The Day Transcending Night by StarSpray  

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Seventeen

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As the weather warmed, winter swiftly giving way to spring, everyone seemed to relax a little, especially as they all spent more time outside. The trees budded slowly, until it seemed the leaves unfurled all at once, the world suddenly bursting with greenery. Flowers bloomed, sweet-smelling and colorful. Birds nested in the woods and fluttered about the stable when the horses were let out, pecking at grain that Daeron scattered for them, and sometimes fluttering down to land on his outstretched fingers to sing for a few minutes, when he whistled merry tunes. 

Celebrimbor was glad to enjoy the sunshine on his face without bitter winds to accompany it, and he was glad too to get his hands dirty, helping Eluréd and Elurín prepare the garden, though no one really knew whether they would stay long enough to harvest what they planted. It was at least something to do, even if he still had to stop and rest more frequently than he should have.

“Why did you choose to build a home this far south?” he asked as he covered the seeds that Elurín dropped into the ground. Eluréd followed after with the watering can. “Was it to keep my uncle from attracting notice?”

“I’m sure that was part of it in Daeron’s mind,” said Eluréd, “but actually it was our idea—to keep us from attracting notice. We hadn’t reckoned with such an army coming out of the east and blocking the way, for we thought we left the unrest behind when we came back west. But if none of that had happened, we’re close enough to the Road that we could go visit Lindon or Eregion whenever we liked with little trouble, and of course Edhellond is quite close, but we’re far enough away that we can disappear when we get sick of people trying to get us to do, you know, heirs of Thingol things.”

“I thought they had all rather given up on trying to establish a new Doriath somewhere, after Oropher and Amdír went off to found their own kingdoms.”

Elurín made a face. “They have, but we made the mistake of visiting the Greenwood when we came back west—we went north first and then followed the Anduin down—and Oropher’s got daughters now.”

“What’s that got—oh.”

“They’re lovely, really, and if it weren’t so obvious that everyone else wanted to play matchmaker, I would’ve been quite happy to stay for a while and get to know them all. Thranduil, too,” said Eluréd. 

“I’m sure if Amdír has daughters he’ll have the same idea,” said Elurín. “Anything to coax us back into being princes, I suppose. Ugh.”

“He doesn’t,” said Celebrimbor. “He has a son, Amroth. He’s smitten with a lady in Lórinand, I think. Celebrían was laughing about it in her last letter to me.” That had been years ago, though, before Sauron had set forth with his armies—before he had finished making the One Ring. “Have you met her? Celebrían? You said you’d visited Ost-in-Edhil once.”

“We did, to visit Celeborn and Galadriel, and we met her then. That was many years ago, though—she was still a child, less interested in strange cousins than in digging up interesting bugs in the garden,” said Eluréd. “Celeborn is much more reasonable than Oropher or Amdír, at least. He sees us as his nephews first, and Thingol’s heirs as a distant second—though it does inevitably come up. It’s very tiresome to be always compared to someone we never even met.”

“I’ve heard Daeron compare you to both Lúthien and Thingol this winter,” Celebrimbor pointed out. They reached the end of the last row, and Elurín straightened, brushing dirt off of his hands.

“That’s different,” said Eluréd. “Daeron does not have expectations.”

“It’s not that we want to forget them,” Elurín said more quietly, “or that we do not care. But theirs—Lúthien’s especially—is a legacy we cannot live up to. Daeron understands the difference—that we want to know what they were like and the ways that they shaped us, but that we do not want to be them. When he compares us to them it’s only to say that we are as stubborn as Thingol or that we smile like Beren did, or that we sound like Lúthien sometimes when we laugh. Celeborn will sometimes speak of our mother, or of his brother our grandfather, but when he speaks of Thingol it is to remind us of the inheritance he thinks we should lay claim to, but that we don’t want.”

