Goldilocks and the Three Balrogs

Balrog the First

He afterwards remembered the Halls of Mandos only as a metaphor.

Death had been... different. Some suggestion of nothingness clung to him, and the curious sensation of being wholly without form. He remembered a blaze of agony, a searing collision from nowhere that snatched breath away and hurled him into the timeless dark. That darkness had perhaps been spiritual rather than real. Without eyes, one did not see.

Death had not been lonely, though. Nor had it been silent. He remembered whispers in the dark and the closeness of mingling minds. He had come out of the heat and chill and chaos of the world – from the horror-filled sack of Gondolin, the smoking ruins of once-white walls and blackened fountains, dragon-withered – fleeing the fall of House and home, his lord and king, he had tumbled grief-struck into darkness – and found himself surrounded. Here were the lost and the abandoned, the mourned and the beloved. Here was his king, found again amid the whispering dark, and here was Ecthelion the Balrog-slayer. Here somewhere, so the whispering rumours said, was the traitor Maeglin, whose body had bounced three times upon the slopes of Amon Gwareth before falling into the flames below. Gondolin, a pyre for its betrayer! It was as well for Maeglin that the dead had no form in the Halls of Mandos.

Here was not Idril Celebrindal, King Turgon’s daughter, nor her son Eärendil. Those who had gone into the dark with the fall of Gondolin took that as a reason to hope. Perhaps somewhere in Middle-earth some shattered fragments of glorious Gondolin still thrived.

All this he remembered, after he had been snatched back into daylight, as a metaphor for death. The truth was something different again. He could not quite remember what.

He found himself standing bewildered on the shore, spray-spattered. Sensation lashed him like a whip of fire: the hammer-blow of the wind, the chill, the slick sharp stones shifting beneath his naked feet. For a moment, shocked, he almost lost his balance. Water foamed hungrily along the pebble beach, iron-grey beneath an iron sky.

“Now there’s a party trick,” said someone conversationally. “Better than a rabbit out of a hat any day. Can you do Men as well?”

The second voice sounded rather annoyed. “I’ll thank you to remember, Aiwendil, that this resurrection required some rather complex negotiations on the part of Lord Ulmo. Lord Námo was quite reluctant to release the spirit. Apparently he was old enough to be there when the Prophecy of the North was announced. Lord Námo has some rather strong opinions about that. Ecthelion, now –”

“A northern prophecy? What’s that, then?”

“Tcha!” said the second voice, crossly. “Perhaps you do at least remember the Kinslaying over the hill at Alqualondë when Fëanor and the Noldor stole the white ships of the Teleri? And that they then rowed north to the wastes of Araman, intending to cross from there to Middle-earth where the channel narrowed? And that Lord Námo himself went to Araman to declare the Prophecy of the North, which is to say the Doom of the Noldor, which is to say a curse on those who refused to turn back and seek pardon –”

“Enough, Curumo,” interjected a third voice, somewhat wearily. “He remembers!”

“So I do,” said the first voice, Aiwendil, sounding rather as though he was laughing. “Did anyone bring any clothes for the Elf?”

Clothes. To be unexpectedly alive in daylight – to have weight again, a physical presence in a world of light and colour, to be whipped by the wind and the spray of the sea – had been so startling that he had not noticed his nakedness. No wonder, then, that he was cold and that the wind cut his flesh so fiercely.

Abruptly and unwanted, his death came back to him. The terror of that bare escape and the despair of those pitiful few who fled through the secret pass into the treacherous mountains. Devastation and danger everywhere. His ears still ringing with the screams of the dying in burning Gondolin. And then that final, merciful tumble down the black abyss in a blaze of Balrog’s fire that killed his killing grief.

He spun round in sudden shock of memory. “Are they safe? Did they get away?”

Three figures were standing behind him on the stony beach. “I doubt it,” said the tallest one in the precise, still annoyed voice of Curumo. “Whoever they are. It’s been a messy aeon or two.”

A clear misunderstanding. He said more urgently, “Lady Idril and Tuor, and little Eärendil. Did they get away? Where are they?”

“Oh, them. Yes, they survived. You won’t have time to see them, though. The ship leaves in an hour.”

“The – ship –?”

“Yes, the ship. Here is a tunic and you should find more clothes in your cabin. It should all have been made ready for you. No doubt Lord Ulmo will let you know why he went to so much trouble on your behalf. Personally, I would have made do with Ecthelion. Lord Námo would have released him without any trouble. He killed Gothmog, after all.”

None of this made sense. He stared at Curumo, bewildered. “I don’t understand.”

“Nor does anyone,” said brown-eyed Aiwendil cheerfully. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t get any better than this. I’d put on that tunic if I were you.”

The tunic in his hands was soft and green, made from closely-woven wool. He shook out the folds and dragged it over his head. His hair was loose on his shoulders, tangling in the wind.

Curumo, Aiwendil and their weary companion were still watching him. He blinked at them in sudden surprise. “You’re Men.”

“Not quite,” said raven-haired Curumo in his precise way. “We don’t have time to explain. The ship is waiting.”

Something in the way the Man spoke was inexplicably compelling. He followed meekly over the glittering stones, stunned into silence, and did not hear Aiwendil mutter “Cheat!” behind him. The wind in his ears hissed like the flames in Gondolin and on the shore smashed the waves like tumbling fountains.

He had not seen King Turgon’s tower fall. Dragons had torn apart his own tower, hurling massive chunks of stone like children’s toys that added to the devastation as they crashed through the air. The outer walls had fallen fast. He had seen the monsters rampaging through the grounds, his walls in ruins, and realised that the tower itself must be abandoned without delay. As they escaped, a shattering bellow of rage and upheaved rock had made him look back just as one vast black dragon reared up from the destruction, a shadow of terror seen through a chaos of falling stone and settling dust. The smack of its furious tail had made the ground shudder. The monster must have smashed through the lower floors and found itself trapped as the tower collapsed around it. His last sight of the tower he had built with his own hands, four hundred years ago, had been blocked out as the other dragons shouldered through chaos and ruin to finish tearing it apart.

Thus Gondolin. He had retreated across the corpses of friends.

“Careful!” exclaimed Aiwendil in his ear, steadying him. “Fine time it’d be to do yourself an injury!”

The Man’s hand under his elbow was surprisingly warm, startlingly solid. After death, flesh seemed coarse, its touch a shock. He freed himself with some care, not discourteously, and started to walk blindly again down the stony beach. Memories of death and devastation still danced before his eyes. Behind followed Aiwendil, shaking his head.

He was aware, barely, of climbing narrow steps (very many) and passing through a fair city (very beautiful) to reach a crowded harbour. Swans everywhere adorned pearl-white mansions, making him think of eagles screaming as they plummeted through the icy air. He heard their rage and ferocity more vividly now than he had done then, circling the Balrog on a frosted spire. Snow underfoot and fire before him, and the promise of merciful death all around. And eagles, screaming, somewhere.

Seagulls. He could hear seagulls fighting over scraps of fish. Not eagles!

“I think the Elf should get some rest,” he heard Aiwendil say. “Must be a shock, straight out of Mandos. He looks a bit dazed.”

The weary third Man’s voice. “I’ll take him down to his cabin.”

Down below, shown into a small, bare cabin, he lay on his bunk and stared up at the ceiling. A little light came in through the porthole and the blankets smelled of soap. Faintly now, he could still hear the seagulls screaming like eagles. When he closed his eyes, he remembered the last time he had slept, bundled up in a cloak amid refugees in the snow. A woman’s sobs had woken him: her child had frozen to death in its sleep. He had known her, vaguely, and had been able to offer no comfort. Even in Gondolin before the fall, it had been considered unwise to bring forth children into such a dangerous world.

“I believe it will take several weeks to reach Mithlond,” he heard the the third Man say quietly somewhere. “You should rest. I once heard Finrod say it took a week’s sleep to forget dying and another to work out that he was alive again. After a while, he said, the dark wears off.”

The dark. Only a metaphor could describe death.

Gondolin had gone into the dark and the Gondolindrim had been destroyed. The white walls, the shining fountains. Amon Gwareth, those sacred slopes, drenched in blood. Their hidden vale had crawled with the armies of Morgoth, led by Balrogs and Glaurung’s brood flaming like the torches of heralds. The images of the Trees wrought by King Turgon had melted in the fire of the dragons of the north on a day when the Gondolindrim should have been celebrating the festival of the Gates of Summer. On the blood-soaked ground he had seen the mangled remains of Elves with whom he had crossed the Helcaraxë. He had been glad to die.

He opened his eyes again, listlessly. “Why me?”

“Sorry?”

Fragments of Curumo’s conversation were coming back to him. “Why me? Why not Ecthelion?”

“I don’t know. Why not you?”

That was hopeless. He had played that game as an elfling. Why, Mother? Why not, dear? No, why? Well, dear, because. Just because. But why?

Father, why? Don’t ask me, little one. Ask your mother!

He asked helplessly anyway, “Why am I here?”

“Lord Ulmo wishes you to be here. No one knows anything more than that.”

“Where are we?”

“Currently, Alqualondë.”

That made him sit up in surprise. The Man was standing next to the porthole, a greybeard beside a window into the grey sea.

“But that’s in Aman!” he protested. “It’s not poss– no one can –”

He broke off in confusion. Alqualondë. He had last seen the Swan-haven of the Teleri by starlight, splashed with Elven blood.

“You died four and a half millennia ago, Glorfindel,” said the old Man beside the porthole. “The world is very much changed since then.”

He took a breath. Four and a half thousand years. “Tell me.”

The Man was watching him with youthful eyes. “What would you like to know?”

Everything.

They reached the Grey Havens of Círdan the Shipwright on a pale day some weeks later. Glorfindel had discovered almost as soon as the ship left Alqualondë that he was a very bad sailor indeed, which had at least distracted him from the after-effects of death. It had distracted him from several other things as well, among them his feelings on learning that Lady Idril, Tuor and their son Eärendil were all currently residing (for a given definition of ‘residence’) in Aman and that he had been put on a ship sailing back to Middle-earth. The news had not pleased him at all. Surely a few days could have been spared for him to meet his king’s daughter and her family again? Apparently not. He would have been angrier, but he was too busy trying to keep his stomach in its proper place. It almost tempted him to forgive Fëanor for burning the stolen white ships of the Teleri all those long years ago. Helcaraxë had been a bitter crossing indeed, but at least everyone had been able to keep their feet firmly on solid ground.

The Men who were not quite Men had by then supplied a rough history of the ages that had passed since the fall of Gondolin. On that first afternoon, the weary companion of Curumo and Aiwendil had related what he knew about the survivors of Gondolin until the ship set sail and a violent nausea had overtaken Glorfindel. Since his primary concern was the fate of the remaining Gondolindrim, he had ceased to care about everything at that point: the story of Lady Idril and her family would do. A few days afterwards, however, he had been sprawled out in his customary spot on the deck, one arm hooked firmly around the rail, when raven-haired Curumo had strolled past on his evening walk round the ship.

“You spend a great deal of time up here, I’ve noticed,” the Man had observed approvingly. He paused beside Glorfindel, layering his thin hands over the rail. “Has Lord Ulmo spoken to you yet?”

Apparently Curumo had misunderstood the reason for his frequent spells on deck. Glorfindel shook his head curtly. No: he had not heard the voice of Lord Ulmo in the spray of the sea on his face, perhaps because his entrails had been speaking omens to him both loudly and unmistakably. There was no reason for Curumo to know that.

A sudden lurch of the ship made bile surge up in his throat. Beside him, Curumo lifted his head with an elegant deliberation that was wholly characteristic of the not-quite Man. His eyes were dark and wise and also (when Aiwendil was not in his presence) unusually benevolent, smiling gravely upon the world.

“The Valar help those who help each other,” he observed in his smooth, precise voice. “I believe my grey colleague spoke to you about Lady Idril’s fate.”

Indeed. Glorfindel nodded and took a deep breath as his stomach roiled.

“Perhaps – if no one else has troubled to tell you, of course – perhaps I should explain a little about us, and anything you might want to know about events in Middle-earth during your absence. Would that suit you?”

Clearly it would suit the Man. He nodded again, without much interest.

Let Curumo talk if he wished; there was nothing much better to do in the middle of the ocean than to listen to history lessons, after all. If Curumo enjoyed the sound of his own voice, so be it. The voice was sweet and the vice was common. He had occasionally been accused of suffering from it himself.

Over their time spent at sea, he came to realise that the truth was a little more complex than that, since Curumo had the instincts of a teacher and it delighted the Man to share what he knew. The way the Man spoke was peculiarly soothing and in some strange way his stomach seemed more settled, sitting beside the rail in the evening while Curumo’s rich voice rolled melodiously overhead. Sometimes Glorfindel even attempted to listen to what Curumo had to say. As a result, he had some vague idea of the recent history of Middle-earth and knew a little more about Curumo and the Istari, the five Men who were not quite Men, by the time they reached land. His own inclusion on the expedition was still a mystery, however.

“You mean Lord Ulmo hasn’t spoken to you at all?” said Curumo in clear disbelief. “Not one word?”

“No,” said Glorfindel shortly. The ship had weighed anchor in a discreet bay some way south of Mithlond in the Gulf of Lhûn, for reasons that had not been satisfactorily explained and about which he was insufficiently curious to inquire, and he had been given to understand that they would shortly be put ashore in a rowing boat. It was another grey dawn, sprinkled with showers. He would be glad to stand on solid ground again at last. “What happens next?”

The Istar’s long face was full of disapproval, as though Lord Ulmo’s silence was somehow Glorfindel’s fault. “That’s your business. I wasn’t sent here to arrange your life.”

He turned on his heel and stalked away, white robes swirling majestically at his ankles. Glorfindel stared after him, taken aback.

“Don’t mind him,” said the weary grey Istar in his ear, having crossed the deck softly enough that Glorfindel had not heard his footsteps. “He’s annoyed because he wanted to know what Lord Ulmo had in mind for you. He likes to know everything that’s going on. It’s not your fault.”

“Clearly!” said Glorfindel, perhaps with more force than the point required. He turned abruptly, not troubling to be conciliatory. “What is going on?”

The Istar sighed, running his fingers through his beard. “With you? No one knows. I think you’ll have to work that out for yourself. In an hour, we disembark. I suggest you collect your belongings and come with us for now.”

“Where are you going?”

“Where the wind takes me,” said the Istar, with remarkable airy grandiloquence for one so grizzled, and almost smirked. “No, very well. An audience will be sought with Lord Círdan, after which – we shall see. Curumo has some idea of travelling east and perhaps my blue colleagues will go with him. Aiwendil – well, who can say what goes on in his head? Personally, I intend to ask Lord Círdan where best to go to learn lore. You’re welcome to come with me. I don’t know much about travelling in modern Middle-earth and I doubt you do either. Safety in numbers – and maybe you’ll learn a bit more about what happened to the survivors of Gondolin.”

The suggestion was reasonable. “I’ll consider it.”

“Glad to hear it. Anyway, you’d best get your things.”

Which was to say the clothes that had been supplied for him, presumably by the Istari. He had carried more possessions across the Grinding Ice. He nodded curtly and went down to his cabin. It was to be hoped that Círdan the Shipwright was in a good mood, since Glorfindel would need to be properly equipped if he was to travel into the dangerous unknown and he suspected that the Shipwright was not overly fond of the Noldor. That might complicate matters.

