To those readers who've hung around and continued to read this, despite the looooooooong intervals between postings, thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you've forgotten the story line - in the last chapter, Aragorn's explorations led him to the discovery of the ruins of an ancient city and a dragon's hoard.

I am well aware I have warped First Age canon a little in the interests of the story, but I have attempted to remain within the boundaries of an author's perogative of what if ...

The dice, carved from the thick oak bottom of one of their ship-wrecked barrels, skittered across the floor, barely coming to rest on a pair of snake eyes before Aragorn artfully flicked his thumb, tossing his wager into the air.

"Two out of three?" the youth inquired genially.

Harwan's dark head lifted like a hound on scent as his gaze followed the arc of a pearl the size of a small bird's egg. He watched as it rose gracefully to its apex before dropping to land amid the largess of the evening's game of chance – a pile of shells and pebbles mounded on the cavern's cool stone floor.

The fire lit a smirk prodding the edges of smug on Aragorn's face as he stretched out his hand to scoop up the die. "Or shall we make it a little more interesting? Three out of five?" he offered, delighted to have roused the aloof sailor's interest.

Deeply tanned, sinewy fingers shot out, ensnaring a wrist in a vise-like grip, jerking the young man to his knees. The youth's palm was turned up and swung nearer the fire where it was minutely inspected before being abruptly released.

Harwan leaned forward, the silent command in his impelling gaze snagging Aragorn uneasily. "You are something more than even Borlath guessed," he said in his own tongue.

Instinctively, the youth shrank back. Perhaps piquing the sailor's interest had been foolish in the extreme.

"The hand of fate does not appear to caress you, either, young one." Harwan's stare darted to the pearl and back again. "How came this into your possession?"

Aragorn stilled a convulsive shudder, feeling suddenly as if he stood before his foster father's desk, pinned by the ancientness of eyes that had chronicled the rise and fall of power over long ages. Shock tingled like a lightning bolt down his spine.

"You are elf kind!" The astounded realization echoed around the cavern.

"Where did you find it?" Implacable will attempted to stifle astonished surprise.

"In the ruins," Aragorn answered without volition, though like a terrier with a rat he refused to abandon his own revelation. "You are elf-kind," he repeated, both awed and irritated. It did not occur to him to be frightened. A momentary pause, as his mind flew back over all he had learned of the sailor, was followed by a slightly aggrieved, "You do not act as an elf."

"Whereas you are not, though act as if you are," Harwan rejoined in like manner, stripping off the bit of cloth Aragorn had fashioned into a sling for his broken arm, the silent inference that it had been both annoying and unnecessary clanging as loud as a fire alarm between them. "What ruins?" The rags keeping the splints in place were peeled off as well, the pieces of wood tossed into the fire with a gusty sigh of relief. In the act or massaging his forearm, the elf's head snapped up and around again. "Never say you have stumbled upon the remains of the hidden city!"

Aragorn, however, refused to be diverted again. "Why? Why would you pretend to be other than you are?"

"I did no such thing."

The ring of veracity in the pronouncement momentarily disconcerted Aragorn's surety. "You never said a word!"

"There was no need. By your own observation you categorized me among men. That was not my error."

"But …" Aragorn sputtered. "But …" His mind was spinning again, as it was wont to do when he found his stated opinions suddenly juxtaposed with the truth of the matter. His tongue might never have shaped the words, but he had certainly treated the elf as a man, and not just in tending the broken arm. "I don't understand," he said finally, searching the hooded gaze.

"Consider it in light of a lesson. Those who see only what they expect, live foreshortened lives." Harwan plucked the pearl from its resting place atop the heap of ante, closing the subject as thoroughly as if he had shut a book. "This is a pearl of Balar. It would fetch much more than passage to the ends of the world. Where found you this?" The elf was surprised to find his heart beat steadily increasing as the possibilities bloomed in his mind. "Where?" He leaned forward again.

Aragorn stared at his suddenly altered companion , re-cataloging the features of a face that was exactly the same as the one attached to the water-logged body he had dragged from the surf. It seemed an age ago, though in reality it had been little more than a full cycle of Ithil's watch.

