The clasps on Eldarion's corslet glittered with white gems as Finrod fastened them with clever fingers. Eldarion strained to look down at himself while holding his arms out in a stiff T pose. His borrowed tunic had been exchanged for a richly ornamented garment of aqua silk under a shirt of ringing mail that looked like it was formed in a jeweler's shop rather than a smithy. The fabric was cool and creamy against his skin, and Eldarion thought sadly of how his mother would have loved putting him in such an elfish getup.
"There," Finrod stood, adjusting the complicated silk banding around the boy's chest, "I think you're a bit closer to my size than Loro's." He smiled kindly at Eldarion and gently lowered his arms to his sides. His eyes lingered on the child's face for a moment in wonder before they were drawn to the door behind him. "Thank you, my love!" he went to take a tray from the elleth, who was smirking at the boy fondly.
"A right little lord you've made him, Nóm." Amarië laughed and sat on one of the traveling chests that served as furniture since their forced evacuation from their home in Vanyamar. Eldarion picked up Anduril from the bed and began to put the straps of the baldric over his head.
"May I see the blade?" Finrod asked, placing the tray on the chest that served as a table. With only a moment's reluctance, Eldarion handed it over and watched with dread as Anduril was half extended from its sheath and studied.
"This is Dwarrowcraft," Finrod said, turning the sword so that the light shone from the etchings on the blade, exposing a nearly invisible maker's mark, "T?" he knit his brows, "The original weapon was made by one of the Nogrodrim, but it has been repaired by a second smith, probably a Noldo based on the alloy, and the sheath looks to be made by a Doriathrim smith, but in a style I have never before encountered. But I am sure... that this blade is not yours. It was made for a longer arm." He narrowed his eyes, "Do we have a thief in our midst?"
"It's my father's. Its name is Anduril, the Flame of the West, forged from the shards of Narsil which cut the ring from the hand of the Dark Lord." Eldarion answered proudly, sitting on one side of the makeshift table. A meal of boiled nuts and grains spiced with cinnamon and turmeric and topped with sliced apples was set out around a sculptural oil lamp and a bottle of mead. Everything was made with utmost care here, even in the face of destruction. Even the clasps on the traveling chests were tiny works of art. "it's an heirloom, so if he dies, I guess it's mine, and if I save him, I'll just give it back." Eldarion shrugged, poking at his food with a jeweled spoon. He had told Finrod the whole story since the explosion in the marketplace. "My nan has your ring," he said with his mouth full, "she had to get it resized, I guess."
"Truly," Finrod watched him silently for a long moment before snapping the sword back into the sheath and returning it. "How came you here, Eldarion? What are you seeking?"
"My father can't die. I have to save him." Eldarion said and Finrod's heart ached for the boy. He had nearly forgotten the way that mortals so easily won his affection, he was weak and foolish for falling for them every time, and now this child would come to rip him apart once again in a few short years. It seemed to him that there was a light around the boy as if he was haloed and protected in a shimmering aura of soft harmonies. "Do you know the Maia who Glorfindel calls Affirista?" he asked and Finrod's face bloomed into a smile of recognition, which earned him a quizzical look from his wife. Eldarion placed the sword carefully beside him.
"Yes, I know the Doomsman's cleric." Finrod nodded, "All do, who pass through the Halls of Waiting. A being of great wisdom. But he has fled Aman and gone away beyond the Eastern Sea, and none here know of his fate."
"I know him," Eldarion took another bite of his food, "He helped me. He said the sword would find me allies among the dead, but I don't know what he meant."
"Allies?" Finrod shared a look with his wife, which seemed to hold centuries of disagreement between them. This would not be the first time that he ran off into danger and certain death for the sake of loyalty and oaths sworn, "To what end?" he asked, ignoring her furrowed brow.
"Curufin used my blood to activate the weapon that started all this. My father isn't dead; he's keeping his soul imprisoned. I have to get him out of there. I have to save him." He looked across at his boyhood hero, lounging at an angle against a box, legs kicked out into one corner of the tent, his hair unbraided, and his fair face as placid as the sea before the sun's rising.
"He is as troublesome in undeath as he was in life, it seems; he has grown bitterly jealous of the Gift of Men, and in his jealousy, he would tear apart the universe itself."
"I can't let him. I have to save my father." Eldarion repeated more insistently.
"Have you considered that you may be unable to do both?" Finrod asked gently, "That is, if Namo is restored and Curufinwë cast down, your father can and will still die, and no power can change his fate?"
"They won't stop telling me what my mother gave up for our family," he said, "I don't understand, why wouldn't she want to live here forever, why don't I get a choice? Why would she condemn all of us?"
"Condemn!" Finrod sat up, eyebrows raised, "Do you not see the fear in these people's eyes?" he gestured broadly, "the nameless one has followed us in the shadows upon our own hearts into paradise. Even beyond death we do not stop running, ever. Death is not damnation, child. The Valar would give us peace and luxury and clear skies full of a thousand stars but they cannot and will never give us real freedom, not until the end of days. Eldarion, can you not see that immortality is a prison without love, friendship, and kindred? These are what we live for. Freedom from death and fear is not the same as control of them."