“I understand that,” Celebrimbor said. It was such an enormous burden, being the child of those whose names everyone knew—whichever side of the stories they fell on, whether villains or heroes. Unlike Eluréd and Elurín, he had tried to face it head on. He’d tried to live up to his own family’s legacy instead of rejecting it—to surpass it, even, to take the wreckage and build something new, something better. All he had done, of course, was clear the way for something even worse. If there was a way to fix this, he did not know what it was. He didn’t even have a sword anymore. When they finally left this place and headed north he would still be as useless as he’d been half-dead on their flight south. 

Maglor ventured north again as summer stretched on, this time going alone, insisting he would be faster and that he could hide himself well enough. All the while he was gone Celegorm paced, restless. When he returned the news was surprisingly good. “It will be a risk, but the Gap is far emptier now than it was this spring. If we are to go north by way of the Misty Mountains, we should go now.”

Daeron and Celegorm exchanged a glance that held an entire conversation. Eluréd and Elurín did the same. Maglor came over to wrap an arm around Celebrimbor. “Do you think we can make it?” he whispered as the other four split up to do whatever needed to be done to secure the house before they left. 

“I don’t know,” Maglor said softly. “Do not look to me for hope, Tyelpë. It has been beyond my reach for a very long time.”

That was the real reason he’d never come to Ost-in-Edhil, Celebrimbor thought as he looked at Maglor, who was no longer as thin as he’d been the autumn before, the Treelight in his eyes shining a little brighter. He still held himself differently though, a little smaller. He was still quieter than he had once been—not nearly as quick to laugh as he was in all of Celebrimbor’s memories. Celebrimbor thought about the music room he’d put in his house even though he didn’t play any instruments, thought of the flutes and harps and drums he’d commissioned, the books he had collected. All of them now destroyed—smashed and shredded and burned. Hope had not been beyond his reach until the truth of Annatar had come out. Now he feared he would never get to build another house with another music room, would never get to hear Maglor play any music besides soft and sad lullabies. 

He still hadn't spoken to either Maglor or Celegorm about his father. Or about his other uncles. They needed to, but he kept putting it off and now there would not be a good time until—unless—they reached safety in the north. 

He missed his father, suddenly and fiercely, as he hadn’t in a very long time. Not Curufin as he had been when Celebrimbor had last seen him, but Curufin as he had been before—in Himlad, where Celebrimbor had really grown up—or in Treelit Tirion, when he and Celebrimbor’s mother had still been happy, when he’d only ever made beautiful things, bright and colorful gems or intricate sculptures of wrought-iron that rivaled even Nerdanel’s work for their realism. When he had smiled and laughed and when schemes and oaths and swords and the kind of hard and brittle fury that had gripped him later were so distant as to seem impossible. Celebrimbor reached for his throat, but of course his silver star pendant wasn’t there, and his fingers only touched the carven holly leaf instead. He’d sent that necklace and the very few other trinkets he’d kept from his father away with the Three, tucked into a small box with a note to Elrond to please keep them safe for him, because Elrond was the only one who could even begin to understand. It was something to know that he might get them back, but he missed the feeling of the necklace around his neck. He gripped the holly leaf instead, wishing he knew how to thank Daeron properly for it. He still didn’t really feel like he belonged there with them, but that gift was a sign that Daeron wanted him to belong, even knowing about Annatar, and the rings, and all of it. 

He was unlikely to find that kind of welcome in the north. Oh, they would be kind, but between the disaster of Sauron and his arrival with not one but two of his uncles in tow, they would all keep him at arm’s length. Except perhaps Elrond. Celebrimbor wouldn’t blame them, but he could not deny that even the thought of it stung. 

The meeting with Galadriel would be awful, on all sides—for so many reasons.

“Tyelpë?” Maglor said. “What’s the matter?”

“Just—” He couldn’t say any of that out loud to Maglor. Maybe he’d feel better for saying it to Daeron—but there would be no opportunity for a long time. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m all right.”

“Whatever happens,” Maglor said, “we’ll face it together.”