Thick, black hair, worn cut-at-the-shoulders as men wore it, covered the ears. But he saw, too, the elven contour he had failed to mark – because, as Harwan had observed so acerbically - he had seen only what he had expected to see; a man whose life at sea had toughed his skin to the consistency of old leather, whose eyes were perpetually narrowed from long exposure to bright sun, whose hands and arms bore the scars of years wielding grappling hooks and tar brushes, tacking sea-soaked rope and canvas.

Though the face was no different, it was again born in on Aragorn how ageless in its imperturbability the weathered countenance appeared.

In his defense, no elf in his experience – admittedly limited – had borne scars, nor suffered the effects of exposure to the elements; not even his brothers, who had practically lived outdoors since their mother's sailing. Still, had he been home, he would have been banned from patrol, indefinitely, had he missed something so blatant.

"Where?" Harwan repeated, schooling himself to patience in the face of the colt's sudden skittishness.

"I marked the way back, but it is many turnings, and in most of the passages I was bent nearly double. No more than a torch's burning though."

"Nargothrond," Harwan breathed quietly. "You have stumbled upon the ruins of the hidden city." Memories, backed up behind an ages-old cerebral dam, threatened a cataract of remembrance. A tremor ran through his body as the first crack appeared. It would not do to remain here where the bright, curiously ageless eyes, might discern more than either of them had bargained for.

The illusion of age he had wrapped about himself fell away as he rose with all the agility and strength of one who does not decline with years. He said nothing, though he felt the youngster's eyes following him to the narrow turning that led to the cave's entrance.

In the long ages he had roamed Arda alone, dispossessed and friendless, he had never experienced such a burning desire to make himself known once more. It was his own condemnation that had left him wandering the shores of the world through the ages that had followed his brother's self-destruction. No curse forbade his telling; no banishment had been laid upon him. Only honor stood between revelation and repudiation and his honor had been rather ragged for a very long time. So why should it hold him back now?

With a swift glance over his shoulder, Harwan slipped into the turning and strode out. Tuning all his senses to the night sounds, as equally alert for the quiet predator as the raucous marauders, he made his way through the tangled underbrush toward the wide swath of destruction left in the wake of the malevolent storm.

The hidden city of Finrod Felagund. Another crack appeared, exposing the icy edge of the Helcaraxë. He had no wish to dredge up the culpability and shame that rose with recollections of the crossing; those were memories best left undelved. And as good a reason as any to maintain his long silence.

The wash of stars overhead, as he broke through the foliage onto the steep incline, instantly soothed, as he had known they would. They were the only constant in his long life, their light shining equally, without judgment, upon the culpable and the innocent.

Harwan wandered downhill until he found the rocky outcropping he sought and mounted its crest. The field of stars seemed near enough for plucking and he spotted Eärendil's craft hoving over the horizon. What must that inestimable mariner think of him? Did he peer down upon them every night and shake his shaggy head over the caprices of nature that drove mortal and immortal alike? Did he intercede on his young descendant's behalf amongst the Valar who had initiated his nightly voyages?

Had he interceded uselessly on behalf of Isildur? Did Isildur's heir have it in him to walk a different path than his ancestor? Was this young mortal the one who would break the curse of Sauron's power? The shadows of desire often overwhelmed the hearts of men; could he possibly succeed where his predecessor had failed?

Despite the encompassing serenity of the stars, the crack in the dam inevitably widened. A trickle became a steady stream, the flow broadening and deepening until it flooded his soul, indelible memory swamping resolve with a thousand pricking sword points. He could not wade out of the morass while the quicksand of the oath clung to him, dragging him down, down, down into the depths of despair.

Hope blossomed, though, amidst the reminiscences. The heart of Isildur's heir was as yet untainted by the affliction of envy. He had grown to manhood among the Firstborn. Perhaps the son Harwan had fostered had had the wisdom to instill astuteness both of mind and character. The supposition armored his fëa so the piercing swords faded to less harmful dagger pricks. He had not his brother's courage to make an end to his own life, but perhaps the breaking of the world was no longer so far off as to be unimaginable.

