Scene I - Beleg

[During the late 1900’s in the English countryside, Beleg stands alone in the woods, watching the sun fading into evening. He is wearing the clothes of an English gentleman during that period, but wears no hat. Suddenly he looks up and seems to speak to someone who is not there:]

Beleg: [softly:] What? He’s here? I had no idea. He disappeared ages ago and I always wondered where he went. I thought about him a lot in the past years. What, me? Yes, I’ll go to him. I want to speak to him too. All right.

[He keeps walking through the trees, toward the west, until he enters an open glade. Looking over, he sees a person walking beneath the trees across the glade. He comes over to him. Beleg speaks to him in English, but the other answers him in the old Doriathrin tongue.]

Beleg: Hello, Daeron old chap! I have not seen you for, what, ages?

Daeron: It has indeed been ages, many ages of men that I have wandered the earth.

Beleg: How is it I never saw you? I’ve been here for over 400 years now.

Daeron: [looking wary:] I keep to myself. I do not prostrate myself before Mortal-kind.

Beleg: Neither do I anymore, though I used to when I was hunting, but the mud and dirt doesn’t agree with me so much any more. I’ve become the more ... learned type now, if you can believe it.

Daeron: [looks at him warily to see if he’s joking:] Actually, I can. I have learned to become more a woodsman than I was. But I was using a figure of speech.

Beleg: I know, old chap. You’re too serious, that’s all.

Daeron: Perhaps I have good reason to be serious.

Beleg: [not mockingly:] Don’t we all? Seriously.

[He chuckles to himself]

That wasn’t meant to be a joke. Truly, there is enough horror in the world, we all could be extremely serious all the time, but then life wouldn’t be any fun would it?

Daeron: [bitterly:] Fun!

[looking at Beleg:]

Why should there be any fun in the world? Such a frail thing, a mortal notion...

Beleg: What, no joviality, no joy in life? What’s the fun in that? It doesn’t seem like too much of a mortal concept to me. Although some mortals do have a great sense of humor.

Daeron: Do not speak to me of mortals. I try to think of them as little as possible.

Beleg: [becoming serious for the first time:] And why not? Have they such little worth in your eyes?

Daeron: [snorts:] Worth? The word does not apply to them in any way.

Beleg: [looks grave:] Be careful, or I’ll have to remind you of one whose deeds were sung over land and sea, and who the Eldar lamented at his death – who slew the dragon that most likely would have killed you in your self-pitying wanderings.

Daeron: [looks disgusted and weary:] Do not speak to me of Beren –

Beleg: I never even mentioned his name. He only recovered a Silmaril, instead of killing a dragon. I speak of another, for whom I gave my life – you never paid attention to events in Beleriand after your ‘tragedy’ I suppose.

Daeron: [stares at him, incredulous:] You gave your life for one of those mortals? And they call me foolish?

Beleg: If you had met him, you would not feel the same.

Daeron: I have met enough mortals in my life to be satisfied that I wish to meet no more –

Beleg: [snorts:] And how many is that? One?

[Daeron cringes. There is a pause.]

Daeron: [finally:] One was enough.

Beleg: [trying to be gentle, but getting rather angry:] Are you so shallow, that that is all you can see? Is your life so wound about in yourself that you cannot see it?

Daeron: [getting angry in his turn:] See what? The whole world is dark to me without her.

Beleg: [softly:] Not with the Music.

[pause]

Daeron: [completely misunderstanding him:] The music? Years ago I ceased to play. I play only on rare occasions now.

Beleg: Not your music. The Music. The Song. Don’t you see? There is so much more to the Music than your frail troubles –

[Daeron gives him a sharp glance]

-And I do say frail. As mine are frail. Do you think it was nothing for me to have been slain by my best friend? And then to have never seen him again? I probably will never see him again, for all of eternity. But I understand that the Music – the Song – was made before the World began. It was woven into the themes of the World thousands of yeni before I was even born. Lúthien – The Nightingale of the woods –

[Daeron flinches at the second name]

-Do you think it was not in her destiny for this to happen? For her to meet Beren in the forest?

Daeron: How can such a thing be destiny? He – he was nothing compared with her.

Beleg: Why do you say he’s nothing? That’s what I don’t understand.

Daeron: What you do not understand? You gave your life for a blasted mortal.

