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When Finrod returned from Mandos, he had quickly learned the habit of avoiding the Great Square of Tirion. Once the heart of the city, the Exile bled it dry, though the public life of Tirion continued, flowing through smaller side plazas where the ratio of bodies to space still held to some sort of harmony. No one gathered in the Great Square anymore: it was at best an inconvenient emptiness to be crossed, at worst a painful reminder of the missing.
But tonight, for the first time in the new Third Age, the Great Square was full of music and wild dancing. A full moon shone overhead, accompanied by the Evening Star, while somewhere far below, Ar-Pharazôn and his army slept, though no revelry would ever wake them.
The celebration had grown spontaneously over the last week. First there had been a harpist singing a new lay which happened to break an old custom, a small cart loaded with pastries and sweet fruit wine, a plain blue and silver banner. Then more had come, from Tirion, from Avallónë, from the forests and plains. Now music echoed throughout the Square, single musicians scattered around the edges, and in the center a drumline pounded like storm waves, with flutes and trumpet calls skirling above it. Finrod could walk a step and be washed in sound, then another step into a delicate melody all the more beautiful for its brief life before drowning in the din. The effect was disorienting and exhilarating.
The western side of the square had become an improvised kitchen. Cheerful cooks grabbed anything handed to them, skewered it, sauced it, and tossed it over charcoal braziers erupting with aromatic smoke. Finrod stopped to speak with several cooks and fielded congratulations.
On his way back to the House of Finwë, a dancer nearly spun into him, unbalanced by a jar of wine in her hand. “The High King is come again!” she cried out half-singing, but then, suddenly noticing Finrod, added, “No disrespect to your father.” Her slightly archaic Quenya marked her as an Exile, and the flame ribbon on her tunic marked her as either a survivor or casualty of the Dagor Bragollach—the ribbons were new, the meanings not yet pinned down.
“Of course,” said Finrod, smiling broadly. “No one in our family has any concern at all for that! Enjoy yourself.”
Disrespect might not be a concern, but the bodily existence of multiple High Kings was indeed a linguistic concern, and a thorny one at that. As he wove his way past the edge of the dancing, Finrod considered points for an argument before the Lambengolmor on possible solutions. While not a superlative, the phrase High King implies a singular title, which, considering the historical circumstances in which we find ourselves, is ripe for transition into a radically different nomenclature of distinction…
As he entered the palace by a side door, he heard a Sindarin war cry somewhere in the distance.
There had been public celebrations on his return, but he remembered not wanting to attend them, and as a result, his father had done his best to keep them short and quiet. It had been a strange time where unimaginable joy and loss mixed together with almost no warning boundaries. Small groups had warmed his heart, surrounding him in love. Larger ones made him look to the edges for the faces that should have been there, but were not, and might never be. And then there were the everpresent questions about when a loved one might be rehoused, because one so favored as Finrod must surely know the will of Námo, and he would have to explain that no, no he did not, not even for his own brothers.
It had taken him many years to accustom himself to crowds.
Of course, every rehoused was slightly different. His uncle seemed to be doing well so far, but Arafinwë was taking no chances. There would be no official celebration announced until he was sure his brother actually wanted one.
Finrod decided to stop by his study and write down a few notes before rejoining the family celebration in the lower palace living suite. His study was cluttered, a collection of seashells taking up most of the space on the great desk made of polished driftwood and chalcedony, so he cleared it to one side while organizing his thoughts.
There was a knock at the open door; his uncle entered. Surprisingly, he was alone. For the last several days, Finrod had only ever seen him literally surrounded on all sides by some combination of Indis, Anairë, siblings, and the rehoused Arakáno.
He stood steady on his own, but he had the unmoored look common to all the newly embodied, as if they were waiting for their spirit to blow away in the next wind. Finrod walked over and embraced him tightly, wanting nothing more than to anchor him in the here and now. Here was a heart beating, lungs to breathe, a tongue to speak.
“What should I call you?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said his uncle, and embraced him back just as tightly. “Ñolofinwë for now. And for you?”
“I miss Finrod a little.”
“Then Finrod it is.”
Finrod led him to the armchair nook.
“I can stand perfectly well,” protested Ñolofinwë.
“I’d rather not,” said Finrod, and sat down. “Especially if you’re here to talk about the last time we met in Beleriand.”
Ñolofinwë sat down as well, not with the same ease and fluidity that Finrod remembered from long ago, but with less stiffness than a few days ago. He seemed strangely young without the ancient light of the Trees in his eyes. Or perhaps it was the absence of some other weight.
“I wanted to speak with you about something else, actually,” said Ñolofinwë. “We can talk about the last war council at Tol Sirion too, if you’d like.”