He who should know no comfort, whose footsteps must be a curse upon the earth that bore his weight, found himself wrapped in the warmth of the tropical night, the gentle sough of the breeze and the caressing of the waves upon the shore far below echoing the ancient beat of his heart.

Aragorn plucked the pearl from its ignominious bed, holding it aloft between thumb and forefinger. Backlit by the fire, it shone with an inner glow matched only by Ithil's radiance.

It had not taken long for caution to rise with the realization that he dealt not with a man, but an elf. An elf who by language and deed hailed from the far southern reaches of Middle-earth. His wide-ranging lessons had included both factual and presumed knowledge concerning the cults that had formed in Far Harad in the first millennium of the Third Age. Sauron was believed to have a strong foothold in the far south.

His mind continued to churn, speculative conjecture not so much a game now, as he had often played with Erestor in his studies. His survival might be in jeopardy, though he could not bring himself to believe the possibility to be more than remote.

Of the five Istari sent to Middle-earth, the two detailed to Far Harad had never been heard from again.

Or so it was said.

Borlath had specifically bidden him safeguard the little sea-serpent casket. To make sure it was delivered to Gandalf the Grey. The wizard, whom Aragorn was fully aware, was hand-in-glove with his foster father in watching over the welfare of - not just the elves - but all of Middle-earth.

The dragon's hoard was forgotten between one heartbeat and the next. The pearl slipped unnoticed from his fingers, rolling beyond the reach of the firelight.

"Borlath …" Aragorn's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth as fear, chased by fury, followed by scorn raced like a raging forest fire through his chaotic thoughts, burning off old suppositions faster than he could process the new ones. The fear that he had been blind-sided by a band of brigands shot through his thoughts again, but was instantly dispelled by fury, and a dose of shriveling scorn for his naiveté and infatuation with his own judgment.

But if Borlath was one of the two named Ithryn Luin, who was Harwan? Knowledge imparted from books or even tutors did not etch with the decisiveness of reality. And the elf's voicing of the name of the hidden city had evoked strong sentiment; so strong he had fled the cave as though pursued by old enemies.

Few old enough to remember the reality of Nargothrond yet walked Arda in earthbound bodies. And those who did, he knew from his foster father's reckoning. The grandmother of his beloved, Galadriel, and her consort, Celeborn, had made the crossing at the Helcaraxë, as had Círdan, the shipwright. Written lore averred the existence of another, who, alone, haunted the shores of Middle-earth, but it could not be.

Or could it? By his own admission, Borlath's ship navigated the long lost shores of Middle-earth. Had a lost wizard taken to crew a forgotten immortal? The possibility fired Aragorn's imagination.

What twist of fate had thrown a dispossessed prince of the drowned isles together with a First Age murderer and thief? "Though," he thought aloud, "the designation of thief begs the question of ownership."

Erestor and his father had always bidden him keep his mind open to the lessons of the universe; to listen for the internal tunings of the great song.

Was this such a time? Should he follow the elf? Press him for answers? Sleep on his speculations? Or disregard them completely?

Did he have the right to pursue what Harwan did not freely offer? It was, after all, Aragorn's own impetuous flight from home that had set them on this disastrous course. And many had perished as a result.

Sensitivity attempted to tip the scales away from following desire. Desire, though, coupled with curiosity, won. Aragorn retrieved the knife by his bed of palm fronds and slipped from the cave as well. It took a few moments of casting about to find the trail, for though Ithil hung low and full in the sky, her light only breeched the thickly grown canopy sporadically.

Aragorn spotted the elf immediately, as he pitched forward to hands and knees when his foot caught in a trailing vine at the edge of the desecrated strip of mountainside. He was not much given to seeing signs and portents in every little thing that happened to him, but he did wonder briefly, as he pushed up from the earthen floor, if the old forest was attempting to sway his determination.