Life was complicated. Death had been so simple.

He slung his bag of clothes over his shoulder and went back up to the breezy deck.

The beach was a strip of muddy sand, nothing like that shining gem-strewn shore where he had first breathed air, snatched from dark death. A fine return to Middle-earth, this. He was the last to leave the boat when its keel scraped against the sand, clambering out into the knee-high waves. In another mood, another lifetime, he might have leapt lightly over the tops of the waves to reach dry land unscathed; as it was, he waded grimly after the weary grey Istar through the foam and spray.

“Ah, Lord Círdan,” he heard Curumo saying from some way up the beach, that rich voice rounded in smooth satisfaction. “Excellent, excellent! We did hope we might seek an audience with you, I believe, my lord – being visitors to your domain –”

The words were perfunctory; the tone was not. His charm was very nearly tangible.

At the top of the beach, where the sand blurred into scrappy grass under the wind-gnarled trees, a narrow trail led upwards into the hills. Curumo was already gliding up the beach towards a solitary Elf standing with folded arms beneath a jutting rock on the crest of the hill. The other Istari followed more slowly, muttering among themselves and trying to shake the water out of their robes, a disparate group. Glorfindel lagged behind them all, aware coldly and vividly now of the squelch of his shoes on the sand, his dripping clothes. Solid ground rather than wood underfoot and the damp wind of Middle-earth in his hair. His queasiness was easing now, exposing him to the painful clarity of being alive.

That smooth, irresistible voice was rolling through the air as he came up the beach behind the Istari and found himself pinned by the thoughtful eyes of Curumo’s addressee. Glorfindel had recognised the other Elf at once; it would have been hard not to. He had met Círdan the Shipwright no more than a handful of times in his life, but the Lord of the Falathrim was not easily forgotten. A tall, unhurried Elf with silver hair, which was unusual, and a neat square beard, which was unique, Lord Círdan possessed that agelessness that indicated a very great age indeed and he stood very straight in the shadows of his rocky shelter. The hems of his embroidered robes were weighted with pearls.

His voice was unexpectedly deep, sliding into a gap between sentences that Curumo certainly had not meant as a pause. “Certainly an audience, good sir. Lord Ulmo’s messengers will always be my welcome guests in Mithlond. Master Vanya, forgive me – have we met?”

“A long time ago,” said Glorfindel, more curtly than he had intended. The familiarity and strangeness of being alive on this alien beach in Middle-earth was starting to cut his nerves like broken glass. He was aware of the merest lift of one silver brow, no doubt at his discourtesy, but found himself aggressively indifferent to whatever the Shipwright might think. “Not quite a Vanya. That would be my mother’s side.”

“I see,” said Lord Círdan, while Curumo hovered disapprovingly on the scrappy grass. “I seem to remember one young Elf in the days when the world was young, one of Turgon’s captains. But he was slain after the city fell. Turgon’s city, Gondolin.”

One young Elf. Glorfindel had not been old, perhaps, but he could already claim more than a Valian century of experience when he had first arrived in Middle-earth. He had earned his place as Turgon’s second captain during the crossing of the icy Helcaraxë wastes. And even then, Círdan the Shipwright had seemed ancient. Now Círdan’s smooth face behind the beard was as ageless as the sea that broke itself endlessly upon the shores of Beleriand. In the days when the world was young.

“He fell,” he said flatly. “It hurt a bit.”

“Lord Ulmo doubtless has good reason to return Lord Glorfindel of Gondolin to Middle-earth,” interjected Curumo, as smoothly as only the white-robed Istar could, and added a shade acidly, “No doubt he will eventually let us know what it might be. Forgive me, Lord Círdan, but the voyage has been long...”

Lord Círdan bent his silvered head. “Please, forgive me,” he replied with impeccable courtesy. “Of course such discussions should wait. Welcome to Middle-earth, gentlemen. Let me show you the way to Mithlond.”

They walked through unfamiliar hills to reach the Grey Havens, sea-splashed and ringing with the screaming of seagulls. Glorfindel was grimly discoursing with himself on the alienness of this strange new shoreline, weathered into unspeakable antiquity in the weeks since he had gone flaming into the timeless dark. Admittedly he had never travelled much among the kingdoms of Middle-earth, having spent most of his time amid the white fountains of Gondolin. He had led the first of those sent to begin the building of their hidden city and he had left it once before the fall as Turgon’s second captain at the battle of Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

He had laid the first block. He had cut the first block from the vein of white stone that had become the principal quarry for Turgon’s tower.

He would do better to forget it. Gondolin was gone.

Lord Círdan’s house was a fine mansion, almost a palace, on the northern side of a high bridge that joined the river-split town. Would they like refreshment, rest, solitude? Apparently. Glorfindel was indifferent to food and had little need of rest; he stripped off wet garments, stalked through the Shipwright’s hot baths in a haze of memory and threw himself down on a bed in the guestroom. It was odd to lie on a soft mattress in a room with tapestry-hung walls and a carpeted floor, although these last few weeks of unsettled nausea were beginning to seem as strangely blurred as the timeless dark. His most vivid memories concerned fire and ice and long-gone Gondolin. With his eyes open, he could see the bedchamber in which he had slept for hundreds of years; shut, he heard and breathed the chaos as Gondolin burned. He closed his eyes anyway. Maybe sleep would come and extinguish fire with darkness.

Maybe it did.

“Glorfindel –”

The touch, not the name, brought him violently awake. He found himself in an unfamiliar room staring at a startled stranger in grey, his vision blurred by tremors of unthinking rage. He needed to kill something. It took a second for reality to slide back into place.

“Uh – could you – let go?” asked the grey Istar carefully and moved backwards rather fast as Glorfindel’s hands fall away. The Istar was rubbing his wrists and looked distinctly unamused. “Dinner. With Lord Círdan. Then an audience. Coming?”

Seconds more passed as that sheer, animal fury subsided. “Coming.”

It seemed unreal. A civilised meal in a splendid dining room; Lord Círdan, silver-haired and ageless, presiding over a table of not-quite-Men; much polite chatter. Glorfindel sat stone-still in silence, listening to the voices of those who had died. He could remember quite clearly the glitter of candlelight through glass, raising a toast to somebody’s health. A harper had been playing quietly in the background; later there had been dancing. He remembered the glint of the ruby that swung from the lady’s ear, red against her swanlike neck, although he did not remember her name.

After dinner, a serious discussion. Glorfindel paid it no more attention than he had done the meal. Had the lady wearing the ruby earring survived? Unlikely. Very unlikely. A dinner, a dance and death. A thousand deaths. Others, equally beautiful, had lain trampled and charred in the ash. From civilisation to chaos, burning.

“Glorfindel?” said the grey-cloaked Istar from a cautious pace away. “I take it you weren’t listening –”

“Correct.”

“Lord Círdan suggests a trip to see Elrond Half-elven and his library at Imladris. That would be Eärendil’s son Elrond. Seems he’s the best person to ask about lore. Lord Círdan’s willing to supply guides and letters of introduction. Still thinking about joining me?”

Eärendil’s son Elrond. Hard to believe that the delightful, bright-eyed child of Lady Idril and Tuor had produced children of his own in what seemed like no more than a few weeks. It was impossible not to remember Eärendil as a chubby elfling glowing with the light of Aman inherited from his mother.

He nodded shortly. “I’ll come.”

“Good. Lord Círdan says he’ll supply whatever else we need.”

“Kind of him. When do we go?”

“Not so hasty,” chided the old grey Istar, stroking his beard in a way that suggested he was hiding a smirk. “Arrangements to make, guides to talk to, that sort of thing. Lord Círdan wants to talk to you as well at some point, I think. Anyway – a couple of days.”

“All right.”

It was late then and the Istari, not-quite-Men that they were, seemed to be showing traces of tiredness. Glorfindel was not tired and was in any case too tense to sleep. He prowled through Círdan’s palatial house instead, sloughing off the bittersweet final days of Gondolin. What would he need from Círdan the Shipwright? Armour, weapons, a horse, provisions. Everything. How dangerous was the road to Imladris? Was there even a direct way there? A map. He needed a map. Even if Círdan was going to provide a guide, it would be unwise not to have some idea of the route and downright stupid not to find out how the world had changed since Glorfindel had last travelled through Middle-earth. His study had contained an entire shelf’s worth of maps – ironic, perhaps, given the acknowledged insularity of the Gondolindrim –

He heard his name spoken beyond an open door and went through to find himself in an airy, unlit chamber full of grey shadows. On the balcony beyond stood the tall figure of Círdan, a clean silhouette in the moonlight.

“Lord Glorfindel,” said the Shipwright again in his deep voice. “I thought I heard you there. Will you join me?”

The balcony was a lacework of stone above the shadowed garden that stretched away below them to the dark, distant river. As Glorfindel went out through the open doors, a wisp of cloud veiled the moon like smoke, briefly dimming Isil’s brightness before dissipating into the endless night. A hint of rain still lingered in the kiss of a breeze that teased the grass in the garden below.

Círdan was stroking his knuckles absently over the stone balustrade, glancing from the garden to Glorfindel and up again, briefly, to the unclouded moon. “Doesn’t your room suit you, Lord Glorfindel? It’s late to be wandering around.”

“You are.”

“So I am.” He did not seem offended, although Glorfindel had not troubled to soften his tone. “Your arrival’s convenient, whatever the reason. I hope to talk to a couple of people who may be willing to guide you to Imladris and I daresay they’ll want to talk to you too.”

“Really,” said Glorfindel, without enthusiasm. “Why?”

“Before they agree to travel with you, they’ll no doubt want to be sure you’re worth their time.”

“To see if – to see what?”

Círdan seemed to find his reaction slightly amusing. “These are my guests, Glorfindel, not my vassals. I can’t command them to guide you there and if they refuse, I’ll send Galdor with you instead. Still, I think they’ll be happy enough to oblige.”

“Why not just send Galdor?”

“The gentleman in grey expressed an interest in lore,” said Círdan calmly. “My guests have lived through enough of it to be more than interesting. If their view of the world was a little less – ah, idiosyncratic – I’d have suggested your friend save himself the trouble of a trip to Imladris. As it is, I did suggest he should talk with them at the very least. If they’re willing, they can certainly guide you to Imladris and no doubt your friend will be glad to hear what they have to say.”

He glanced down into the garden again. Another twist of cloud had drifted lazily in front of the moon and the wind was stronger now, plucking at the leaves.

Behind them, a new voice broke the silence. “Would this be a friend from the West?”

Glorfindel had whirled around at once, shocked into a fighting crouch by this unheralded arrival, a fresh surge of that earlier animal fury blanking out rational thought. Only when his hands clenched on air, reaching instinctively for absent weapons, did he pause just long enough to recover a semblance of self-control.

He straightened. Took a breath. This was Mithlond: these were not enemies.

The owner of the voice had come silently out of the shadows, another figure materialising at his shoulder, both glancing curiously at Glorfindel. In clouded moonlight, still shaking from that sudden flood of rage, Glorfindel found it impossible to see them clearly. A pair of dark-haired Elves walking without sound through the depthless night.

Círdan, who had not moved, was smiling. “I didn’t see you cross the garden.”

“You must have been distracted,” said the second Elf sweetly. A woman, Glorfindel realised suddenly. He locked his hands together and blinked several times, hoping to clear his vision. Her hair was too sleek not to be damp and her dark eyes flicked over him dispassionately in a way that made his hackles rise. “Hello, you seem rather young to shine so much. Erestor, do we –?”

“I don’t know why you always ask me,” murmured her companion, apparently occupied in wringing the water from his hair. A spatter of drops stained the stone floor of the balcony, bloodlike in monochrome; he twisted his head round to squint up at Glorfindel through a mesh of slick locks. “But since you do, he does look familiar. Maybe we know his parents.”

“I doubt it!” snapped Glorfindel, who had left his parents in Aman to follow Turgon to Middle-earth. Young! There was no light in either of them, not so much as the odd twinkle of a parent’s recollection of the Trees, and yet they presumed to call him young! He had brought his brightness from Aman to the fight against Morgoth before the Sun’s first dawn! “Maybe I know yours!”

“Well, I doubt that too,” said the woman, sounding distinctly amused, and turned her attention on Círdan. “So what do you want at this time of night, m’lord? Something to do with all these new visitors?”

“Something,” said the Shipwright, a glimmer of matching amusement in his eyes. “Tell me, would you be interested in a trip to Imladris?”

They both seemed a little surprised by that. A glance passed between them; the man straightened, flicking away his wet hair, and replied, “Not very. We were there only last month.”

“Well, last year,” corrected the woman. “But that was a fairly long stay. We’ve only been here for a month.”

“So you have,” said Círdan gravely. “An uncommonly short visit, to be sure. I don’t doubt Master Elrond would be surprised to see you back so soon. Still. Two of my new guests are interested in lore and I’ve promised them an escort to Imladris as a good place to start. And since you happened to be visiting...”

Another glance was exchanged. “Anything to do with the swan-ship over the way?” asked the woman, twisting her fingers thoughtfully into her own dripping hair. “Because that might be interesting. I haven’t seen any of them since the War of Wrath.”

The presence of the ship, Glorfindel recalled, was meant to have been a secret. Círdan sounded more resigned than anything. “I should have known. How did you hear?”

The man smiled. “It’s a nice spot for swimming. They wouldn’t talk to us, though – always were rather standoffish, as I recall. So who are these guests from out of the West? Or have the Valar started turning Elves away from Valinor at last?”

“Not to my knowledge. As to the other – perhaps you should ask them yourself.”

“On the road? Perhaps!”

“These lore-hunters –” said the woman, tilting her head. “It’s not exactly hard to find Imladris, now, is it? Once you’re on the Great Road, it’s pretty much just a matter of remembering to keep going east. Do they really need guides?”

“Both are capable of making their own way to Imladris,” Círdan replied with a glance for Glorfindel, who was surprised and rather irritated to hear that the Shipwright thought it fit to assign him an escort for an apparently uncomplicated journey. He bit down his immediate reaction, allowing the Shipwright to continue. “I have heard, however, that the journey is more dangerous these days and that the Road has fallen into considerable disrepair in places. My guests would surely benefit from the company of more experienced travellers. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to share the benefit of your experience with them in the morning, even if you decide against –”

“I know what I need!” Glorfindel interrupted, finally annoyed enough to cut Círdan off. Why was Círdan being so elliptical? and why might he need travelling advice from a pair of dark-eyed daylight’s children? Of course the world had changed. Morgoth had been removed from Middle-earth, to start with! How much more dangerous could the world be now?

He saw their surprise and was not conciliated. He went on roughly, “Armour. A sword. Provisions. A horse. I’m not a child, I know what I need!”

“Actually,” said the man, “we usually travel on foot –”

“On foot?” What was this, a joke? Hard to tell in this light; the man sounded serious enough. “You want me to walk to this place? Elbereth light my way! do you think I’m here to admire the bloody countryside? I want to see Idril’s grandson, not every little stick and stone along the way! Varda Elbereth! Of course I shine, I was born in Valinor by Tree-light! I built Gondolin, I led five thousand men at Nirnaeth Arnoediad and I’m the Lord of the House of the Golden Flower. Do you think I walk?”

He was shaking again, overcome by that unthinking bloody rage. A long moment of silence followed. Both of the prospective guides were regarding him critically and Círdan the Shipwright appeared to be counting the stars.

