Chapter 8: On board the Elendil

Back in Cormallen, plans were afoot for the King to return and claim the White City. Messengers had been travelling along the old road to Osgiliath and along the banks of the Anduin into Ithilen to the fields of Cormallen where Aragorn had settled to ensure Mordor was well and truly routed and Sauron's armies gone. Warm words had been exchanged between Faramir and Aragorn, reaffirming the trust that had been established when Aragorn had healed the young Man. Merry was particularly pleased and felt he had actually made an important contribution with his own carefully worded letter to Faramir extolling Aragorn's virtues and his keenness to acknowledge Faramir and his importance to Gondor. Merry also sent a note to Eowyn, for he felt she had been overlooked in this and he wanted to make sure she was recovering. Her note, when it arrived however, was happy to hear that he was well but her words seemed tired to him, and a little forlorn so when the King decided that Gandalf and Imrahil should go ahead and prepare the city for Aragorn's return, Merry begged passage with them and it was granted.

The King decreed that those still wounded would also go so they could be better cared for in the Houses of Healing; although there were healers in the camp, no field hospital could ever replace the resources and facilities of the city. Deemed one of that number, Elrohir had been told by Aragorn in no uncertain terms and in front of the King's Council that he was to go also, and though he chafed at the direction he would not gainsay Aragorn in his new role or do anything that might undermine him.

So the first ship was readied. It was a large carak named The Elendil, with three masts and both fore and aft-castles. It was an impressive sight as she hoved alongside the pier at Cormallen which had been restored in these peaceful weeks. Great ropes were slung over the bollards and the ship was moored slowly against the pier. For a full day, first light until well past sunset, carts trundled up to the wide gangplank and the crew loaded the ship with as much cargo as she could carry, emptying the great pavilions of the heavy furniture, silver, glass and china. And then the pavilions themselves were taken down and loaded onto the ships. This took a full day before the passengers even embarked.

But at last The Elendil was ready. It was a bright April morning that saw the passengers embark. The hobbits stood on the quay to wave Merry off and nearby Aragorn stood with Gandalf and Elrohir. All was bustle and noise around them with sailors calling to one another, loading the last few bits of luggage and the final stores were carried on. There were crowds of Men clustered on the quay, either waiting to board or seeing their friends and comrades off. It had a festive air and was full of hope and excitement, for those who were left behind now expected to return home soon. Already other ships were being readied and the horses were being sent off on their way home by road with a few Men to guard and herd them back along the road to Osgiliath. It was expected that within the week, the field of Cormallen would be emptied and all returned to the city.

Elrohir leaned on his cane thinking how the ship seemed to strain at its ropes and the sails shiver like it was eager to be off. The passengers were boarding now; the wounded first. About twenty or more Men limped or were carried on. The gulls cried and mewled on the wind that shivered over the water.

'There is Baelderon, 'Aragorn said, nodding towards the Dúnadan. He was limping heavily and leaned upon a crutch, but that was not his true injury. Aragorn sighed and squinted against the sun. 'He is still lost in grief. The loss of Cordobad and Halbarad are heavy upon him.'

He turned his head to see that Elladan came walking towards them through the gathered crowd. Men parted for him as he approached for he was tall and his handsome face and ready smile had already won over the hearts of the Men of Gondor. He carried his sable cloak slung over his arm for the air was mild and the sun warmed them. At his hip was his white sword in its jeweled scabbard.

Elrohir frowned a little at the sight of the sword at Elladan's hip for here in the well-guarded camp, they had felt safe enough to forbear arms; the orcs were dispersing and Sauron's armies defeated.

'Will you give him healing while you are aboard?' Aragorn said, interrupting his thoughts.

It took a moment for Elrohir to realise that Aragorn still spoke of Baelderon and he nodded. 'Of course.' He looked at his foster brother's anxious face, the lines around his grey eyes. 'But you also grieve their loss,' he said gently and rested his hand upon Aragorn's shoulder. 'You need some healing too. Will you not speak with Elladan whilst I am away?'

Elladan shifted his cloak on his arm. 'He will not be able to for I am going with you,' he said.

It should not have mattered. It should have delighted him, not wrenched his heart as it did. But Elrohir stared at him for a moment but Elladan had already turned his head towards the ship and there was Imrahil already aboard. The wind blew his brown hair back from his face and the sun was in his eyes. He shaded his eyes with his hand and his strong face broke into a smile at the sight of Elladan.

