Sundering

The man who lay upon the bed was old, old, old – so old that none in the land remembered his ever being young; and none, looking upon him now, could imagine that he had ever been so. He was old beyond the understanding of Men. He was older than the land which for long ages he had ruled.

He had once been tall, tall beyond the measure of Men. His limbs had once been powerful, but now he was a husk. The flesh had fallen away from  his wasted frame so that the shape of the bones beneath was etched into the linen robe he wore. The tendons stood out on the backs of the withered hands, making them look like claws. They were folded on his breast, as if he were already dead and prepared for burial, and they grasped a sceptre. He would not be buried with it; by and by his son would come to take it from his dead hands.

His beardless face was an intricate map of wrinkles, framed in straggling white hair. The mouth had fallen away. The eyes, under the sparse white brows, were deeply sunken. But they gazed upwards, unblinking and serene. All the life that remained in the old man was concentrated in his eyes.

At his bedside stood a youth tall and kingly, dark of hair and grey of eye, very good to look upon. He might have been the old man’s grandson, or great-grandson, or great-great-grandson; who knew how many generations could have sprung from that body ere it withered in the uncountable years?

The youth bent towards the old man. His face showed sorrow and compassion, and  strange puzzlement. He laid his smooth hand over the old man’s wrinkled dying hands, and spoke softly.  

‘Brother.’

The old man was beyond smiling, but a faint light shone in the depths of his eyes.

‘Elrond.’  The voice was a whisper; time had almost worn it away.

‘I came to bid you farewell,’ said the young man. ‘I am glad I came in time.’

The hands stirred, a merest tremor. ‘Then farewell. Now get you back to your own world, and let me go.’ There was no bitterness in his tone; he had outlived such emotions a century or more ago.

The bitter sadness was all in the other’s face. ‘Elros,’ he moaned, ‘why did you leave us? Why did you choose the way that leads to the death of Men, the road that has no returning?’

The old voice answered him, oddly strengthened, as if a distant traveller on a road turned and saluted one who had refused the journey.

‘And you, brother, why did you leave your kindred among Men, to bind yourself to the fate of Arda? How many ages of sorrow must you endure before Ilúvatar brings the final end upon you? How weary will you grow of the evils of Middle Earth before you seek the slender bliss of Aman? What torments of memory will pursue you even there? How ardently will you desire the Gift that the One reserved for Men and that I now gladly take?’

Elrond looked at him hopelessly. ‘Elros, I do not understand.’

‘You never will,’ said the old, old voice, feeble once more. ‘Though you garner all the wisdom of all the ages upon earth, brother, this you will never understand. I go now to seek a peace and understanding beyond the reach of your thought.’

The last words were almost imperceptible, even to Elrond who knelt with his ear close to his brother’s lips. No more words came.

The light faded from the eyes. Elros Tar-Minyatur was dead. Behind the door, his heir waited, impatient for the sceptre.

‘Alas,’ cried Elrond, as he rose to depart. ‘For me this is the bitterest parting of all.’

But Elrond was wrong. .