“Under other circumstances, m’lord, I’d suggest you found your lore-hunters a different escort,” said the man at last to Lord Círdan. “Especially since we came here from Imladris and were going to go looking for Iarwain and Goldberry next, I believe.”

“It was suggested,” said the woman, absently untangling her fingers from her hair and flicking water over the balcony. She was still studying Glorfindel in that cool, dispassionate way. “On the other hand, I think we might be interested in undead Gondolindrim Elf-lords and their western friends. Although I personally prefer to walk.”

“What if you run into an orcish horde?” demanded Glorfindel before his ears caught up completely. “Undead? Excuse me –”

“We like to avoid orcish hordes,” she informed him matter-of-factly. “Horses get in the way. They need to be fed and groomed and they make too much noise and they die too easily. And having horses tempts you to carry more and then the things that really matter get lost – especially if you’re careless enough to run into an orcish horde.”

Her companion sighed. “So true,” he mourned. “Such a nice knife... Still, I suppose we can make an exception just this once. Besides, I can’t help but feel that Lord Glorfindel may not be naturally suited to our mouselike habits. It might be wise to have the wherewithal to move fast if necessary. Perhaps m’lord would be so kind as to lend us horses?”

“I don’t – wait, what do you –”

“Happily,” said Círdan, ignoring Glorfindel’s splutters. “You will ensure that my guests arrive safely in Imladris, then?”

The couple exchanged a glance. “Oh, I think so,” the man replied lightly. “As Melinna said, they sound interesting. Certainly worth a trip to Imladris!”

They seemed to feel that was all there was to be said; their disappearance was as silent and unexpected as their arrival, leaving Glorfindel gaping incredulously into the night. It was clear that Círdan appreciated his astonishment, for the Shipwright transferred his gaze from the eternal stars and remarked almost apologetically, “As I said – idiosyncratic. I do assure you, though, Erestor and Melinna are the best guides anyone could have in Middle-earth.”

“Good,” said Glorfindel, recovering his voice harshly. “They’d better be!”

Goldilocks and the Three Balrogs

Balrog the Second

A full week passed before Círdan’s idiosyncratic guides felt able to tear themselves away from the Grey Havens. Daylight had revealed a nondescript couple of dark-haired Elves, as strikingly ageless as Círdan the Shipwright and as devoid of Tree-light as newborn babes, otherwise unremarkable. Their tendency to appear and disappear without warning exasperated Glorfindel almost as much as it startled him, and if not for the weary grey Istar’s firm belief that Lord Círdan’s choice was inspired, he would have rejected the need for an escort entirely. As it was, the Istar had for some reason decided that this frivolous couple would be the perfect travelling companions on the long road to Imladris, and Glorfindel would have considered it beneath him by quite some way to quarrel with the judgement of both the Istar and Lord Círdan. So Melinna and Erestor it would be, and he would just have to hope that the couple were more competent on the road than their utter lack of seriousness in Mithlond suggested.

“Still,” he heard Melinna remark, emerging from Círdan’s house on the morning of their departure, “I do prefer to walk.”

“We’re riding!” snapped Glorfindel, having by now got hold of an up-to-date map of modern Middle-earth that showed precisely how far it was from Mithlond to Imladris. Certain comments dropped in conversation suggested that their guides had a decidedly vague relationship with time and he at least had no wish to take half a year getting to Imladris when they might be there well within a month. This week of preparations and delay and unexplained absences had dragged out long enough already. “That’s that!”

He had spoken automatically, occupied in checking that his horse, a sleek white mare, was securely saddled; as he straightened, he caught sight of the woman and blinked in surprise. She had exchanged her usual robes for greenish leggings and a short tunic, belted at the waist, over which was fastened a shadow-grey cloak that fell in silk-sheer folds and odd shimmers of colour to the ground. A long sword and a couple of knives in leather sheaths could be seen at her side and, as she turned, he caught sight of a bow and a quiver of black-feathered arrows on her back. Behind came Erestor, similarly dressed, glancing skywards as if to check the weather.

“Don’t stare,” chided Melinna, evidently amused. “The road’s not as safe as it could be, you know. Where’s your anonymous grey friend?”

On sight alone, Glorfindel would have taken her for a man. Social customs had clearly changed quite a lot since his death. No female would ever have dressed that way in Gondolin. She was even wearing an archer’s arm-guard!

He shook himself out of his shock. “With Círdan –”

“Both he and I are here,” came Lord Círdan’s deep voice from inside the house.

A moment later, the Shipwright strolled out into the sunshine with the Istar beside him. Some slight difference jarred; it took Glorfindel a moment to realise that while the old Istar was as grey and wrinkled as ever, any sense of weariness had melted away and a new light shone warmly under those bristling white eyebrows. He seemed to walk straighter and he moved more limberly as well. Beside this suddenly youthful greybeard, the smooth-skinned Shipwright appeared more ancient than ever.

“Erestor, Melinna –” said Círdan and bowed his silvered head in graceful acknowledgement. He carried a square pouch of black silk embroidered with gold patterns, the knotted drawstrings of which were sealed with red wax, and he held this out now to Glorfindel’s guides. “This visit has been short and your current errand is very much a favour to me. May I further ask that you carry my letters to Imladris?”

Erestor, who had been looking curiously at the grey-cloaked Istar, grinned and took the pouch without formality. “Of course. Topical for a change, I presume?”

“Quite so,” said Círdan with a slight smile. “I believe Lord Glorfindel may be trusted to ensure that your journey’s as swift as it can be. I have also a letter for the Lady Galadriel, should you chance to be visiting Lindórinand within the next century or so...”

The Lady Galadriel. That had to be Finarfin’s daughter, still dwelling in Middle-earth even after so many of her relatives had left it so violently. Her continued presence was not really a surprise, since Galadriel always had shared her family’s preference for domination in the shallows rather than cohabitation with fellows of equal size or greater in the deeps. Glorfindel had last encountered the lady before the building of Gondolin, when Turgon and Aredhel had wished to visit their cousins at Minas Tirith on the island that had become Tol-in-Gaurhoth. Lindórinand: where was that? A moment’s thought brought to mind a wooded region inhabited by a disparate set of Green-elves east of the Misty Mountains. Was this where Artanis Nerwen had finally established her domain?

The guides glanced at each other; Melinna shrugged. “I don’t see why not. We haven’t been that way for at least as long as we haven’t seen Goldberry and Iarwain. Might as well wander across the mountains after Imladris, since we’re going east anyway.”

Erestor wrinkled his nose. “Amroth and Nimrodel are so gloomy,” he observed with a hint of regret. “All that melodrama about rivers and the good old days and only speaking Silvan and not getting married because of – Melinna, remind me, why won’t she marry him?”

“I’m not sure there is a reason,” said Melinna. “She does look very pretty languishing beside her waterfall, though.”

“So she does,” said Erestor dryly and sighed. “I was looking forward to spending a while talking nonsense with Iarwain. I daresay that can wait, though.”

Lord Círdan was very nearly frowning. “If it happens to inconvenience you –”

“Oh, not at all,” said Melinna, bestowing upon the Shipwright a smile of such presumptuous graciousness that Glorfindel’s suppressed ill temper flared up at once. He was actually amazed when Círdan’s expression of concern cleared and was replaced by what seemed to be genuine relief. She went on, “We can always avoid Nimrodel and I’ve been meaning to visit Galadriel for a while, as it happens. Somehow we always miss their visits to Imladris. We met a mortal woman on the way here who had a recipe for an absolutely fast onion skin dye. Colourfast and lightfast. I was amazed. You can get such a good orange but it’s not normally lightfast at all. Galadriel’s bound to be interested.”

“She’s not going to show you how to weave her special cloth,” said Erestor, not quite under his breath. “Secret, you know. Can’t go sharing that.”

She made a face at him. “Maybe not this time. One day!”

“I think that perhaps a little more than thread goes into Galadriel’s web,” murmured Círdan the Shipwright, a glimmer of laughter in his eyes. “You may be forever disappointed.”

“Well, I know that. Still, it’s worth a try. So the letter, then –?”

“Of course. It’s hardly urgent, but I should be sorry if it fell into the wrong hands. Many thanks.”

“Not at all,” said Erestor, tucking the letter away with the sealed black-and-gold pouch of dispatches for Imladris. “We may even deliver it within the century!”

The highway that wandered east from the Grey Havens was broad and straight and beautifully paved for the first day’s ride, after which it began to deteriorate noticeably. The great stone slabs disappeared and the East Road was scarred by old wagon tracks that filled up with muddy water in the spring drizzle. When the grey-cloaked Istar asked their escort about this, he was told that Círdan the Shipwright was responsible for the upkeep of the Road up to that point, but that Círdan’s authority there gave way to that of the Dúnedain king of Arthedain, the current holder of which title was not particularly interested in keeping the Road paved through the Tower Hills and the White Downs. Furthermore, the Road might well deteriorate further as their journey progressed, since past the Baranduin River it served as the border first between Arthedain and Cardolan and then between Cardolan and Rhudaur, and all three kingdoms tended to disavow responsibility for its maintenance. On the other hand, after they crossed the River they should have plenty of opportunities to observe several excellent and rather heavily fortified Dúnedain strongholds in perfect working order on both sides of the Great East Road.

This comment, along with the rest of the explanation, was supplied by Erestor over a small fire on the second damp evening after their departure from Mithlond. The first night had been spent with a small outpost of Elves whose business it was to monitor the comings and goings along the Great Road within Círdan’s realm; but having left Círdan’s realm behind, it seemed clear that they would be sleeping under the stars as often as not. They had halted for the night in the shelter of a small thicket not far from the Road, at which point Erestor had begun to gather firewood and Melinna had disappeared. Glorfindel, aching from the long day’s ride through alien countryside, had by this point reached a grim determination not to put any questions at all to this exasperating couple, but the Istar had been surprised into wondering where the woman had gone. She was looking for game or edible plants, apparently, so that their provisions from Mithlond could be preserved for as long as possible. When asked why Melinna had gone and not Erestor, that gentleman had said lightly, “Oh, she’s better at foraging. Much less likely to get distracted by interesting caves and things. There was a time in Ered Luin –”

Glorfindel was not interested in other people’s adventures in Ered Luin. He ignored Erestor completely and went to see to the horses, bitterly reminded of his last journey without servants through the Encircling Mountains. There had been no Great Road through those mountains, paved or otherwise, and the days had been as icy as those terrible nights. By the time he had finished, a small fire was smouldering cheerily and Erestor was talking to the Istar about how much the Great Road had deteriorated since the disintegration of the Dúnedain kingdom of Arnor. “It’s not that long since the Road was paved from here to Bree –”

“Two centuries,” said Melinna, appearing unexpectedly in the gloom. She dropped a pair of young rabbits onto the grass beside him and added briefly, “Maybe longer.”

The Istar had jumped, openly startled, and Glorfindel was caught off guard despite himself. Erestor merely twisted his dark head round, eyebrows up, and picked up the limp rabbits. “That’s not so long. Is this all?”

“I thought you were hungry,” she retorted, laughing. “Back in a bit. I want to set snares.”

She disappeared again. The Istar sat back on his heels and drew in a meaningful breath.

“Well now,” he said and let it out again in a long whistle, combing his fingers through his great bush of a salt-and-pepper beard. Deep in the shadows of his craggy face, his youthful eyes gleamed with curiosity. “The lady moves quietly, doesn’t she?”

Erestor, who was already beginning to clean the coneys, shrugged. “Practice. Now when there was a king of Arnor...”

And so on. Glorfindel was as uninterested in Dúnedain kings as he was in Erestor’s adventures in Ered Luin, but since the Istar actually seemed to be listening, he did not bother to say so. He sprawled out on his bedroll with fire in his eyes and the fall of Gondolin in his head instead, while that cool voice whispered unheard the deeds of mortal Men somewhere on the utmost periphery of his understanding. In the dripping darkness beyond the circle of the fire, the thicket was full of uneasy rustles (but not the sobbing of the injured or bereaved) and periodically the long liquid warblings of a nightingale sweetened the night. Presently a savoury smell that suggested rabbit stew began to percolate through Glorfindel’s dim awareness of the world around him, at which point an account of the ongoing rivalry between Arthedain, Cardolan and Rhudaur ceased and Erestor was heard to say lightly, “There you are. Nice timing. Dinner’s ready.”

The woman Melinna had returned, of course. Food was dished out on tin plates; he ate without taste and heard their chatter without paying any real attention. The red glow of the fire cast strange shadows in the darkness. So had glowed the breath of Glaurung’s monstrous brood, the dragons of the north.

“You must have some name,” he heard Melinna saying to the grey-cloaked Istar, late in the night. “And if you don’t – make one up!”

The richness of the Istar’s voice suggested he was laughing. “That’d be dishonest. Couldn’t possibly.”

“If you’re not careful, we’ll give you one,” came Erestor’s voice lazily through the dark. “Can’t call you Stranger all the way to Imladris.”

“I’ll take whatever names I’m given. Now be kind and let an old man sleep!”

That remark was greeted with chuckles in which the Istar joined, but afterwards the conversation fell away into the whispering night. Glorfindel was too tired to be grateful and watched the dying fire until it collapsed into embers and ash. Possibly he slept, although he did not remember doing so. At one point he seemed to glimpse through blurred, half-open eyes a silent figure sitting alone and watchful in the night, but that might have been no more than a dream.

When the cold dawn came, and with it birdsong, he was as weary as he had been the previous evening and considerably stiffer. The Istar still snored quietly in his bedroll and Erestor was sitting under a nearby tree, idly occupying himself with a piece of wood and a sharp knife. Melinna was nowhere to be seen.

A piece of bread dipped in the remains of the previous night’s stew seemed to ease Glorfindel’s incipient headache. He went to check on the horses, moving carefully and stretching out the knots in his limbs as he did so. A breath of mist still clung in the air. He was aware suddenly of the vividness of his surroundings: the richness of the grass, pale lichen curling on dark trunks, spring-green leaves budding on the trees, the horses shifting and whuffling in the dawn. Patches of blue sky could be seen through branches and clouds. The mountains had been ice and stone, white and grey, at the height of summer.

Remembering that terrible escape through the Encircling Mountains, drowning in grief and desperately attempting to safeguard a disparate rabble of unprepared refugees with only a handful of soldiers, it came to him suddenly that the Istar had wanted his company and Círdan had then thrust an escort upon them precisely because the Road was not as safe as it seemed. The peacefulness of this thicket could well have turned out to be illusory and it had been unwise in the extreme to take it for granted. So much for their experienced escort!

So much for his own experience, too. Gondolin’s fall should have taught him not to take peacefulness for granted. He should have learned lessons about travelling through the wilderness from his own mistakes at Cirith Thoronath.

He was abruptly angry with himself. He said harshly aloud, “We should have set a watch. It could be dangerous.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t think so,” came Erestor’s voice behind him. “Don’t trouble yourself.”

Typically exasperating; startlingly reckless. What had Círdan seen in this couple?

He spun around and came back into the clearing, barely noticing that the grey-cloaked Istar was starting to wake up. “It should trouble you,” he said tightly, planting himself directly in front of Erestor. “I thought this Road was dangerous. What if Orcs found us?”