Harwan gave no greeting as he climbed up and settled himself beside the elf on the ridge of rock facing out over the slope of the mountain. He could neither see, nor hear, the ocean waves from their perch, but he could imagine their continual shushing murmurs upon the shoreline. The stars, however, were so close he thought he might touch their cold fire. He leaned back on his hands and picked out the constellations that were already dear friends from his childhood in Rivendell.

The Vingilot appeared to move more quickly in this firmament than at home, though perhaps that was a trick of the vastness of the sky here. It arched above them like a purple canopy upon which diamonds had been stitched so thickly not even the Ainur would be able to count them.

The mariner's mast had tipped over the edge of the world when finally Harwan spoke. "You have the gift of silence, too, I see. That is a rare thing in one so young. Your patience, however, is driving me slowly mad. Give voice to your queries; I do not promise to answer them, but I will consider their merit."

Aragorn grinned inwardly at the compliment wrapped in a complaint, but held his peace a little longer. It would not do to blurt out the foremost question beleaguering his thoughts, better to lead up to it if he wished for it to gain merit in the eyes of the elf.

"How did you meet Borlath?" he asked instead.

The question was innocuous enough, but the elf was well aware of where it would eventually lead. He answered anyway, truthfully, not in the least surprised at the diplomacy evidenced in this first query. "In the southern most port city of Harad, long ago," he added, not averse to lingering in those memories.

"Will you tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"Of your meeting, of how it came to be. How it is that you sail with him."

"Perhaps; if you would like to tell me how much you have deduced thus far." Harwan had an inkling the youth had grasped far more than was potentially good for him, but that could not be helped now.

The news of Nargothrond had caught him completely off guard. Though they had never taken the time to explore the underground caverns honeycombing the island, Borlath's crew had ranged over every bit of it above ground. They had found nothing to indicate any part of the hidden city had survived the cataclysm that had drowned Númenor, burying half the then-known world under a depthless ocean.

He could not call back his careless reveal, but neither would he further endanger the youngster if there was anything to salvage.

"I do not believe I tell you anything you do not already know." Aragorn paused to debate the best avenue of his own revelations. "In my studies, I learned there were five Istari sent to Middle-earth at the beginning of the Third Age. Two, known as the Ithryn Luin, traveled with Curunír, to the far eastern lands. They were never heard from again, though Curunír, who is now known as Saruman, returned. No one seems to know for certain if they lived or died; if they yet foment unrest amongst Sauron's minions, or have joined with the forces of the dark lord."

In the starlit darkness, Aragorn saw the glitter of eyes turned toward him, though the face was in shadow and he could not see the assessment taking place in the grey depths.

"Is Borlath one of the Ithryn Luin? And if so, what happened to the other?"

"I suspect we are not yet finished with your deductions," Harwan observed, "yet you obscure with fresh questions."

Aragorn inclined his head. "Will you answer them?"

The sailor turned his gaze back the stars, holding back a disquieting sigh. "Aye, Borlath is as you suspect. He has not used his Istari name in a thousand years and may never again. As for the other, Pallando, he fell to Sauron's sway. But 'tis a sad tale, you may wish it unheard if I burden your tender ears with it." He was of two minds whether to share the story. Guilt, that he had allowed himself to be so carried back in time that he had carelessly exposed the innocence of this youth to his identity, vied with the guilt of withholding the history the young one so obviously thirsted to hear first hand. Perhaps the cautionary age-old tale of Pallando would serve as a fair distraction.

Harwan took a moment to sift through the many tales he could share, for bridle and bit that might curb the enthusiasm of the youngster for old history, or at least keep him from repeating it. Shifting his gaze down the mountain, he returned again, in his mind, to a lifetime ago, for he had lived several lifetimes in his long exile.