“I noticed you’re already speaking modern Quenya. I’m very impressed. And yes, I feel obliged to talk about the war council.”
“My Quenya is all to Arakáno’s credit.” Ñolofinwë smiled, his face lighting up with pride. “He corrects me without mercy, saying he made all the same mistakes. He told me you were a great help to him then.”
Finrod shared his happiness, but could not help a twinge of guilt at the compliment, because while he had done everything he could to ease his cousin’s return, he had silently wished for Turgon to be the first.
“I was able to speak with my children before I left the Halls,” said Ñolofinwë. “Turukáno is nearly ready, I think.”
Finrod straightened himself and tried not to make a sound of surprise. He had not been using osanwë. But then, his uncle knew him very well.
“The one I’m most concerned for is Irissë,” continued Ñolofinwë, now grown much more solemn. “My sons and I all died quickly in battle, in a war of our own choosing. The same can’t be said for my daughter. Most of my anger burned away in the Halls, but when I remember that Irissë is bound to her murderer until the end of Arda, it blazes again. I intend to use whatever power I have to aid her.”
“Now that they’ve finished remaking the world, the Valar seem to have become a little more receptive,” remarked Finrod.
“Yes. I also intend to petition for my father. The worst he ever did was love his oldest son a little too carelessly, and compared to what you and I saw in Beleriand, that is nothing.”
Finrod made a show of counting on his fingers. “We could see six High Kings embodied at the same time in the Third Age,” he said, not counting Fëanor, because he doubted the Valar’s receptiveness would ever extend that far. “I have a draft regarding linguistic solutions I’d like for you to review later.”
“I trust it will be brilliant,” said Ñolofinwë. He leaned forward, his voice softening. “What did you want to tell me about Tol Sirion?”
Finrod had rehearsed this moment for a long time, and it was still unutterably difficult. Ñolofinwë was using the same tone of voice he might have used when Finrod and Turgon were children playing at sandcastles, as if there were no consequences, as if the waves could wash them down and they would only build more again.
“I was wrong,” he said simply, for a start. “You and Angrod and Aegnor were right. We should have attacked first. At the last council you called me a complacent fool—”
“—And Angrod called you harsher.” Ñolofinwë leaned back and sighed. “And then he accused you of preferring to laze about in Nargothrond throwing parties and judging poetry competitions. I’m glad those weren’t our last words to each other, though. I remember civil farewells afterwards.”
“But you were right,” said Finrod in frustration. “And the worst part was that I knew it, even back then. Maedhros had all the logistical arguments against an attack, all the perfectly sound reasons to wait another year, another twelve years, and so on, and I nodded along. But in the back of my mind I always believed you! I believed you when you said that Morgoth was breeding a new army underground, that Glaurung would come again, and that every year we waited, our chances became worse—”
“Stop.” Ñolofinwë held his hand up, a gesture of command that brought Finrod instantly back to Beleriand, and even further, to the ice. “I have two things to say in the interests of saving you time and pain. The first is a reminder that we cannot unravel and reweave the past. Even if you had thrown your weight behind me, and we attacked, we could never have won in any permanent sense. We could all have still died. The second is that I suspected, even then, why you were so reluctant: you didn’t want to lead your Edain into battle. Am I correct?”
“You know me too well,” he said sadly. But he felt lighter now that it was out. “I would look at the Men of Ladros and think: are these the Men to throw at the gates of Angband? No, it should be their sons. And then again, twenty years later, I would think the same.”
“Sending imaginary Men to their deaths is easy, true. The real ones do tend to bleed and scream.”
“I’m glad to see Mandos hasn’t blunted your humor.” Finrod was, indeed, sincerely glad. Ñolofinwë’s words were a little painful, but honest, and no more than he deserved. “I was also arrogant enough to believe I knew the value of their lives better than they did.”
“Only Eru truly knows what value a life might be traded for. The rest of us can only guess. I’ve seen Men who said they were ready to die go to it with full hearts, and others curse the Eldar in agony and bitter regret.”
Men had died for Finrod regardless, at the Fen of Serech. He had seen very little of it, slung over Barahir’s back as he was, but he had heard them falling.
“We’ve come to a bleak place very suddenly,” said Finrod. “And I didn’t mean to lead you here.”
“It’s alright,” said Ñolofinwë. “The only way you could make me angry is by treating me like fragile glass. I’ve had to give your father several warnings about that. I may have to challenge him to a wrestling match next.”
Finrod laughed. “I’ll have a talk with him.”
“Thank you. I’m not entirely serious, of course, but I wonder how much of his concern stems from your return. It must have been hard for you, being one of the first Exiles rehoused.”