“You don’t see Orcs very often down this way,” the other Elf replied and held up a piece of wood whittled into the shape of a small bird, its wings half-spread. “Not bad, this. I may keep hold of it. Baby Lúthien – Elrond’s little Arwen, I mean – might like it.”

“Put that away and be serious, Valar curse you!” snapped Glorfindel, furious now with Erestor as well as himself. He pushed his hair angrily out of his face, aware suddenly that the dampness was making it curl. The grey Istar had propped himself up on one elbow and was staring blearily up at them. “You said the Road was dangerous!”

Erestor was turning the wooden bird over with his fingertips, examining it thoughtfully. “I’ll have to polish it,” he said under his breath and glanced upwards with half an amused smile. “Hm, dangerous? Círdan might have said that. Melinna did say it’s not as safe as it was, which is true. I may even have said it myself. That’s only in places, though. We’re perfectly safe here.”

“Varda Elbereth! How can you be sure if you don’t set a watch?”

“We sleep lightly,” Erestor said blandly, dark eyes laughing. “Don’t you?”

“Enough,” said Melinna, materialising with her usual lack of warning behind the tree. She unslung a leather satchel from around her shoulders and dropped it into Erestor’s lap, shaking her head disapprovingly as he tipped back his head to smile at her. “There’s enough for dinner, by the way. You can carry it. Now stop teasing Glorfindel just because you’re bored. It’s bad manners and there’s quite a long way to go before we reach Imladris.”

“So there is,” said Erestor, laughing, and came lithely to his feet with a mocking little bow for Glorfindel. “Forgive my levity, m’lord. We promised to see you safely to Imladris and so we shall. You needn’t worry about standing watch. If there’s any real danger, we’ll let you know.”

Glorfindel was enraged and outraged in equal measure by the sudden realisation that Erestor had indeed been teasing him. “Valar curse you!” he snapped and turned on his heel to stalk back to where the horses grazed beneath the trees.

No more was said about the matter then. When they made camp in an overhung gully on the eastern flank of the Tower Hills that evening, though, Glorfindel said flatly, “I’m going to take a watch tonight. Which one?”

He had expected resistance, or at least more of that unhelpful teasing before his assistance was accepted. He received instead a long, thoughtful look from Erestor. “Certainly. Do take first watch. You can wake me up at midnight.”

“Oh,” said Glorfindel, taken aback. “All right.”

He hesitated, feeling slightly foolish for no reason that he could quite pin down. “I thought – that is –”

Erestor’s dark eyes were laughing again. “I know,” he said sympathetically. “You thought I’d tell you not to bother. I might have done, but it seems to attract your attention to the present and Melinna informs me we should be trying to encourage that. Besides, I have no objection to letting a gentleman so eminently experienced as a Captain of Gondolin stand watch. Satisfied?”

“I – yes. What do you mean, it attracts my attention –?”

“Oh, come. You’ve barely looked around you since you stepped off that ship. Did you ever wonder where our grey friend’s companions went or what they were going there to do? Come to that, did you ever even bother to ask what they were called?”

He paused for a moment, possibly to let that sink in, and went on quite kindly, “Sometimes you look like you’ve just wandered out of the ruins of Gondolin. Not that I blame you for leaving yourself there; I don’t know how fast time passes in the Halls of Mandos, or how long it is since you were resurrected –”

“It doesn’t and a few weeks,” said Glorfindel shortly.

An expression of intense curiosity passed across Erestor’s face. He said lightly, “Some other time, I shall certainly ask you about that. It feels like a few weeks since Gondolin fell, then?”

“Yes.”

“Thought as much. If it helps, they built you a very nice cairn.”

“Not very much!” said Glorfindel, although he was obliged to laugh. “Did they?”

“Oh yes. Yellow flowers everywhere for My Lord of the House of the Golden Flower. I would suggest a trip up north just for the pleasure of walking on your own grave, but that part of the world was drowned during the War of Wrath.”

Glorfindel almost shuddered. “I can’t say I’m sorry.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Erestor with his amused half-smile. “I doubt you want to talk about it right now. Anyway, you’re welcome to take first watch and I really should sort out a fire. I already told our grey friend he needn’t bother standing watch – he doesn’t have our eyesight and he doesn’t have any problems with living in the present. I’ll let Melinna know when she gets back from foraging.”

The night passed without incident. Glorfindel was oddly glad of those hours spent awake under Elbereth’s stars and he reached a strange tranquillity, tracing those familiar patterns far overhead. Whatever might have happened in Middle-earth since his tumble into the darkness, the stars set long ago in the heavens by Elbereth Elentári would never change. There shone Alcarinquë; there Wilwarin fluttered; there was the belt of Menelmacar, a glimmering arc through the night. In the north swung the seven-starred sickle, Valacirca, a warning to Morgoth that had actually come true. Bizarre and unthinkable. Where was Middle-earth without such an enemy?

And there was the new star, Gil-Estel. Curumo had pointed it out from the swan-ship’s deck. Another bizarre development: Idril’s little Eärendil sailing the heavens with a Silmaril strapped to his forehead. Its brightness outshone even the stars of the Sickle of the Valar.

At midnight, having rather reluctantly allowed Erestor to take over the shift, he fell at once into a deep sleep that lasted until a nightingale’s liquid trill woke him in the morning. The Istar was stirring porridge over a glow of twigs amid the ashes of the previous evening’s campfire and Erestor had found a long stem of rowan that he seemed to be whittling into a walking stick. As Glorfindel yawned and started to unravel himself from his bedroll, Melinna came lightly up the gully, her satchel bulging with speckled feathers.

“I love travelling in the spring,” she said happily and tossed the satchel to Erestor, who peeked inside and widened his eyes into an impressed face. “The snares, not so much, but the hills are alive! I doubt we’ll go hungry on this little jaunt.”

“Jolly good,” said Erestor, satisfied. “Breakfast?”

The next few days were bright and breezy as they came down through the Far Downs and the chalky White Downs into the gentle hills. Sometimes they met people on the Road, both Elves and Men, and once a small caravan of Dwarves from Hadhodrond in the Misty Mountains. Most of the Elves and all of the Dwarves seemed to know their guides and such encounters usually resulted in some delay as greetings were exchanged. The Dwarves they met at sunset in a small human settlement clustered around a crossroads east of the White Downs; they shared a roomy inn overnight, which seemed to please the grey Istar, who spent the evening firmly ensconced by the fire encouraging the Dwarves to talk about mining and their customs and the history of Hadhodrond, which they called Khazad-dûm, and all manner of other things in which Glorfindel had no interest whatsoever. Both Melinna and Erestor were particularly elusive that evening, fluttering through the common room like moths and disappearing into the dark apparently as the mood struck them. For his part, Glorfindel would rather have slept on the ground beneath Elbereth Elentári’s stars than in a rustic room hemmed around by this hairy little crowd, and his star-struck tranquillity became increasingly ruffled as the night progressed.

In the morning, they parted from the Dwarves with goodwill, continuing east along the Road through the sparsely settled hills. Here and there were farmsteads, and sometimes also inns at those points where lesser tracks joined the Great Road. This stretch of the Road was a mess of churned-up mud, deeply rutted by farmers’ carts trundling between fields or to village markets, and their progress was slow enough to make Glorfindel seethe. They reached the Bridge of Stonebows across the Baranduin in a shower of spring rain.

“You know, we could just spend a few days with Iarwain and Goldberry along the way,” Erestor suggested as they rode across the bridge, looking wistfully south into the Old Forest where it crept up towards the Great Road. “It wouldn’t be much of a digression...”

Melinna raised her eyebrows and the Istar stroked his grey beard thoughtfully enough to be seriously considering the suggestion. “No!” said Glorfindel, well aware that a few days for their escort could quite easily stretch into a few weeks or even a few years. Erestor’s dark eyes turned thoughtfully towards him; he was on guard at once and said hastily, “No digressions. Who are these people anyway?”

“Goodness!” said Erestor, glancing at Melinna. “Did you hear that? He asked a question!”

She chuckled. “So he did. And maybe we’ll have time to answer it on the way to Bree. You know, I think the forest’s moved since we last came this way. Do you think it’ll retake the ground it held before the Dúnedain came?”

“We can but hope,” Erestor replied lightly. “No doubt Iarwain will do what he can.”

Past the Bridge of Stonebows, the Road wound through the levels and across the Barrow-downs with deep dikes running along either side. The Road itself was still pitted and full of cart tracks, but the steep stone walls of the dikes were in good condition and on the furthest sides grew sharp-thorned gorse hedges, high and green. As they rode onwards, Melinna and Erestor told them about Iarwain Ben-adar, who had once roamed like a spirit across all of Eriador before the Dúnedain had come during the Second Age and hacked the great forest to mere remnants. Now Iarwain lived with Goldberry the River-woman’s daughter under a hill in the Old Forest, where once had been buried the bones of a king on a bed of gold, and from time to time those unwary souls who strayed under the eaves of the gnarled old trees or found themselves in trouble nearby might come to be grateful for his assistance.

“Such as yourselves?” said Glorfindel, who had been listening despite himself.

“Us?” said Erestor, apparently surprised. “Goodness, no. The Old Forest doesn’t trouble us. It knows us too well.”

“Go there often, do you?”

“From time to time,” said Erestor and smiled. “I meant the trees remember us from the old days, back before the Dúnedain came. That’s all.”

Deep in the shadow of a high brown hill sprawled the town of Bree. They came to the West-gate with sunset at their backs and passed over the causeway that carried the Road across the deep dike with its thick hedge around the town. Bree bustled as much then as it had done at any point in its history, said their guides, who had apparently visited the town during earlier, less prosperous incarnations; it was mostly inhabited by stocky, brown-haired Bree-men and it sat tidily on the intersection of the Great East Road and the North Road, sited between Arthedain, Cardolan and Rhudaur both in geography and politics. Like the Great Road, Bree was held to be neutral ground, not least by the Bree-men themselves. At any given time, the town was awash with merchants and embassies from all three Dúnedain kingdoms, Elves on their way to the Grey Havens, Dwarves travelling to and from the mountains and other travellers passing through on their own business. As they struggled through the dark streets, Glorfindel was unavoidably reminded of Gondolin’s broad avenues, lined with flowering trees from whose slender branches had been suspended elven-lanterns to light the scented nights. There had been no jostling for space in the avenues of Gondolin, nor had any Elf ever cursed or spat in the mud. There had been no mud. The paths had been paved with white stone and polished by countless footsteps down through the long centuries.

He was still remembering Gondolin as they found an inn for the night and settled down in the smoky common room. His tower had been built of that same white stone; it had been pure and fine and perhaps more elegant than practical when the end came. Would the dragons have broken their teeth on black granite if they had walled up the city in that instead?

But his tower...

The last and lowest tower to be built. It had been tempting to begin his own home as soon as the king’s tower had been completed; he had known better. Sometimes a greater glory was to be found in humility. When at last he could climb to the top of his tower and gaze out over the white city shining in the starlight, the city of towers and fountains that his hands had built on Amon Gwareth as a memorial to Tirion upon Túna, its beauty had stolen away his breath. Ondolindë, the Rock of the Music of Water; in Sindarin Gondolin, the Hidden Rock. In Valinor all was beautiful; in Valinor all beauty was a gift of the Valar to Elves. Even the greatest craftsmen of the Noldor, Fëanor son of Finwë and Mahtan his teacher, had received their teaching from Aulë the Maker. Here was a beauty he had made, high in the desolate Valar-forsaken mountains, and here would come to live Turgon and Aredhel and Ecthelion and all the Elves who had resided in rocky Nevrast. Here was his home.

From the top of his tower, dazzled and revelling in that beauty, he had thrown up a paean to the night: a panegyric to lofty Varda who was Tintallë and Elbereth Gilthoniel the Star-Kindler, Elentári the Queen of the Stars, in whose glorious face still lived the light of Ilúvatar. Others, listening in the white streets below, had taken up the song. There had been singing and dancing all through that night of Gondolin’s completion; and in the morning, still enrapt, he had taken up a harp and written his paean on clean parchment as the first of many to be sung in Turgon’s city under the stars. Such had been the early days, those dangerous days when the Sun was new and the Noldor were newly come to a Middle-earth of Morgoth’s domination.

“He’s moping again,” he heard Melinna say critically, somewhere in the smoky, crowded present. “I don’t think it should be allowed. What shall we do?”

The Istar’s rich chuckle. “Get the Elf a drink?”

“Good idea. They brew rather a fine beer round these parts –”

“Beer!” said Glorfindel with a sudden, fierce scorn that jerked him out of long-gone Gondolin and left him neither there nor here, trapped in loss. “What is that? We made wine as white as uilos flowers and sweeter than dreams of Valinor! People used to weep when they drank it! They said it was made of starlight and Nienna’s tears! There are songs about uilos wine! And you want to give me some mortal drink, this beer?”

“Evidently not,” said Erestor dryly, leaning back in his chair. His face was in shadow, although Glorfindel could just see the amused curve of the other Elf’s mouth. “Quite right too. Beer’s not fine enough for m’lord of the Golden Flower. I don’t know what you were thinking, Melinna my love. What about brandy?”

“What about –” repeated Glorfindel, incredulous, and cracked into laughter, unable to help himself. He set his elbows on the rough table and laughed with his head in his hands until the tears ran cold down his wrists. Gone was Gondolin with its white towers; gone were the scented avenues, the paean-singers, the makers of uilos-white wine. The fountains had fallen; the people were dead. Gone were the Gondolindrim into the timeless, formless dark.

A glass of golden liquor was set down on the table before him. “Try it,” he heard Melinna say. “You never know. You might like it after all.”

She was right. He might.

It was a little while before his hands were steady enough to hold the glass. As he picked it up, he caught sight of them sitting silently round the rough table, all watching him. His vision blurred.

“It’s not –” he said helplessly and had to break off. The glass in his fingers shook. “You don’t understand. Ondolindë. Gondolin. I built that city. We thought we could stay there, stay safely, forever. It was so beautiful. So very beautiful...”

In the shadows, Erestor’s long form stirred. “Very sad –”

“Sad? Very sad?”

He was abruptly enraged again, jolting to his feet with a suddenness that splashed brandy across the table. “You think this is sad?” he demanded fiercely, glaring down at the other Elf. “It took us fifty-two years to build Gondolin! Fifty-two! Four centuries we lived there! We built the most beautiful city east of Valinor! The walls were white and the fountains shone and we danced in the starlight just as we did in the West before the Sun rose! You can’t understand what that means unless you lived then! And if we hadn’t been betrayed by that traitor Maeglin, we’d be dancing there now! I think that is a little more than sad!”

The common room had fallen silent. He tossed what remained of the brandy down his throat and slammed the glass down on the table, glaring around the room. Through the smoke, Men and Elves and Dwarves were suddenly concerned to avoid his eyes.

“I daresay you do,” Erestor replied evenly, motionless in the shadows. For once he seemed completely unamused and his tone was cool. “And I say – very sad. Gondolin was destroyed by its enemies, as it was doomed to be destroyed once Morgoth realised that Turgon was willing to be a nuisance to him. That’s sad and vaguely heroic. If anyone other than your Lady Idril had listened to Tuor, you might only have lost the buildings. That’s sadder and rather less heroic. If you think Gondolin was the most beautiful city in Middle-earth, you obviously never visited Menegroth – and Menegroth was sacked by its allies. Twice. Now that’s not just sad, that’s downright tragic!”

