Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and I make no money from writing about them.
(Thanks again for the kind feedback – it's appreciated, it really is. I hope that posting this section a little early makes up in part for the lack of chapters recently. Cat.)
Elrohir takes up the story.
"Father! Father!" I shout to him but he seems not to hear me, riding ahead and searching into the dark as if he can see Estel's track in the air. But I will make him listen. Anger drives me, anger with Estel for his foolishness, with myself for not knowing he would run, with my father for burning the picture.
There is only one way to stop him. I pull my horse across his, both animals shying away until we can barely manage them. The darkness narrows the world to this place, where I must be the one to call Elrond back to his senses. The horses complain, snorting and dancing the ground into muddy holes.
"Father! How do you know we are going the right way?" I ask, as Elladan reins in by me and reaches out to take my arm.
"Elrohir! What are you doing?" he asks, shouting over the disturbance I have caused.
My father says nothing, but his face is dark with anger, shadowy in the torchlight. He holds the last torch, its flame guttering and threatening to die.
"You cannot know where he has gone!" I say, trying to muster my argument. "We must wait until dawn and then search properly for his tracks!"
Elrond gathers the reins as if to urge his horse forward despite me, but I hold my place, barring him. My heart is pounding. I must somehow stop my own father in his chosen course, something I have never attempted to do before.
"Father – Father! What we are doing is senseless – this is not like you." The words are failing me. I have never questioned, never crossed my father. I do not know what to say.
Perhaps it is my face, perhaps it is something in the tone of my voice rather than the words, but he seems at last to be listening to me. Now he is ready for my strongest argument.
"Why are we going this way?" I ask him, as preparation.
"This is the way Legolas and Halbarad came. Estel is seeking them. He – he will…" He falters. He knows where the flaw in his thinking lies, that great hole in the logic of his conclusion which had escaped him in the rush to find our younger brother.
He calms his horse, patting its neck and leaning forward. He had hope. In stopping him, I have taken away some of that hope.
"He will not know which way they have gone," he says, quiet now. "He will follow his heart blindly, and I do not understand where his heart will lead him. I did not understand his heart when I destroyed his picture and now I cannot know where he has gone."
"Father! No!" Elladan says, jumping down from his horse and going to stand by his stirrup. He looks up at him, pleading his case. "We must go on!"
"Which way, Elladan?" Father says, looking down the trail. The pathway disappears into thick-growing trees here, the land beginning to rise more steeply. Soon we will be beyond the tree line and into the high hills, the rough, rocky land where the paths are narrow and treacherous. I begin to hope he did not come this way.
Estel is only nine. It is a thought which echoes through my mind. He is only nine.
"We must wait," I say. "We may be moving further from him. The moment it is light, we search here for tracks then …" but in truth, I do not know what we will do next.
Elrond nods. It is the only solution. Estel will have to spend a dark night on his own.
We sit round the fire, silent, until Father begins to speak. He talks of many matters – but he returns again and again to our childhood. The minutes flood past as we three dream of a time long ago, a time when we behaved as Estel is behaving, until we know a little more of what he is thinking.
In the middle of a story of tree-climbing, Father stands and calls to the dawn, the very first greying of the sky. He calls to it, urging it to give us enough light to see, summoning the sun to warm Estel and to let us see the path the boy took. Then he stills as we stand beside him. He is searching, his mind intent on finding his son.
"Did he come this way, Father?" I ask, when the time stretches out and the sky lightens enough for us to see any tracks he might have left.
Father breaks from his concentrated gaze. He is tired, burdened, and his expression is ambiguous.
"I believe – I think he did. I think I followed my instinct last night and that instinct led me nearly aright. We shall search, a widening circle, and see if can cut Spider's tracks."
We do, splitting up and looking for trace of Spider but find nothing in the immediate area. Still, my father feels confident enough for us to continue on the way we had chosen. The day dawns clear and bright. There is warmth in the sunshine, and though we find nothing in the next hour, still we are led by my father's hope, restored now. My own misgivings I now keep to myself.
As the sun rises, we encounter a band of men in a clearing. Rough, unruly men, in clothes that stink, carrying fresh kills of deer and bear. They try to avoid us, taking a different path into the thinning woodland but my father is intent on speaking to them. They stand side by side, wanting to appear greater in number and in courage but my father greets them kindly enough, with no show of strength to unsettle them.
"We are searching for one of my household," he says carefully. "A young man, who should have returned last night. Have you seen anyone out this way? Someone on a grey pony?"
One man steps forward. "We do not interfere in others' business," he says. "Not the business of people of your sort. We keep to ourselves." He turns as if to lead the others away but Elrond walks over to him, placing his hand on the man's shoulder.
"A wise policy," he says. "But surely you can tell us if you saw someone. We do not hold you responsible for him."
Into my head comes an image of Estel meeting these men. Would they have left him alone? Would they have frightened him, or chased him away? I glance at their pack horses, wondering for a moment if Spider would be there among them; but he is not, and the image flees.