“I often felt like one of those wrinkly creatures newly crawled out of a chrysalis, wet and dripping with the soup of my former self. But we have so much time here: time for healing, if we seek it out and work for it patiently, and time for love. I waited and hoped and trusted, and eventually Amarië and I learned who we had become. Did you know she went to Beleriand with the Host of the Valar? She visited my cairn at the ruins of Tol Sirion.”
“Amazing,” said Ñolofinwë. “It’s good she took advantage of the opportunity. It must have sunk below the Belegaer now, like my own.”
“Don’t be so certain.” Seized with curiosity, Finrod rose abruptly and went to the bookshelf that lined the back wall. “Considering the high elevations of the Echoriath, it’s quite possible yours is still present on an island chain. If I can find my copy of On the Topography of Drowned Beleriand, and we can determine the cairn location—”
“I wasn’t paying much attention at the time.”
Finrod kept searching the spines, with no luck. “Any Gondolin survivor or rehoused would know. On second thought, they would have to remember either the peak name or relative elevation, so if they only ever knew it as “the peak with Fingolfin’s cairn”, that would be useless for our purpose. Unfortunately, it appears my copy must be back at my house on Tol Eressëa. I promise I’ll make a full investigation as soon as I can.”
“An interesting project, but I assume any theoretical location could never be proven.”
“The sea is impassable from this side, true. But when you happen to have a grandson-in-law favored by Ulmo, never might have a loophole or two.” Changing the topic to Tuor was an excellent idea, considering Ñolofinwë’s interest in cairn locations sounded more polite than sincere. Finrod picked out a slim sketchbook and returned to his seat. “I have a wonderful Tuor story from the end of the Second Age along with some paintings to show you.”
“Idril and Tuor. Tuor and Idril. And Voronwë. Amazing!” Again, that same unmoored look, but this time Ñolofinwë seemed blown off course by nothing other than extreme happiness.
“When he arrived, apparently most of the Valar were against breaking the rules about Men, but Ulmo was absolutely relentless on the issue. So they reached a compromise, and he can’t go out of sight from the sea or else he falls into one of those incredibly inconvenient enchanted slumbers. Idril will be in Tirion soon, and she’ll take you to visit as soon as you’re ready. So… how much do you know about the Fall of Númenor? Broad strokes, I suppose?”
“It’s hard to get much broader.”
“Well, when the Fleet of Númenor approached Valinor, the Valar warned us to stay away, and of course no one wanted to be entangled in yet another creeping doom, so everyone sensibly docked their ships. I was on Tol Eressëa at the time and not in a very good mood.”
“I can imagine. Sauron!” Ñolofinwë tensed in anger and disgust; a nearly tangible storm cloud descended. Finrod recalled him calling out the same name in much the same tone of voice in one of their early battles. Sauron, not liking his odds at the time, had immediately turned into a bat and flown away.
“When the fleet arrived and encircled the island, I was resigned to becoming a passive spectator of calamity. Then a racing skiff appeared and flew through a gap in the blockade, rousing me from my fatalism. It was Idril, Tuor, and Voronwë! You see, Tuor was terribly concerned about the galley slaves—the Númenorean took captives in their wars and chained them, forcing them to row until they died. He thought it was monumentally unjust they should be condemned along with the rest of the fleet, so Idril invented a last-minute plan and enlisted me: I was quite overjoyed to help. We went out in small, fast ships and tried to get the captives to break their chains and jump overboard. There were Teleri sailors who helped us, Noldor Exiles, and even a few Vanyar veterans of the War of Wrath.”
Ñolofinwë paid rapt attention as Finrod recounted the strange naval battle that followed. The warships had massive weapons that gouted a kind of dragonfire, but deploying them at close range against fast-moving skiffs was nearly impossible. And when one weapon took a clear shot at a rescuer, Ossë or Uinen intervened and blocked the flame with a great tower of water. Rescuers who knew Adûnaic had shouted appeals, and Finrod Sang out over the waves, cast yourself into the water now, now, now or you will die, die, die.
“As soon as the tide reversed, we knew the end had come, and hurried back to Avallónë. All the warships were dragged out to drown just as we docked. We saved only thirty Men out of so many others, but then thirty is better than nothing at all.”
“I suppose they could never go home. Are any still alive?”