"The Ithryn Luin had been taxed by the Valar to penetrate the ranks of Sauron's minions, as you describe them, to determine, if possible, the extent of the Dark Lord's presence in the far south of Middle-earth. Perhaps I chanced to be in the port city when they disembarked; perhaps it was the will of the Valar. However it happened, we met and forged fast friendships, drawn together, I suppose, as foreigners often are in a hostile land. I had little else to do and so cast my lot with the Istari against an old enemy. It did not take long to inveigle our way into the lower ranks of the worshippers Sauron had seduced among the Haradrim."

Aragorn watched the immortal countenance with the eyes of a hawk, noting every shift of muscle and sinew as memory surged and waned with the telling. He might be one of the few humans on earth to know the true story of the Ithryn Luin. He wanted to embed it deep in his memory.

"Pallando had a gift for marshalling men to a cause. He could persuade a man to purchase sand he already owned and became quickly entrenched in his role, his prowess noted and rewarded by the Master himself. Perhaps he was bewitched, perhaps merely seduced as the others were, by the power bestowed with each rise in the hierarchy. With every new level attained, the rewards became more integral to rising further – I will not tell you of the acts of degradation he began to perform in order to rise higher, it is not necessary to the tale. Suffice it to say he gained a wife, and in the natural course of events, they had a child. Eventually, for the price of their lives, Pallando betrayed us."

Aragorn twitched, recognizing, from the agonized look in the ancient eyes, that a lot of sordid ground had just been covered in a rather succinctly expunged manner.

He did not interrupt.

Harwan's lips twitched in a half smile, as if he knew impetuous words had been stilled, and applauded, however silently, their stifling. "We escaped, after a time, with the help of the Haradrim who had worked closely with us. By then, we had learned of the many captives Sauron held and the Ithron was determined to free them or die in the endeavor. It did not matter over much to me if I lived or died, I had long desired to depart this life, so it was natural to again throw my lot in with Alatar."

"Borlath's crew," Aragorn said softly, into the silence that followed.

"Aye, some," Harwan replied eventually, "the elven among us." He was again surprised at the level of perception in one so young. "Much of that first crew is long gone beyond the circles of this world."

"You return, though, to free others as time passes. What happened to Pallando?" The narration did not continue and Aragorn thought for a moment, the elf would not resume. "Pallando?" he repeated, voice pitched so low it might have been a whisper of the breeze.

A furrow creased the ancient, unlined brow. "You are far-seeing, for one so young." Harwan picked at a stone wedged in a crack running along the top of the rock.

A mask descended upon the stiff features, dissolving also, the palpable anguish in the voice, so it was again flat, completely devoid of emotion when Harwan continued. "Pallando serves still. He has become a formidable foe since the Dark Lord's spirit was unhoused at The Last Alliance. It becomes harder and harder to release his newly acquired servants from indenture."

"But that does not stop you from returning."

"Nay, it does not," Harwan agreed, though he offered nothing further.

At length Aragorn asked tentatively, "Am I wrong in believing that you know more than the history of Nargothrond?"

Harwan closed his eyes briefly. Beside him, the colt all but quivered with suppressed anticipation.

Aragorn waited with bated breath. He had wondered, occasionally, about the heavy pall hanging over the sailor's song. It had been muted to nothing more than a dreary, endlessly repeating pattern in a minor key. But he had equated it with those he had heard among the inhabitants of Lindon: the deep, slow-moving song of the blacksmith he had worked for in order to earn his passage, the trickling songs of the tavern denizens, and the nearly stifled song of the bawdy mistress with whom he had secured lodgings.

Few mortals were cognizant of the great Song, much less their own contributions to the harmonies and discords that knit together, or pulled apart - as was often the case among his kind - the very fibers of the earth. But in his experience among the elves, life songs were arias of light and beauty, becoming more and more intricate as their lives slowly developed in close harmony with the music of the Ainur.

Aragorn, with new eyes and ears, experimentally hummed a countermeasure to the elf's tarnished song.

Harwan half rose, those far-seeing eyes gone hard and implacable. "Cease! I have no wish to feel again and no need for a tune-up from the likes of you, impudent puppy!"

Aragorn desisted at once, immediately submissive to the power he sensed roiling behind the hissed command; but he heard plainly the thread of anguish that underscored the harsh indictment.

