Atandil by Eilinel's Ghost  

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13. And Still the Light Returns

Belen was near. He had passed the Narog that morning and must be well within the highlands by now. Any moment, he would appear from the trees, shifting from longing to presence through the twilit shadows. The parting would be mended, his son was coming home.

Now settled in Nargothrond, Balan looks forward to welcoming his younger son to join him there. But each has changed in the months since Balan’s departure and they navigate these distances in past and present, home and journey, presence and absence.

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312th YEAR OF THE SUN, WINTER
Nargothrond

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Once again, Finrod caught sight of him through the trees. He was poised beside the Ringwil this time, one shoulder hitched against an ash tree, and his profile sharp in the evening light. He must have kept vigil at the ford for at least an hour now, despite Finrod’s assurance that there was time enough to reach the crossing once word came of their approach. At first Balan had allowed himself to be placated. But as the day drew on, the restlessness only increased and at last he set out alone. By now he could recognize the imperceptible marks of the High Faroth’s trail and from the gates to the ford, at least, he could find his way unguided. The walk would allow him to shift impatience to exertion, he had said with a rogue’s grin, and that would be a welcome respite for all. A smile tugged at Finrod’s lips as he looked upon him now, eyes fixed on the far bank and anxious impatience prickling off of him like sparks.

It was three weeks past that Gildor had departed with the messengers bound for Estolad, and the sentries at last sent word that the return party had reached the Narog. Four Elves, they reported, and one of the Atani. Finrod felt Balan’s heart sink at this last, despite the warm smile he summoned. The invitation had included Baran and Estreth as well, but only Belen had ridden forth. Balan should have expected such a course, he confessed to Finrod once the sentries had gone, the summer’s parting had hardly been warm. 

Finrod tried to reassure him that refusal needn’t indicate bitterness. It would be a high cost for Baran to depart so soon after taking up his role, whereas Belen was unbound and free to go at will. It was duty, not denouncement. Balan had nodded and thanked him, but Finrod saw the pain lingering in the lines of his smile, and alongside it the determination not to cause the king worry.

It had been nearly two months since Balan was brought down by the long fever that plagued his people, and still Finrod could not shake the undercurrent of watchful fear which lingered well after his recovery. It had come on during the night, but none were aware till the following afternoon when Finrod wandered into his apartments and found him shaking and delirious, clinging desperately to every blanket on the bed. He shuddered even now as he recalled the ragged breathing and the shock of Balan’s skin beneath his palm, burning hot and clammy with sweat. It was only the memory of Estreth tending others through the previous winter that kept him from falling into a helpless panic as he cried out for Sídhon and began pulling the blankets aside. Balan had fought against this, grasping feebly at the linen and wool as they were dragged back, then curling into himself when that failed, shivering uncontrollably. 

Finrod had stroked the damp hair back from his forehead and tried to recall Estreth’s techniques as all throughout the next days he and Sídhon worked in tandem, setting cold compresses to cool the flesh, carrying him to and from the lukewarm baths, cleaning the vomit from the bedside basin. He had witnessed illness during his time in Estolad, this was no new revelation, but nonetheless his heart contracted in fear whenever Balan doubled over and retched, or lay trembling and weak in the aftermath. The fragility was inescapable in these moments, the spirit’s hold like gossamer. Naught could induce the king to leave his side and he spent each sleepless night beside Balan’s bed, changing out the compresses or sitting motionless with the other’s hand clasped within his own, till he too was near collapse.

Celiel had attempted to shift him after the third night. As chief among the healers, she said, it was incumbent upon her to learn the maladies and treatment of the Secondborn, now that one dwelt here among them. It was incumbent upon her too, she had added, to advise the king that his own wellbeing should not be discarded in concern for the other. This last was shrugged aside, but Celiel kept vigil alongside him for the remaining nights. It was helpful, he found, to have the distraction of handing his small knowledge into her keeping. He told her every practice he gleaned from watching Estreth’s work, each detail he had learned while tending Belen the year before. It eased the dread to discuss it abstractly, and the sound of his voice seemed to soothe Balan’s restless slumber.

Finrod breathed deep of the winter air as he moved forward through the trees. His heart strained at every sight of him now, here and whole, living and vibrant and himself once again. Balan was wrapped in the same fur-lined coat he had worn in Estolad, bound about the waist with a heavy belt, and his toe scuffed patterns in the frosted pine needles carpeting the bank. 

”Haelis, Balan!” Thought and voice reached out together, and Balan turned toward him in the same. 

“Haelis, Nóm.” His eyes crinkled in amusement. “I concede—thy patience had the measure of it. I’ve gained naught but a cold hour.”

“Art thou chilled? We should have awaited them at the gates.” A flicker of concern crossed Finrod’s brow and he reached out in reflex to touch the back of his fingers to the other’s forehead. 

“I’m cold, not endangered.” Balan twitched away with a chuckle. “And thou shouldst leave off ere Belen is here or I’ll have the both of you surveilling my every breath and never a moment’s folly permitted. It has been weeks, Nóm, I’m hale as I’ve ever been.” He cast a quick grin back at the king, then his eyes darted again to the far side of the Ringwil. Belen was near. He had passed the Narog that morning and must be well within the highlands by now. Any moment, he would appear from the trees, shifting from longing to presence through the twilit shadows. The parting would be mended, his son was coming home. “Besides,” Balan added as he tried not to pace, “I’ll not have him dragged through that specter of a gate on his own. It tried even my resolve, and I had begged thee to bring me hither.”

Finrod glanced down at him in chagrin. “That was rather unforgivable of me. In my vanity, I thought to awe thee by the surprise, and gave little heed to the fright it would conjure. But bear no fear on thy son’s behalf—Gildor would not have indulged such conceit. Ai!” he smiled and pointed into the trees, “They have come!”

“Where?” Balan stepped forward to the edge of the shore, his sight straining into the twilight. “A plague upon these eyes, I see them not. Where are they?”

“There.” Finrod pointed again and laughed as he caught hold of Balan’s arm, keeping him from charging through the ford in his impatience. “At the edge of the clearing, where the day’s light yet lingers.”