“No, they all had non-Númenorean lifespans. Back in Beleriand we might have called them Easterlings for lack of a better word, but they spoke many different languages. I learned some of them. A few were homesick and unhappy enough that they figured out ways to drink themselves to death, which is a Mannish equivalent to dying of grief, I’ve come to believe. But the rest lived fairly long and happy lives. We built a little village for them outside Avallónë and tried to make sure they had everything they needed. Visitors from Valinor curious about Men came to see them in the beginning, and they didn’t mind when they were younger, but when they tired of it, I put a stop to the practice. They’re buried there now, except for the ones who said they wanted to be burned or taken out to sea.”
Finrod opened the sketchbook and angled it for Ñolofinwë to see. “One of them taught himself to paint. As you see, he was marvelously talented. This is the view of Taniquetil from Tol Eressëa: a rather ordinary sight for us, of course, but something about the choice of colors makes it seem new and wondrous.”
“I agree.”
“Here is a portrait of myself—don’t give me that look with the eyebrow, I delivered the usual not one of your gods speech, it’s just that I can’t control the expression of specific symbology without descending into heavy-handed artistic censorship.” Finrod flipped the page a little hastily. “And here is a view of the Sea of Rhûn that he drew from memory.”
“My parents remember it from the Great Journey, and Círdan sailed its shores under starlight.”
“We used to speak of exploring the east and retracing the journey towards our ancient awakening.” The demands of war and kingship had never allowed for it.
“That dream is dead for us, but who knows how far eastward your sister will travel? One day she’ll tell.”
“May she carry our light and leave behind our darkness,” said Finrod. He decided not to speak aloud his worst fear: that his dear, long-severed sister would linger until she faded, and there would be no stories told.
He turned the page from the quiet sea to show the next painting, a representation of Armenelos. The towers and streets were crudely drawn, as if it could be a city in any land of any time, but the smoke rising from the dome of the Temple was finely detailed, and faces swirled there, ghostly and screaming. His stomach twisted, and he closed the book. “I’d like to stop here for now, if you don’t mind. Not for your sake,” he said, remembering his uncle’s warning, “but for my own. The Fall still feels very fresh.”
“I understand,” Ñolofinwë said, paused, then continued in an uncharacteristically hesitant voice. “I’m not sure I’ve even begun to comprehend Númenor myself. Dor-Lómin takes up too much space in my mind: not the land as it was, but what it could have become. We spent a hundred years planning to raise up those kingdoms of the Edain, and in the end they lasted no longer than your village of the shipwrecked.” He tapped his fingertips to his forehead and then flicked them away. “I know very well that the end of a thing is not the thing itself, and yet memory insists on making a fool of me.”
Finrod leaned forward and met his troubled eyes. “When Arda Marred is remade, I believe we’ll be there in the Second Music, remembering, and every painful struggle on the battlefield of memory will only serve the theme and help the race of Men grow to the greatest wisdom. And on a more personal level, Ñolofinwë, you’re simply too stubborn to lose a fight held over the course of eternity.”
“Thank you. I share your hope, although it’s not in my nature to share it to quite the same degree.” He smiled wistfully. “Hador was an optimist like you. He was endlessly excited by our ability to look beyond the lifespans of Men, although the horizon of his own death never held his interest. Whenever I looked to the future and fell into a grimmer mood, he would tell me: you will reign for a thousand years, and watch over Dor-Lómin, then you will sail across the sea to be with your wife again, and Fingon will be High King and reign for a thousand years, though you will return, at times, to visit this land and people that you love so well.”
The tight, drawn look on Ñolofinwë’s face guarded a well of grief. Less than a week ago in living time, Hador fell, and he had ridden for Angband with light pouring out of his eyes. What could Finrod say, in the face of that? He struggled for words.
“Tuor remembers Dor-Lómin, if only after its brief flower,” he said at last. “You can remember his family to him, in return.”
“A welcome duty,” said Ñolofinwë, and the angles of his pain softened immediately, although they failed to disappear. “I knew his father and his foster father as well. Both passed kindness down to him. I went to Dor-Lómin’s summer festival almost every year, and at one of them, when Huor was this high—” he extended his hand, newly adorned with rings of silver and sapphire set in the shape of flowers “—he came to me and shyly asked for a private audience. I took him behind a haystack and knelt down to listen. He told me that he was already taller than his older brother Húrin, and Húrin was unhappy with the remarks of others when they stood next to each other, so could I please use my elvish magic to take some height from him and give it to Húrin, because it hurt to see his brother unhappy? And I must do the magic slowly and secretly, because Húrin had told him not to bother the High King with such things.”
Finrod made a strangled noise and beat his fist against the armchair. “Oh, the sweetness—too much!”
“I know. It was terrible. I tried to respond with a speech full of wisdom about accepting the nature of the world, and largely failed—he was close to tears before I resorted to the ancient magic of trickery and pulled a feather out of his ear.” He looked as pleased with himself as any commander recounting victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.