Whatever response Glorfindel might have received, he had not anticipated this. He sat down with a bump, staring at the other Elf. His anger had vanished somewhere into the smoky air.

“Menegroth,” he repeated, struck suddenly by that remarkable agelessness that both Erestor and Melinna wore so much more lightly than Círdan the Shipwright. They were both watching him thoughtfully now through the shadows, dark eyes as deep as the twilight during the ages of the stars, while the Istar tugged his grey beard and listened with obvious fascination. “You were alive to see Menegroth. You’re not Calaquendi. You’re Elwë Singollo’s folk?”

“We’re certainly not Calaquendi,” Melinna agreed with a curl of her mouth that suggested she was quite happy about this. “We aren’t even Elu Thingol’s folk, if you want to be precise. We are Dark Elves, though, proper Moriquendi born before the sunderings, and we certainly saw Menegroth.”

No wonder they seemed ageless. A couple born before the sunderings had some claim to consider Glorfindel young.

The grey Istar broke the silence that followed.

“Well,” he said, twinkling under his bristling eyebrows and shifting the rowan walking stick that Erestor had idly whittled some days past from hand to hand, “that does explain why Lord Círdan was so sure you should come with us. Such long lives must have seen a great many important events.”

That lightened the air at once, rather surprisingly. “Oh, we have!” said Melinna, sharing a glance with Erestor that brimmed with secret laughter. “Actually, you don’t know how much it explains. You really don’t!”

Goldilocks and the Three Balrogs

Balrog the Third

During his time on the Road to Imladris, Glorfindel had become accustomed to waking at dawn and starting the day’s journey not long afterwards. For practical reasons concerning kitchens and breakfasts this timetable tended to slip a bit when they spent the night at some inn or other; and it slipped quite a lot at Bree under Bree-hill, because Melinna felt it appropriate to refill Glorfindel’s glass with brandy after he had spilt so much of his first glass in his emotional state. This time Glorfindel had been obliged to admit that the brandy, while hardly the uilos-white wine of Gondolin, was quite a palatable liquor; and by the bottom of his third glass, he had arrived at a positive fondness for the stuff. The grey Istar, uninhibited by any prior prejudices about the drinks of Men, had taken to brandy from the very first sip and was more than happy to try the local beer at Erestor’s suggestion. By the end of what turned into a very long evening, Glorfindel and the Istar had sampled most of the alcoholic beverages the innkeeper had to offer, and as a result they left Bree unusually late the next day.

“Not that it matters much,” Melinna remarked as they rode out through the South-gate and back onto the Great East Road. “We should reach an inn by this evening. I think it may be the last one between here and Imladris.”

Her very cheerfulness seemed an offense against decency that morning. They rode almost without speaking for most of the day, such conversation as there was being exclusively between Melinna and Erestor. Even the old Istar was content to keep any questions he might have had to himself.

As they came east past a couple of the Dúnedain forts that Erestor had mentioned days ago, Glorfindel was attempting to recall the previous evening, which seemed to have become strangely blurred after that third glass of brandy. He had some muddled recollections of lifting his voice again in that paean to Varda Elbereth, while the other Elves in the common room fell respectfully silent and the Dwarves grumbled into their beards; of some talk concerning impregnable fortresses and treachery and how Erestor and Melinna had once gone looking for the ruins of Gondolin, which they had found easily (they said) because they had already known where it was; and then something about that traitor Maeglin and something else about Eagles, and Melinna talking passionately about the treacherous ways of Morgoth Bauglir; and at last something Erestor had been saying, that the Old Enemy’s habits were shared by a Newer Enemy and that if Glorfindel had learned not to trust the people he thought he knew, he would find himself the very best of company these days...

He shook his head in disbelief and regretted it. What had been said?

There had been something, some retort about not knowing anyone these days, which was true. “If Morgoth didn’t kill them,” he recalled saying, “they’re over the sea in Aman. I don’t think I need to fear the treachery of my friends!”

He remembered Erestor laughing at him across the rim of a wineglass. “Now you’re being too trusting. You’ll learn.”

That image of firelight refracted through elderberry wine was too much for him; he shuddered and turned his attention to the Road. By the look of the sky, there would be rain ahead. There had been rain overnight as well; at least, he thought he recalled the drumming of raindrops on roof-tiles and the Road that day was thick with mud. Maybe a spot of drizzle would soothe his head.

The last inn on the Great East Road between Bree and Imladris was a big, lonely place with rather high walls and very strong gates and more than the usual number of grooms loitering in the stable yard who looked capable of taking care of themselves in a fight. In short, it seemed more like a small fort than a hostelry, although a sign swinging above the gate announced the Forsaken Inn. According to their guides, this was quite natural for the region, since the land north of the Road between Bree and Amon Sûl was disputed territory and those who still lived there tended to be cautious, well-armed folk. There was a rowdy party of Men in the common room when they entered, but the evening passed without trouble and they departed cheerfully the next morning.

Late that afternoon, they came to the Tower of Amon Sûl, standing like a sundial throwing its shadow towards Imladris as the Sun sank down into the west. Melinna had a story to tell about a great seeing-stone that was said to be held in this tower, one of seven Palantíri that had once been made by a craftsman almost as great as Fëanor, if not Fëanor himself, and gifted to the last Elf-friends in Númenor. After the sinking of Númenor into the sea, the stones had been distributed between the kingdoms established by the Dúnedain Elendil and his sons, with the result that when the northern kingdom had collapsed, the ownership of the seeing-stone at Amon Sûl had become a matter of considerable dispute. Hence the busyness of the Tower, which crawled with soldiers and lit up like a torch in the dark as soon as the Sun had disappeared beneath the horizon. It could still be seen blazing against the lilac dusk when they halted that evening, a beacon atop the ragged edges of the Weather Hills.

For a good hundred yards on either side of this stretch of the Road, the ground had been cleared of trees or any other obstacle, presumably so that the passage of soldiers across the border might not be hidden or delayed. There was not much shelter even beyond the cleared strip of land and their guides seemed reluctant to sleep out in the open, despite the clearness of the night and the peacefulness of the countryside. In the end they found a patch of woodland in a fold of the low hills to the north of the Road and set up camp there, while Melinna disappeared to forage as usual. Glorfindel was glad of the stillness after so many evenings spent in smoky common rooms; he sprawled on his back beside Erestor’s fire and watched Gil-Estel sailing over the horizon into the endless playground of the stars. What paeans did the Elves of Middle-earth sing these days to Elbereth Elentári? Did they still dance through moonlight and starlight until the rosy dawn?

On the other side of the fire, the Istar was sitting like a grey mountain draped in his cloak, his hands knotted on the pale wood of the rowan walking stick that rested across his knees. The firelight glimmered in his eyes beneath eyebrows sweeping upwards like butterfly wings. He was speaking to Erestor now, asking questions about something or other that had caught his attention during the day’s ride. It occurred rather dreamily to Glorfindel, as it should perhaps have occurred before, that the old Istar must have picked up a great deal of Middle-earth lore just in conversation with their companions along the way from Mithlond. He might have picked it up himself, had he listened more often. Why were they travelling all the way to Imladris when the Istar could just as well have stayed at the Grey Havens and talked to Erestor and Melinna there instead?

Idril’s grandson. That was why he was travelling to Imladris. Nothing to do with lore at all.

“There’s that bird again,” he heard the old Istar saying. “I’ve been hearing it all the way from Mithlond. Nightingale, isn’t it? My brown colleague would know. Are they common throughout Eriador?”

“What, nightingales?” asked Erestor lazily. His hands were occupied with wood and his knife, as usual, and he did not look up. “I wouldn’t say they were uncommon. Is your brown colleague an expert on birdsong, then?”

“Somewhat. He surely knows more than I do.”

More than I do. Glorfindel, lying in the grass with his eyes full of starlight and darkness, remembered how Aiwendil had thrown scraps of fish to the seagulls from the swan-ship, and how Curumo had scolded him, and how later a couple of gulls had somehow got into Curumo’s cabin and made a thorough mess of that pristine Istar’s white robes. Curumo’s rage at that point had penetrated even Glorfindel’s elsewhereness.

He laughed a little, without sound. Aiwendil, an expert on birdsong. That was certainly one way of putting it.

“I heard Melian the Maia taught the nightingales to sing,” he said dreamily, recalling one of the oldest tales about the Queen of Doriath. “I heard they brought news to her of everything that ever happened in Beleriand. ‘A little bird told me’, she used to say. Or so I heard.”

“Is that true?” asked the Istar, curious. “Did she really?”

Erestor flicked a scrap of wood into the fire with the edge of his knife. His face was deep in shadow.

“She certainly taught the nightingales to sing. She taught us all to sing, I think, all of us who’d never crossed the Sundering Sea. She taught Daeron herself and he was the greatest minstrel who ever lived – greater than your Maglor, Glorfindel. When she spoke, you couldn’t hear anything except what she was saying, and when she sang...”

He shook his head wonderingly. “Once you’d heard her, you realised you’d only been squawking all your life, and then you’d be too ashamed to make a sound until she smiled at you. King Thingol always said it was her singing that cast the first enchantment. I used to think you hadn’t lived until you’d heard the Lady Melian sing.”

His sincerity was obvious. Glorfindel blinked through the firelight in vague surprise. It was strange to hear Erestor’s dark-eyed detachment softening as he spoke about Melian the Maia Queen of Doriath.

From somewhere nearby, the nightingale’s call came again, a quick trill of song through the darkening woods. A frown crossed Erestor’s face. He set down his carving and rose on soundless feet, casting a swift glance across their camp. As he glanced over the horses and the cosy campfire, his eyes held more than a hint of irritation.

“Excuse me,” he said lightly. “Call of nature. Don’t be too noisy while I’m gone.”

He drew up his shadow-grey hood and disappeared into the gloom beyond the firelight without another word. Glorfindel and the Istar stared at each other in surprise.

“I wonder,” said the old Istar at last. He planted the base of the walking stick firmly in the grass and wrapped his big hands around it, heaving himself to his feet. He was still looking at Glorfindel and his eyes were bright and youthful beneath his sweeping brows. “What sort of nature do you think was calling him?”

“Good question,” said Glorfindel, getting up himself. He had unbuckled his sword belt when they had made camp; now he reached for the sword that he had chosen from Lord Círdan’s armoury in Mithlond, a good, sharp blade with a plain hilt and a nice balance. As natural as the weapon felt in his hand, he still felt a sudden wrench of regret for his own sword, lost in that chasm long ago at Cirith Thoronath. He missed his armour as well; it had been commissioned for him by his father from the smiths in Valinor, long before Fëanor ever conceived of a return to Middle-earth. Such armour would not be easily replaced.

He closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the night. Nothing much out of the ordinary: leaves rustling, the sounds of insects, a twist of a breeze. The horses grazing, quietly enough. All his instincts tingled. When he opened his eyes again, his gaze fell on the wood that Erestor had discarded: another little bird, half-carved, still lying there in the grass.

“Hear that?” said the Istar suddenly, lifting his head.

Glorfindel nodded once. The crack of a broken twig some way south of them. His Elven ears picked up an ominous shuffling as well; as he turned on the balls of his feet, sword in hand, it stopped abruptly. All was silent again.

The Istar was holding Erestor’s rowan stick like a quarterstaff. “Gone?”

“I don’t know.”

They were both speaking very softly. A slight noise to the west made Glorfindel swing round at once and take a few steps that way, abandoning the circle of the fire. His sword was a shadow among shadows, warm in his hand.

Nothing moved. There was no danger there.

As he turned back towards the fire, a tremor in the leaves not far from the horses caught his eye. He was already moving in that direction when several hulking shapes crashed into the open, brandishing swords and clubs menacingly. Such blurred glimpses as Glorfindel caught of their faces suggested Men rather than Orcs. That was disappointing. He would have relished a fight with suitable opponents.

A clear, cold calmness with which he was long familiar had settled upon him now that the danger was clear. Some Elves of his household, back in the days when the world was young and treacherous, had regularly hurled themselves against the enemy in a frenzy of rage and bloodlust, but Glorfindel had never really succumbed to that berserker’s lust for battle. A commander, as Turgon had always said, was obliged to keep a cool head once the fighting started so that he could accurately calculate the odds of getting his men out alive. Such calculations had enabled the King to retrieve the core of the Gondolindrim host from the disaster that had been Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Turgon had certainly prized the fierceness of certain of his followers, but he had rarely appointed such Elves to positions of real command.

“Drop sword!” snarled one of the Men in crude Sindarin, making a slashing gesture with his blade in Glorfindel’s direction. His companions flanked him threateningly, holding their weapons low. “Money also! Horses we take!”

Of course. Of course they would.

Such a petty danger. Such a trivial menace, such a silly little threat. Once he had built a shining white city; once he had commanded Turgon’s left wing at Nirnaeth Arnoediad; once he had duelled a Balrog sent by the Dark Lord Morgoth Bauglir. Now he was doomed to be ambushed by a handful of petty thieves in the night!

“What if I don’t want you to?” he said softly, taking a step towards them.

Three opponents. By the way they carried their weapons, they could use them. That was no problem. He could use his sword as well and he could move much faster than any Man. Men were dangerous in numbers or if given a chance to turn traitor. A mere three Men? He could certainly handle that.

The leader waved his sword again. “Drop sword!”

“No. Drop yours, Sun-child, before I carve it out of your hand.”

He could just make out the startled look on the Man’s face. At another time, he might have laughed.

“I’m with you,” the grey Istar said quietly at his back. “Two to three.”

“Easy odds.” He took another step forwards, lifting his voice. The words flowed as sweetly as birdsong, as smooth as a paean. Beneath his feet, every single blade of grass was visible in the glow of his wrath. “I was born before the Sun, my little ones, and I cut my teeth on Orcs and Bauglir’s wolves. I lived through a battle that killed uncounted thousands of Elves and ten times as many who came riding down from Angband. I was there when the dragons tore Gondolin apart! It still took a Balrog to kill me and I will not give up my sword. Not to you, or any other petty children of the day. Take it from me, if you dare! And tell me, Sun-children – who’s first?”

The leader gaped at him, opened his mouth as if to reply and abruptly pitched forwards. As the other two Men spun around with startled yells, one took a black-feathered arrow to the throat and collapsed on top of his leader. The other Man crumpled almost instantaneously, Erestor having materialised behind him in a soundless swirl of shadow-grey.

“My word, how very heroic,” came Melinna’s voice dryly from deeper in the shadows. A moment later, she came out into the open, a third arrow still nocked on her bowstring. Her expression was not entirely approving and she addressed her next remark to Erestor. “They are so terribly visible, aren’t they? I could have heard Glorfindel a mile off.”

“You have to admit, he’d look good on a battlefield,” said Erestor, although he too was giving them that unamused look of cool, critical appraisal. He held a long knife in each hand; now he knelt to clean the blades on the tunic of one of their would-be ambushers, adding, “In fact, I seem to remember he did. As for our grey friend –”

“A shade flashy. What’s the trick? Some kind of powder?”

Glorfindel was utterly speechless. He turned towards the Istar, bewildered, and stopped short as he caught sight of the rowan walking stick. The Istar still held it like a quarterstaff in both hands and blue fire ran up and down its length, shining dangerously through the gathering dusk. The Istar himself was looking slightly embarrassed; as they stared at him, the flames flickered and vanished.