Beleg: [softly:] You never met him, so I can’t expect you to understand.

Daeron: [challenging:] You had never met Beren!

Beleg: Of course I did!

Daeron: You did?

Beleg: Yes. In Menegroth, remember? You were there, too. I saw you in there at the trial, and said hello to you as we came in.

Daeron: Oh ... yes.

Beleg: But perhaps you were too distracted to notice at the time.

[pause]

Daeron: But – how could you give your life for - that mortal.

Beleg: Túrin.

Daeron: Yes.

Beleg: [chuckling to himself:] Well, I didn’t really mean to, technically.

[seeing that Daeron is not getting the joke, he becomes more serious:]

But I would’ve in any case, if it came to it. You see, he was different from anyone else I’d ever met. He was like most mortals, in a way.  But he grew up in Doriath –

Daeron: [eyebrow raised:] When was this?

Beleg: Oh, after you were gone. He came to Doriath as just a little boy, seeking shelter. He was lost in the maze, and I found him and led him back to Menegroth. King Elu there took him as his own son –

Daeron: What? He took a mortal as his son?

Beleg: Yes, and it was one of the best things he ever did, in my opinion. You didn’t know about that?

Daeron: Well, I had heard rumors, of course, but I had no notion that – they were true.

Beleg [nods:] Yep. So, Túrin grew up in Menegroth and obviously learned a lot about our ways and customs. He wasn’t really like a mortal at all, in some ways. In other ways he was definitely Edain.

[pause]

Daeron: [muttering:] I can’t believe he took a mortal as his son!

Beleg: You’re still thinking about that?

Daeron: It is merely very difficult for me to believe – after – after Beren I thought he would never allow a mortal into his sight again. I would not have.

Beleg: I guess he learned better, eh?

Daeron: [doesn’t answer his question:] Continue.

Beleg: Oh, there’s not much more. Just that he was probably the best friend I ever had. Even more than Mablung, probably. Though old Mablung and I still have splendid times together – that is, when I was in Valinor, before I came back here.

Daeron: [thoughtful:] You – how long have you been back here?

Beleg: About four centuries.

Daeron: Why?

Beleg: [shrugs:] After knowing Túrin, and after his death, I felt, well, rather desolate without the Atani. It’s hard to explain, but ... staying in Valinor, after having known him, was almost impossible for me. I felt like – I was abandoning them –

Daeron: [short laugh] Abandoning – the Atani?

Beleg: [curious] Why should that be funny?

Daeron: It is not – I merely find it ... difficult to believe.

Beleg: Why is that?

Daeron: Because I’ve never found a mortal that is worth anything.

Beleg: Perhaps you have not looked. Perhaps, Daeron, you should have gotten to know Beren a little better before you passed him off. He was a splendid chap – and I only met him twice – the second time was on the hunting trip on which he died.

[Daeron does not answer.]

Beleg: Well, I had better go – I have an Italian lesson to do.

[Daeron doesn’t answer, but is just looking vaguely into the distance.]

Beleg: Good bye, old chap. Hope to see you soon.

Daeron: [realizing he’s being addressed; softly:] Farewell, Master Cúthalion. I shall see you again.

Scene II - Beleg

“Then Beleg departed with these gifts from Menegroth and went back to the north marches, where he had his lodges, and many friends. Then in Dimbar the Orcs were driven back, and Anglachel rejoiced to be unsheathed; but when winter came, and war was stilled, suddenly his companions missed Beleg, and he returned to them no more.”

      -The Silmarillion, Of Túrin Turambar

[In a park in the country side of England, in the late 1900’s, a tall slender man with black hair approaches a bench where another is sitting. He is less tall, but equally beautiful and graceful, with deer-coloured hair and a pale, wan face.]

Beleg: [comes up to him and sits beside him] Oh, here you are.

Daeron: [turns toward him] So you have returned again, I see.

Beleg: Of course. You wouldn’t expect me to leave you alone; not after last time.

Daeron: [annoyed:] And you still insist on using that disgusting mortal tongue – what is it called? English?

Beleg: I like to use the mortal tongues when I’m in mortal lands, yes. You could at least answer me in English, you know. I mean, Doriathrin’s rather a dead tongue by this age. It’s only been ... several millennia since anyone spoke it.

Daeron: [trying to change the subject:] What of our last meeting?