'Are you to travel with us, my lord?' he called to Elladan over the excited noise of the passengers boarding and the cries of the sailors and gulls. He came down the gangplank and clasped Elladan's arm as he came aboard. Elrohir's heart clenched at the joy in his brother's eyes that was met with a smile from Imrahil that blazed across his handsome face.

0o0o

At last the ship slid away from its moorings to catch the tide, it turned slightly and then lurched as it caught the waves and then surged ahead, slicing through the deep dark water of the Anduin as it flowed to the Sea.

Elrohir breathed in the cold air that was heavy with salt and spray, tasted it on his lips and felt it sting his skin. The wind was pounding up from the sea and fought against them. Though this was a river, the waves rolled and the ship swayed as the wind buffeted them, blew through the rigging and sails, bowling them along the water, whistling through the ratlines. Above him the white gulls skittered across a sky heavy with cloud. Elrohir stood on the deck, watching the crew as they scurried about the ship, clinging to the rigging or pulling on the stays to drop the sails, hauling the great canvas down to slow the ship before the storm caught them.

'It is a bracing wind,' a voice spoke beside him. Imrahil stood casually, for all the world as if it were a sunny day in a garden. His feet were slightly apart and he rocked easily with the plunge and rise of the ship, the wind tearing his brown shoulder length hair back from his lean, handsome face. He was obviously used to the sea, thought Elrohir. A sailor.

He did not reply but turned his face towards the south, hearing the great sough of the wind, the plunging waves.

'I will be careful with you brother's heart,' Imrahil said suddenly, unexpectedly and Elrohir clenched his fists, not through anger but in pain and misery. 'I understand what it means.'

'You have no idea what it means!' Elrohir glared at the Man, breathing hard, knuckles clenched over the top of the cane to stop himself from violence.

'I begin to,' Imrahil said with great gentleness and compassion. 'I care deeply for Elladan. I do not wish to cause him pain.'

'And yet you will,' Elrohir said tightly. 'He will not thank me for speaking my mind. I will remove myself so I do not offend any longer.' He bowed stiffly. 'I bid you goodnight.'

He turned and drove himself back below decks, wanting to escape before he spoke too much and broke the ever-thinning bond between himself and Elladan.

He paused before the door to the cabin he shared with Elladan, and hearing his brother within, the quiet sounds of his moving about, he stepped away. He could not bear to face Elladan right now, he would say things he would regret, push him away further and further.

He stumped his way deeper into the belly of the ship, found himself in the hold, thrust between the chests and wrapped possessions of those aboard and found a space where he could sit upon a wooden chest and drown in his own misery, his self-pity he told himself in anger and disgust. Selfishly begrudging his brother the same chance at happiness that he had, he told himself. Selfish. Mean-spirited. He should rejoice. But his heart ached with the misery; for in finding Legolas and knowing his own Choice, he had lost Elladan in his. They would be parted until the ending if the world. And suddenly he felt the greatest pity for his father, for he had also lost his twin, his foster-fathers both more loved than his own father ever was, his wife, his daughter. His son. His most beloved son, for Elrond had always preferred Elladan, he told himself.

He sighed and drew his finger in the dust on the lid of the chest upon which he sat, faintly surprised at how dry and dusty it was. He supposed this was where cargo was stored and valuable as it was, the captain would ensure it was protected from the damp. It smelled of tar and salt. His cane rested against his thigh and around him were strange dim shapes. There was a heavy oak table and a number of wooden chairs that he recognised had been used in one of the King's pavilions. Rolls of carpets and rugs leaned against the side of the hold and any number of wooden chests were stacked carefully together. And in the farthest end of the hold, pushed back and carefully swathed in sackcloth was a tall rectangular object. Taller than he and wider but thin. A glimpse of white peeked out where the sackcloth had come undone.

Elrohir became very still.

It was the Mirror, swathed by Gandalf's white cloak, suffused with magic and suppressing the Mirror's own power. And covered then with sackcloth to disguise it.

The Mirror from Minas Morgul was here. On this ship with him.

Gandalf must have brought it in secret, he thought in horror and he visualised the terrible scenes in Phellanthir; the glass bowled and stretched and filled with fire. The Balrog's trumpeting bellow of rage, how it had moved and battered the thin film of the Mirror, and its thin surface bulged and undulated like the skin of water. Within, a great shape struggled and fought. Flames roared and blazed along its skin, and its great horns were blackened, wings of fire spread and filled the Glass. Its colossal fists were clenched and battered the Glass that bent and flexed like a skin and did not break.