Balan saw him then, crossing into the speckled gold, nimble on the back of his bay mare as he rode side by side with Gildor through the waving boughs. Belen! Had he been so tall when they parted? He looked a man now, despite the short months between them. His hair had grown to his shoulders and his poise was natural and self-possessed upon the horse’s back, and his father stood speechless upon the hither bank as he watched him move through the clearing. Only once had he seen Esrid ride, long ago upon those far plains east of the mountains. She and Geberic returned to her village one evening, galloping through the hay meadow where Balan wandered, and even then he had been arrested by her presence, thundering past upon that imposing creature, her own form powerful and sure. 

And her son, riding toward him now in the dappled sunlight, was the very image of her. 

“Vatta!” Belen had sighted them as well and at once his horse broke into a swift trot. He was to the ford within moments and water dashed up from the hooves as he urged the mare forward through the crossing. 

“Belen!” He found his voice at last as his son leapt from the saddle and flew into his arms. And oh, he was the same yet, not so much changed—the same warmth, the same sharp line of his shoulders, the same arms wrapping about his neck, the same scent of home. He clutched him tight against his chest and breathed him in. “Ai, Bel, my boy, my boy…Here, let me see you.” Balan took him by the shoulders and drew him back into his sight, laughing despite the tears on his cheeks. “How I have missed you!” He laughed again and cupped his son’s face within his hands. “And how well you look! You’ve grown a year’s worth in a mere season. Where is the boy I left in the summer?”

“Here before you, the same as you last saw him.” Belen’s smile filled his face. “And you, you are well?”

“Aye,” Balan said, brushing his hand over Belen’s hair, “I am well.”

“Gildor told me you’ve been ill?” 

“Naught but the usual fever.” 

“He said it was grave.”

“It was no worse than the winter ere we crossed the mountains.” Balan waved away his concern, then glanced toward Finrod in amusement. “They do not know illness, so every cough is a cause to fret.”

“Yet even you will grant a near fortnight abed is justified concern,” Finrod retorted with an answering grin, then turned toward Belen and his smile shifted into warm welcome. “Haelis, Belen. Your coming has been awaited with great joy—and it is a glad hour in which I greet you again!”

“Goodness go with you, Nóm,” Belen replied, then the bright grin broke across his face once more and he threw his arms about the king in the same warm greeting. “You have been missed.”

“As have you, Bel.” Finrod laughed as he embraced him in turn, then the mirth mirrored onto his own features. “And how are my donkeys?”

Belen laughed. “Not half so indulged, and thus are far more diligent vassals.” He glanced up at him as he stepped back, the grin shining yet. “Though I still bring them apples on your behalf. Honeg waits at the edge of the fold each evening—looking for you, I’d guess—and I pass him an extra when the others aren’t looking.”

“Dear Honeg…” Finrod smiled. “I shall bring him a basket full of them when next I visit, and a halter fit for the little lord of his kind.”

There was a series of splashes as Gildor and his companions reached the ford and joined them on the hither side. 

“Suil, vandatar.”

“Na vedui!” Finrod crossed with a smile and embraced him in greeting. “The journey was smooth?”

“Yes, all peaceful. We had no trouble.”

“Good. And the crossings?”

“Civil.” There had been a brief hesitation before the answer, and Finrod’s responding glance held a sharp query. But Gildor shook his head imperceptibly and turned to retrieve his horse’s reins. “We made quick time once we reached the Talath Dirnen. Your son is a swift rider,” he added to Balan with a smile.

“Aye, and a swift study,” Balan replied, pride radiating from his smile. “Though this is in his blood. His mother sat a horse with rare skill.” Then he turned to his son with a quick smile. “You ride very like her, Bel.”

“Madja said the same.” Belen’s eyes were wistful, but pleased.

“Mm. I’m sure she did. And how does she fare?” Balan indicated the path as he and Belen led the way back toward the gorge of the Narog. “Has she forgiven me yet?”

“I don’t think there’s a child left in Estolad whom she hasn’t taught to hold their own upon a horse,” Belen replied with a chuckle, stepping about the question. “She’s set out plans already to turn these we have into a full herd. We’ll be a riding people within another generation if her schemes all come to fruition.”

“Good,” Balan let the question fall away and did not press. “It’s a shift long overdue, and negligence on my part that I did not see to it while we lived alongside their people.”

Finrod and Gildor walked together, dropping several horse-lengths behind to allow the two men space for their reunion. “Elu’s reticence has not softened, then.”

“It has not. There was no open animosity, but they were sharp with the boy and the mood at the crossings was cold. I relayed thy correspondence on the road east, but there was no answer awaiting upon the return journey. The news of additional incursions has not eased his frustration.”

“No, it would not. Mitigation was all I hoped, but even that seems like to be a naive intention.” Finrod’s eyes drifted along with Balan and Belen ahead of them, marking the lightened set of Balan’s shoulders, the laugh drifting back, the eyes that sought his son more often than the path ahead, and he felt his own heart filled with the other’s joy. “And what of his other son?” he asked with an undercurrent of trepidation. “Has he sent word or is the absence his response?”

“Both,” Gildor replied, his voice lowered to a breath. “He said he would not set aside the duty of his position for personal leisure. Nor could he countenance leaving his people leaderless in the first winter as their chieftain.”

“A concise and polite rebuke.”

“I believe he said more to Belen, and with less diplomacy, but I’ll not relay it if Belen does not.” Gildor shifted his cloak from the angle he wore while riding and wrapped it about his arms. “The intervening time has done little to alleviate the break, I fear. Rather, it has but ripened from hurt to anger. Certainly that is the case for the boys’ aunt. Though I confess,” he added with a twitch of his lips, “her candor was refreshingly blunt.”

Something near a laugh escaped Finrod’s lips at the thought of his shy foster-son confronted with the sardonic clip of Estreth’s tongue. Well, the boy seemed unscathed.

“Thy gifts were well received,” Gildor continued as Finrod’s eyes drifted again to the pair ahead of them, “and all asked of thee. They hoped I brought tidings of when they might find thee again among them. I said I knew not, but would tell thee thy welcome is ever held in gladness.”

❈❈❈

It was just as Balan imagined it, walking these familiar passages with Belen at his side. All his son’s new gravity fell away as they passed through the gatehouse and he took in the grandeur, his eyes wide with boyish wonder. Balan was amused to recognize the excitement in his own voice as he pointed out each facet and cavern, the intricacies about them, the innovations they passed. It was his arrival reprised, only now he played the part of Nóm, giddy and earnest, while the king walked behind them and the warmth of his joy wrapped through Balan’s every thought. 

