From here, where now? He knew not what he would do or where he would go, only that he could not return to Gondolin, not even to bear tidings of his companions to their families. Word of them would no doubt reach the Hidden City through the Falathrim, whose sharp-eyed mariners would find the wreckage on the beach. It was said Ossë spoke often to Círdan; perhaps the Maia even boasted to the Shipwright of the vessels he wrecked. Voronwë knew only that he would not shame his father by surviving.

North, he would not go north again. It was too near the Shadow, and his heart was too heavy with darkness, too heavy with the lives lost at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, warriors falling mortally wounded or stricken with grief on the return to Gondolin that had become a road of tears. There were too many widows, too many empty Houses, and over all that had been secure and beautiful loomed a fog of encroaching doom as ominous as the Echoriath that encircled the vale of Tumladen.

Even on Balar and upon the sea, far from Gondolin, Voronwë had felt the dark. Though his slight wounds were long healed, his spirit had never recovered from the Unnumbered Tears. So much hope destroyed. The Shadow is everywhere now, in every sunlit garden and fountain and in every heart that would hide from it, for there is no more hiding from it.

For now he might stay here. The ruins were shelter enough, and in what remained he could see they had been built by Noldorin hands. To the east, looming over the ruins in benevolent slumber, were the heights of Mount Taras. This, then, was ancient Vinyamar, where the followers of Turgon dwelt before they marched north and became the Gondolindrim, where Voronwë was born and spent half a childhood he scarcely remembered.

Although he was not hungry, his fingers strayed to the pouch at his belt. The wallet within, of waterproof material used by the Falathrim, had remained sealed even in the tempest, and the lembas it contained was untouched. It would sustain him for a time, as it had sustained him at sea, and Nevrast was a country where hunting and fishing were plentiful. He could survive here, but for the ache in his heart.

If only Ossë had taken me. To dwell among the uncounted dead in Mandos would have been easier than to live forsaken. At least in Mandos there is healing and forgiveness.

Whatever power had brought him safely to shore had not necessarily done him a kindness.

“Voronwë!”

He started at the cry that echoed off the ruins, an unexpected voice in this desolate land, but again it came, hailing him.

“Welcome, Voronwë! I await you.”

Shivering, stumbling to his feet, he turned to see who had called to him. There, directly above him, standing upon the base of a crumbling pillar, stood a figure. Tall he was, clad in gleaming mail like fishes’ scales over which was wrapped a great cloak like a shadow. Blue was his shield, set with the device of a swan’s wing, and white feathers winged his helm. Like an Elf lord he seemed, shining silver and gold like one of the great captains of Gondolin, yet the warrior’s yellow beard told Voronwë he was a mortal Man, one of the Engwar.

As Voronwë searched the mortal’s face, a soft wind breathed against him, stirring his hair, and a voice sighed in his ear, gentle and commanding. For this did I bear thee up out of the deep, for he is My servant even as thou art.

Trembling, Voronwë sank to his knees. “Who are you, lord?” But though the words were meant for the Man, his reverence was for another, the unseen Power that guided his fate.

A hand fell upon his shoulder, solid and heavy as it urged him to rise. “Are you not the last mariner of the last ship that sought the West from the Havens of Círdan?”

The voice was calm, the language Sindarin flavored with the accent of Mithrim, and to Voronwë this was a wonder, for rarely did mortals come among the Firstborn. “Voronwë son of Aranwë am I, but how you know my name and fate I understand not.”

“I know, for the Lord of the Waters spoke to me yestereve,” said the Man, “and He said that He would save you from the wrath of Ossë, and send you hither to be my guide.”

Voronwë was amazed and a little afraid. The mortal’s name was Tuor son of Huor, a name Voronwë knew; the Man’s father had come to Gondolin many years before, one of the few permitted to do so. Huor and Hurín fought and died bravely at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and now to this lonely, sea swept place came Huor’s son, for what purpose Voronwë knew not.

He listened to all Tuor had to tell, wondering at Ulmo’s wisdom. He did not doubt the intent of the Lord of the Waters, strange though the Vala’s means of rendering aid was. Rather, Voronwë doubted his own ability to aid the Man in this. To Gondolin must I return, yet whether in folly or in triumph I know not. The king desired aid from the Valar, yet Ulmo sends it in the guise of a mortal clad in Elven armor bearing a prophecy. Who knows if Turgon will even listen to such a one?

My lord, he thought, staring out toward the foam-capped waves, You should have sent a great lord for this purpose. Who am I to presume to guide one of the Secondborn by the forbidden Hidden Way. Who among the Gondolindrim will listen when I tell them the mortal is Ulmo’s own servant?