Beleg: You, my friend, have not seen reason for some time.

Daeron: [nettled:] What means that?

Beleg: Your comments about the Atani were – egregious at the least.

Daeron: I speak only the truth.

Beleg: You were speaking in ignorance.

Daeron: [correcting himself defensively:] I was speaking the truth of what I know.

Beleg: Ah, of what you know. But has it occurred to you that perhaps others may have more experience than you in certain matters?

Daeron: Have you come merely to torment me, or will you leave me?

Beleg: No and no.

Daeron: [sighs] I speak through my own experience.

Beleg: Exactly. And that experience is perhaps affected by your own opinion.

[Daeron says nothing.]

Your experience comes from a meeting with only one Atan, and that was –

[he pauses]

Daeron: [finishing for him:] - egregious, at the least.

[Beleg smiles ironically.]

Beleg: Yes, well, that is what you made it. Now, think through this for a minute. What had Beren ever done to harm you or anyone else of the Eldar?

[Daeron’s face flushes and he begins to speak in anger when Beleg interrupts him.]

Beleg: Falling in love with Lúthien aside. That could be construed as meritorious, actually. We would not have recovered the Silmaril otherwise.

Daeron: [scowls] He could not love as we do.

Beleg: He could not? How do you know that?

Daeron: Such frailty, such ... ephemera could never have the love that we do.

Beleg: I don’t agree with that, not at all. Do you remember – oh, never mind, you weren’t around then –

[Daeron flinches almost imperceptively]

 - when Túrin and I spent those three years together on the marches of Doriath – and that year in Dor Cúarthol –

[he smiles sadly]

- that was the best time in my life. He loved me, like I loved him. He loved me more deeply than any of the Eldar had, even Mablung. I remember once, when we were on the marches of north Doriath, we were resting with some of the other guys, and he, for the first time, opened up to me, and told me some things about his childhood – which he never talked about before, and I don’t think anyone had heard anything about it. He told me about Lalaith, his sister, and about his other sister Nienor, whom he’d never seen, and his wish to be able to see them again. And he told me about his mother, Morwen.

[he sighs]

Then I was able to understand some things that I never had before about him. And I think that he felt closer to me after that, too. Did you know I was the one who found him and his mother’s servants in the woods when they first came to Doriath?

[Daeron looks up at him.]

Daeron: A coincidence...

Beleg: Come again?

Daeron: [explaining:] I also was the one who found Beren first in the woods of Doriath.

Beleg: You and Lúthien.

Daeron: [looks sad] Yes.

Beleg: But, what Túrin told me was a conversation that he had with one of his father’s servants when he was a child, after his sister Lalaith died. He asked him, “Where has Lalaith gone?”

“She will not come back. Where she has gone no man knows; or I do not,” the servant said.

“Has it always been so? Or do we suffer some curse of the wicked King, perhaps, like the Evil Breath?” Túrin asked him.

“I do not know ... The Mountains stand between us and the life that they came from, flying from no man now knows what.”

“We are not afraid any longer,” Túrin said, “not all of us. My father is not afraid, and I will not be; or at least, as my mother, I will be afraid and not show it.”

Then the servant said, “How it will be with your heart I cannot guess; but seldom and to few will you show what is in it.”

[Beleg pauses, perhaps due to his emotion; his face is lowered and Daeron cannot tell. Then he continues:]

But Túrin would always turn his face to the mountains of the North, and he cursed them. But he told me, “Even though I curse these mountains, somehow I feel that my Doom flows from them, and ever when I curse them, an even greater curse shall redound from them back onto me. And yet I would have it no other way, for the hatred of the Black Foe is the greatest gift that any could grant me. I would sooner have that than its laughter or approval.”

[He stops, and looks down. Daeron looks at him very closely and thoughtfully.]

Daeron: [slowly:] It seems that not all mortals are the same.

Beleg: [looks up at him:] If you are referring to the differences between Beren and Túrin, I would say that Beren was more like Túrin than anyone else I’ve known.

Daeron: [carefully:] I have not met Túrin, so I could not say.

[pause]

Beleg: [returning to his earlier thought:] His hatred for the Lord of Fetters did redound on him – and that’s how I died.

Daeron: What do you mean?

Beleg: It’s what I was talking about the other day, when I last saw you – in my effort to rescue Túrin from the orcs, he - well, he killed me by accident.