Eldarion blinked at him for a moment, "Then I would set my father free, to return him to his body, Eru willing, and have him live out his mortal life in freedom. And," Eldarion's voice caught, but he remained stoic, "have him pass at the moment of his choosing."
Finrod gazed upon him and knew the child's spirit to be made of light and harmony. "You did not come here seeking eternal life, I think, or else you would not have survived the passing.
Love drove you, and love will set you free." "Help me," Eldarion begged.
"I will see it done, scion of Barahir." Finrod said matter-of-factly, earning a look of endless patience from his wife, "for I have known true freedom in love, and there is much love in the hearts of men."
"Really?" Eldarion's eyes went round and wet, and something tightened in his chest. He wanted to confess his visions of his human ancestors, of the feeling of fathomless memory and a light that filled his body and made him want to forget his name, but something told him that this most wise and ancient of elves would not fully understand. "I thought when…" he started to say but changed his question at the last moment, "Why did my grandmother react to me like that?" Celebrian's look of cold horror still stung.
"She has seen much in her life that the sorrow of all that has come to pass of late brings to mind," Finrod answered honestly, "And your grandfather has made the ultimate gamble. She has as much to lose as you do yourself. The deeds that will be done in the coming days are not for children of any age, and she fears for you and your mother. The High Queen plans to make a siege of Mandos already this host is assembling, and more shall gather through the next day. Then we will ride forth, with all the artistry and knowledge of our people, to attempt to breach the walls of death by force. But no long starvation will choke out these abominations, I fear. Perhaps there is another way," he eyed Anduril curiously.
"What do you mean?" he looked between Finrod and the sword, swallowing the last of his food.
"Come!" he rose fluidly, stepping over his wife's legs. He held the tent flap open for Eldarion to come outside with him. Eldarion took up his father's sword and followed.
The stars were bright overhead, and the crickets sang in the grass. Finrod stood out in an open area with no tents, squinting up at the heavens with his hands on his hips. Eldarion approached, fitting Glorfindel's baldric around his shoulders.
"Draw the sword." Finrod's long curls danced in the night wind, and his eyes glittered. Eldarion obeyed, with the perfect, two-handed form drilled into him since he was old enough to walk. He gave the blade a few experimental swishes.
"Face that way," Finrod ordered, pointing West. Eldarion turned and nearly gasped as, like a compass point drawn with a lodestone, the runic maker's mark, nearly invisible through centuries of wear and reforging, glowed to life with a red fire that seemed to shoot up the length of the blade. He turned but a little bit away from that direction, and it went dark again.
"Flame of the West indeed," Finrod said with wonder. "What does it mean?" Eldarion asked.
"Elvish weapons glow blue in the presence of the thralls of the Enemy," Finrod explained, looking pleased that his experiment had worked. "Naugrim hold the works of their hands more dear, it is said, though I doubt it. It is said that the works of Dwarrowcraft contain their creator's souls. The mark points to its maker."
"But how could some first-age dwarvish weaponsmith be here?" Eldarion lowered the point of the sword until it rested in the grass.
"It is said," Finrod gazed to the West, "that the people of Mahal are kept in a separate place, secret and dark, far below Mandos. It would make sense then that they would have their own gates, hidden away, as dwarvish doors invariably are."
"And the dwarves can help us free my father?"
"By the grace of Mahal." Finrod said in accentless Khudzul.
"Ingoldo!" Glorfindel called from across the grass, "The queen would see the boy."
"I believe your reckoning is at hand." They shared a glance and returning Anduril to its sheath, he turned to follow the Golden Warrior.
…
Elrond, Aragorn, and Damrod followed the light of Curufin's lamp in a silent crouch. All three of them had at one point been skillful warriors and scouts, and they had no difficulty remaining unseen as long as they stayed back a little way. Eventually, he led them to a carved arch to another stairwell, flanked by two more undead warriors, the smell of their putrescence filling the still air of the caverns. They opened their mouths and made croaking noises as their lord approached. Their eyes glowed purple in the dark.
Aragorn looked up at his foster father from where he crouched behind a statue of a rotund dwarf with a large exe. Elrond shook his head. It was too risky to attack unarmed, and he did not know the true extent of Curufin's power. He frowned as he watched the two reeking orcs manhandle Maedhros into the opening.
"We've found another exit, at least," Aragorn whispered, watching the guards beside the doors disappear up the stairs with the light source.
"We follow, but keep silent!" he warned the two men, "he might yet lead us to the surface, and I would not risk our chance at escape on some foolish attempt to bring him down with our bare hands."
When a few moments had passed, and the light of the crystalline lamp had receded up the stairs, the three of them followed silently. The orcish undead made a terrible noise as they gasped and heaved their rotten bodies up the stairs, leaving a foul, dripping stream of effluvia behind them.
