf interjected.
'We need do no such thing!' Gimli exclaimed. 'We can travel a few days further south and go through Moria!'
'I thought you said nothing had been heard from there for years,' Aragorn said with a frown.
'That is little cause for concern!' Gimli said. 'Just think – it would be warm and dry. We would be among friends. We could replenish our supplies. And I'm sure Balin and the rest of Thorin's Company in Moria will be glad to lay eyes on Azshar again.'
'Warm and dry?' Merry echoed, glancing sidelong at Pippin.
'I don't like it,' Legolas muttered in Sindarin to Azshar and Glorfindel as the discussion continued around them. 'We should push further up the Redhorn Pass.'
'I don't think I have the strength,' Azshar confessed, wincing as she shifted. 'Besides, the hobbits wouldn't make it.'
'We should go by the Gap of Rohan,' Glorfindel said. 'We can deal with the wizard if problems arise.'
'If Gandalf is afraid of him, I am too,' Azshar said. She wondered through the pain in her head whether she would even make it that far. It hadn't taken much to trigger a single memory return, and it had been excruciating. Glorfindel seemed to be thinking along the same lines.
'What did you remember?' he asked, lowering his voice further.
'Travelling in the darkness,' she said. 'There were many of us, walking, but there was only starlight. No sun, no moon. It was cold. I think I nearly died. I was ready to die.'
Glorfindel looked down, frowning. 'Only starlight,' he said slowly.
'I remembered a name too,' she said, and she shook her head when he looked up quickly. 'Not mine, but… maybe the name of the place where I was. Helcaraxë.'
Legolas' eyes widened in shock. 'You crossed the Helcaraxë?' he asked in a low voice. Azshar shook her head.
'I don't know.'
'You can't have,' Glorfindel said, staring at her in confusion. 'I would have seen you. I would have remembered you.'
Azshar's eyebrows went up. 'You crossed the Helcaraxë?'
'Isn't it possible that you didn't know everyone who crossed?' Legolas asked Glorfindel, crouching beside the two of them. 'There were thousands of people. You might have done it together, and never known.'
'I suppose it must be possible,' Glorfindel conceded, still staring at Azshar. 'I… don't remember much of the crossing. It was a very long time ago.'
'So… we almost met before,' she whispered.
'I never considered the possibility that you came from Aman,' he said, shaking his head. 'I didn't think you could have lived in the First Age…'
'Maybe that's when you met Maglor,' Legolas said to her. 'During the War of the Jewels.'
The War of the Jewels. The devastating war she'd read about, the one that had been named for the silmarils, one of which she now wore around her neck. The war that had torn the world apart. She closed her eyes and groaned.
'This is too much.'
'We're moving,' Aragorn said in Sindarin, coming over to the elves. 'Frodo made the decision. We're going to try Moria.'
'Valar save us,' Legolas sighed, standing up.
'Can you walk, Azshar?' Aragorn asked. Azshar exchanged a glance with Glorfindel and nodded.
'I'll manage. The snow might pose a problem, though.'
'We should be able to walk across it, if we're careful,' Legolas said.
'The rest of us will have to go through,' Aragorn said with a sigh. 'We're doing it the hard way.'
Glorfindel helped Azshar to her feet. To the chagrin of the rest of the Fellowship, the three elves were able to walk with light feet over the top of the snow. They made their way steadily downwards, walking a few yards above the path. Glorfindel supported most of Azshar's weight.
But after only a short distance, the snow suddenly stopped. The ground emerged from beneath the white deluge, and the path was visible again.
'Gandalf was right,' Legolas said. 'This storm wasn't natural.'
'I'm going back to help the others through,' Glorfindel said to Azshar. 'Will you wait here?'
She nodded, but he didn't let go of her for another few seconds. 'I'll be fine,' she said quietly. 'I'll see you soon.'
He nodded and stepped away. 'You have your sword,' he said, and then he and Legolas disappeared up the mountain path together. Azshar sighed, sitting down heavily on a boulder. Her head felt like it was going to split in two, and she still thought she might throw up.