“I’ve had a full meal laid out here,” Balan said as they reached his apartments. The king had parted from them as they reached the royal quarter, that they might have time uninterrupted, and Balan felt a sheepish pride as he ushered his son into his own chambers. “Selfish of me, perhaps, but I wished to have you to myself this first evening. Tomorrow will suit for dinners and introductions. And besides,” he added as he closed the door and took Belen’s coat, setting it aside with his own, “formalities are a poor companion to rest, and you’ve had a long journey.”

“This is all yours?”

“Aye.” Balan chuckled and glanced at his son with a sidelong smile. “Unconscionably large, hm?”

Belen’s responding laugh was incredulous and he drifted further into the room, drawing one hand along the wall, the polished rock gliding against his palm. “It’s beautiful, vatta.” His voice whispered over the carved walls, entranced. “How have they done it? The stone is a song almost.”

“Even so. The carving was a kind of music, to hear Nóm tell it.” Balan could not take his eyes from Belen’s face, warm in the glow of the hearth, flesh and no phantom. “They sang as they worked the stone, keeping time with pick and hammer as we do in our own work. He says you can hear it still in the echoes of the passages, but I’ve never yet found aught but footsteps.”

“Nóm would hear a song in anything.” The boy’s grin flashed out in quick mirth. “It probably was naught but footsteps, only he turned it to music somehow. Do you remember the cart wheels on the road to Estolad? ’Tis a rare music beneath you, Belen—tree and earth and living creature in chorus together—drum and descant in one’.” Belen chuckled again and knelt down in front of the fire to warm himself. “I’m glad to see him again too. I’ve missed the both of you.” Then his eyes caught sight of the other openings connected into the hearth and he craned his neck about in curiosity. “Are there more rooms than this?”

“Two others. Come see.” He caught Belen’s hand and pulled him to his feet. “Here is the most absurd bath you’ve ever seen,” he chuckled as he opened the first door and the light shone in to illuminate the carved tree trunk. “Though it’s also the most blissful thing I’ve ever known, so you’ve not heard a word of mockery from my lips, lest they think I scorn it and take it away in courtesy. And here,” he crossed to the far side of the hearth where the library door stood open already, “is the one I like best. A room whose sole purpose, as far as I can tell, is thought and study.”

The wonder spread once again across Belen’s features as he stepped through the archway and saw the walls lined with scrolls and books. 

“Look,” his father said as he drew a book from the nearest wall, “they bind it together into one block, do you see? Here along the edge, they’ve stitched it like a garment. And each of these is filled with tales or history or lore…knowledge, Bel, leaves upon leaves of knowledge.”

“Each one of these?” Belen ran his fingers along the spines on the shelf before him.

“Aye. And this is only what was housed here. There is a small cavern full of them as well—the library of the king—and this is a mere acorn of that.” Balan reached out to shift a pile of loose parchment upon the table and Belen could see many were scrawled across with halting characters, sections of script repeated over and again. Balan indicated these with a self-deprecating grimace and the quick glance at his son was both embarrassed and proud. “He is teaching me to write it, and to read it. I’m afraid I’m a rather slow study. Language itself has ever come to me quickly, but I feel a child again attempting the writing of it.” Then his face lit up with potential and he looked back at Belen with a broad smile. “He can teach you as well, now that you’re here. You would learn it easily, I’m sure of it. You have ever been quick with patterns and signs.”

“Aye, perhaps!” Belen’s smile was noncommittal, but he looked down at the character charts and trial phrases with interest.

“Only if you wish it.” Balan ran a hand back through his hair, upended by his own anxiety and feeling as though he was stumbling through conversations that were once second nature. He returned the pages to the table, then reached out to rest his hand behind Belen’s neck—a gesture of affection he had used since the boy’s childhood—and was relieved to feel him lean into the caress. “I am so very glad to have you here, Bel.”

Belen nodded as he shifted the parchment about on the table, but his eyes were distant and not attending to the figures before him. Then a little choked sound escaped his lips and he turned abruptly, wrapping his arms about his father and clinging to him as fiercely as at their parting in Estolad.

Balan gathered him close in surprise, stroking the hair back from Belen’s head where it lay buried against him, the slight shoulders trembling as his tears ran down his father’s neck. “There, my boy,” he murmured and held him close, “I am here.” Balan’s composure broke then too, and he leaned his face in against Belen’s hair and wept as he clutched him in his arms. “Oh my son,” he whispered into the dark curls, “I have missed you more than I could bear.”

“He said you’d been unwell,” Belen’s voice was muffled as much by emotion as by his father’s shoulder, and he gripped handfuls of Balan’s tunic within his fists as though he might slip away. “And all I could think was I might have lost you and never known till word made its way. Or that you might still go ere I reached you.”

“Ai, Belen…Hfaskebel…” He smoothed the hair back from his son’s eyes and cradled the damp cheeks within his palms. Esrid had given him the nickname—hedgehog—when he was naught more than an infant, laughing at how he curled his arms and legs together when he slumbered, like a tiny ball within his sleeping basket. “I am here. You have not lost me.”

Belen nodded as his father’s hands moved to rest on his shoulders, and he tried to steady his breathing. “He didn’t mean to worry me,” he said, his voice still rough with emotion, “only when he told me, it sounded…” He trailed off again and wiped the heel of his hand against his eyes in a futile attempt to stem the tears.

“Gildor had not seen a fever before. He’d nothing to compare it to, so he gauged by the king’s manner, and Nóm was worried—of course he was, he never attended to one of us alone, much less with the closest aid from our folk nearly a fortnight distant.” Balan squeezed his son’s shoulder in comfort and his face creased with mirth. “He’s been at my heel like a sheepdog ever since.”

“Aye,” Belen laughed at last through the lingering tears, “I know that well enough. That was all the road to Estolad, and months beyond too. Does he insist you rest every hour?”

“And always wear a layer more than is comfortable.”

“And keeps a count somehow of everything you’ve eaten in a day.”

“And if you say a word of tiredness or discomfort—”

“You find yourself seated before you’d any notion you moved and then assigned an hour at leisure whether you’d like it or no.” Belen’s laugh was unhindered now and he grinned up at his father. “I’ve missed you, vatta.”