He let silence engulf them again, settle heavily between them, before asking, with the instinctual resonance of a healer seeking to staunch the flow of blood from a mortal wound, "Will you tell me your story?"

He had been weeks, now, in the company of this elf, and while the revelation of a ghost legend come to life had been startling, some deeply imprinted primal intuition bade him voice the offer.

The elf sighed and ceased trying to prize the pebble from its tight quarters. "It is a long and sordid tale, Master Aragorn; not fit for human tongue to shape, nor ears to hear."

Neither by breath nor blink did Aragorn betray the curiosity instantly besetting him. He sat perfectly still, waiting. Willing himself to become still as a stone, a presence no more threatening than the stars overhead.

"You are very young; barely conversant with the power of words. You do not understand their puissance. Spilled words cannot be retrieved, nor their power undone."

"I will think no more or less of you for knowing your story," Aragorn offered. "A wound left to fester, poisons the whole. I am not yet a full-fledged healer," he confided, "I left my home before completing that training. But I have some natural skill – or so my Lord Elrond has assured me. I am capable of listening without judgment."

It was the gaze of a First Age elf, the shell of Harwan momentarily transparent, that travelled slowly from Aragorn's hands, resting on his bent knees, to the crown of his shorn head.

"You are a prince of Númenor, kin to Elrond by virtue of the linage of Elros. You have the look of your many-times-removed grandsire at your age. You must have inherited the gift of healing from your even-further-removed Maia grandmother; Elros had little use for the elven arts."

A sigh, vaster than the deserts of Harad, deeper than the depthless oceans, rived the elf; Harwan was once more thoroughly entrenched in the immortal incarnation.

"One day, Aragorn, son of Arathorn, you will be fully-invested in your life's work as a healer. I thank you for your concern, but I am not at liberty to tell my story." One eyebrow lifted, the expression conveying equal parts closure and commiseration.

The sting of disappointment was sharp, but Aragorn reined it in; his first considered act, though he knew it not, of an adept and merciful healer. "As you will."

Harwan squinted at the first light of dawn beginning to brighten on the far horizon. "Tell me of your findings. Is Nargothrond much intact? Or have the ages destroyed it completely?" It was a pitiful substitute as subjects went, but it was the best he could do.

Clearly the living history book sitting beside him had no desire to be read. With the resiliency of youth, Aragorn turned his mind resolutely to the find he had so recently discovered, some of the exhilaration trickling back as he recalled the structure he had explored so briefly. "I am surprised I have not come upon it before, in my explorations, for the bones of the structure, though much overgrown, appeared to be open to the sky. The walls were mostly covered in vegetation, much of it dead, fortunately. Else I might have been trapped there for some time."

"Your torch failed again?" Amusement colored the simple statement, though Harwan refrained from pointing out – yet again – that he had warned the young one against straying beyond the limits of his light.

"Aye," Aragorn chuckled in accord, "again. I know, I know. One of these days I will get stuck somewhere."

"'Ware that happening," Harwan cautioned, the momentarily obliterated twinkle returning to his eyes. "I cannot abide small spaces and will not come to your rescue. You will starve to death in your heedlessness."

"So you have warned me countless times. And yet, the lure of the unknown draws me on." The deliberate innuendo was probably unwise under the circumstances, but disappointment, while caged, would not be silenced.

Harwan only raised an eyebrow, adding a rueful smile of acknowledgement. "I suppose you will have to learn from experience, but I will tell you now, brooding bars the way of contentment. It is a useless occupation." The sailor rose, stretching as though relieving muscles aching with ages of accumulated tension. "Waste as little time as possible on it; your mind will be far better occupied with more important things. I believe I will retire for what if left of the night."

Aragorn twisted his head around to watch the sailor disappear, blending into the shadows beneath the trees as only an elf could do. A tantalizingly sealed scroll, he lamented silently, a living historical recorder who might well be the only one who could recount – almost from beginning to end – the history of Middle-earth.

TBC