As the sun sank in the west, coloring the sea in hues of scarlet and gold, he felt a gentle breeze kiss his face. Tuor sensed it, too, and paused in his speech, lifting his face to feel it. “He listens to us,” murmured the mortal.

Voronwë had not expected such an observation from one of the Secondborn. He had little experience of Men, but from what he had seen they seemed too short-lived to grow into wisdom. An outlaw and an outcast. An unlikely pair we are, he thought. Ever inscrutable are the ways of the Valar.

“I know not how much aid I shall be able to render you,” he told Tuor. “I could not even fulfill the charge Turgon laid upon me.”

“Perhaps,” mused Tuor, “this is one way of fulfilling it.”

Although Tuor was obedient and willing to do as the Lord of the Waters bid, he was not boastful of the charge laid upon him, laying aside helm and shield with careful hands as he sat beside Voronwë and shared a meal of the game he had caught the day before. In quieter moments, he was as self-effacing as Voronwë, wondering what worth Ulmo saw in him. “Though of lordly kin out of Dor-lómin, I am but a mortal and have lived a hard existence. I am as unlikely a vessel of a Vala’s will as you will find.”

“It is not for me to question Ulmo’s will,” murmured Voronwë.

“Yet there is doubt in your heart.” Tuor smiled to relieve the sting of his observation. “I should become accustomed to it, I think, for I do not expect a wholehearted welcome in Gondolin.”

“If you should ever see the city, I would say many will look strangely upon you. For my part, I will obey Ulmo and guide you as far as the Hidden Way, yet beyond that I cannot guarantee you entry to Gondolin. Many are the sentries, and the way is closely guarded,” said Voronwë. “Long have I been away, yet when I left the guard was greater and fewer folk went abroad than they had in the days before the—” He hesitated, realizing the mortal’s father had been among those lost in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. In grief, mortals and Eldar were much alike, covering over what wounds they could not purge, yet for mortals death was permanent and feared.

Tuor answered him with a steady gaze. “Do not fear to speak to me of the Unnumbered Tears, for all my days I have lived in its grief and shadow. Still, I am here. Sorrow and hardship have not unmade me.”

Voronwë said nothing, but stared out to sea once more. More wreckage the waves had yielded, yet no corpses among them. He remembered the Maia’s furious grasp that wrenched him down toward the deep and knew Ossë would keep that which he claimed. “The Sea has swallowed them all.”

“A servant of the Doom he is,” said Tuor. “I know little of it beyond what Ulmo has told me, but even I need not His words to see how great the fury of Ossë is.”

“We were proud, seeking aid without humility, without seeking forgiveness for our own wrongs.” Twilight had fallen and the night was growing cold, even with their small fire. Voronwë wrapped himself in his salt-stained and tattered cloak.

“I do not know,” murmured Tuor, “if Ulmo would have spared one who was unworthy. Of noble bearing you seem, Voronwë, yet in my eyes you are not proud beyond humility. If forgiveness was something you sought, who is to say you did not ask?”

In wonder Voronwë looked upon him, his face and beard gilded by the firelight. Tuor had said the Lord of the Waters would speak His message through him, that Ulmo would give him the words when they were most needed and that others would know it was not the voice of a mortal alone that spoke.

Only by a subtle shift in tone did Voronwë sense it was not Tuor’s voice alone that he heard now. The voice that had greeted and summoned him by name had been deep and commanding, stirring his sluggish blood, compelling him to obey. And even now he heard it, from the mouth of a vessel that seemed somehow taller, more beautiful and terrible than a mortal Man should be.

I do not remember asking to be forgiven, he thought, though many times I thought upon the matter. I desired it, I know, yet dared not ask. The only memories that flashed through him were of clinging desperately to the mainmast in the tempest, and of crawling from the surf on his hands and knees. He did not remember what he might have cried to the storm when it took him.

Tuor touched his face with a hand shod in fishes’ mail. Voronwë smelled the sea upon his bare skin and marked the curious light that was in his eyes. “Does it require words to ask forgiveness, vórimaquen?” asked a voice that was not Tuor’s.

Voronwë answered not, for the spirit of the Vala shone through the mortal’s gaze and he was abashed. “Airwë, I am not worthy of this task.”

“Thy worth I have already perceived,” said Ulmo/Tuor, “and in Mandos it doth not lie. Mine eyes are clearer than thine and I have taken thee from the deep and made thee Mine own. In the name thy mother gave thee is fidelity, and thou wilt be faithful. Return now to Gondolin as I bid thee and be not afraid.”

In the next breath, he felt Tuor withdraw his hand. The moment was past; the spirit of the Lord of the Waters had also withdrawn. “A fine pair we are,” the Man said, laughing softly, “an outlaw and a shipwrecked mariner. But you are only the guide, Voronwë. I am the one who must bear the message.”