“You were the savior of the summer festival.”
“If I had to start all over again in Beleriand, I think I would have held more festivals,” said Ñolofinwë. “Not too many more, because of the war, but definitely a few more.”
Before the Darkening, Ñolofinwë had at one point overseen a large portion of Tirion’s public festivals and ceremonies. He seemed to enjoy the work, but often complained that everyone took success for granted, while the lack of even one promised dish or entertainment resulted in very specific blame. Finrod had always thought the complaints were frivolous—how hard was it to throw a big party?—until he grew older and began holding events of his own.
“Are you looking for your old job back?” asked Finrod. “It’s very challenging in this new Age with all the different cultural expectations: the perfect fit for someone who managed to pull off the Mereth Aderthad without a single stabbing.”
“Not anytime soon, although I appreciate your confidence. I have another undertaking in mind that may take a thousand years. I intend to speak with every single one of my former subjects now in Aman, Noldor or Sindar, and listen to their stories. My view of the past needs to be fuller before I decide what role, if any, I should play in the future. And since Anairë’s work now centers on reconciliation, we can move together towards the same goal under her guidance.” He smiled as he looked off into the distance, probably in contemplation of some aspect of the shared journey ahead.
“That sounds brilliant,” Finrod said. “I thought of something similar when I returned, but Glaurung had killed most of Nargothrond, and they were still in the Halls. As for the survivors who sailed… well, I could tell many of them wanted to run the other way when they saw me coming, which was awkward, to say the least. I found there was a lot of guilt stemming from the whole throwing-the-crown-at-my-feet incident, so I decided to let the conversations happen in a natural way, by happenstance, so they didn’t feel quite so much like pursuit. You’re in a different situation, and there are many more being rehoused now.”
“I’m sorry it was so difficult for you.”
“It really wasn’t that bad. The sheer joy of having a body again makes up for a large degree of social awkwardness.”
“Oh yes,” said Ñolofinwë, and stretched his arms out in pleasure as if greeting the sun. “Well said.”
“Speaking of sheer joy, have you heard about the celebration in the Great Square?”
“I’m told there’s an unofficial gathering that I’m forbidden to attend until I prove my fitness to the family in some unspecified way,” he said, and sighed. “I hope it’s still happening by that point.”
“Don’t worry. From what I heard out there, they’re prepared to dance for months. There’s an established supply line for wine. And as for the food, I spoke with a group of bakers who plan on turning out a massive quantity of themed cakes in the shape of plated feet accompanied by little tin swords to stab them into pieces. It sounds a bit mad and possibly in poor taste, but—”
“Amazing!”
“—I thought you might appreciate it,” said Finrod, laughing.
Ñolofinwë sprang up from the chair and paced back and forth as if practicing to prove his fitness. “Since you owe me for the last war council at Tol Sirion, I expect your full support when I argue to leave the palace.”
“I’m already calculating who to suborn first.”
“Your father and Lalwen should be targeted separately.” He sat down again and rubbed his chin. “Arakáno may be treacherous.”
“I won’t rest until victory,” promised Finrod. “By the way, what did you want to speak to me about in the first place? If we already touched on it, I’m going to leave and get right to suborning.”
“We haven’t exactly touched on it.” There was a long pause, and the mood grew solemn again as Ñolofinwë deliberated. “I meant to ask you a question, but first I must tell you a story. Do you know a woman named Lanwiel?”
“Yes, although I’ve only spoken to her in passing. My father invited her into the palace recently.”
“I knew Lanwiel before the Darkening, although it was also only in passing: her craft was shoemaking, and because she was young then, she held no high position in the guild. She was part of my Host as we crossed the Helcaraxë, where shoes were a matter of life and death, and so we spoke often on the journey, and I grew to respect and trust her. When we built Barad Eithel, I charged her with the provisioning of shoes for the entire fortress.”
“She married a Sinda of Mithrim around that time. I knew she could never have the children she wanted so close to the front lines, so I persuaded her to leave Barad Eithel, take her husband, and go with Turukáno to his hidden city where they would be safe. She had three children there, so at least part of my advice wasn’t rendered false by fate. When Gondolin fell, she escaped with only one young son that she carried on her back, and followed Idril to the Mouths of Sirion.”
A sick feeling rose in his chest as soon Finrod heard that name. So many lives, so many journeys, had ended where the river ended. But he nodded for Ñolofinwë to continue.
“Lanwiel told me of the house she built there with her own hands, of mud brick and woven willow, and how she built it larger than she needed, in case any of her missing family ever came, but they never did. So near the end she opened her house to a family of Edain fleeing thralldom in Dor-Lómin. They had almost no Sindarin and she had not much more Taliska, so they were only beginning to learn each other’s stories.”