“Well,” he said. “Not precisely.”

“Do explain,” said Melinna, “later. Erestor, are my arrows –?”

Erestor was already examining the black-feathered arrow protruding from the second Man’s throat. “This one’s good.” He wrenched it from the corpse, wiped the arrowhead in the grass and passed it back to her. As she slid it back into her quiver, he tipped up the dead Man’s head to examine the slack-jawed face. “There’s a thing. You were right.”

“Naturally.” She sounded satisfied. “I knew I’d seen that hat before. Leaving Bree before us was cunning, though.”

“If they’d left after us, they wouldn’t have made the Forsaken Inn.” He heaved the corpse aside and began to test the arrow sprouting from the back of the leading robber, moving it carefully from side to side in an apparent attempt to ease it from the robber’s body.

Glorfindel shut his mouth with a snap.

“You shot him in the back.” His instincts were still tingling like a ruffled cat’s fur; it would be some minutes before he could lay down his sword and with it that clear, cold precision that viewed the whole world as a target against which to strike. “There was no need. I could have handled them easily. There were only three of them. There was no need to shoot him in the back!”

He saw the swift, practised way Erestor handled the arrows and the corpses. The other Elf spoke crisply without looking up from his task. “Clearly your sensibilities are offended. Clearly we should have left them to fall honourably beneath your blade.” He put one knee in the centre of the corpse’s back and wrapped both hands round the black-feathered arrow, yanking it out in one firm movement. “I think not. Firstly, we promised Círdan we’d see you safely to Imladris. Secondly, horse thieves deserve nothing less than an arrow in the back. Thirdly, a mere three Men, perhaps. What would you have done if eight of his friends had brought their own bows and arrows to the party? You’d have been a pincushion in five minutes flat. I told you both to be quiet – and there you were talking about Sun-children, all lit up like Lúthien’s smile!”

“Nine,” said Melinna, putting away her arrow. Her tone was cold.

The grey Istar set the foot of his rowan staff down in the grass with a thump. His beard was thick with static, causing it to bristle gently in the night air.

“Let me see if I understand,” he said gruffly, combing through it with his fingers in a blatant attempt to conceal his bemusement. “Are you saying we’ve been followed by a gang of horse thieves since Bree? Why didn’t they attack us on the road?”

Erestor seemed to have begun searching the bodies. “Horse thieves know better than anyone how fast an elf-horse can run.” He had already removed to one side the weapons that the robbers had been brandishing; now he tossed a dagger onto the pile and followed it with something that clinked like a purse of money. “They also know who’ll pay a king’s fortune for one without any awkward questions about where it came from.”

“They were only after the horses?”

“Mainly the horses. Don’t forget Glorfindel back in Bree talking about the white walls of Gondolin, though. That sort of name makes people like our friends here dream happy dreams of ancient treasure.”

Such a petty little world. Such petty little villains who lived here now.

He said harshly, “Men always were traitors. Nothing’s changed.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Melinna, raising her eyebrows. “As treacherous as the Naugrim of Nogrod and the sons of Fëanor. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll have a look for their horses. You and Erestor can see whether the other happy dreamers had anything worth keeping – and maybe someone would be so good as to make something to eat?”

She disappeared into the darkness under the trees and did not return until savoury smells were rising from where the grey Istar sat beside the fire. She was humming a light tune as she came into the firelight and dropped a heap of saddlebags in the middle of the grass. The robbers’ horses had been discovered grazing quietly in a dell across the hill, where they could safely remain until morning, and Glorfindel and Erestor had almost finished the nasty task of stripping the corpses and sifting through the dead Men’s possessions. To Glorfindel’s mind, the robbers had carried almost nothing that could redeem the dishonour attendant on stealing from the dead, but he had not been particularly surprised to see Erestor stripping even the clothing from the corpses and nor had he bothered to object. Such concepts as honour and dignity and the respect due to the dead seemed to be disposable antiquities these days. No doubt it would be foolish to protest.

When they set out the next morning, they left behind in the grass a heap of unsalvageable garments and other rubbish that Erestor and Melinna did not see fit to keep. In addition to their own mounts, they led the train of robbers’ horses, a scruffy but obedient collection of animals now carrying a grisly burden. After the previous evening’s meal, Melinna had looked at the neat piles of weapons, clothing, possessions and corpses and commented on how untidy it would be to just abandon the bodies there. “It seems to me,” she went on with a glance for Erestor, “that a thoughtful set of robbers would have ambushed us in the woods across the Mitheithel.”

“How true,” murmured Erestor, his own dark eyes travelling to that unpleasant mound of limp flesh. “Some people have no consideration for others.”

The grey Istar looked as puzzled as Glorfindel. “Why’s that?”

“Well now,” said Erestor and scratched his ear. “Let’s just say that a few more bones in that wood won’t attract much attention. And we do have all their horses, I suppose, so carrying them won’t be a problem. We’ll have to wrap them up, though, or people might get the wrong idea.”

Melinna shrugged. “The further east we are, the fewer people we’ll meet.”

“True. Very true. Yes, I think that’s a very good idea.”

This seemed to be taking tidiness several steps too far. “Wait –!” protested Glorfindel, shocked despite himself. “You must be joking. Are you seriously proposing that we carry all these dead Men along for another couple of days just to leave them in some bone-yard?”

“That’s a very nice summary, thank you, Glorfindel,” said Melinna coolly. “I think we should do that.”

In the morning, therefore, the naked corpses had been bundled up in their own cloaks and the would-be horse thieves slung over their own horses, a task that Glorfindel and the Istar approached with extreme reluctance. Their companions exhibited no more squeamishness than Glorfindel guessed they had experienced in killing the Men silently in the dark woods and their composure when other travellers were encountered on the Road was too perfect to be challenged. As Melinna had predicted, the Road was increasingly less travelled as they progressed eastwards and they came to the three stone arches of the Last Bridge across the River Mitheithel without any trouble.

The countryside beyond the Last Bridge was thickly wooded with dark, unpleasant trees, through which poured the Road like starlight through storm clouds. Amid the woods could be seen stone walls and looming towers, but the Road itself was empty and it was not difficult to find a secluded valley in which to dump their increasingly unpleasant cargo. Even though the weather had been chilly, the corpses had already begun to mortify and they rode away with a sickening metallic smell still lingering in their nostrils.

“I’m glad that’s done,” Erestor remarked as they led the robbers’ horses back onto the Road. He sounded rather pleased. “Now we shouldn’t have any problems getting to the Ford.”

Melinna gave him a quick flick of a smile. “That had occurred to me too,” she murmured. “Don’t let me forget to warn Celebrían that those cloaks will need to be washed very thoroughly before she gives them to anyone.”

“I doubt she’ll need to be told.”

“You’re giving the cloaks away?” asked Glorfindel, overhearing this with slight surprise. “And Celebrían is...?”

“Lady Celebrían is Elrond’s wife, the daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn,” said Melinna with a hint of weariness. “Of course we’re giving her the cloaks – and everything else too, unless you want any of it. Why would anyone need twelve cloaks?”

After another uneventful day’s ride through the dark woods, they came to the Ford of Bruinen and found the River running high, still swollen with winter-melt and spring drizzle. Beyond the River rose up the Misty Mountains, shouldering impossibly far above them into the sullen clouds. The horses tripped happily through the foaming shallows and in among the pinewoods that clung to the lower slopes, where they abandoned the Great East Road for the first time since their departure from Círdan’s Grey Havens, plunging without warning into a wilderness of unexpected valleys and tumbling waterfalls and purple heather amid crumbling rock. Imladris was not to be found on the main highway across Eriador, it seemed. Glorfindel could certainly appreciate Elrond Half-elven’s preference for secrecy. As they made their slow way down a track marked out by the occasional white stone, it was difficult not to remember his first ascent through the hidden approach to the Vale of Tumladen in the Encircling Mountains.

For once, such thoughts made him smile in bittersweet recollection rather than casting him back into that morass of loss. They had all been so young, back in those days when the Moon and Sun were new. Telerin blood still stained their hands and the Lady Elenwë among others had perished on the Grinding Ice, and yet they had trumpeted their own righteousness to the stars. Arrogant – and glorious. Fëanor’s speeches had still burned in their ears. They had come proudly to Middle-earth in the dawn of their days and their youth had been a beauty to behold.

The endings had been bitter, of course. Many of that host, arriving in Middle-earth at that first dawn, had soon departed for Námo’s Halls in a blaze of blood and fire. Towers had been built, and fortresses and cities, and all had fallen. Kingdoms had risen and been destroyed. Still – it had been a splendid thing to see the beginning of those glorious, dangerous days, no matter what had become of the world since then. His home had been reduced to ruins by the Enemy and those ruins drowned in the breaking of the world, but there had once been a white city called Gondolin in Beleriand’s high mountains and his hands had built it. That was enough.

A strange thought. That was enough. Perhaps it was true. He set his face against the chill breeze that blew down from the peaks, just as it had done long ago amid the Encircling Mountains, and followed their guides through the wilderness in which the stronghold of Idril’s grandson was to be found.

Presently the dark pine forest began to give way to beech trees, still clad in winter bronze and interspersed with huge old oaks just coming into bud. The grey Istar was talking to Melinna about dragonflies, for some reason, and Erestor was riding a little way ahead with a couple of the robbers’ horses in tow. Suddenly he reined in his horse and slid down from the saddle, glancing back at them with a grin.

“Here we are,” he said cheerfully and disappeared over the edge of the world.

Glorfindel was actually startled for a second; he should not have been, having seen the mischief in Erestor’s face. The Istar had inhaled sharply and Melinna only sighed, shaking her head as she dismounted in turn. “Honestly!” she muttered, taking firm hold of her horse’s rein. “Come along, gentlemen. The next bit is downhill. Very much so.”

The slope down into the secret valley was as steep as sin. It was almost an hour before they came to where the zig-zag path ended far below and found themselves standing above a tumbling stream in the last of the afternoon sunlight. All around them were oak trees, rustling and hissing with laughter.

“Don’t think I can’t hear you, children,” said Melinna, looking upwards into the branches. As the laughter in the trees redoubled and the branches shook, she added, “And don’t even whisper a tra-la-la-lally! We don’t have any Dwarves with us, so there’s really no excuse. Come down from there, all three of you.”

With a great deal of giggling and rustling, the trees disgorged three dark-haired individuals. Two of them were obviously twins, a pair of fresh-faced Elves with clear grey eyes and ready smiles who came to greet Melinna with kisses and Erestor with hugs. They were young, certainly, but they were obviously adults, at least in terms of years. Age measured in experience was a different thing altogether, of course. The third was just as obviously their sister and seemed inclined to hang back a little, perhaps from shyness, although she ran forwards at once when Erestor held out his arms to her. Over his shoulder, Glorfindel caught a glimpse of her face and was momentarily entranced, which startled him. She, too, was clearly much younger in experience than she was in years.

“You’re back very soon!” she said to Erestor. “You only left last year!”

His laughter was warm. “Are you complaining, child?”

“I’m not a child,” protested the beautiful girl, pouting. Her eyes were like twilight and her hair fluttered around her like shadows at dusk, veiling the perfect fairness of her skin. “Did you even reach Mithlond? Who are your friends?”

“Wait till we’re all inside,” said Erestor lightly. “You and your brothers can take care of all these animals, hmm? We picked up one or two spares along the way.”

There was some laughter at that and one of the twins asked incredulously, “A few spares? Are you going into business as horse traders? Where did they come from? – and when did you and Melinna start travelling on horseback anyway?”

“Questions, questions,” sighed Melinna, shaking her head. “Save it for later, Elrohir, and do as you’re told!”

Up the narrow valley they came, walking slowly with the three children of Elrond Half-elven and Galadriel’s daughter leading the robbers’ horses and chattering all the while about who had done what at Imladris since Erestor and Melinna had left. More Elves appeared as they approached the narrow bridge across the river, all bringing greetings and questions and gossip for the couple and curious looks for Glorfindel and the grey Istar. They crossed the slender stem of stone in single file while the Elves of Imladris came behind them and led their nervous horses over the foaming gulf.

And here was Imladris. At last.

The house of Elrond Half-elven beneath the Misty Mountains had little in common with the towers and fortresses and high-walled cities of Glorfindel’s experience. Still, the white house with its terraced gardens stepping down the steep hillside was at least recognisably Elven, even though it seemed alien to him, and it was certainly beautiful. The gardens were rich with spring and the river tumbled over its waterfalls through the valley below; and beyond the bridge without a parapet they found a tall pair of Elves waiting for them before the wide doors. Idril’s grandson was a mirror image of his beautiful dark daughter, but his lady was very fair and her eyes were very blue and Glorfindel would have recognised her anywhere as Galadriel’s offspring. In fact she looked very much like Turgon’s sister, Aredhel Ar-Feiniel, and that brought back memories. Celebrían’s voice was softer than Aredhel’s or her mother’s, though, and her eyes were merry above her smiling lips.

“How nice to see you again so soon,” she greeted Glorfindel’s guides and came lightly to bestow kisses on both of them. “And how unexpected too!”

“So it is,” said Erestor cordially. “We have guests for you from Círdan – this grey gentleman who has yet to admit to a name and My Lord Glorfindel of the House of the Golden Flower from Gondolin, back from the Halls of Mandos at Ulmo’s express request. No one seems to know why, but no doubt it will all become clear in good time. He’s here to see you, Elrond, possibly to find out whether you look like your paternal grandmother. You don’t, so he may be disappointed. Our grey friend is making a pilgrimage to this house of learning, I believe, and will be wanting to borrow your library.”

They looked a little startled. Glorfindel produced a smile and a fairly elegant bow for Idril’s grandson, who not only did not look like the golden-haired Idril but also did not look much like Idril’s father Turgon either. Master Elrond’s face was fair and ageless and his eyes were as silver as the last dusk falling on Gondolin.

“There’s a name for him!” exclaimed Melinna with a crow of laughter. “Grey Pilgrim!”

“Not bad,” said Erestor and glanced at the Istar. “Will you take it?”

The grey Istar combed his beard thoughtfully with a crooked smile. “Mithrandir, hm? It’s got a nice ring to it, I’ll give you that.”

“Then it’s yours,” said Melinna and smiled at them all. “Finally! Our grey friend has a name and we’re almost done with Círdan’s errand. Celebrían, my husband has letters for yours from Círdan and I have a haul of goodies contributed by some Men who wanted to make off with our horses a few nights back. Shall we go inside and talk about that?”

Coming from Melinna, this seemed an oddly domestic suggestion. Glorfindel thought a glance passed between the two women before Celebrían took Melinna’s arm and said lightly, “You always have such good ideas, my dear. Let’s have a cup of tea and share all our gossip!”

They passed into the house. Master Elrond glanced after them and raised his eyebrows, looking mildly bemused.

“That was abrupt even for your wife,” he remarked to Erestor. “Shall we go inside?”

The halls of the house of Elrond Half-elven were draped with brightly coloured hangings and soft carpets stretched out over the white stone floors. Other Elves gave them curious looks as they passed through and as they came to a cosy room that must be Elrond’s study, the fresh-faced twins came running round a corner and skidded to a halt, smiling widely. After them scampered their beautiful sister, batting her eyelashes. Everyone filed inside and remained there for at least twenty minutes of mere chatter, most of it between Elrond and Erestor, at which point the Lady Celebrían swept into the study with a regality that silenced all trivial conversation and reminded Glorfindel very strongly of her mother.