Daeron: [looks up sharply, speaks almost in anger:] And yet you – you love this mortal, and all mortals? Cúthalion, you have fallen to a folly deeper than I ever fathomed in you.

Beleg: No, no, Daeron old chap. You don’t understand at all, once again. You’re blinded by your own opinions, which are so old now that it seems time would wear them out if nothing else. Your tunnel vision –

Daeron: [interrupts him:] “Tunnel vision”? I am not familiar with such mortal idioms.

Beleg: It means you’ve got blinders on your eyes and you can’t see anything else, through your own choice. Listen to me: It wasn’t Túrin who killed me. That’s what I’m trying to say, and what I was trying to say about the Music last time. It was the hatred of Morgoth that killed me. It was what Túrin was talking about, that day on the north marches. It wasn’t Beren that took Lúthien away from you, nor was it Lúthien’s own choice to reject you.

[Daeron flinches.]

- It was in the Song. The Music. Don’t you get it yet? If Beren and Lúthien hadn’t loved one another, we wouldn’t have the Silmaril. Morgoth wouldn’t have been overthrown.

Daeron: [mutters:] Lúthien never loved Beren.

Beleg: [incredulous:] How can you say that? Of course she did. Would she have gone on to Tol Sirion, to Angband, and even beyond the Circles of the World if she did not?

[Daeron does not respond, but looks troubled.]

Daeron: [softly, as if making a concession:] I – I cannot understand it. That is all.

Beleg: [gentle:] Precisely. You do not understand it, so you cannot think that it is right. I had the same feeling before Túrin came.

[Daeron looks up sharply to see if he is mocking him; but Beleg is speaking in all seriousness.]

Beleg: I knew I couldn’t have any friend better than old Mablung. Sure, I thought Beren was a pretty cool guy when I knew him, but I figured that I could never actually have a friend that close who was a mortal. But I didn’t have enough experience to know anything about that. When I met Túrin, well, it all changed.

Daeron: I have no wish to know any other of mortal kind.

Beleg: Well, if you want to live in eternal ignorance, then that’s a good way to go. But if you want to know more about the world – I suggest broadening your horizons a bit.

Daeron: [muttering, as if to himself:] That Thingol himself would take one of these as his own son!

[He shakes his head in unbelief. Beleg leans forward and begins to speak earnestly:]

Beleg: Something you may have conveniently forgotten, or wish to not acknowledge, Daeron, is that the Atani are Eruhíni as well. They are our brethren, or brothers.

[Daeron turns away, his face twists as if trying to hold back tears.]

Daeron: [painfully:] No, no, please don’t tell me that.

Beleg: You can try to keep denying it, but you’ll have to face it some day. The One Himself, to undo the Marring, entered the world as one of them.

Daeron: Cease, please! Will you not leave me? I must think on these things. I need to be alone.

[Beleg looks at him rather sadly.]

Daeron: Farewell.

[With that he turns and strides into the woods quickly, soon disappearing from view. Beleg looks after him for a moment, then sighs and turns away.]

Author’s Note: The part in italics is an abridged version of Túrin’s conversation with Sador from Narn i Hîn Húrin, in Unfinished Tales.

Scene III - Beleg

"And it is told that in that time Daeron the minstrel of Thingol strayed from the land, and was seen no more. He it was who made music for the dance and song of Lúthien, before Beren came to Doriath; and he had loved her, and set all his thought of her in his music."

-Of Beren and Lúthien, The Silmarillion

[Beleg is sitting by a bright fountain in the midst of the city square in England, reading a rather thick book, when Daeron comes up to him, rather slowly, and then stands before him. Beleg looks up at him after a moment.]

Beleg: Oh, Hullo, Daeron! What are you doing here? I never see you in cities. You’re always hiding out in the woods.

Daeron: It is true that often I abide in the forests, not wishing the company of mortal-kind, nor fellowship of any kind.

Beleg: Well, it’s good to see you here, then. Say, this is a really good book that just came out in the British bookstores. You should read it sometime.

[He holds up the book he has been reading. Daeron looks at it closely.]

Daeron: That is not the cirth. What tongue do you read?

Beleg: This? Oh, this is in French.

Daeron: A mortal book?

Beleg: Yeah.