It took only a couple of days to prepare to leave. “Who’s riding double?” Celegorm asked as he and Elurín and Eluréd brought out the horses. 

“You and I can,” said Daeron.

“Celebrimbor and I can too,” said Elurín, glancing over at him. Celebrimbor nodded. 

“I looked at horses when I went to Edhellond last fall,” said Eluréd as he swung into the saddle, “but there were none that could keep up with these.”

“Where did you get them?” Maglor asked. He took Daeron’s horse, and Daeron accepted Celegorm’s hand up. 

“Men that live near the Anduin and the Greenwood,” said Eluréd. “They’re skilled horsemen, and breed especially swift horses.”

“It’s because they live so close to the gardens of the Entwives,” said Elurín as he gave Celebrimbor a hand up into his saddle. “These were foaled in their pastures and raised on their grains.”

Celebrimbor looked back only once as they left the little house under the hill. It was strange and sad to see it dark and closed up, and to know that he would probably never see it again. When he glanced over at Celegorm and Daeron he saw them also casting lingering looks over their shoulders. Eluréd glanced back once, briefly; Elurín did not look back at all. 

He expected them to turn north, but instead Celegorm led them west, to where there was a wide break in the White Mountains as they marched southwest. Then they at last turned north and east, hugging the foothills, and moving carefully as they passed through woodlands and forded rivers. They went swiftly, starting early and camping late, and Maglor or Eluréd often rode ahead to scout the way. 

Finally they turned more squarely north, and the Gap of Calenardhon opened up before them, and what remained of southern Eriador could be seen, burned and blackened in the distance. Celebrimbor pressed a hand over his mouth, and heard Daeron breathe a quiet sigh. In front of him in the saddle, Elurín reached back to rest his hand on Celebrimbor’s knee. For all the devastation, it seemed quiet. “I know we’ve spoken of making for Lórinand, but might this mean there is a way open to us in the west?” Maglor said after a moment. “Either way we must follow the Misty Mountains, but is there a chance we can find Elrond…?”

“No,” Daeron said. “I would not dare risk it—who knows what is happening beyond our sight? At least we know with certainty that the eastern side of the mountains is yet at peace. If we head straight for Methedras we can follow the Angren to its source in the foothills, and then turn east into the forest—it will be slow going for the horses, but even if we are pursued the orcs will not get far. The Ents will surely be watchful.”

“We need to be very swift,” said Celegorm. “We’ll make camp and rest the horses for a day or so, and then if the coast is clear we’ll make a break for it.” He was grim-faced, and glanced at Maglor. “Seeing it empty is almost worse than seeing it overrun. Makes me wonder what’s happened.”

“Well, there is a bright side,” said Eluréd after a moment. 

“What’s that, birdie?”

“No dragons.”

“Or balrogs,” Elurín added.

Maglor grinned suddenly. “That’s true. It could be worse.”

“If we meet one or both of those things when we try to make the crossing I’m blaming all three of you,” Celegorm said, but Celebrimbor could tell that he was also fighting a smile.

They found a place to make camp out of sight of the Gap, in a hollow in the hills surrounded by tall trees. It was a relief to stretch his legs and then to sit on solid ground; the days in the saddle had left Celebrimbor sore and stiff, and his wounds ached, in a way that they shouldn’t have. As he sat beside Maglor while Daeron got a small fire going, he watched Eluréd and Elurín confer with one another before Elurín knelt and held out his hands. Eluréd stepped into them, and Elurín hoisted him up, quickly enough that Eluréd launched into the air to reach the branches of one of the trees. In moments he had disappeared up into the leaves. Celegorm tended the horses and then slipped away into the woods. Everyone was quiet, but some of the tension that had pervaded the house over the winter had faded away, though Elurín still avoided speaking to Celegorm if he could help it, and kept his distance in a way that was almost unnoticeable, except that Celebrimbor knew to look for it—and so did everyone else. 

Elurín came to sit on Celebrimbor’s other side. “What hurts?” he asked.

“Hm?”