“When the sons of Fëanor attacked, she tried to warn the family, without success. They only knew they had been punished all their lives for being elf-friends of the people of Húrin and Hador, and they had at last found refuge, and who could attack such a refuge except the forces of Morgoth? They died still surprised at the light in the eyes of those who wielded the swords.”
“Then Lanwiel’s son died taking the blow meant for her. She lay wounded under a pile of corpses for days, until the rescuers found her and took her to Balar to heal. She felt a call pulling at her spirit to stay alive, and so she did, although it was a bleak endurance. After the War of Wrath, my brother brought the captives out of Angband, and among them was her last living child, taken in Gondolin. They sailed to Aman, and to this day they wait together for word from the doors of Mandos.”
Finrod let out a long breath. While not the worst experience he’d ever heard, it was definitely on the more harrowing side of the Beleriand spectrum. He noticed that Ñolofinwë had not relaxed and seemed to still hold himself in the space of the story.
“I spent most of my life thinking of Maedhros as a friend as well as a kinsman,” said Ñolofinwë finally.
“So did I,” said Finrod, and waited.
“We were close in age. And when you were young, there were family matters he quietly helped me handle, small ones which might have become conflagrations if I’d spoken directly to Fëanáro instead. In Beleriand we had our differences, but I trusted him.”
“Why do you think Maedhros kept delaying at the war councils?” Finrod asked, knowing that he was interrupting whatever Ñolofinwë was building towards, but after all, they had time. “I never questioned it in those days, because it was so convenient to my own hidden reason, the one that was apparently quite transparent to you.”
“I gave your question a fair amount of thought in the years before I died. I believe it was either one of two reasons, or more likely, a combination of both. The first is a bias of the mind towards the permanent over the temporary, a bias common to the wise and foolish alike: our leaguer had achieved the dangerous illusion of permanence. The second reason is that any attack by Morgoth would fall heaviest on Dorthonion and Hithlum, isolate Doriath, and perhaps leave the sons of Fëanor in a stronger relative position than after a planned assault drawing on all forces equally.”
“Would Maedhros really have thought that way?” The implication disturbed Finrod immensely.
“Not Maedhros, not then, but that was the sort of strategy that Curufin might have pushed in their councils, under veiled reasoning. By that point I’d stopped warning Maedhros to keep Curufin on a shorter lead, because I understood he never would. Curufin’s maneuvering may have influenced the war council much more than you imagine. In this case, as with all those who pride themselves on their ability to manipulate others, he fooled himself in the end, when Morgoth sent Glaurung against the east and he lost his own land.”
“I came to terms with my own betrayal a long time ago,” said Finrod. “If you’re correct, it was only the minor refrain of a long-running and very disappointing theme.”
“I don’t mean to open old wounds,” said Ñolofinwë. “Although I suppose we’ve been doing little else since I sat down in this chair. It’s a very comfortable chair, at least.”
“Thank you, and it can’t be helped. Please go on.”
“Lanwiel saw Maedhros that day. The Fëanorians hesitated outside her house as she pleaded with them, then Maedhros rode by and ordered them to stop delaying. When one argued, Maedhros cut him down and rode onwards toward Elwing, and the rest of the killing began. He seemed impatient more than angered, and he never once looked them in the eye. And when Lanwiel finished telling me that detail, I felt something I’ve never felt before in my life. I can hardly put a name to it, but Finrod…” he trailed off and held himself very still.
“Surely not hate?”
“Oh no,” said Ñolofinwë easily. “Hate is a simple, shallow thing. I had hate to spare for Maedhros after Losgar, mainly for Findekáno’s sake, but it passed quickly—what I felt yesterday was deeper.”
“I thought of all the times I sent patrols of Men to the north of Thangorodrim, and though I would never demand to look them in the eye, I would say, I see your face, and if you die on the ice, wherever you go, wherever I go, I will remember you until the end of Arda. And I thought of other times I told Men not to fear my death in battle, for if I fell, my kin would always stand with them against Morgoth. In that regard, Maedhros made a liar of me, so I wondered if it was nothing more than wounded pride.”
“And it wasn’t? I’m afraid we’re both too familiar with that feeling.”
“No. It reminded me of watching the tide roll out from deep in the Firth of Drengist, or rather, not watching the tide for a while, then finding oneself in a landscape utterly changed by the quiet absence of the sea. I think it was the death of love, Finrod. I don’t care where the spirit of Maedhros has gone. I have no desire to hurt, help, or hinder him. When I think of Fëanáro, I feel sorrow for who he could have been, and even a little sorrow for who he actually was, but for Maedhros I feel nothing at all. So what I ask you now is, can love truly die, which is what I fear might happen again? Or is it a trick of time?”