Daeron: I knew not that the Atani wrote tomes, as we do.

Beleg: Yeah. They’re called novels. This one is excellent. It’s called The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. He’s a new author in France. Came out about a century and a half ago.

Daeron: You speak – more of these mortal languages? Not just – English?

Beleg: Oh, yes. Well, I’ve learned a lot since I’ve been here.

Daeron: I see.

Beleg: Although it’s rather melodramatic.

Daeron: I beg your pardon?

Beleg: The book. But it’s well-written besides that.

[Daeron does not answer.]

Beleg: Sorry, I’ve been rude. You want to sit down here?

[He makes room on the rim of the fountain, which is slightly wet and littered with guano. Daeron looks at it rather disgustedly for a moment, then sits down. Beleg sets his book down beside him and looks up.]

Beleg: So, there must be something important. You never come out of your “silvan seclusion,” if you don’t mind the expression.

[Daeron does not share his sense of humor. He looks down for a moment, then says:]

Daeron: I – have come to ask you...

[Beleg waits patiently.]

Daeron: Will you tell me more about this ... Túrin?

Beleg: I’d love to. Let’s see ... Well, I met him when he was just a boy. I’m the one who found him and his mother’s servants wandering lost in the Maze. Did I tell already tell you about that?

[Daeron nods.]

Beleg: He was a moody boy. It was really hard to be friends with him, honestly. I think the only real friend he would accept, growing up, was-

Daeron: [suggesting:] Saeros?

Beleg: [stung with surprise, dismayed for a moment:] Saeros? Good grief, no. It was Nellas. You remember, that kind of introverted anti-social female who wouldn’t come into Menegroth, but was always swinging in the trees around Neldoreth?

Daeron: [a reminiscent look comes to his eyes] Nellas, yes. She used always to creep near when out I was in the woods, playing... with ... Lúthien.

[He speaks slowly, with sadness:]

I deem she believed we noticed her not whilst she was there. But she loved the music, I think. She loved Lúthien. Yet never she spoke with us, nor with any else.

Beleg: She spoke with Túrin. She loved him, Daeron.

Daeron [surprised]: Nellas, verily?

Beleg: [nods]: She was the only one he would speak with when he was a boy; and he was the only one she’d talk to. When he had just come, and was so silent and bowed with grief for leaving his mother, she followed him unnoticed as he wandered in the woods alone. And as he sat and wept under a tree she came up to him. She told him she wanted to show him a “secret” clearing that was her special place; and later he went there to cry in his grief. She always followed him, though; she was always there to protect him.

Daeron: [pensive:] Nellas... I cannot believe it. Ever she was a withdrawn and isolated maid.

Beleg: I think she finally drew out of herself a little bit when she saw Túrin’s need. Then later at times Túrin would call on her, and they would go into the glade and she taught him – many different things: about Doriath and the Eldar, and our customs, and about life and the ways of the world.

Daeron: And when began your friendship with him?

Beleg: Well, I had always liked him. I don’t know why. I guess he reminded me of Beren in a way –

[He stops, seeing Daeron’s face darken slightly.]

Beleg: [continuing:] – Since I had always liked Beren. Túrin had a nobility, and a sadness in him that drew me to him. When he was seventeen he went onto the marches with me. And then we became close friends.

Daeron: And Nellas befriended him ... and he was as Beren?

Beleg: He reminded me of him, yeah. And I always liked Beren.

Daeron: [his face growing dark:] I tire of your prating on the virtues of that mortal.

Beleg: [shrugs] Sorry. You asked about Túrin. I’m just telling you my experience with him.

Daeron: [annoyed:] Will you not do me the favour of speaking in our common tongue of Doriath?

Beleg: I would, since it is our old language, you know; but our times have changed, Daeron. They’re not the same as they were when Thingol still ruled in Doriath. If you want that again, go back to Valinor. You’ll find plenty that will speak the Doriathrin with you.

Daeron: [bitter:] I will never go to Valinor.

Beleg: [shrugs] Well, if you say so. But it is a pretty nice place. It was a wrench to let it go, at first – when I first came back here.

Daeron: I cannot go.

Beleg: Sure you can. Even old Celeborn finally took ship. Did I tell you that?

Daeron: [surprised to hear the name:] Celeborn?