It was another nail in her coffin, another sign that she wouldn't be able to survive the full return of her memories. Another threat that she wouldn't live long before she accidentally triggered the memory that would kill her. She closed her eyes.
Despite it all, despite her looming demise, the draw of her past was irresistible. She clung to every piece of the puzzle she'd remembered, gathering tenuous threads that connected her to whoever she'd once been.
She knew she'd had a family, brothers and a sister that had loved her, teased her, cared for her. She remembered the voices of her mother and father; she still carried the sword he'd forged for her with his own hands. She remembered laughing with her friend, Nerwen.
She'd known Fëanor, and he'd known her. She'd loved dancing and riding. She'd lived in Valinor, and she'd walked across the icy wasteland of the Helcaraxë to reach Middle-earth – with Glorfindel. At least once in her life before the cave, she'd been near him. Though neither of them had known it, they'd travelled together before. That felt important to her.
She sat up straight when she heard the faint sound of approaching voices, putting the regained memory to the back of her mind.
'…heavier than a sack of potatoes, but much easier to carry,' came Boromir's cheerful voice.
'Oh? Why s-so?' Merry asked.
'Because sacks of potatoes don't hold onto you when you carry them on your back!'
'I'm g-glad you're feeling so c-cavalier about this whole situation,' Merry said crossly. 'I, on the other h-hand, am freezing to death.'
'You're almost there!' Legolas called, and Azshar saw him walking on the snow, above where Boromir and Merry must have been.
'He's doing an awful lot of complaining for someone who's being carried,' Boromir called back up, and Legolas grinned. Azshar got to her feet and walked gingerly to the edge of the snowbank.
'Boromir, Merry! Can you hear me?'
'Oh – Azshar!' Merry cried. 'We're almost there!'
They burst into the weak sunlight, Merry clinging to Boromir's back. Both of them were almost soaked through. Boromir deposited Merry back on the ground and straightened with a groan.
'Aragorn's coming next with Pippin,' he told Azshar, who smiled.
'I know. I can hear Pippin complaining.'
'We carry you like kings, and all you can think about is how cold you are!' Boromir scolded Merry, and the hobbit laughed.
Aragorn and Pippin emerged, followed by Gimli and poor, drenched Sam, who had opted to walk and looked like he regretted it. Glorfindel came last, carrying Frodo on his back. The hobbit took a quick step back once he was back on the ground.
'Thank you, Glorfindel,' he said awkwardly. Glorfindel just nodded and went to stand beside Azshar.
'The poor hobbit is terrified of you,' she chided lightly. Glorfindel took off his cloak and tried to squeeze some of the water from it.
'I don't do it on purpose,' he said guardedly.
'I know.'
'You're alright?'
Azshar smiled. 'I'm fine. I was sitting in the sunshine while you waded through snow.'
'You know what I mean.'
Her smile faded, and she nodded. 'I'll be alright.'
Clouds gathered in the sky as the Fellowship attempted to get dry and regather their things.
'We'd better move on,' Aragorn said, 'or we might be in for more snow.'
'Heavens forbid,' Pippin agreed with chattering teeth.
'Bill the Pony doesn't want any more snow,' Sam added, and Bill the Pony nodded his head for good measure.
'Off to Moria!' Gimli crowed, and they began walking.
It is swooping season in Australia and I am sitting in a park to get this chapter published. The absolute risks I have taken for this story smh
Anyway, I am just delighted that you have read this far, and I can't wait to see you in the next chapter, in which nothing scary or untoward happens. JUST KIDDING: Boromir pranks the hobbits, Glorfindel handles emotional conflict really maturely (haha not), Legolas is a relationship guru, the Fellowship gets another stalker, Gandalf clicks forgot password, and thankfully, chickpeas aren't mentioned.
I think that for the sake of uniformity and peace of mind, I'll try to post updates weekly on Monday. So, see you all in a week. xoxo, Gossip Sigebeorn