“What do you mean by a trick of time?”
“Loss stretched over a long enough period of time becomes unremarkable. Compress time, and it looms large in the mind. And in the Halls, time seems to move in all ways at once.”
“I see,” said Finrod. “I assume you’re asking me, in particular, because aside from our common history in Beleriand, I have a reputation for optimism combined with the dubious gift of foresight.”
“More or less.”
You don’t know me that well after all, Finrod almost said, before he realized it would sound a little petty. He tried another phrasing. “Here is my own trick, Ñolofinwë: I don’t think about certain things unless I have to. Foresight sometimes discourages us from serious contemplation of future ruin, because we foresee how little power we have to avoid it. If I ever felt the death of love, I would never fear that love might die again, not because I have any secret knowledge, but because I would choose ignorance. Call it the folly of the wise, or perhaps just folly.”
“If we speak of love within the boundary of the self, then perhaps love has to die at times within us, just as much as it has to grow. We were told, to evil end shall all things turn that they begin well, and much of that turning was bound up in love, as we bitterly learned. But if we speak of love as a force which moves through all the Children of Ilúvatar in equal measure, which speaks through our imperfect forms, then love will never die without coming again, and I’m more sure of this than I am of the tide, since we were born before the moon.”
He searched for the words to shore up his certainty, and halted, failing, until he recalled the night he followed lights in the forest to the camp of Men, and thought only of the music he would play, and nothing of the joys and sorrows that were to come.
And then the words found themselves.
“At times a silence falls within the Music, leaving room for echoes. The Edain who died that day at the Mouths of Sirion will never come again in Arda, but their love still resounds in the infinite fading echoes, in the stories of stories.”
Ñolofinwë closed his eyelids, either guarding his grief from spilling out in tears, or listening for echoes, or more likely, both. Finrod reached out and took his hand and pressed it between his own, gold rings gleaming among silver. Images drifted before his mind’s eye: the mountains of the Ered Wethrin casting titanic shadows over the verdant plain, a young Man with golden hair and a smile like the sun, an old Man with steel-gray hair and a smile like the sun, a river of fire flowing sluggishly past a corpse-pile.
You are here, Finrod silently sent.
“I am here,” murmured Ñolofinwë. “I am come again, and my heart is whole, yet it pains me more than any wound I have ever taken. Oh Finrod, it is terrible.”
You will remember, and you will bear it. As I do.
The trembling of Ñolofinwë’s hand stilled. “I will bear it,” he promised, let out an even, measured sigh, and opened his strangely young eyes.
“You kept a pack of mad lords all pointed at one enemy for more than four hundred years,” Finrod reminded him. “And I’m including myself in that number. You can do anything.” He let go of Ñolofinwë‘s hand after an encouraging final squeeze, an unconscious gesture that suddenly reminded him he was now thousands of living years older than his uncle.
“You took away my fear of the death of love,” said Ñolofinwë. “I know it doesn’t look like it, but I feel much better now.”
“You don’t look too bad; a little pale and drawn, that’s all. You’ll be ready to face the family again soon. And you’re absolutely fit to dance and stab cakes, it’s just that I do agree with them about not pushing yourself too far in these first weeks…”
“Serpent, still thy traitorous tongue,” said Ñolofinwë archly. “Really, though, everything I’m planning needs the help of others, so I’ll be patient by necessity.”
“I’ll do all I can to help,” promised Finrod. “There’s one exception regarding grandfather I should have mentioned earlier; I wouldn’t have to, if Angrod were here, but since he’s still in the Halls, I feel obligated to represent his marvelous directness. The supposed Valar-mandated rotation rule that Finwë has to stay in the Halls so that Míriel can leave strikes us as unlikely, and was probably more in the nature of a suggestion than a mandate. Perhaps the real reason—”
“I haven’t failed to consider that my father could actually be choosing to stay for Fëanáro,” said Ñolofinwë, interrupting without any visible anger. The color was back in his face and his eyes were clear again. “If you’re wrong, the mandate needs to be removed. If you’re right, well, one can always change one’s mind. I hold out the same hope for Aegnor. Call it your kind of folly, if you like, or just folly. Thank you for the warning, though—Arafinwë is already set on helping Irissë as much as Anairë and I are, but if he’s not passionate about our father’s post-death divorce case, I’ll understand why, and won’t press him on it. Thank you for representing Angrod, as well.”