Beleg: Yeah. I mean, I assume he did. I saw him a couple centuries ago - he was in North China at the time – and he told me how weary he was of Middle-earth, and was going to try to get himself a ship to get to the Blessed Realm. I haven’t seen him since, so I assume he did go. I offered my help building, but I never was the ship type myself, so I didn’t really know what I was doing, and he politely demurred.

Daeron: [in wonder:] Celeborn...

Beleg: Yes... What about him?

Daeron: Naught. Merely old memories – old memories that have brought back naught that I have felt since I met you again.

Beleg: [softly:] You see, Daeron, the world goes on without you.

[Daeron looks up at him sharply, as if in anger.]

Beleg: No, no, I didn’t mean it in a rude way. I meant the Song – the Music of the Universe, Daeron.

[Daeron doesn’t answer.]

Beleg: [softly:] I know Lúthien is gone, but that doesn’t mean that you have ceased to exist. There are those that care for you, Daeron, who want to see you again, who wait for you in Valinor.

Daeron: I care for none except the love that I have lost.

Beleg: [sighs] Well, if that’s the case you’re more selfish than I had ever imagined.

Daeron: [sharply, in anger:] Naught can you say of it! You know nothing of such torment and love lost!

Beleg: [softly:] Don’t I? Have you forgotten about Túrin?

Daeron: That was the love of brothers. I spoke not of that.

Beleg: No, but I did. It’s what Túrin taught me, in my years with him. He’s gone, Daeron. Gone forever, as Lúthien is. It is the same pain you feel, though in a different form. But the Music is still there – do you think the One will leave us desolate for ever? What about after the World ends? What will happen to us?

Daeron: My torment will end at long last.

Beleg: It will. But not, I think, in the way you intend.

Daeron: I know not what you mean.

Beleg: Dagor Dagorach, Daeron. The end of the Marring forever. The fulfillment of the Song.

Daeron: Never shall I now be fulfilled.

Beleg: Your music used to fulfill you.

Daeron: I play music no more.

Beleg: Perhaps that’s part of your problem.

[Daeron looks up at him.]

Beleg: When we were in Doriath, you used to sing for Lúthien, and every piece of music you played was composed with some thought for her. So – why did you stop playing?

Daeron: Lúthien-

Beleg: I know Lúthien is gone now, but that should not stop you playing music in her praise. You gave up music, your passion and your joy.

Daeron: My passion and joy were embodied by one, who is now gone.

Beleg: Right. But I mean, you are the best singer ever to live, even above Maglor of the Noldor. Music used to bring you joy. I’ll bet if you start to play music again, you will at last begin to heal.

Daeron: [shaking his head] The object of my song is gone.

Beleg: That doesn’t mean you still can’t sing in her praise, or in praise of all the other beauty in the world. There is so much beauty in the world, Daeron, that you’re missing, focusing only on the past and what you have lost. That isn’t life. That’s – a living death. The past is gone. Reflect on it, yes, sing of it. But don’t live it. Think of the beauty that there is in the world now, and sing of that. That is what Lúthien always did – her songs embodied the beauty in the world and the joy that she found in it. She wouldn’t have wanted you to limit your music to only one, rather narrow venue. I think many of us now – including yourself - could use the virtue and healing of your music.

Daeron: Even if I would, I can play no more. My flute will not wind.

Beleg: But isn’t that of your own doing?

Daeron: [with a hint of anger:] I wish it not. How many times as the years have passed have I wished I could die of grief! And yet my spirit would merely be reborn into torment again, or languish in the lightless halls.

Beleg: Not with your music it wouldn’t.

Daeron: I will never go to Valinor; and my flute will never wind again.

[With that he turns to go, leaving Beleg looking sadly after him.]

Scene IV - Maglor

“But seeking for Lúthien in despair he wandered upon strange paths, and passing into the mountains he came into the East of Middle-earth, where for many ages he made lament beside dark waters for Lúthien, daughter of Thingol, most beautiful of all living things.”

      -Of Beren and Lúthien, The Silmarillion

[A decade later: Daeron has returned to his solitude in the woods, wandering alone. He has a piece of wood in his hand, and is playing whittling with it with, as if not sure what he is making, though it begins to look suspiciously like a flute. He is walking, then sits down under a tree. A voice suddenly wafts down to him from above, speaking in Sindarin:]

So you also are here.