Balan smiled in return and felt his heart overflowing with his presence. “I cannot tell you how good it is to hear your laugh in these rooms. How empty they have seemed without it!” He felt the lump growing in his throat once more, so he tousled the boy’s hair and led the way back into the main chamber. “Come, there’s food ready and you’ve had a long journey, but here I am keeping you from it with books and scrolls.”

“I don’t mind.” He followed his father back through the archway and to a small table that had been set before the fire, shaking his head once again as he sat and looked about the chamber. “I still can’t believe all this is yours…”

“Yours are hardly less.” Balan shifted the cloths that covered the various dishes and folded them as he spoke. “I thought to have you here, but Nóm insisted you have your own. They’re not far—just above these—and they too look out on the garden. I’ll show you once you’ve eaten.”

“My own?” His son looked startled as he settled himself at the table.

“He said it would be poor hospitality else.” Balan chuckled and portioned the meat between their plates, setting the greater part upon Belen’s. 

“How many empty rooms does he keep lying about?”

“Many. It’s intended as a refuge, so they delved far more than need required. There’s room to house at least twice the number dwelling here now, if necessary. Go slowly with that,” he added as Belen took a long draught of wine. “It’s stronger than our mead or ale.”

“Learned by error, I take it?”

Balan offered only a grin in answer and sipped from his own glass before shifting his attention to the sliced fruit and bread. He managed several bites of these before lapsing into introspection, prodding a berry about his plate as he summoned the courage to voice the question. “How is your brother?”

“Insufferable.” The lines of Belen’s face tightened in apprehension, though he kept his tone light. “He’s horridly capable and knows it full well. You should see him manage an arbitration. It’s like watching madja’s whirling-dance at midsummer—you can’t see how it’s done, but it dizzies you just looking on.” A smile tugged at his lips and he reached for another handful of berries. “I am very proud of him.”

“And I to hear tell of it.”

“He’ll marry Sabil, I think,” Belen mumbled around a mouthful of cheese and bread, and seemed amused by the quick lift of his father’s brows. “Sometime before midsummer if I was to guess at it. It’s all but arranged now.”

“Good.” Balan took another drink from his cup and chuckled as he set it back onto the table. “He’s been long enough about it. I’ve expected that since well ere we crossed the mountains.”

“A force of nature as a chieftain. Utterly useless for his own interests.”

“He is well, though?”

“Aye. He sends his love,” Belen added, then shifted uncomfortably at the second half of the message and kept his eyes on his plate. “But he said to tell you he must decline the honor of the king’s summons, for surely you have not forgotten how much is required of him while our people settle in their new lands.”

“I see.” Balan forced a halfhearted smile and tried to hold the strain from his voice. “Very right and proper of him. I’m afraid I thought only of how I missed you both and did not stop to reason as he must.”

“I’m sure he knows that, vatta.”

“Aye, of course.” Balan refilled his glass and leaned back in the chair, picking absentmindedly at his meal. “And how fare the new lands? Word from the king’s messengers was that the harvest came in full.”

“It did. Greater even than the years we spent at the shores of Andanahti-marei.” Belen’s eyes took on a bright eagerness as he spoke and Balan was surprised at the shift from only a few months before. “It’s a marvel, vatta—the earth yields willingly, almost benevolently, and even in a brief year I’ve felt roots spreading as I never knew before. We are no longer wandering. We are home.”

For a long moment, Balan could not find the voice to answer. He knew well the sense his son had named. He had felt it first at Estolad, and like Belen he assumed it was the land embracing them, a sense of place stilling at last the compulsion to roam. But it had been Nóm, he realized when the earth’s welcome held empty comfort in the face of the other’s departure, and so he had chased that grounding across all the leagues of Beleriand, he had followed it deep below the earth. And there his own roots had grasped and taken and spread out in rest beneath the hills. Would his son feel that too, now that it was his home as well? Or would he feel only the loss of it? “I feel it too, Belen,” he managed at last, “though long was the road that carried us hence. Beyond hope, we have found its ending.”

“Aye, and its beginning too.” Belen was quiet as he finished the last of his food and his eyes lingered on the plate before him. “It was strange to pass the Longest Night without you,” he said as the time drew on. “You were gone, but I could not mark you as I mark aitha in the empty setting for the dead—which of course was a blessing, but it left only absence with naught to hold it.”

“Belen…” His father reached out to take hold of his hand across the table.

“Strange that it was easier to mark the dead than the living.” Belen’s laugh was short, tight with his trammeled emotion, and he held fast to his father’s grip. “I do not remember her, so all I’ve ever known is the lack. When you said today that I was the image of her riding, my heart leapt for it is some new way to know her, here within myself. But of you I’d known only an abundance. And I am glad of that, vatta, but I’ve known not where to place my grief.”

“Oh Bel, my boy…” Balan’s voice broke and he caught his son’s hand in both of his own now, unable to hold back the new tears that threatened.

“No, vatta, please, I didn’t mean…” He shook his head and his face furrowed in concern. “Damn this wine, I meant only that it is good to be by you again, that I have missed you dearly. Please, vatta, I meant it not in accusation.”

“I know, lad.” Balan tried to stay his tears and nodded in assurance. “I know. The accusation is my own. Not a day has gone that I do not blame myself for leaving you and your brother.” He wiped roughly at his eyes and managed a smile to ease his son’s remorse. “But tell me more of what all has passed. The king’s emissaries are well and good, but they never tell the things one wishes to hear.”

Belen laughed and the conversation was at ease again. He told of the long summer, stretching even later than the previous, of harvest and their merry scramble to store all the bounty, the onset of winter and the feasting at the Longest Night held now within the nearly-completed Hall. 

They had marked it here in Nargothrond as well, and the memory of that quiet celebration lingered about the edges of Balan’s thought as he listened to his son’s tales. It had been just on the heels of his illness and he had nearly missed noting the day, still weak in his recovery and lingering within his own rooms. Nóm had arrived with the late-afternoon twilight, a basket of holly slung upon one arm and another holding all the settings for a meal. He had bound the circlets as he had the year before, while Balan recited again the tale of aithan-hropit and watched the nimble fingers weaving in the firelight. The table was laid with pork rather than the traditional boar, but it had been made with meadow garlic and seasoned with the same herbs Balan knew since childhood. Nóm had set them in mind after one meal and recalled them now without instruction. He had placed three settings—one for himself and one for Balan. The third, he said, was set for Esrid and for Alémi, and for his own dead gone before him. And in the deep night ere the dawn, Nóm had taken the roughened hands within his own and set his lips to each palm in turn. I feared night would take thee, yet still thine hands are warm, and still the light returns. 