“Elrond, my dear,” she said, fixing her husband with a firm gaze. “I’m told our guests have come from Mithlond at a reasonable speed, not at Erestor and Melinna’s usual travelling pace. I think it would be better for everyone to rest now and talk about serious matters tomorrow. Rooms have been made up and anyone who wishes for refreshment before dinner has only to ask.”

Master Elrond blinked in visible surprise. “But Celebrían –”

“No buts, Elrond. I think this is best.”

Now that was very much in Galadriel’s manner. Glorfindel was genuinely amused, not least by the sheeplike bewilderment on Master Elrond’s ageless face as the twins giggled with their sister by the hearth. A lady of Finwë’s house in such a mood was not to be disobeyed; he rose with a bow for Celebrían and remarked to Mithrandir, the newly named Istar, “It would be best to obey, I think. Artanis Nerwen’s daughter should not be lightly crossed!”

“How very pleasing, a man who understands me,” pronounced Celebrían and gave them both a gracious smile. “Come along, my dears. Let me show you to your rooms.”

She led them through elegant halls and high corridors that made Glorfindel think of his own ruined tower, but bittersweetly now, since the house was both so very Elven and so very alien. The tapestries that draped the walls were as beautiful as anything the women had woven in Gondolin and yet profoundly different, and they passed through green pockets of courtyards in which were fountains both like and unlike to those that had played in those lost starlit streets. Even the curves and corners of the house itself seemed strange. At the same time, though, there was nothing about Elrond’s house that was not Elven. It made Glorfindel ache for Gondolin, even while he was glad to be wholly surrounded by Elven civilisation.

He was shown to an airy sitting room with a window that faced the red sunset. On a table by the fireplace lay the saddlebags containing his meagre possessions and on the other side of the room a door stood open, revealing an adjoining bedroom. A bowl of white and yellow flowers had been placed on the mantelpiece above the hearth. All very cosy. He went across the room to look at the view.

A round stone held open the bedroom door. On that first glance, its very familiarity deceived Glorfindel and he had crossed the sitting room without giving it a second look. Only when he picked up the saddlebags and went through to the bedroom, shunting the doorstop aside from long habit as he tossed the saddlebags onto the bed, did it occur to him to be surprised about finding it there. The same patterns covered it as ever, gold-etched flowers with red and white gems inset, and even now as he stood bewildered in a guest room in Imladris, it evoked the same memories of his childhood in Valinor.

And it should have been lost. He had not stopped to pick up keepsakes when he had abandoned Gondolin.

There was no explanation and just then he needed none. Several of the gems were missing and scratches suggested that they had been prised from their settings, but it was otherwise undamaged. He sat back on the bed with a thump and wrapped both hands round the smooth stone, blinking as tears welled up in his eyes. So much had been lost; and this somehow had not been. The oldest reminder of his most distant life.

“It’s yours, then?” he heard someone say quietly nearby.

“Of course it’s mine!”

He had picked it up from a stony shore not far from Alqualondë, taken there once by his parents who wished to remember the sound of the sea. His father had etched the golden flowers into the pebble himself. It had served as his doorstop in Valinor and he had carried it with him across the Grinding Ice as a reminder of the family he had deserted in Turgon’s service.

“Is it a doorstop or a paperweight?” asked the quiet voice. “We were wondering...”

“It’s a doorstop. My father made it. I lost it in Gondolin.”

“Oh,” said Melinna and emerged from behind the door, which had not needed a doorstop at all and still stood open. She seemed slightly disappointed, although this might have been a trick of the light filtered through tears. “I thought it was a paperweight.”

“You were wrong.”

He rubbed his eyes roughly, aware suddenly of how strange this was. Neither Melinna nor his lost doorstop should have been waiting for him in a guest room in Imladris, and this could not be a coincidence. Something very odd was going on.

“I suppose that means Erestor thought it was a doorstop,” he added, glancing down at the stone again. Maybe the lost gems could be replaced. Surely in a place such as Imladris there must be someone who could do such work. “Where did it come from?”

She shrugged. “We found it in the ruins long ago. If we were honourable Noldor like you, we’d probably have left it on your grave when we followed Idril’s escape south.” Her eyes were laughing at him, not unkindly. “I don’t suppose you’d like to tell Erestor it’s a paperweight? You see, we had an agreement –”

“No. I wouldn’t. What’s this about?”

“The end of Círdan’s errand. That’s all.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, let me see,” said Melinna, tipping her head thoughtfully to one side. Only her mouth smiled now and she was considering him with that cool dispassion that had seemed so infuriating back in Mithlond. “Did you ever hear about a gentleman in the last Age called Annatar?”

He shook his head, bewildered. What had this to do with anything?

She almost frowned. “That’s a pity. I’ll give you the short version. Once upon a time, a gentleman called Annatar came to Eregion to the south of here, where there was a city known as Ost-in-Edhil. Now Ost-in-Edhil was full of Noldor jewel-smiths and Annatar, who was calling himself the Lord of Gifts at this point, claimed to know all sorts of things about smith-craft that made them go white at the mouth. It just so happens that he did know all those things he claimed to know and if he’d been genuine it would certainly have been an offer not to be refused.”

“But he wasn’t genuine,” said Glorfindel slowly, hearing her tone. “Was he?”

“No. He wasn’t.” She spoke flatly. “Perhaps you remember Gorthaur?”

“Gorth– oh. Morgoth Bauglir’s lieutenant Sauron?”

“The very same. Unfortunately he survived the War of Wrath. Now the smiths in Ost-in-Edhil made the wrong decision – very wrong, as it turned out – but they were quite right to see an opportunity and perhaps they wouldn’t have been so very wrong if they hadn’t trusted Annatar so very much. Círdan’s a great deal older and wiser than they ever were and with good reason – he can see danger as well as opportunity. Do you understand me?”

Perhaps he should have been angry. Another time, perhaps he would have been. Just then, sitting with a stone in his lap that had been taken from the ruins of betrayed and devastated Gondolin, Glorfindel understood perfectly and was not offended.

He said calmly, “Círdan sent us with you and Erestor because you two, if anyone, would have been able to tell if we were frauds. Lord Ulmo told him to meet us on the beach, I think, but perhaps he feared that even the Valar can be impersonated. If we didn’t give ourselves away on the journey, you still had this stone to test whether I really was Glorfindel of Gondolin. Is that right?”

“Almost.” She still wore her shadow-grey cloak, although the room was warm, and her hood was drawn up over her glossy hair. Among the curious shadows and colours coming into that room as the sunset failed into dusk beyond, she seemed strangely wraithlike. “He also wanted to be very sure that our grey friend came to Imladris. I can’t share the details because I don’t precisely know them, but we suspect Círdan entrusted – a certain thing – to our friend Mithrandir. A thing of great power.”

“But if he wasn’t sure we were genuine –”

“The opportunity, Glorfindel.” There was no warmth in her pitiless dark eyes. “You can’t pass up that sort of opportunity. But you can’t ignore the danger, either. And so Mithrandir’s given – the thing – and dispatched to Imladris, where he can be safely confined and it can be retrieved if he turns out to be a fraud. What do you think those letters for Lindórinand say? I’m not sure even Gorthaur would want to face Elrond and Galadriel together.”

Glorfindel would not have wanted to face Galadriel by herself. He ran the edge of his thumb over a gold-etched flower, remembering the Shipwright’s insistence that Erestor and Melinna would be the best escort that they could possibly have to Imladris. A single red gem still glittered against the smooth grey stone.

“What should I fear more?” he asked at last and did not know whether he mocked his own naivety or the world’s deceitfulness. In his mind was still that half-remembered evening in Bree under Bree-hill, where they had drunk brandy and beer and elderberry wine and talked long into the night about the fall of Gondolin. His words were sharper than he had intended and he was not sorry. “The treachery of my friends or the mistrust of my acquaintances?”

Melinna glanced sideways at him and raised her eyebrows. “What a shame you can’t ask Húrin of Dor-lómin. He would know.” And then, while he was still off balance, she went on kindly, “No one really thought you were Gorthaur’s spies, Glorfindel. Círdan wouldn’t have given Mithrandir – the thing – if he’d been seriously concerned and we both thought you were genuine from the start. Still, it never hurts to make sure and it does hurt to trust indiscriminately. Especially where things of power are involved.”

“Indeed. Very wise.”

He turned the stone over in his hands, starting to count the missing jewels. More gaps than gems remained; it would need a proper jeweller’s attention and a proper jeweller’s gem-store. A proper jeweller would require recompense. Perhaps he should ask Master Elrond about this in the morning.

“You should go,” he added. “I suppose you should tell Erestor and Master Elrond that this belongs to me after all.”

“So I should,” she said lightly and went.

Goldilocks and the Three Balrogs

Epilogue: Goldilocks

Beyond the window of Master Elrond’s study, the Sun shone brightly over the hidden valley. Birds sang, children played and the river tumbled white-flecked down its rocky course. As Glorfindel gazed absently through the open window, a swallow perched unexpectedly on the sill, chirped at him and flew upwards into the eaves.

“... Glorfindel?” said Elrond Half-elven. “Are you listening?”

“... mm’hmm...”

He had gone walking in the gardens that morning after breakfast. Underfoot the grass was green and everywhere flowers were coming into bloom, alive with spring. Wherever he went, the river could be heard running and gurgling down below. He had listened to it all night as well and the sound had been strangely comforting, an echo of the constant fountains of his lost city. Eventually the path had wound its way down to the riverbank, where a strategically placed bench had awaited him beside the basin of a tumbling waterfall. Silver flashes in the water had announced fish, darting between pebbles in the foaming pool. He had still been sitting there, watching sunlight sparkle over the surface of the water, when the three children of Elrond Half-elven had appeared around the corner and halted with winsome smiles.

He had raised his eyebrows at them. “Hello.”

“Are you really Lord Glorfindel from Gondolin?” one of the twins had asked engagingly, clasping his hands behind his back just as Idril had always done when she wanted something from Turgon. “The one who knew our father’s grandmother?”

The other twin and their sister had clearly been holding their breath, which had helped Glorfindel to be amused rather than annoyed. “I am.”

Three sets of clear grey eyes had gone very wide. “The one who met the Three Balrogs?” squeaked Elrond’s beautiful daughter, hopping with excitement. “Really really?”

The second twin turned on his sister crossly. “You idiot!” he said. “There were only three in the story! The real Glorfindel only duelled one –”

“I know that!” snapped the girl, abruptly dropping that delightful childishness. Her eyes had narrowed dangerously and there was a wilful set to her mouth that made Glorfindel think that perhaps Elrond and his offspring had inherited more from Idril’s side of the family than was immediately obvious. Certainly there was something about the fresh-faced twins that brought to mind Idril and Tuor. “But Glorfindel is the one in the story, isn’t he? So he’s the one who met the Balrogs!”

“I’m sorry?” said Glorfindel, rather surprised. “What story?”

That had cut short the impending quarrel. All three of Elrond’s children had turned as one to present him with innocent faces and the first twin produced another of those suspiciously winsome smiles.

“Mother and Father say we mustn’t bother you with silly questions,” he had said primly. “Also, Father was wondering if you might like to talk to him now? He’s in his study with Master Mithrandir. We can take you there...”

And bother him with silly questions along the way. Of course.

He had allowed them to carry him off to Elrond’s study, amused by the artless way they chattered. They must all have reached adulthood centuries ago, but for some reason that he could not fathom they had seemed to be putting on a show of childishness for his benefit. Or perhaps Elves had simply aged more swiftly in Glorfindel’s dangerous youth. At any rate, they had deposited him before their father’s door and waited wreathed in smiles until he went inside. There he had indeed found Elrond Half-elven in conversation with Mithrandir the Istar about their journey from the Grey Havens; and there he still was now, not really listening to their conversation as he looked wistfully over the terraced gardens that lined the hidden valley.

He realised that Mithrandir was stroking his bristling beard as if to hide laughter. “Glorfindel, Master Elrond was asking you about the horse thieves,” the Istar prompted. “The ones who tried to ambush us past Amon Sûl, remember?”

“Of course I remember. We carried their bodies for days. What about them?”

“You carried their bodies?” said Elrond Half-elven, looking rather surprised. “Why was that?”

“Oh – Erestor and Melinna, of course. Something about it being tidier to dump them in a bone-yard across the River. Not that I saw many bones where we left them, but I was too glad to be rid of the bodies to care. I’d have left them where they died, personally.”

It occurred to him that Master Elrond’s eyebrows were almost as arched as the pillars of the Last Bridge across the River Mitheithel. The Lord of Imladris said nothing for a time and his mouth was a little open in apparent disbelief.

“Would you repeat that?” he asked at last, carefully. “You killed a set of horse thieves –”

“That was Erestor and Melinna,” murmured Mithrandir. He had hold of his rowan staff and was rubbing his thumb thoughtfully over the wood, possibly recalling how it had burst into blue flame. Glorfindel noticed for the first time that the head of the stick had been carved into the round shape of a bird with its head tucked under its wing.

“Erestor and Melinna killed the horse thieves,” said Master Elrond flatly. He did not seem surprised. “Yes, indeed. And then you loaded the bodies onto your horses –”

“Their horses,” said Glorfindel. It was so sunny outside. How did so much sunlight make its way into such a deep valley? And what was this story that Elrond’s children had been talking about? “The ones in your stables now.”

“Of course. I had forgotten. Very well, you loaded the bodies of these horse thieves onto their horses and carried them until you crossed the Mitheithel, at which point you left them... where? In a heap in the woods?”

“Pretty much.”

For a long moment, Master Elrond stared at him, open-mouthed.

“That goes too far,” he said at last, with complete conviction. He got up and crossed his study, throwing open the door to reveal the twins and their sister sitting on the carpet outside and blinking innocently up at him. Clearly he had expected this; he said crisply, “Go and fetch Erestor or Melinna or both of them. Melinna at least will certainly be with your mother, probably looking at your mother’s latest tapestry. I want to see them now.”

He closed the door on their chirrups of acquiescence and came back into the room. The starlit grey of his eyes was dark and ominous.

“I think I should probably give you both a word of advice,” he said flatly. “Erestor and Melinna are very old and very experienced and very knowledgeable and very well-travelled. My revered forebear, Queen Melian of Doriath, used to call them her nightingales and I don’t think I’ve made an important decision since Imladris was built without first asking their opinion. If they could be persuaded to stay in one place for longer than five minutes, I’d certainly hope that place was Imladris. However –”

He paused meaningfully. “This is not to say that I always follow their advice and it is certainly not to say that they are my only counsellors! I very often find it wise to balance their advice against the counsel of those who are dull and hidebound and firmly attached to all normal social and ethical conventions. I don’t say they weren’t the best people for the task – but if I were Círdan, I’d have sent Galdor with you as well!”

“Ah,” said Glorfindel and glanced at Mithrandir, who looked equally surprised by Master Elrond’s apparent strength of feeling. Perhaps it would not have been so foolish to object to Erestor’s treatment of the dead horse thieves after all. He said tentatively, “Círdan did say they were – what was the word? – idiosyncratic...”

Master Elrond made a sound that was very much like a snort and did not sit well with his fair, ageless face. “That’s not the word I’d use! If you ask me, Círdan’s getting idiosyncratic himself in his old age!”