[He starts up, startled, and backs away, looking up into the tall tree boughs. There he sees a figure that startles him even more: a person with dark hair surrounding a white face, hollow cheeks, and sunken eyes devoid of light, ringed about with dark lines; and yet within them burns a fierce fire. The haunted face makes him start back, and move away from the tree. Then the figure speaks again.]

Maglor: Even you turn away from me in disgust.

Daeron: Nay, it is not disgust I feel; merely surprise.

Maglor: You know me?

Daeron: I deem that once I did, and yet I cannot place you.

Maglor: Then better it is for you that you know me not, lest you be drawn into a curse deeper than your imagining. Now get you gone, that you may feel no more the echoes of my torment.

Daeron: Who are you?

Maglor: I have no longer any name among Elves or Men.

Daeron: All have names, save those who deny them.

Maglor: [sneering:] And what may your name be, Dark-Elf Minstrel?

Daeron: [surprised:] It seems you already know me, so I need not say.

Maglor: Yet ever you were one of that nature – self-pitying, selfish.

Daeron: [angry:] Naught may you say, e’en though I knew you!

Maglor: [dangerously soft:] You do know me; yet I am so altered that even you may not recognize me! You who spent long hours with me at the Reuniting, winding our instruments together, the woodwind and string. Yes, you would deny me.

Daeron: [finally understands; amazed:] The Reuniting! Mag-

Maglor: [holding up his hand; in anguish and ire:] Speak not that name! It belongs not to me. He who bore that name was lost in the Curse long ago, and was swallowed up by his Oath, and he returns not. In the blackness of the Void he dwells, bereft of his kin, and all light and joy.

[Daeron does not answer.]

Maglor [sneering:] Why do you not speak, silent one? Lost in thoughts of your threnodies beside the dark waters?

Daeron: [looking up; sharply:] He who speaks only of himself would beware to speak such to one who thinks only of another!

Maglor: [caustic:] Yea, merely another. That I deem well.

[darkly:]

But when one is lost in a dim void, stripped of all else, what more can he think of but himself?

Daeron: [angrily:] You know nothing of –

[Then he stops, perhaps realizing this is a moot point with his present listener.]

Maglor: [sarcastic:] Yea, continue: I know nothing, you would say? I know nothing of the torment of loss, of pain, of sorrow? I know nothing - ?

[At that his eyes blaze forth, and Daeron, caught off his guard, falls down to his knees, his mind seared with the pain of the Silmaril, burning a hand; of a long blood-stained oath unfulfilled; of murder; of loss of all kin and loved ones; of a rejection of the world, of Endor and of Aman, so complete that there is no hope that he might ever come thither while the world lasts; a knowledge that coming there is worse than the perennial exile on the Hither Shore. He falls on his face, tearing the grass with his hands, and at last the connection fades, the vision ceases, and he looks up through blurred eyes. Maglor has turned away from him, in pain or shame he does not know. It appears he is about to swing down the tree and leave, when Daeron calls out to him, softly.]

Daeron: Dartho! Do not go!

Maglor: [turns back with scarcely concealed pain in his eyes]

      Tell me not that you did not know, or that you pity me. I spit upon your pity.

Daeron: I offer you no pity.

Maglor: That is well, for I would not accept it if you did.

[snorts]

I will not listen to one who sighs for his own fate all his days, and goes not to the Blessed Realm only because of his own self-pity. I cannot comprehend such folly.

Daeron: [angry:] Such love you do not understand.

Maglor: [acid:] Do I not, Dark-Elf Minstrel? How know you such a thing? That my brother fled from my face, and cast himself in a burning chasm, that I see him never more? That is the last that ever I saw of him, or any of my kin.

[becoming sarcastic:]

Not a lovely vision for last days, is it? A memory to haunt me and yet guard me through the ages, whilst I stride on the edge of madness in the haunts of my mind.

Daeron: [softer:] I am not an enemy to you. I am sorry if my conduct appears such to you. Please, be not so hasty toward me.

[Maglor looks at him in silence for several minutes and his glance slightly softens.]

Daeron: I deem that maybe I may understand some measure of your pain, though it be of a different sort.

Maglor: [slowly:] Verily.

[looks at him]

Never you were a fool, Daeron, and in past days many a time had I learned from your music, so far as it surpasses mine. And mayhap that still holds true in this age, as it has passed.