Elrond is bending his will to this matter of extracting the truth from this man. I can see it in the tension in their bodies, in the man's expression – guarded, then surprised. He lifts his arm and points the way they have come.
"Back there, my lord," he says, the title coming reluctantly from his lips. "Two miles, less maybe, by the waterfall."
Elrond nods, letting the man go his way. They walk swiftly, glancing back at us and muttering among themselves.
Elladan has been scouting ahead. He stands suddenly in the saddle and shouts, pointing to the ground.
"Here! He came out of the woods here!"
We both mount and join him, trotting forward as fast as we can along the uneven, broken way. The path is straight and true, upwards now, steeper and steeper, and my father looks back at us, worried.
"Surely he cannot have come this way in the dark!"
Yet the small hoof prints continue upwards and we follow, the sound of a waterfall now thick in our ears. The rocks are jagged on one side of the path but smoother on the other, and I recognise the marking of water over stone. This is a waterfall which overflows its bounds from time to time.
My father is riding first. Suddenly he calls us to halt and jumps from his horse's back, then runs forward, casting his long coat aside as he does. Until I come up with his horse I cannot see what he sees. I can only see that the hoof prints continue on up the path but my father has struck off to the side, toward the falls. When I do see what has caught my father's attention, I glance at Elladan, who has grasped the situation even more quickly than I and is already dismounting. We tie up the horses and then follow Father through the thick undergrowth to the water's edge.
We are a hundred feet up. The waterfall drops in a series of steps and pools, wider in places, the water lacy, thin as it drops to the next rock bowl, then narrower, the water coming together in a heavy spill of white droplets, which thunder down into a further pool. Above us, another hundred feet of waterfall.
And there, in the middle of the fall, Estel, hunched, miserable, his feet on a stone which must rock when he moves, his hands bracing him as he leans into the waterfall. He shifts as we look, Father calling to him, urging him not to move and we see him nod, and then shake the water from his face.
How long has he stood like this? How did he get out so far – and why did he come this way?
"Rope!" I say to my brother, who nods and runs back to the horse.
Yet Father, hearing me, shakes his head. "Do not distract him! He will slip! We must find another way!"
I can see no other way. He stands at the edge of the fall, a drop of twenty feet between him and the shallow pool into which the water flows, cold and relentless. We must get to him, use the rope to secure him and bring him back.
Behind me, I hear something crashing through the undergrowth. An animal, intent on its own purpose, breaks through and stands, shivering, near my brother. It is Spider, wild-eyed, dirty and scratched, eager to stand with our horses now. Elladan catches him and tethers him to a tree.
My father has been inching his way out across the way Estel must have taken but the water has risen a little even in the time we have been here, as it must have been rising all night. Any false move will be enough to disturb Estel's fragile hold. Already he is shuffling sideways towards his father, and I can see in his face the distress, the terror he feels.
Father steps back, calling as soothingly as he can to his youngest son.
"Stay where you are, child! I have a better plan. Can you wait a few more moments?"
There is a pause. I can feel for Estel, for the decision he has to make. The call to run to his father, whatever the danger, must be strong in him. But he nods, and resettles himself, steadying his balance once more, tossing his head to get his hair out of his eyes. He is brave, that one, foolish, disobedient, unthinking, but brave. He is my brother and I yearn to run to him, to snatch him out of the situation he has put himself into.
Father is back at the edge of the water with us now. He is soaked, and pushes his hair out of his face. He takes a moment to tell us his plan.
We both argue against him but his decision is made and he quietens us.
"I cannot spend time arguing this, Elladan – Elrohir. You must help me. Make a fire here, get blankets, get a hot drink ready for him. Elladan – do it!
My brother does not argue and goes immediately to do as he is told.
"Elrohir – come – you must stand beside me, help me if my strength fails. It is the only way."
"Yes, Father," I say, hastening to catch up with him. He is climbing down the slope now, keeping his feet despite slippery rocks, holding on to branches as he descends. As I follow, I weigh up the chances of success but keep my judgement to myself. Father will not let his son down and if he thinks this is the only way, that is because it is.
We wade out together into the icy waters of the pool. It is deeper than that in the step above because it is one pool, not several. It reaches my tall father's knees. It is not deep enough to cushion a fall from Estel's place of refuge.
We stand underneath him, and Father calls to him, gently, with confidence. Estel glances round, searching us out, then sees what we have planned. His eyes widen and he shakes his head, looking away from us but Father calls him again.
"Come, Estel – it is but a little way. Trust me now, Estel – look at me. I am sorry about your picture – I want to tell you how sorry I am. It was wrong of me, very wrong. Now come, Estel. Just stand up. There, that's it."
And, miraculously, there my brother stands, his arms outstretched for balance, his gaze locked onto his father's face. The water pounds down around us but all I can see, all I can hear, is this moment between my father and my brother. His arms outstretched, my father shouts with authority and hope in his voice.
"Jump, Estel!" he calls. "Jump!"