A/N: Back with our girl Maedeth! Bit of a short one but I like it well enough.
LadyForlong - Some days, Rinior concerns me. Not every day, but definitely most haha
Chapter Fifteen - Maedeth
Maedeth shut her eyes against the pain. With each wrap of the bandage, she flinched, and Elladan cringed back. But they needed to get this done. The sun had risen and set twice since the warg attack. Time raced against them.
They hid behind a skeleton of a bush. Boulders and dry grasses dominated this part of Eregion, so close to the feet of the Misty Mountains. They had left behind the holly trees and sweetgrass. Maedeth closed her eyes to find some solace. She found it in the music of distant waterfalls.
The Sirannon flowed from a bubbling spring near the Walls of Hadhodrond. She frowned as the bandaged pinched. Not Hadhodrond, Khazad-dûm. It wouldn't do to call the dwarf kingdom by its Elven name. From the wellspring it flowed down many falls until it reached the wide open lands of Eregion and joined with the River Glanduin. They could not be far now.
"What are you thinking about?" Elladan asked.
Maedeth opened her eyes. She hadn't even realized he'd stopped his ministrations. Her hand sat on his knee, still warm from his embrace despite the cold winds around them. The leafless bush hardly provided shelter. Maedeth sighed and brought her arms in closer.
"Too much," she said. "I think of my brother, I think of Arthedain. I think of the way the winds chill me to the bone. I think of what words I must speak before the towering holly trees." With her good arm, she rubbed her face. "But to be honest, I was trying to allow myself a moment of peace, listening to the Sirannon."
Elladan flashed her a small smile. The early morning sun painted his fair face golden. For a moment he didn't speak, just stared off at the towering mountains. But then he looked back. "Do you hear him?"
"No."
Her stress blocked out any hope of imagining Maglor's harp music in the water. Too much filled her mind. But she had already read off her litany of anxious thoughts to Elladan and would not do it again.
"Come," he said, standing up from the ground with a small groan. "We should get moving. The sooner we leave these barren lands the better."
Maedeth couldn't agree more. Her knees ached as she accepted Elladan's help up. They'd allowed themselves a night's rest at last after their relentless flight through Eregion. She watched Elladan speaking softly to the horses and smiled. They were tired too.
"Ready?" she asked.
"Yes."
They mounted up. Maedeth allowed him to take point, following behind at a steady pace. It wasn't long before they reached the Sirannon.
It flowed with speed, but reached no more than twenty feet across at the road. Maedeth could see the stones beneath its crystal clear surface. She could only imagine how cold the waters ran. Snow covered all the peaks they could see.
The paving stones were broken and covered with dirt and dried grasses. But Maedeth knew once it had been a great road, stretching from the perpetually open doors of Khazad-dûm to the great city of the Jewel-smiths,Ost-in-Edhil. Both kingdoms had grown in wealth and fame.
She glanced around as they rode on. Now the elves lay dead in the ground, their forges cold and towers destroyed. Had Celebrimbor known the destruction the War of the Elves and Sauron would bring to Middle Earth? Only the beginning of Sauron's wrath.
Maedeth sighed. At least Sauron had been defeated. But darkness never slept forever, and the evil that Morgoth had sung into the world at its beginning reared its ugly head with this Witch-king of Angmar now. Hopefully King Durin would understand the urgency of their need.
They reached the first of several waterfalls at noon. The shining sunlight stood in contrast to her foreboding heart. Beautiful carven stairs led up straight in front of them beside the cascading water. But that was not their road. Their path lay to the left.
"Masterful craftsmanship, even so unused to this day," Elladan said.
She nodded. "It is a privilege to see it."
They turned their horses away from the Stair Falls to the main road. Wide enough for two carts to go side by side, she imagined the days when Celebrimbor had engaged in trade with their dwarven neighbors. Hopefully King Durin would also enjoy remembering the past.
