Back to Middle-earth Month

 

But three winters had drifted past and been lost in the cold sea-wind and the crying of the gulls, and somehow he had found time here and there for six new songs: each one a lament.  One for Amras, one for Amrod, one for Curufin.  One for Caranthir, one for Celegorm, and at last, and very reluctantly, one for Maedhros. 

 

It had been some time since he had made a lament. More recently he had made songs to please the children, then when that time had passed, there had been little leisure for composition: he had played old songs instead of making new ones, set thought aside to return to later, and kept on fighting.

 

Caranthir’s was easiest, for Caranthir had fallen in Doriath, trying to come to the rescue of his brothers. Caranthir’s tale was so very nearly the tale of a hero.  At Alqualondë, Caranthir had followed Maglor and he had guarded Maglor’s back, and there might be reproach in that for Maglor, but surely there was not much for his younger brother. 

 

Caranthir might even have touched a Silmaril and not been burned.

 

But Maedhros... Maedhros was hardest.  Hardest because his death was near and painful, hardest too because Maedhros had led them.  Maedhros had touched a Silmaril and he like Maglor had been burned. There was no question of Maedhros’s guilt, for the Silmaril was judge and witness to it, and Maedhros himself had confirmed the judgement. 

 

If he had only stood by Maedhros before the fire went up at Losgar... if he had turned away from the fire there, and disobeyed their father,  would Maedhros have turned from the fire in turn, and stayed with him, there at the end?  

If he had said to Maedhros before the Havens, as Maedhros had said at Losgar : No!

 

No way to know. 

 

If Maglor had spoken for Fingon to his father.  Or if it had been Maglor who had come to Maedhros on the mountain.

 

“Probably not,” Maglor said, to a seagull on the shore, as he looked out across waves green with spring sunlight, not thinking at all of where the Silmaril had fallen, but definitely only of a lament for Maedhros, and of conversation with a seagull. “I never could have scaled Thangorodrim.  I’m not a hero, not like Fingon, and even if I had, the Eagle never would have come for me.” 

 

The seagull regarded him from the rock, head cocked a little and its bright unsympathetic eyes staring. 

 

“He wasn’t well, you know,” Maglor told it. “Otherwise he would never have given up.  Not Maedhros.  He never gave up, not until the very end.” 

 

And that was true, but not quite the whole story, because Maedhros had not been well, for all that he had come back from Thangorodrim as fierce and deadly as a storm from the mountains. The shadow of pain had lain upon him.  It had grown darker since the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and Maglor had known it. 

 

Yet Maglor had followed him every step, and obeyed every command, because Maedhros was his elder brother and his lord, but also because if it had not been Maedhros to take the burden, it would have to be him. 

 

He did not make a lament for himself. It would be ridiculous to do that.

******

 

The Silmaril shone gold and silver against the glittering Sea.  He had managed not to touch it this time, but only shake it from the bag onto the rock, and though the light ran through him, calling an answering darkness from his mind that held him unmoving, the Sun shone upon his back and warmed his bare feet. His clothes were almost dry already.

 

The Sea was almost still, only the smallest waves lapping against the rocks, and high overhead he could hear a raven calling harshly, though he could not quite look up to see it circle against the pale blue sky. 

 

Somewhere in the distance out at sea, seabirds were calling, only a few at first, and then more and more, a harsh screaming that reminded him of Alqualondë, of the Havens of Sirion. Within his mind, cold-scaled darkness turned at the memory and pulled him deeper. 

 

He ducked away from the thought of blood upon the quays of Sirion, and tried to pick a music from the cries of gulls instead. One could weave the sound of flutes through the cries of gulls...

 

The sound was getting louder, and now it was all around him, as if every bird in Middle-earth was gathering at the water-side and calling out.  He blinked and pulled away from the Silmaril to look up at tiny delicate wings silhouetted in sunlight against the sky. 

 

Something was happening. He got up, looked around and could see nothing but the birds, and yet there was a sense of awaiting, as if an orchestra had gathered and were waiting for their moment to play.  

 

The air smelled of change and the birdsong rang out, and then it came.  A shift in the making of the world, as if a great note filled with sorrow and with joy never heard before was being sung, and the birds cried out in answer.  

 

Maglor sang too, wordlessly, without understanding, and then he heard the rumbling in the North, as, almost out of sight, the last remnants of the Anfauglith, of fallen Thangorodrim and the ruins of Angband crumbled at last into the sea.