“You’re in pain—what in particular hurts, or is it just soreness?”

Celebrimbor hesitated. “Everything,” he said finally, deciding that trying to lie would probably be useless. “But it’s not as bad as—”

“Maybe not, but I can still sing it a little better.” Elurín held out his hands, and Celebrimbor placed his own in them. He’d mostly gotten over that sharp, instinctual fear that something in Eluréd and Elurín’s voices had triggered in the beginning, but when Elurín began to chant quietly it still made him shiver a little, some part of him still recoiling from it. He did feel better afterward, though he also felt tired. He was always tired, these days, as he’d never been before. When Elurín finished, Maglor wrapped a blanket around Celebrimbor’s shoulders, and then kept his arms there, so Celebrimbor could lean against him and doze until the food was ready. As night fell watches were set, and Celebrimbor didn’t even try to volunteer, knowing that no one else would allow it even if he did think he could stay awake.

Sometime in the middle of the night he jolted awake anyway, and as he rolled onto his side he found everyone else also sitting up; the horses stamped and shook their heads. “Wolves,” said Elurín from where he stood on watch, nearly invisible in the tree-shadows. Then Celebrimbor heard it—the howling that had woken him.

“Close?” Celegorm asked. 

“No, moving away—north, I think. And the wind is in our favor.”

Daeron moved to wrap his arms around Eluréd. Maglor did the same to Celebrimbor, curling around him as they lay back down. “I’m not even armed,” Celebrimbor whispered.

“Nothing we can do about that yet,” Maglor whispered back. “Just trust us to protect you, Tyelpë.”

“I shouldn’t need—”

“Hush.” Maglor kissed the back of his head. “What should or should not be—there’s nothing we can do about it. We can only do our best with what is.”

He wouldn’t be able to wield a sword even if he had one, Celebrimbor thought bitterly. He searched the darkness for Elurín, and found him by the glint of his eyes when he glanced briefly in their direction. Celegorm had gotten up to calm the horses, and after a few minutes he went to speak with Elurín. Celebrimbor couldn’t hear what they said, could barely hear their whispered voices, but the sound of the wolves had faded, and he closed his eyes. 

They stayed another full day to make sure the horses were rested, and neither saw nor heard anything more. When the next dawn came it was dim, the sun hidden behind dark clouds. It would rain before the day was out. “Might be a blessing,” Eluréd said, eying the clouds. “Do we make for the Angren and follow it north?”

“Yes,” said Celegorm, and pointed toward it—a distant dark line winding through the Gap. “If we get separated, just stay with the river. Pace the horses and don’t stop until you absolutely must. And then when you reach the woods find a place to hide and wait for the rest of us—leave the usual signs.”

At first all seemed to go well. The Gap was empty, and the rain that drifted down from the north was cold but heavy enough to hide them from any seeking eyes, though it also slowed them down. It was also enough to hide others, but they came upon no one, not even along the river, though they saw many signs of recent passage and even of fighting. The first day passed and they kept going into the night, and stopped only to rest the horses. “Are you well?” Elurín whispered to Celebrimbor as they dropped to the ground, and Celebrimbor stumbled. 

“Fine,” he whispered back, even though it wasn’t quite true. He could rest when they were somewhere safe. 

The next day the rain cleared, but the clouds remained—and the day after that, as they finally came to the valley through which the Angren flowed from its source somewhere at the feet of Methedras, Maglor suddenly cried out, “Orcs!”

“Birdies, go!” Celegorm called out a moment later, and Elurín immediately urged his horse faster, Eluréd falling in behind them. Celebrimbor held onto Elurín, wincing when an arrow whistled just over their heads. Eluréd had his bow out and ready, and turned in the saddle to fire arrows at the orcs that came rushing out of the tall grass. There were others behind the orcs—Men with spears, and snarling wargs. Daeron’s voice rang out, and the horses seemed to gain a burst of strength as they thundered through the grass. Methedras loomed ever taller overhead, and arrows fell around them like rain.