As Balan heard the rise and fall of his son’s voice, bearing these morsels of that life he had left, he too felt the fervor of warmth returned. Belen’s laugh again beside him. Belen’s words conjuring images of the home he too had loved. Belen’s voice raised in song as he carried Eimet’s new melodies here to his father’s ears—two for reaping, one that raised a fumbling rush of color to the boy’s cheeks. He’d not have sung it but for the wine, he mumbled, and had it not been made to aggravate Baran, and the emissaries would surely have been remiss on that.

And so the hours went by, filled with laughter and reminiscence, until Belen yawned and his father broke off in chagrin as he saw how low the fire had burned. “Gods all, Bel, you’ve let me keep you here talking half the night and you’re worn through from the journey.”

“No, I’m just as culpable.” His son’s eyes were bleary with fatigue, but he smiled. “I’d no wish to leave off.”

“Aye, well there’s plenty of time for that now you’re here. Come,” Balan stood and retrieved his son’s coat, then shepherded him out toward the garden courtyard, “yours are up the stair here—up and then back around to the right, just over mine.” He paused at the base of the steps as he watched Belen climb ahead of him. He had felt every league between them since they parted in Estolad and now he could see him with waking sight, his own dear boy, only a stair’s length now separating them. Balan shook his head and ascended after him. Too much wine again—he was growing maudlin. “This way,” he said as he reached the top and passed him, leading Belen to a similar set of latticework doors.

The room inside was slightly smaller than the main chamber of Balan’s apartments, and set in a near inverse. The bed faced the garden and the hearth was set in the opposite corner, venting out onto the sinkhole. But the other elements were similar—a set of seats about the fire, a cabinet to hold his clothing, a small writing desk. 

Balan crossed at once to the lamp beside the bed and adjusted it to illuminate the full room. “These are quite simple,” he said as he moved to another and increased its light as well. “You’ll soon grow accustomed to them. They’re as good as daylight when you use them well, at least when compared to the rushlights we’ve relied on.” He turned back toward Belen and saw his son had paused before the side of the cabinet and was staring, transfixed, into the mirror hanging from its side. He chuckled. “Aye, startling isn’t it?” He crossed to stand behind the boy and rested a hand on his shoulder. “They still unnerve me, especially when I come upon one unexpectedly.”

“It looks as though he might step out and speak with me—as though I might step out and speak with me, I suppose I mean.”

“They never do,” Balan replied with a wry laugh, then tousled his son’s hair. His own reflection watched him over the boy’s shoulder and he eyed it with indifference. The beard had regrown during his illness and lingered still, for his interest in cutting it back had fallen away with his recovery. It was a comfort to have it, he realized as he looked on the face hovering beside his son’s, and found a new appreciation for Estreth’s small stubbornnesses. It was grounding to hold fast to his otherness. That was a bond that distance could not sever.

He squeezed Belen’s shoulder in quick affection, then turned toward the small pile of bags resting alongside the cabinet. “You’ve brought little,” he remarked as he lifted one and began transferring the belongings to their new home. Belen had never been a light traveler. So consistently had he hoarded little odds and ends that it became a running joke between Baran and Estreth to place bets on how many unique rocks or carved branches he would attempt to carry along on each new journey. But only a scant two bags had accompanied him on this latest, and his father glanced back at him in amusement.

“Aye.” 

A stab of cold pierced Balan’s gut as he saw the apprehension wash over his son’s features and felt the hesitation, heard the crack in his voice.

“But Baran had wagered his good hunting knife and madja’s been coveting it for years, so I had to prove him wrong.” Belen’s tone held a forced lightness and he turned toward the second bag so he need not meet his father’s eye as he added, “and besides, it’s only to carry me through till the spring. I’ve told Baran I’ll be home in time for the sowing.”

❈❈❈

“Balan?”

Nóm’s voice drifted into the haze. It had been past midnight when Bel was settled in the rooms above, and it must have been at least another hour since—nay, several. But night still reached in from the shrouded doors, so at least he had not sat up till the dawn, which was some small mercy. Balan felt the king’s gaze resting upon him, heavy with concern, and he pulled his eyes away from the hearth and looked up. “You’ve heard, then.”

“Aye. Gildor told me as we walked.” Finrod bent down to add another pair of logs to the fire and prodded the embers back into life, then turned to watch the other once more, his eyes filled with pity. “I am so sorry, Balan.”

“You will let me follow—that was what he said, it was how we parted, and I’ve clung to it in all the days since. I would learn what kind of place it was I’d chosen, I thought, I would see things settled here and then I would send for him. And my boy would come back to me. He would come home. Foolish of me.”

“Hope is not foolish, melotornonya.”

Balan snorted in response. The affectionate term rankled beneath his skin like a splinter, at once distance and intimacy, and it burned frustration through his every fiber. There too was but another blind, foolish hope.

The king crossed to sit beside him and reached out for Balan’s hand, then he clasped it quickly within his own at the chill touch. “Ai! Cold as winter thou art,” he exclaimed, lapsing out of Taliska as he retrieved a woolen blanket from the far edge and drew it up around Balan’s shoulders. “How long hast thou sat here with the fire lying idle?”

“Leave off, I’m not a child,” Balan growled, and pushed him away as he shrugged the blanket loose. He wrapped his own arms about his chest instead and glared into the fire, the keen awareness of his own petulance only stoking his irritation. 

Nóm had flinched at the sharp tone and now he drew back, chastised. “Forgive me,” he managed, “I meant no trespass.”

Remorse was quick, its fingers working up from his gut and prying through the annoyance. It was concern not condescension, he knew this. There was a clouded memory that lingered from the worst days of his fever, an image of Nóm silhouetted against the firelight, motionless at his side; of his own delirium and the sound of his voice muttering, pleading for Esrid in a hoarse whisper. And Nóm there beside him had not corrected him, had not reminded him that she was gone beyond his call; rather, he had held Balan’s hand clasped within his own and stroked the hair back from his face, and murmured comfort in the other’s own tongue. You are safe, Balan. You are here with me. I will not leave you. Now he shifted away and moved as though to depart.