Elrond cringed and covered his nose and mouth as he led the other two up the stairs. The reek became so heavy in the close space that the air felt thick to the touch, and every inhale brought bile rising in the back of Aragorn's throat.
"Surely there must be an end to this stair," he whispered, trying to breathe through his mouth, and nearly stumbled when he realized that Elrond had stopped just above him.
"I hear something," he said, reaching behind him to steady the man.
"The Dragon?" Aragorn said, but a moment later, he too heard the ringing of steel and the shouting of clear voices, "Those are elves!" his heart raced at the promise of rescue.
"Caution!" he urged, "not all are friends in this place."
"You will not catch me so easily, grandmother!" Curufin's voice shouted above the sound of fighting, and Elrond looked down at the other two with raised eyebrows. A flash of purple light shone around the corner, and then they heard a curse in a feminine voice.
"What is this stolen power that allows him to slip through our fingers like smoke?" she shouted.
"The illusions of Pallando aid him," said a deeper voice, "he was never truly here." "That's an elleth?" Aragorn asked.
"The dead queen," Damrod said from behind them. He was interrupted by a great clatter as a hewn and headless corpse, still struggling against its own dismemberment, left a trail of gore down the stairs. All three leaped out of the way, Elrond's hand on Aragorn's chest.
"Who goes there!" an authoritative voice shouted down from above them.
"Friends!" Elrond threw up his hands in surrender, for around the corner stepped a warrior in battered armor. He removed his cloven helm as he stepped down a stair, and his hair fell dark around his shoulders. A deep scar slashed across what once must have been handsome Noldorin features, and behind him stood a woman veiled entirely in black lace. He bore a sword, and a crest of yellow and midnight blue was upon his breastplate. As soon as he recognized the crest, Elrond's eyes went round in an expression reminiscent of his grandson, and he went to his knees in deference, grabbing Aragorn by the shoulder to direct him to do the same.
"My lady!" Damrod ran forward from behind them, clearly having no idea who the male elf was. "It is she who freed those whom the necromancer was tormenting!"
"We came looking for you when you did not return and found that the dragon had destroyed much in the area where you were being kept." The elf spoke, "It is by grace alone that we found you before our enemies."
"Lady Therindë, High King Fingolfin." Elrond greeted them, eyes on the ground, "I did not seek your aid in this place of darkness."
"Allies," Fingolfin looked down at them with a crooked smile, "come," he watched where his companion was releasing the dumbfounded-looking Feanorian from his shackles. She looked up at her grandson, touching his cheek with what might have been a gentle expression of approval, but her face was entirely hidden by her veil.
"He will send more before long," she said, "we should return to the others."
"Follow us," the once high king beckoned and led them away up the curling passageway into the dark, "we're staging a rebellion."
…
Eldarion told himself that he should be excited to meet his great-grandmother, high queen of the Noldor in Aman. Still, anxiety was making his mouth dry as cotton, and he suddenly felt ridiculous in the ostentatiously elven outfit he had been dressed in like a girl's doll. Even the tall, legendary warriors who stood at his shoulders like siege towers did little to dispel his sense of impending doom as he was led to the tent where Galadriel was carefully placing immaculately carved figurines back onto the map with the help of her first cousin. He felt Glorfindel lie a hand on his shoulder, and Finrod stepped in front of them.
"Turgon's siege towers were here." Fingon stood with his back to them, still wearing his dusty riding equipment, gold braided hair falling down his back. He placed three of the tiny models, leaning on the edge of the table and reaching far across the map, while Galadriel watched critically.
"We'll have to arrange for another supply line if he wants to deploy that far South."
"My brother can arrange supplies from within his own ranks," he assured her, "and that is where our siege will be the weakest."
"And what of the attack on New Gondolin," she asked, folding her arms and observing the map cooly, "will it not affect resupply." Eldarion heard Glorfindel shift to get a better view of the map around Fingon and Finrod, and his brows furrowed with worry at what he saw.
"He says that his orchards and fields are well protected from wandering hordes," Fingon assured her.
"Even after the king pulls most of his fighting forces to the front?" Glorfindel could not help but speak up.
"We work with what we have, Loro!" He turned, saw Eldarion, and froze.
"My lady," Finrod bowed to his sister in something approaching sincerity, "May I present Prince Eldarion Telcontar of the reunited kingdoms."
For a moment, Eldarion wanted to throw up, but then Galadriel's smile softened, and she was nothing more than an ever-young elf matron crowned in silver and steel. He did not expect Galadriel to smell like his mother, and when she rushed around the table in a shimmer of silver mail, he did not expect her embrace to be quite so genuine. She pulled back to look in
his face with an expression of damp-eyed wonder, and he felt suddenly like he was falling from a great height and would never touch the ground.
"Oh, child," She reached up to hold his face like it was made out of glass so delicate that it might shatter with a touch, "what power has brought you here?"