Daeron: I know not, for no longer do I play aught of music. I deem far has your music now surpassed mine.

[Maglor looks at him piercingly for several moments.]

Maglor: Neither have I played for many years, although in times past I did.

Daeron: Why do you play no more?

Maglor: All songs I sung were of sorrow and separation, and a Curse, and it pierced the wound even more than already it is. Naught else can I play now but those songs.

Daeron: [looks thoughtful] And yet I deem that music may be as fair a nepenthe as any other.

Maglor: [caustic:] Deem not thyself my healer, since thou hast cursed the Blessed Ones as well.

Daeron: Never have I cursed them.

Maglor: Your very denial of their Realm is in form a curse.

Daeron: I curse nothing, save that which separated me from the kin of my soul.

Maglor: Spare me from your self-obsessive ramblings. I would as soon hear the prating of mortal children.

Daeron: You also have odium for that onerous kindred?

Maglor: Nay. For though Ulfang I slew with mine own hand, never could I represent the entire Kindred for one opprobrious wretch. And Bór was yet faithful in the Nirnaeth.

[Daeron looks at him pensively.]

Daeron: I deem you speak the truth, though my heart may still tell me otherwise. It is the bitterness of my heart that speaks.

Maglor: You know naught of the bitterness of heart.

Daeron: Nay; and naught you know of love.

Maglor: [abrupt:] Leave me now, Minstrel. I wish your company no more.

Daeron: My kinsman, I pray we may yet together play music in harmony.

Maglor: Prayer? I pray no more. My life is a Void. Leave me.

[Maglor then backs away down the tree and soon disappears from sight. Daeron stands for a moment, looking lost, then slowly walks away. He walks for many miles, until at last he comes back again to that city and the town square fountain, where he had sat with Beleg a decade earlier. He sits down, as if in a daze, on the fountain’s rim, not noticing the damp or anyone around him. Some children are playing with a ball by the fountain, squealing and talking delightedly together, but he seems to not even notice they are there. After several moments, the ball becomes loose and bounds toward where Daeron’s sitting. One of a children, a small peasant girl, runs after it and picks it up, where it has rolled at Daeron’s feet. She stands up and looks at his face slowly.]

Girl: Excuse me, sir.

[Daeron looks up at her slowly.]

You look kind of sad. Do you want to play with us?

[Daeron shakes his head wordlessly. By this time the other children are coming up behind her.]

Can I do anything, sir? You look sad.

[Daeron only smiles bitterly. One of the little boys in the group steps forward.]

Boy: My mum always plays music when she feels sad. I know! I’ll go get her flute.

[He runs away and the other children watch Daeron for a few moments. He doesn’t look at them. He seems not to notice they are there at all, lost in his own thoughts.]

Girl: It’s okay, sir. You don’t have to be sad. Philip, the other little boy, is right. Music makes me feel better too.

[At this point the little boy comes running back.]

Girl: Philip, you silly boy, you never thought that maybe this man can’t even play the flute!

[whispering:]

You might embarrass him!

[Daeron cannot help but smile inwardly at this.]

Leave it right there, that’s right.

[She takes the wooden flute from him and sets it next to Daeron on the fountain’s rim.]

Boy: You can play with us, sir, if you like. It’s lots of fun. My Dad plays sometimes with us, but he can’t today.

[When Daeron still doesn’t answer, they all just shrug at each other and turn away to go back to their game. When they are almost out of range, one of the little boys says:]

Maybe he can’t talk.

[Daeron does smile slightly at this, and watches them as they go back to their space in the square and begin to play again. He watches until the sun fades in the sky and the children pack up their things and go home; the boy, obviously, forgetting his mother’s flute on the fountain. Daeron still sits for a moment, after the sun has gone down and all is dark. Then he slowly looks down at the flute, picks it up with his long fingers, and gazes at it. He lifts it up to his mouth, and softly begins to play.]

[The next morning, the girl and boy from the afternoon before come running to the fountain to see if their dumb stranger still resides there. They had had dreams all the night long, in which music so heart-breakingly lovely played in their minds, that they saw beautiful gardens and towers, and a beautiful maiden who danced in the forest, and other things that they had never imagined before. The stranger was gone, but the boy’s flute still lay on the rim of the fountain, intact and seemingly untouched.]

THE END