“Don’t be a fool.” Balan reached out to catch hold of the other’s wrist and held him back from rising. “It was not a trespass. I am tired and heartsick, but I needn’t strike thee with the brunt of it. It is no fault of thine.”

“Twas I was brought thee hither.”

“Mm. To humor the creature against thy better judgment.” This time it was Balan who winced at his own acerbity and he wiped his hands over his face, as though clearing away a grime. “I’m sorry,” he added with a wry attempt at a smile, then shifted the blanket back around his shoulders where Finrod had placed it. “The trouble is that I’m proud of him for it—it breaks me apart and all the while fills my heart to bursting. He has found his place, he sees his value. They are a perfect compliment in so many ways, he and his brother: Baran’s the will that fires them, Bel’s the water that tempers.” He fell quiet for a long moment, then turned at last to meet the other’s eye and Finrod felt the knot about his lungs loosen, the chill between them ease. “He said as much when we spoke of it, and reminded me that I had as well, there by the palisade where we parted. His brother would have need of him, those were my very words. Only I overlooked in my grief that he too would have need of his brother.”

“They are a credit to thee, Balan—and to thy long and lonesome work.”

“They are a credit to each other.” His eyes were distant as he sat, still half-lingering within the earlier conversation. “He told me one foot yearns to stay, while the other is bound already to this home beyond hope they have raised amid the flax fields and barley. We have never been a settled people, Nóm. Never have we dwelt where each root and tree was known, where the earth too was friend and companion. Yet such have we found in the land of thy leading, and for Belen it is treasure beyond words. He has ever loved each village and camp, and would befriend the grasses and flowers, the copses and streams, then mourn come Spring at every departure. He is his mother’s child in many ways, and in this most of all. His is a heart of staying. And Estolad has won his love. He misses it already, I deem, short though his absence has been.” 

“And thou?” A quick flash of smile as Balan’s brow furrowed in question. “Thine heart too was not made to wander.”

“Was it not?” The wry grin was genuine at last and the firelight glinted across Balan's eye. “Nay, I confess it, I too miss the golden fields and the riverside. But if I returned thither, I should miss the cool stone and the lamplight more; thy voice too, and the taste of thy wine.”

Finrod laughed at this last and glanced toward the table with its empty decanters. “Hadst thy fill?”

“Mm.” Balan drew his hands roughly down his face again and grimaced. “And more. I should have ended with Bel, but I’ve come back here and finished the lot.”

“Ai…” Finrod chuckled as he glanced over Balan in quick evaluation. “And still upright!”

“Still slouched and sulking,” he corrected and wrapped the blanket closer about his shoulders, “and in no state to entertain a king. Go on, Nóm, there’s no need for thee to pander to my foul mood. Thine own rest awaits and I’m a poor bondsman to keep thee from it.”

“And a poor lord I to desert thee in melancholy. Thou keepst me from naught—nay, leave off, you mad creature!” His hand shot out and intercepted the chalice Balan had raised once more to his lips, and the king drew it back into his own grasp. “Here, I’ll spare thee from thyself,” he added with a laugh and downed the remaining wine before Balan could protest. Then he reached out to draw the other toward him “Now come nearer. Thou art chilled through—chide me not, I see thy shivering—and I’ll have thee warm at least ere thou canst dismiss me.”

Balan gave a protesting snort, but allowed himself to be collected in against the warmth. It was a relief to be held, regardless of the reason, and his head soon drooped to rest upon the other’s shoulder. How steady it was, lithe but strong, the beating pulse keeping time with his own, calming him. Here then my home, the sound of thine heart now the rhythm of my wandering. He pressed his lips together lest he utter it aloud and thought again of Belen, sleeping in the chamber above. Only a stair’s length now, ever a farewell’s distance.

“He tells me it is for Estolad that he stays,” Balan heard his voice murmur against the fine wool of the king’s tunic and he was surprised by its blank resignation, “for place, for home and purpose. But what it is…what it is is that Baran has come to depend upon him in these short months, and he cannot bear to forsake him in my footsteps. And that is the truth of it.”

❈❈❈

The dinner was held in the cavern with the swan doors. Balan had taken it for a council chamber when he first arrived, but in the intervening months he learned that the room served various purposes: councils, festivities, functions of court, a makeshift theater once at the turn of Lairë, and—as was the case on this evening—the smaller dinners of the king’s household.

He sat in his customary place opposite Finrod, and Belen sat beside him, engrossed in conversation with Gildor, who held the seat across the table at the king’s right. The long table had been drawn out before the hearth and laden with a full ceremonial feast. The extravagance was to mark the midpoint of Hrívë, Nóm told Belen as they walked through the halls, but Balan had overheard his instructions to Sídhon and Gildor. It had been laid out in honor of Belen.

He watched his son move through the dance of introductions and courtesies, and his pride welled up at the sight. Belen was at ease despite his awe, bright and self-assured amid the golden lamplight and courtiers. Whence came this confidence in the time since their parting? Again as it had at the riverside, the change leapt out from the familiar lines of his son’s face, from the warm music of his laugh, and Balan found himself wondering whether he was similarly altered in Belen’s sight. And would the change ring so at every meeting now, scattered as they must be across the months and distance? Each glad reunion ever further from its origin, each conversation less natural than the last.

The laughter came again and Balan pulled himself back from contemplation. They were telling a story, Gildor and Belen, and Finrod was attending with the delight and fascination that ever drew Balan’s memory to Thalos and Estolad, and tales handed back and forth around the fires. It was some exploit from their journey and Balan picked up the thread in snatches. A faun, born out of season, had been caught in the rapids where the Celon and Aros merged, and Belen darted out across the rocks to intercept it, unable to bear its distress. He had slipped on the ice and plunged in as well, though he managed to catch hold of the faun in his descent and keep it from breaking its legs against the rocks as they crashed through the current. Gildor had leapt after them, his own balance sure as he darted from stone to stone, and in the end he hauled both of them back to shore, bruised and shivering, but whole.