He spun around again as the door opened behind him. Erestor came into the room with Melinna and the Lady Celebrían close on his heels; the two women seemed to be discussing something involving onion skins and Celebrían broke off as they entered to say briskly, “I hope this is important, dear, we were having a nice conversation –”

“– about your tapestry, yes dear, I did know that.” His arms were folded across his chest and his eyes on the errant pair were hard. “Erestor. Melinna. May I talk to you about those horse thieves from whom you acquired so many things along the way?”

“Of course you may,” said Melinna sweetly. She wore a dark red gown, which seemed odd now that Glorfindel had grown accustomed to the muted greens and browns of her travelling garb, and hooked under the girdle around her waist was a white spindle that swayed as she moved. “I suppose you’d like to discuss the way we disposed of them?”

“Yes,” said Master Elrond flatly. “Tell me – and I realise I may not like the answer – did even you not hesitate to use all those bodies as Troll-bait?”

Melinna smiled at him. “No, we didn’t. Next?”

“Wait –” said Glorfindel, sitting up in shock. “Troll-bait?”

“It worked very nicely,” said Erestor mildly. “We didn’t see a single Troll all the way.”

“Troll-bait? Are you serious?”

“My dears,” said the Lady Celebrían in her soft voice, sounding pained. “That is a little gruesome –”

“It’s more than that!” snapped Master Elrond. “It’s downright impious! Even horse thieves don’t deserve that! And if you left twelve bodies there, there’s a good chance it’ll attract Trolls down from the Ettenmoors! How dangerous do you want that stretch of Road to be?”

Erestor was beginning to look faintly bored. “I’d imagine the problem will have gone away by now,” he replied with a yawn. “There’s a fair-sized family with a couple of cubs in the old cave under the hill near the Bridge – we met them on the way to Mithlond. The Road should be safer, if anything, since they won’t need to hunt for a while. Hungry lot, but quite civilised for Trolls. Plenty of, aha, family feeling.”

Lady Celebrían and Master Elrond were both staring at him in disbelief. They turned together to look questioningly at Melinna, who shrugged.

“Someone thought it would be a good idea to poke his nose into an ‘abandoned’ Troll’s nest one afternoon,” she said, “which is why that someone has been on cooking duty ever since. Sadly, something turned out to be a doorstop rather than a paperweight, so I suppose I’ll be doing my share on the road to Lindórinand.”

Erestor’s smile was satisfied. “You can also clean your own rabbits. And birds.”

“Yes, that too,” said Melinna, rolling her eyes. “So no, Elrond, to answer your question, I doubt the Road is much dangerous now than it was before and you certainly aren’t going to make us feel ashamed of ourselves for leaving a nice heap of manflesh for the Trolls. They have to eat too, you know. Was that all?”

Master Elrond threw up his hands in visible exasperation. “It’s clearly all I’m going to get out of either of you!” he replied tartly, turning away. “If I say anything else, you’ll only tell me I look like my mother when she couldn’t get her way. Actually, I tell a lie – you brought up my grandfather Dior last time. Next time, I expect it’ll be Tinúviel or Thingol himself! But really – sometimes you go too far!”

They laughed and left him there, still seething, while Glorfindel exchanged a glance with Mithrandir the Istar. Troll-bait. That had to have been unusually macabre even for Erestor and Melinna. No wonder Elrond Half-elven liked to ask the advice of less idiosyncratic Elves when he needed to make important decisions!

Other things were said by Mithrandir and Master Elrond after that; Glorfindel paid little attention, still seduced by the Sun shining in the valley beyond the study window. Occasionally, called upon to comment, he made some brief remark about the journey or their companions or the condition of the Great East Road. Soon the morning gave way to the midday meal, presided over by a smiling Celebrían whose merry eyes belied the firmness with which the younger diners were kept in line. Afterwards, Glorfindel went walking in the terraced gardens until he saw the fresh-faced twins approaching in the distance, at which point he retreated to the house. Just then he did not much feel like being bothered by the silly questions of Elrond’s children.

The house was very fair and his chambers were pleasant. For a time, he sprawled out in the afternoon light as it streamed through the window of the sitting room to splash across the empty fireplace and the nearby table. The bowl of white and yellow flowers still sat cheerfully on the mantelpiece and someone had set a vase of catkins and purple heather on the windowsill. The gold-etched patterns of the stone he had once brought from Valinor seemed almost to glow in his hands. Presently, still holding his father’s handiwork without thinking about anything in particular, he began to hear the gentle runs and falls of a harp being played somewhere nearby. It fitted so smoothly with the sunlight and the spring flowers and the distant babbling of the river that he closed his eyes and merely sat there, listening. The melody was unfamiliar, a light ripple of humour and delight that tickled his ears and made him smile.

After a while, he heard that familiar long, liquid trill of birdsong sound clearly above the harp’s lilting notes. It seemed almost like a summons. Still carrying the stone doorstop that his father had made for him, Glorfindel went dreamily out of his sitting room. A little way down the corridor, a door stood open, spilling sunlight and the harp’s music into the airy passageway.

The harp filled his thoughts completely. He drifted towards the open door, bemused and entranced.

This room was long and high and full of light, a temple to an incipient summer. Glorfindel was struck first by a tapestry that occupied most of one wall and pictured grey nightingales flitting through starlit gardens, framed by the high stems and branches of great trees. Deep in their shadow and attended by more nightingales walked a tall queen, smiling, and the light of Aman was in her beautiful face.

An unstrung loom stood before the tapestry. Melinna was curled up nearby on a heap of cushions all covered with yet more grey birds; she had a basket of threads in her lap and seemed to be sorting out sets of different colours. As Glorfindel entered, she was holding up two shades of red to the light with one hand and sifting through her basket with the other, apparently in search of a third matching skein. Not far off, Erestor was sitting behind a harp, his fingers dancing across the silver strings. A stately note had entered his music now, rather like the dances that had once been played at Turgon’s court feasts, and he smiled at Glorfindel over the elegant curves of the harp’s high frame.

“Have a seat,” he invited. “There’s one behind the desk.”

The desk stood foursquare in the sunlight streaming golden through the window. It was a big, solid affair in oak with taloned feet and polished gilt trimmings, and the green leather surface was stacked with parchment notes. Glorfindel, looking curiously at the parchment as he went to sit down, saw some mention of poetry and the woods of Doriath. There were other fine tapestries in the room as well as that striking depiction of gardens and nightingales and as he glanced around, that feeling of having entered a world that was both Elven and profoundly alien came crashing back in full force.

He set the stone doorstop down on the parchment notes. For a time, no one spoke a word. The pure, clear tones of Erestor’s harp continued to rise and fall in the sunlit air.

The fair-faced queen seemed to be smiling at him from the tapestry. Melian the Maia Queen of Doriath walking in the gardens of Lórien. He had never met her, which was a pity. She really had been very beautiful.

They had talked about Melian that night in the woods beyond Amon Sûl. A question had been asked and left unanswered; remembering it now, he asked them suddenly, “That story about Queen Melian and the nightingales – was it true? Did they really bring her news of what happened in Beleriand?”

“Old gossip,” said Melinna, without looking up. “I doubt it.”

“Oh.”

“You sound disappointed,” said Erestor lightly. His fingers ran across the harp strings without a pause. “Nightingales aren’t really bright enough for that, you know. If it’s not edible, dangerous or a possible mate, they’re not interested. That’s really all they talk about – food, sex and danger, or the lack of it.”

Melinna was nodding as she laid a sequence of skeins out on the carpet in increasingly deep shades of blue. “True. If you want a decent conversation, you’d do better to talk to the Eagles, because they’re shocking gossips.”

“That is rather disappointing,” said Glorfindel. The frame of Erestor’s harp was carved with silver-gilt birds, probably more nightingales. He recalled the birdsong that had summoned him to their sitting room to begin with and added, “Just now I heard a nightingale – unless I was imagining it – but it sounded like the same one that followed us from the Grey Havens...”

Melinna pursed her lips to produce that very familiar liquid trill. “It was,” she said, smiling now. “Queen Melian taught us both to sing as well, you know. It’s a convenient way to share information in a hurry. Food, safety, danger...”

“And an ambush laid by horse thieves.”

He was not really surprised. Of course she had been scouting as well as foraging, all those nights when she had vanished into the shadows as they made camp and been missing at dawn to check her snares before anyone else awoke. If he had been less absorbed by his grief over Gondolin, he would have realised that much earlier. He might even have shared the Istar’s surprise on hearing the nightingale sing so frequently along the long Road.

His remark had earned him some laughter. No one spoke for a while. Glorfindel traced his fingertips over the golden flowers etched by his father into the stone doorstop and all around fell the silver tones of Erestor’s nightingale harp.

“Elrond’s children were talking about a story,” he remarked, recalling their winsome smiles and absurd, charming childishness. “Something to do with me and three Balrogs. Do you know anything about it?”

The harp sang out in a sudden shimmer of melody, rather like musical laughter. Erestor’s expression was perfectly serious, perhaps only a little amused. “It does sound familiar. I think that may be a tale they used to tell the children at Sirion. The younger children will probably want you to tell them all about it.”

“What story?”

“Ah, now that I can’t quite remember.” He spoke lightly and splayed his fingers across the octaves in a ripple of music. “The twins could tell you, or little Arwen, or any one of the children around Imladris. Ask them.”

“I did. They said their parents told them not to bother me with silly questions.”

“Well, that won’t last. Ask them again.”

Was this why he had been returned to Middle-earth? – to amuse the children of Imladris with tales of Balrogs and ancient wars? It seemed unlikely. Still, he might as well. The world had changed. These days there were no great enemies or Dark Lords left on Morgoth Bauglir’s model. Only Bauglir’s lieutenant remained, that petty werewolf lord of Tol-in-Gaurhoth who had succumbed to the spells of Thingol’s maiden daughter and deceived the jewel-smiths of Ost-in-Edhil. What need was there for Glorfindel in this small world of trivial menace and minor villains?

“Your harp is very beautiful,” he said to distract himself. “It looks like old craftsmanship.”

“It is,” replied Erestor, smiling as he caused the nightingale harp to produce silver waterfalls of sound. “Daeron owned it once. After Lúthien married Beren, he crossed Ered Luin into Eriador, so it survived the fall of Doriath. He entrusted it to us when he came West again and sailed to Valinor after the War of Wrath. Do you care to play?”

“If I may.”

“Of course.”

He rose, leaving the memory of his music still shimmering in the air. Glorfindel went more slowly to sit behind the harp that had been owned by Daeron. The seat was still warm and the sunlight fell hot on his back, pooling golden around his feet on the red carpet.

“The world is very small these days,” he remarked dreamily, brushing his fingers along the strings in a run of silver notes. “I remember when I first came to Middle-earth – it seemed so huge, so many forests, such emptiness. There were Orcs, of course, and wolves and Trolls and all Morgoth’s creatures. And the Moon came up and we drove them into the North with sword and fire and then we had all of Beleriand for our kingdoms. And the Enemy was very great – and so were we, so very great and so very proud, with our high towers and our white cities and our memories of the light we saw in the Day before days across the Ice in Valinor. And back in those days, those glorious days that blazed so bright and ended in fire and the sword, back in those days the world was mighty and so were we. And now the world is small and the great are gone and only the little fish remain...”

He trailed away, leaving the harp to speak for him. The tone was very sweet, this nightingale harp of Daeron’s that had seen Menegroth. In his head was the paean to Elbereth sung first atop his tower in Gondolin and last in a smoky inn at Bree under Bree-hill. The memories mingled in his head: starlight and brandy and treason that tasted of elderberry wine. Beneath his fingers, the silver strings hummed.

“Why am I here?” he asked them, not really expecting an answer. “Why did Ulmo want me in Middle-earth? My days are over. Those were my days – those bright and glorious days, the days of greatness and fire. You called me young and so I was, but I’m too old to live now. The world is too small.”

“It can feel that way sometimes,” said Melinna, quietly. She had paused in her work and now sat looking up at him from her nest of nightingale cushions, both hands buried deep in the basket of threads. The curve of her mouth was bittersweet and her eyes were dark and ancient. “Not all the great are gone. Círdan remains. So do Galadriel and Celeborn. Oropher’s son Thranduil is king in Eryn Galen. Elrond’s the image of his grandfather Dior, not to mention Dior’s mother Lúthien. And then we have Gorthaur.”

Somewhere behind Glorfindel in the airy sitting room, Erestor chuckled. “Gorthaur is gone, defeated, slain and what-have-you after the Last Alliance.” His tone was very nearly sarcastic. “So they tell me.”

She did not laugh. “So they do.”

“Are they wrong?” asked Glorfindel, tilting his head curiously.

“Well now,” she said and frowned at her threads. “We lost him once – and back he came as Annatar. Now we’ve lost him again and who knows how he’ll return this time? Círdan’s right to be cautious. It’s wishful thinking to say Gorthaur is dead and he’s not such a little fish either. He isn’t Morgoth, certainly, but as enemies go he’s great enough.”

“Is that why I’m here? To lend another sword to someone else’s fight?”

“Why not?” said Erestor lightly behind him. “I’m sure Elrond would be grateful. He collects interesting people, you know. If he can talk you into staying at Imladris, I’m sure he will.”

That might not be unpleasant. Perhaps he would remain at Imladris with the family of Idril’s grandson for now. Perhaps he could occupy himself in the library like Mithrandir the Istar, relearning the lore of Middle-earth and the history that had passed during his time in the Halls of Mandos. Perhaps it was his doom to defend Middle-earth against Sauron, since he had missed the War of Wrath and the fall of Sauron’s master, Morgoth Bauglir.

His fingers on the harp strings had abandoned the paean, moving from brandy and starlight to a half-remembered melody that evoked candlelight and rubies and the ceremonious elegance of King Turgon’s court. The dance had been very popular in Gondolin that year. It was slow and stately and it had sounded antique even in Gondolin, having been written in the aftermath of Nirnaeth Arnoediad when people’s thoughts were turning longingly to Valinor. He had swayed to it a hundred times and now as he listened to his own playing of the nightingale harp, he was remembering the days when only the Lady Idril had been willing to speak aloud what everyone had silently feared. The Gondolindrim had been very merry those last few years, but they had been merry in the shadow of an inescapable fate.

He was vaguely aware that Erestor had arisen and come to stand on silent feet before Melinna, still curled up with her basket amid the nightingale cushions. Erestor’s words were soft beneath the silver voice of the harp. “Will you dance, my lady?”

She shed her work and arose, smiling. “Surely, my lord.”

Over the silver-gilt nightingales and through the shimmering strings, Glorfindel watched the couple dreamily. They did not dance as the Gondolindrim had danced, but their movements were as courtly and formal as anything seen in Gondolin. It was not hard to guess that they had learned to dance in those long-gone days at the court of Melian and Elu Thingol. When he let his eyelids fall and saw everything blurred through his lashes while the music filled his ears, he might have been anywhere. In Gondolin, in Menegroth, in Imladris. Imladris, so Elven and so alien, where Idril’s grandson resided among the symbols of Doriath.

The last of the afternoon sunlight was warm at his back. “Thank you,” he heard Erestor say softly. “You should stay at Imladris. It would suit you.”

“Perhaps it would,” replied Glorfindel and let the harp go still.