Maedeth paused at the top. Red evening sunlight fell upon the great Walls of Khazad-dûm. They towered into the sky, sheer as any building wall but higher than a towering fortress. A grassy plain stretched a few hundred feet beyond them, fed by the gentle source waters of the Sirannon. Even in winter it seemed somehow more alive than the rest of Eregion. But along the wall, only two towering holly trees marked any point of interest beyond the incredible walls themselves.
"Maedeth, wait."
She turned. Elladan circled his horse to face away from the walls, blocking her view. But also blocking any view from walls. Smart. She gave him a tight, half smile.
"Do you feel alright?" he asked. Elladan looked her up and down, hesitating for a brief moment, but then he bit his lip and carried on. "Before we get closer to the walls, where they will surely be watching unseen, I wanted to check."
"You are kind, Elladan, to do this." She smiled. "Though I fear I can say only that I am as alright as can be hoped. Much relies on the words I choose before these doors. The snow covers the High Pass and the Pass of Caradhras. If we cannot get through Hadhodrond, we must backtrack and ride for the Gap of Calenardhon. But that journey is long and hard." She frowned, facing the walls with a resolute, deep breath. "It does not matter how I feel. Arthedain relies on me."
Elladan watched a moment longer. But he nodded, turning his horse aside, and allowing her access to the road first. She offered him one last, small smile as she passed.
The grey rock turned red in the dying light. Maedeth ignored the ill omen. She tried to imagine it instead as a blessing from her ancestors, red for the House of Fëanor. But it brought little comfort.
Maedeth dismounted a ways back from the holly trees. She knew the gate lay between them, a legendary dwarf gate invisible when closed. But she also knew the password for entry. Much knowledge lay in Elrond's libraries.
She hoped that approaching on foot would show deference to the dwarves. Aside from a few temporary alliances, the relations between elves and dwarves were fraught, to put it mildly. Still, two successful alliances belonged to her own family. She hoped the dwarves remembered them.
Maedeth stood between the trees alone. The Walls towered in front of her some fifteen feet away. Elladan, holding the lead ropes for both their steeds, gave her a tiny nod from where he waited. She turned back to where the doors must have been hidden.
"Greetings, guardians of the Deeps of Arda. I am Lady Maedeth, emissary of Arthedain." She paused. Her heart raced. This was wrong. It was too formal. She was too formal.
"Protectors of Khazad-dûm, I ask that you listen to my plea for but a moment. I seek an audience with your king, Durin the Sixth, in memory of my cousin Celebrimbor, Lord of Eregion. Once there was great friendship between our peoples, and though I serve the Men of Arthedain and not a great elven kingdom, I hope that memory of our alliances of old might spur you to act."
Taking her unused sword from her sheath, she did not hesitate to toss it to the ground. There was no need for it here. Or so she hoped. Then she drew her new dagger. Maedeth looked down at the Fëanorian star and multifaceted ruby. She held it up, allowing the last light of sunset to strike the gem and send a dance of colors against the wall.
"I also call upon the friendship of my forefather, Caranthir Fëanorion, and your ancestors, the dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost. Long before Eregion grew in power beside Khazad-dûm, Dor Caranthir and the Blue Mountains enriched one another throughout the First Age of this world."
Maedeth caught her breath. The silence of the stones and the chill of the air around them froze her heart for a moment. What if this didn't work? What if the dwarves refused her? She knew the word but what if they were met with spears and axes instead of handshakes.
"So in the name of Celebrimbor and Eregion, and in the name of Caranthir and Thargelion, I speak the password of an age ago."
She paused. She breathed. She closed her eyes. It had to work. It would work.
"Mellon."
Maedeth opened her eyes. She lowered her arm, sheathing her Fëanorian dagger and staring as the last light of day faded in the West. She did not dare turn to look at Elladan. She had eyes only for the silent wall between the holly trees.
It cracked. The sound reminded her of the most beautiful choirs in Arthedain, so excited was she to hear it. A grin spread from ear to ear as a great weight left her. It worked. The doors had opened. She would see Khazad-dûm tonight. Maedeth turned to Elladan. She saw him grinning as well. They were going in. She only hoped it would be as friends, and not as prisoners.