“The lecturing once he had me to the bank!” Belen glanced at the king with a grin. “It was as though you were among us again, Nóm, and still chiding me for any attempt to leave that cart.”

“And rightly so,” his father interjected at last, features severe but amusement dancing in his eyes. “Twould have killed thee most like, had Gildor not been there to fish thee out. Reckless cub,” he added with a chuckle and turned to refill his goblet.

“That’s rather two-faced of thee, vatta.” Belen’s expression turned impish at the snort of protest from his father. “How if it had been a duck?”

Balan laughed fully at this, one brow raised as he glanced over at his son. “Sons are meant to learn from their fathers’ follies, not repeat them.”

“And yet from an acorn grows an oak tree.”

“Thy jests are in riddles, Belen.” Finrod’s eyes were bright as he watched them banter. How he had missed their easy camaraderie, the rough, wry jests and parries. And how too he would feel that loss cut again when springtime came and they bade the boy farewell—Balan’s bitter grief would also be his own. He shook away the gloom and looked at Belen with a sidelong smile. “Make tales of them that we might all be merry.” 

“Have none told you of the duck, Nóm?” 

“Mercy, Bel. At the first dinner?”

Belen laughed and took a sip of wine, then leaned back in his chair and grinned across at the king. “It was east of the mountains still, during a particularly bitter winter. The river where we camped had frozen over in patches and some unwary duck became lodged in one of those till the ice froze around him and left him trapped. So vatta promptly set out to—”

“Promptly? Bel, the creature was caught there the better part of a day. We could hear it crying out for hours.”

“Vatta belatedly set out to free it,” Belen corrected, “and he and Masci found a path along the various chunks.”

“Then learning thou hadst from that, at least,” Gildor interjected with a laugh. “Twas naught belated in thine advance.”

“The duck was still. The fawn was careening.”

“And the folly a steady current between the twain.” Balan muttered affectionately as he spooned a decadently spiced fruit and cream onto his son’s plate. “Try this, Bel. Twould be to thy liking, I think.”

“What became of the duck?” Finrod was watching them in amusement, his elbow propped against the arm of the chair, forefinger resting across his lips and dividing his smile in two. Belen looked up askance, silenced by a mouthful of fruit, and Finrod’s eyes turned to Balan in query. 

“We found our way to him and broke the ice apart with a pair of branches.” Balan turned his glass about on the table as he spoke, a small smile playing at his lips despite the abashed tone. “He was well and hale by spring.”

“Because vatta tended to it as though it were a babe in arms,” Belen finished the bite and glanced across at the king. “He carried it back tucked in his tunic, and it spent the rest of the winter in our hut.”

“I could hardly turn him out after that.”

“No indeed. That duck was like a brother to me.”

Balan tousled his son’s hair in faux annoyance and Bel ducked aside, laughing. “We tended him till the new season,” Balan continued, resuming his explanation to the king, “and then he returned to his kin for their yearly migration—as we too set about ours. I confess I missed him once he’d gone.” A quick smile flashed out. “He’d followed me about for so long I’d grown quite fond of the company. He was a friendly little creature.”

“They called him father duck for years after that,” Belen mumbled to Gildor with a grin.

“Vatta’nd anuths,” Balan chuckled. “And still do, I don’t doubt.”

“Nay, mostly Dar Bëor now.” Belen blanched as the words left his mouth, catching himself too late amid the laughter and wine.

Balan snorted. “Lord Vassal—an archaic form,” he translated in an aside to Finrod, then grinned at his son and shifted to Taliska. “I scent your aunt’s humor in that.”

Belen looked chagrined and turned to fiddled with the edge of his plate.

“Ah. I see.”

“He doesn’t mean anything by it,” Belen said quickly, then faltered at the obvious untruth. “Or rather, he does but…What I mean is his anger is only for the moment. It won’t last.”

“Your brother is as stubborn as I am, Bel. It will not pass in a hurry.” Then the tired smile turned contrarian and he leaned back in his chair. “Nay rather, tell him not to leave off, for I’ll not scorn a name once given. Send my greetings to Baran Balanion, first lord of the House of Bëor.” He lifted his glass pointedly and sipped. “Sama’nd sá.”

“Sama’nd sá,” Belen repeated quietly as he too drank for the toast, though the laughter had fallen away from his face. 

It was an uncomfortable silence that followed, and Finrod watched the two of them in concern. He had seen the hurt ripple across Balan’s features at the boy’s unguarded jest, bitter and unexpected, and watched it solidify the previous night’s despair. But Balan’s thought bristled against any attempted comfort, and Finrod dared not reach out through touch instead. Regret was already seeping through the quiet. Balan’s eyes were fixed on the centerpiece; Belen prodded the spiced fruit about his plate. Gildor reached tentatively for his glass and took a long sip of wine.

“How is Hathus?” Finrod asked at last, easing the silence with an encouraging smile. “I hear few personal details from those who come and go between us, and oft have I longed for word of you all. And how is little Fina?”

“They are well,” Belen answered with a grateful glance at the king. “Fina’s become a right little menace, running about as she does. And she talks more than any child I’ve known. Gelvira says that comes from the blessing you spoke over them at Alna’s birth, but Hathus says that caused her love of sneaking into the sheep pens rather.”

Finrod laughed and raised his glass. “Gladly would I be credited with either.”

“I take her riding on Kaseis most days. She’s a fearless little creature.”

“As befits a daughter of Hathus.”

“Truly,” Balan chimed in, his voice softened from its earlier ire, “and with his strength too. She had the fiercest grip of any infant I’ve known.”

Belen’s smile returned as he looked back at his father. “Do you remember Weiv calling her little blacksmith all that first year?”

“I do—and the tiny anvil Eimet carved for her in jest.” His eyes had grown wistful as they reminisced and he hesitated a long moment before asking the question that lingered on his tongue. “And how does old Weiv fare? He had grown feeble ere I left and Hathus worried over him during the last winter.”

“Aye, and continued so. He passed just ere Yuletide—peacefully, in his sleep.”

A low sound of grief slipped from Balan’s lips. “May he rest in the arms of Melishk,” he murmured after a moment, falling back on the customary benediction as sorrow and solemnity knit between his brows. “May he be held long in remembrance.”

“I’m sorry, vatta. I know he was dear to you.”