He stared. Unable to move.

There was no fiery glow or red light seeping from the sackcloth. All was utterly silent and still. Yet the darkness pressed against him, and around the Mirror it was deeper. Not just the darkness of the hold but almost an absence of light and a deepening of the shadows. Did he see a trembling in the dark, like the ripple of wind over water?

He thought of the horror of Angmar as he challenged him on the flat, moonlit marshes of Phellanthir…

Angmar is gone, he reminded himself. They are all gone, into the Void where none can reach them. But he felt as if he were in soft, deep sand, slowed and heavy. His hand clutched the edge of the wooden chest as if it might stop him from drowning and his other arm hung heavily by his side.

Yes, more like deep water than sand, he thought dully. I feel like I am drowning and cannot lift my arms to save myself.

The air was ice-cold and the darkness seemed to intensify. His hand reached heavily for his sword but he had left Aícanaro in his cabin, carefully wrapped in oilskin to prevent the blade from rusting the salt air. Instead he gripped the ebony cane that he had rested against the chest when he sat down and froze, so he could hear a breath, the scuff of feet on wood…or the trail of thin black shrouds in the dust…

He barely breathed, barely moved.

And then suddenly the rattle of claws scratching over the wooden chests. He moved his head slightly. A rat scuttling through the hold. Nothing more.

The thin light from above cast long shadows that seemed to reach for him and Elrohir was reminded of the flat grey marshes of Phellanthir, how the cold, thin presence of the Wraiths had emerged slowly from the pouring rain. And the Witch King of Angmar had stood taller than any Man, utterly still, his iron crown spiked in the grey dusk.

Angmar had raised his mailed fist and opened it up, palm outwards towards Elrohir, inviting him to approach. The empty hood beneath the iron crown had tilted slightly to one side in a gesture that Elrohir found unbearable and he knew now it was a parody of Legolas.

You acquiesce, Angmar had sneered.

I do, Elrohir had replied desperately, for his brother's life, for Elladan.

You acquiesce still.

Dread grew in the pit of his belly; his blood slowed and grew cold.

Did the darkness tremble around the edges of the Mirror? He thought something coiled around his ankle, felt the slide of something beneath his feet and forced himself to his feet in horror, shuddering but it felt like he was bound in heavy chains, or asleep and in a nightmare from which he could not awaken. He stumbled backwards away from the Mirror, crashing heavily into the carved oak table, the wooden chests piled up one upon another. He reached out to steady himself and his hands caught something bony, cold. He turned in terror and fear but it was just the back of one of the chairs. Stumbling and fearful he crashed his way out of the hold and slipped on the wet rungs of the ladder into the hold. Rain soaked his face, his hands and the slippery wood. He threw himself upwards, dreading a bony hand around his ankle, an iron blade in his ribs. He fled.

At last he clambered back onto deck where the rain poured and made everything soaked and slippery. A sailor bumped into him, blind in the rain and wind and Elrohir wanted to hug him so glad he was to be above in the clean, cold air. He leaned over the side of the ship, gasping in the salt, cold wind, the blinding rain.

The Mirror was below, wrapped and shrouded in magic and enchantment. Gandalf was aboard and had the keeping of it, he told himself. It was just his imagination and foolish self-pity that had lent the Mirror a power if did not have. After all, no Balrog had strained against the glass, no bellow or roar. There was nothing sinister about this Mirror. Nothing had happened, when Legolas had found it, or when Gandalf had brought it out of the tower. Nothing had happened in Cormallen so why would anything happen now?

No. He had imagined everything. Here in the cold air and wind and rain, standing amongst Men, he could shake his head at his own foolishness. It was the lingering of the Black Web still in his veins, he told himself.

At last he determined to join Elladan, apologise and seek to understand his brother. But Elladan's narrow cot was empty and cold and Elrohir guessed where he had gone. So he lay himself down to sleep.

Above deck he could hear the shouts of the sailors and the plough of the ship through water, rising and falling. The ship's boards creaked and metal clanked somewhere above. The ship was on its way, sliding through the deep water, dark under the sky and white gulls flew and scurried on the wind around the sails and mast. He fell asleep to the murmur of the waves and the rise and fall of the ship, like breathing.

0o0o