Hope and foresight had often warred with each other inside Finrod, and never more so than when Aegnor was involved. You cannot reweave the past repeated in his mind as Aegnor’s bright thread gleamed through his memory before vanishing beyond his reach.
He must have flinched, because Ñolofinwë leaned forward and spoke in a softer tone. “I don’t blame you for Aegnor any more than I blame Andreth Saelind. He had his own foresight and chose his own path.”
“When was the last time you saw Andreth?” asked Finrod. He had always hoped she would die of old age in peaceful sleep, though she had almost certainly died in fire instead.
“About ten years before I died, at Baragund’s wedding. You were there as well. She had a green dress and a white mantle and told me she was writing a book. I wish I could say more.”
“I don’t know if she ever finished,” said Finrod.
“Before we met them, the Edain remembered all their history in songs guarded by the wise women. We taught them how to write, they wrote down their songs, they began to trust the writing to remember for them, and then the writing burned in the fires of our war… sometimes I wonder if we did well, but then, we never understood what it means to forget, either for good or ill.”
“I think you should come with me to Tol Eressëa soon,” said Finrod. “To visit the graveyard and see the rest of the paintings.”
“I’d like that very much,” said Ñolofinwë.
Finrod rose to put the sketchbook back in the bookcase. Their conversation had traveled so far back and forth in space and time that he felt a little dizzy as he did so.
When he sat down again, he heard faint footsteps in the hallway.
Ñolofinwë smiled and flashed him an old military hand sign. Warning.
Indis floated into the study, dressed Vanyar style in a simple raw silk wrap and bare feet. She perched on the side of Ñolofinwë’s armchair and bent down to kiss him on the top of his braids.
“Ammë,” he murmured, and leaned into her embrace.
They looked so different from each other, as if hardly related, but their spirits flashed alike as two lightning streaks in the same storm.
“Dear Findaráto, you’ve stolen him for such a long while,” she said. “What have you two been up to?”
“Informing him of recent events in the gentlest manner possible,” said Finrod, which was the truth, more or less. “We also talked about my essay in progress on linguistic solutions to the multiple High King issue.”
“Will some of them be demoted to low or medium?” teased Indis, who had long ago given up pretending to care about Noldorin catalogs of rank.
“No,” said Finrod. “I’m proposing an elegant mathematical formula. For any given High King, take the reign duration in years of the sun and divide it by twelve, then multiply it by the number of separate times they’ve been High King, and that’s the number of Finwës we’ll put in front of their name.”
Ñolofinwë pointed at Finrod’s throat. “It’s your remarkable good fortune that Morgoth stole my sword,” he said, before his scowl cracked into a grin.
Indis laughed until her shoulders shook.
“I also told him all about the celebration outside,” added Finrod. “I think it would be beneficial for him to attend as soon as tomorrow.”
“I’ve never died,” she said, “so I’ll have to trust your judgment.”
“Thank you, ammë,” said Ñolofinwë. “You’re the kindest, best—”
“Oh hush. I want to see you happy, that’s all. So has Findaráto been telling you all about the latest fashion in Tirion?”
“No I haven’t,” said Finrod. “It’s too depressing. The latest trend is that neri are supposed to wear less jewelry than nissi. I refuse to conform to this ridiculous demand for understatement, of course.”
Ñolofinwë made a sympathetic dismissive noise. “What madness! I suppose we’ll have to wait for the culture to come to its senses again, but in the meantime I certainly won’t be conforming either.”
“Don’t look to me,” said Indis as they looked to her. “When I was growing up, a tooth on a string was considered the height of fashion, and if you were very lucky, it wasn’t your own tooth. And when I lived in Tirion, I only wore the jewelry that Finwë’s stylist laid out for me. She always made sure it was comfortable, though. Whatever happened to her?”
“She went with my host,” said Ñolofinwë. “She saw the rising of the sun and moon, and put them on my banners. I miss her—she’s still in Mandos.”
“All the stories seem to go that way,” said Indis, and sighed.
“Death is by far the most common theme,” agreed Ñolofinwë. ”But speaking of jewelry, did you ever find that earring Itarillë made for me when she was a child?”
“Oh yes,” said Indis. “I found it just now. As it turns out, you had it in your ear all these Ages, my foolish son. See?” She pulled his ear and produced a little silver twist with a flourish of her hand.
“It’s the very same,” said Ñolofinwë, wide-eyed in delight at the marvel.
“Come back with me,” she said, and took his hand, and Finrod’s hand, and pulled them up and led them away.
Tomorrow, they would dance. One of her descendants would sail the sky above while another slept far below, and they would still dance, and love, until the end of this hallowed world.