Balan nodded. “He was the last of my father’s close friends. It is a strange feeling, Bel, when there are no elders left who knew you well in childhood.” Then he sighed and pressed a smile across his lips, determined to keep the conversation from falling once more to grief. “But I am grateful for the years there were. He had a long life—and well lived.”

“So Hathus said as well. A full bounty of years, brimming over…”

A sudden apprehension reared up and Balan’s breath caught in his throat as he turned. “Bel—“

“Nearly eighty-seven, was he not?”

Nóm’s helpless shock struck Balan’s mind like a blow, racing blind through each sense. The room was swimming before his eyes—or was it before Nóm’s eyes—and he pressed his palm flat upon the table for equilibrium. No, his hands were clasped yet within his lap, it was the king’s fingers holding fast to the table top. This must be his dizziness too, then—or nay, was it Balan’s own, mingled as it seemed with his pulse pounding through his ears? Whose then was the nausea, this rising suffocation, the—

“Aye,” Balan choked out through the muddle, his gaze fixed on Belen’s so that he might not meet Nóm’s eyes across the table and falter before the panic enfleshed; that he might not know if the breaking had come. “Aye,” he managed more clearly this time, “a full bounty indeed.”

❈❈❈

“Eighty-seven years.” 

The words drifted across the table, little more than a whisper breaking through the quiet. The others had taken their leave, dwindling out till only Balan and Nóm lingered along the empty table. The king had kept his composure throughout the remainder of the meal, carrying the conversation and smiling despite his racing dread, ignoring the precipice that gaped once more before his feet. It was deeper now, sharper, and the edge would claim him should he pause for a moment to acknowledge its new depths. But the others had gone now; there was naught holding him back and he was falling, plummeting downward as he lingered with Balan in the guttering light. 

“Is that usual?” 

”More or less.” Balan focused his attention on the curved edge of a leaf under his finger, tracing the carving as he continued to avoid the other’s eye. “But more often less, I’ll not deceive thee.”

The silence returned again. Balan stood behind his earlier seat, hands resting upon the crest rail, and was uncomfortably aware of his own fingers moving over the intricate patterns, restless and uneasy. The king, by contrast, remained all the while in near perfect stillness, as though he was another graven image for the troubled fingers to trace.

“Didst thou truly know it not?”

Finrod too did not meet the other’s eye, but gazed rather down the length of the table. Fourscore years, a few more beyond if they were fortunate. He felt them rushing by him like a gust of wind, these Atani, each dear friend, every beautiful infant, Balan… His soul raged in denial and he shook his head. “It was deliberate ignorance, I deem. I knew the Casári too were not as we and so I thought—nay, I let myself think—that ye were of a similar making. That there would be a century or two at least before—“ His voice faltered and broke off.

Balan’s heart ached as he forced himself to look up at last. Nóm sat frozen before him, the grief etched upon his face and his eyes dim, unfocused. This is how he would age, Balan thought in a flash of illusion. The lines of wrinkles would form here where these gossamer webs spread across his brow, where they reached down his features, winding about to catch the pattern of his smile. Yes, time’s knife would mark him even thus—if ever they had moved along his path in tandem. But this was anguish not age, and Balan stumbled before the remorse. He had guessed at the other’s assumptions, even in the early days beside Thalos, yet ever he told himself to let it lie. It was only conjecture. Nóm had not spoken of it, and it would be rude to correct an error presumed and not known. If Nóm asked, then he would explain it, of course. But there was no need to enlighten till then, for might that knowledge not drive him away? And so he continued through the months, looking aside as his reasoning spilled over into obfuscation, as his silence shifted to concealment. This grief was his doing.

“Balan,” Nóm said at last and his voice was laced with hollow trepidation, “I have never asked thee thine age.”

The carved blossoms bit into his palms. “Forty-nine, lord.”

There was no change to the king’s stillness, except perhaps a slight whitening of the knuckles where they pressed against the unyielding wood, yet Balan found himself at once struggling for breath. He saw the quick calculation, he felt the measure of it in his own heart, and the scant decades rose before him with a menace they had not held hitherto. Often enough he wished for longer years as his own drifted past, but never till Nóm’s presence had he craved for years unending. Nor ever till now had he felt himself so imminently on the edge of his own passing, faced with the other’s shock, the other’s dread. 

Once more he saw himself through Nóm’s eyes, only now it was a vision of fleeting frailty, and he bristled against that image of inconsequence.

“I am as you find me, Nóm,” he said in pointed Taliska, “and I will not grieve that I am of my kind. We are not lesser, no matter how swift our path.”

“Balan!” The reticence was broken and Finrod turned toward him in protest. “Never did I think it. Never would I think it.”

“And so I will return with Belen, lord, if you wish me to do so.”

“Anarinya…” Nóm’s hand darted out to catch Balan’s within its grasp, working it loose from the crest rail to press instead against his own flesh. “Dearest friend of my heart. If your full tale was a year only, still you would have my love.” He gripped Balan’s hand as his voice caught, then drew it in till the other’s fingers rested against his brow and he leaned over them in a penitent’s prayer. “Please,” the whisper drifted up, hoarse and broken, “do not go.”

Balan’s grief broke at this and he reached out to cup the other’s head within his palm. “Elenya,” he breathed as his fingers passed through the silken gold, stroking it back from his face, and then Nóm’s arms were about his waist, the king’s face buried against his chest, and Balan held him as the last candle burned out and they remained alone in the hearthlight. “I will not.”

---

Chapter End Notes

TRANSLATIONS
Q = Quenya, S = Sindarin T = Telerin
Honeg: [S] little brother
Suil: [S] greetings
Vandatar: [Q] oath-father
Na vedui!: [S] at last!

TALISKA INVENTIONS
For the most part, all faux-Taliska is loosely inspired by or modeled on Germanic-Gothic
- Haelis: hello, greetings
- Vatta: father
- Hfaskebel: hedgehog (needle-mouse)
- madja: aunt, mother’s sister
- Andanahti-marei: evening/twilight-lake
- Aitha: mother
-  vatta’nd anuths: father duck (or in the literal: father unto duck(s))
- dar: lord, master
- Bëor: vassal

MISC NOTES
- Lairë is the Quenya term for summer, lasting roughly from June 1 through August 9.
- Hrívë is the Quenya term for winter, lasting roughly from December 1 through February 10.