 

The water hushed, and ran smoothly up the rocks, and then fell back to the usual mid-tide place, and the birds that had gathered upon the shore scattered. 
 

“What was that?” Maglor said, and laughed, not so much because there was anything to laugh at, as because his heart was strangely light.

 

“The Enemy is gone,” a croaking voice said, and looking around, he saw that the raven that he had heard high overhead had alighted on a spur of rock. Automatically he stepped between it and the Silmaril. 

 

“What do you mean, he’s gone? The Enemy is one of the Valar.  He can’t be killed,” Maglor told it. “He was defeated and chained after Thangorodrim was broken. He is a prisoner of Mandos, as he was before. What more is there to do with him?”

 

“Well, hark at you, the expert on the Ainur,” the Raven said, looking very unimpressed and scratching at the feathers just above its beak with one foot. 

 

“Very well then, master Raven,” Maglor said and smiled.  “I am a mere foolish elf with no wisdom to match yours, it seems. Will you enlighten me?” 

 

 “The Valar have thrust him through the Doors of Night, beyond the Walls of the World, into the Timeless Void,” the Raven croaked, rather smugly, Maglor thought. 

 

“They can do that?” Maglor said, staring astonished.

 

“They have done it.” the Raven said, and put its head on one side, looking at the Silmaril.  Maglor drew his sword left-handed, and made an emphatic shooing gesture with the right. 

 

“Oh, very well!” it said, crossly, and took off, flying slow-winged, croaking in annoyance,  up the cliffs and vanished into the hills behind. 

 

Maglor looked back at the Silmaril, out of habit.  The darkness in his mind stirred in answer, but it stirred, he thought, a little sluggishly.  

 

Interesting, that. 

 

He closed his eyes for a moment to cut out the light, and thought of the note that was something entirely new and strange, that had rung out across the Sea. Behind his eyes, the Oath answered, dropping its dark scaled head a little, as if exhausted.  It did not grip so hard, in fact, if he did not look at it and thought only of music, he could almost pretend it was not there, as he had done for so many years in Beleriand. 

 

More than interesting. Hope that had betrayed him so very many times before stirred, and without having to open his eyes to find it, he picked up the harp. 

 

*******

 

He had sung for long years now, waking and sleeping, pausing only to eat when he must, humming under his breath on the rare occasion that someone should pass by.  

 

Below him, the sea washed upon beaches that had been sharp with broken stone and now were smooth and shining bright with fine sand, and on rocks that were smooth now, curved and gentle and pitted by long years of waves.  The coast had shifted, trees and grass and winter storms working upon it as his mother worked marble, and great dunes of sand had formed, offering a shelter from the sea-winds where sweet dewberries scrambled across the sand, and rabbits burrowed. 

 

Probably the leather bag around the Silmaril had entirely rotted in the salt by now. It might be buried under sand and rockfall, or carried off by seals or by Uinen herself perhaps. 

 

He did not know.  He had not looked.  

 

There was nothing shining in his mind but music, nothing moving in the darkness but dreams of blood upon the quays of Sirion. The shadows in his mind were full of grief, but not of evil. 

 

Hoofbeats on the shore, and a faint suggestion of distant thought calling through the harpsong in a voice out of very long ago.  He moved, unthinking, to shut it out.  

 

Then he paused, for there was a sorrow in it that was sharp and aching, and it was calling his name. 

 

 

Why should Elrond be so possessed with grief?  Why should he ride the coast like a thunderstorm, calling out like that?  

 

Where was Elros?

 

 

He meant to duck behind the gorse-bushes.  He meant to close his mind and hush his voice so that even Elrond’s clear sight would pass him by.  That would be the right thing to do.  Elrond must have more than enough friends to turn to: Gil-galad, Círdan, Galadriel, Celebrimbor, Elves of Doriath and Gondolin. It was bad enough that he had begun his life in war, without Maglor standing as a grim reminder of the fallen Shadow. 

 

But his fingers on the harp kept on playing, a wordless music shaped and worn by the sea, and now Elrond was coming through the bushes, along the faint winding path that led into the dunes. Maglor looked up, feeling suddenly wary as a wild thing caught outside its burrow, and met his eyes. 

 

And the grief written on Elrond’s face lifted and a sudden surprised smile shone there like sunlight dancing on the Sea.