Celeborn goes home for the New Year’s Eve. With footnotes. In two parts, to celebrate Redheredh’s 2007 and 2008 unbirthday.

Oaks are dying across the world.

Under the Stars, Part 1.

Last day of December, 2005. Somewhere inside the Strictly Protected Area (SPA); Bialowieska Forest, eastern Poland.

A cold breeze sleeked the lynx’s greyish fur. With slow and deliberate movements it sat back, turned its well-formed head and started to lick the snowflakes coating its shoulder with deceptive concentration. Its pointed, sensitive ears twisted briefly at the almost inaudible sound of newly fallen snow crunched by cautious feet. The lynx stopped its grooming and pierced the vanishing darkness with amber, glinting eyes.

There it was, coming up the hill in its calm stride, the grey-haired creature it had glimpsed earlier that night down in the peat bog; a creature that walked on its hind legs but behaved not like the other two-legs that haunted the forest.

The lynx watched it intently. It climbed the steep slope easily, leaving no marks, unlike the rest of its kin. Its mane floated freely in the cold air and its eyes glittered even from that distance. Unsettled by the proximity of this unfamiliar being, the lynx pummeled the spongy snow with a large, blood-stained paw and looked around nervously, its powerful muscles tense, ready to leap and flee at need.

The creature stopped by the two tall holly trees that stood guard over the sleeping herds of birches, alders, lime trees and old oaks that populated that deepest glade in the forest. It stood there for a while and looked around, resting a hand that was clawless on the trunk of the tallest tree, which thrummed in contented welcome. Satisfied that the trees knew the newcomer and greeted it, the lynx let escape a bored yawn that conveyed more curiosity than wariness and turned its attention back to its claws, picking at the small pieces of bloodied fat and meat stuck between the sharp nails. Tough it would not look straight into the stranger’s grey eyes, from time to time the lynx cast sidelong glances, studying the furless face that was so similar to those of the humans that stalked the forest –and yet so different.

A half-breed, the lynx decided, reminded of other strange, aberrant creatures that it had seen at times, born in the wrong season, or with the wrong number of limbs, or after a wrong mating. Mostly harmless, it considered, since it did not sound like human, nor moved or smell like one nor, more importantly, generally “felt” like those ungainly yet powerful two-limbs that ruled the forest and its creatures. This one moved silently and carried a grief and a yearning that reminded the lynx of a solitary male during the mating season.

Perhaps it was the snow, which had started to fall down again copiously; perhaps the drowsiness caused by eating almost a whole roe buck on his own after surviving several days on small rodents; perhaps the fact that its attention was caught by the strange creature, who had climbed the tallest holly tree with more grace than could be expected from his race, but the lynx missed the muffled sound of an engine and the hushed voices of the two-legs that swarmed out of their vehicle and had almost reached the top of the snow covered hill at its back.

Alerted by an extemporaneous imprecation of the approaching hunters, the lynx tensed to attention and prepared to flee. Instinctively, it let escape a warning cry followed by a growl addressed to the strange creature, who stood on the branches of the holly tree still unawares of the danger that scrambled towards them.

That merciful gesture cost the lynx what little advantage it had. The leading two-leg heard it as well and cried to the others, pointing at the -until then- invisible feline. With unbelievable speed and agility, the ungainly creatures fanned out and encircled the beast in a living ring. Panicking, the lynx ran uphill, vaguely aware that the dense pine-covered slopes were too far out of reach.

****

Jolted by the warning call of the lynx, Celeborn looked back in time to see a cloud of coloured parkas chasing after the fleeing beast, a flash of silver on the white snow. A wave of rage took over him as he jumped from the tree and ran after them. He could feel the lynx’s fear and hear the trees’ sympathetic whining while the group of men cornered the frightened beast. Running as fast as he could over fresh snow, Celeborn did not stop to consider what he could do against half a dozen armed men. He only knew that he would not allow such a beautiful creature to be killed there, right in the middle of the most protected glade of that ancient forest in which he had once, long ago, ruled.

Bitter bile surged up his throat as he saw one of the men lift an automatic gun to his face and aim at the defenseless cat, which pressed its lean body against the lowest branch of a naked oak in a desperate attempt at becoming invisible.

“No!”

The dry sound of the shot muffled his cry. The lynx jerked and for a moment remained in place. Then it fell heavily and the waiting men closed in around it and hid it from Celeborn’s sight.

“What do you think you are doing?” His voice came out hoarse with anger and sorrow as he hurried towards them, overwhelmed by guilt. “Leave it alone!” he cried then, seeing that the hunters seemed busy over the fallen creature and fearing that they would dare skin it where it lay.

One of the hunters turned his head brusquely at the sound of his voice and spotted him. He stood up nimbly and lifted a hand. Celeborn feared that it might be raising a weapon and braced for the confrontation, but he did not stop. Instead of shooting, the hand pulled back a heavy hood and a pair of protective sunglasses, revealing a long, blond, shining mane and blue-grey eyes in a beautiful face alight in a wonderful smile of recognition.

“Silvertree! When did you arrive?” she cried in a deep, husky voice that sent shivers down his spine.

****

“…So you thought we were poachers and pretended to confront us with your bare hands?”

Celeborn did not mind the softly mocking tone in her voice. After introducing him to the group of researchers and park rangers that accompanied her in that mission, Maria Grodinski, the chief scientist in Bialowieska National Park, had left her companions to fix the tracking tool on the deeply asleep lynx and had driven Celeborn to her office. They were now enjoying a mug of warm tea while they checked the last figures in biodiversity conservation in the forest.

“What would you have done, had we truly been a gang of Belorrusian fur traders?”

“I might have tried to disarm you with my charming smile…” She reminded him so much of his wife that flirting came out naturally to him, even when it had been years -two, this time- since they had last seen each other.

“It might have worked…with some of us,” she acknowledged with a short laugh. “But it was reckless,” she added more gravely, placing a loose strand of golden silk behind an ear Celeborn wouldn’t have been surprised to discover elegantly pointed. “We are so close to the border, and the number of incursions has increased in the past months…”

“And here I thought that natural furs were old fashioned,” he sighed. “How are your oaks?” he asked then while she put away the reports that they had been studying. She turned around with a file in her hand and cast him a sharp, almost reproving look.

“Have you seen Thomas?”

“Not yet…I arrived yesterday and…”

“Then he will surely tell you this evening. You will have dinner with us, of course… wait a moment,” she begged, as she hurried to answer a phone that rang persistently in another office.

Celeborn listened to her deep voice speaking in her sweet, hurried Polish for a moment and then cast a curious look around. The large desk was covered in documents, files, reports and data sheets. The familiar logo in a leaflet that stuck out from under a pile of scientific publications caught his attention. He fished it out carefully and read it with interest; then let escape a deep sigh and returned it to its hiding place.

“I am sorry, I intended to have lunch with you, but the guys in the Committee need the precise figures for next year’s budget today and they…” she cast him an apologetic look from the door. Celeborn waved his long hand in dismissal.

“Do not worry. I will find a way to entertain myself. Do you happen to have a detailed map of the Strictly Protected Area? I was looking for a particular pond but I got lost…”

“I’ll give you something better!” She turned and called to someone behind her shoulder. “Jerzy, look, I found you a playmate!” Celeborn heard a chair dragged heavily and steady, firm steps. A moment later a blond head peered inside Maria’s office. A young ranger cast him a quizzical look then scowled at her. She shook her head.

“Seriously! I bet my friend Silvertree here will be thrilled to see all your satellite pics and maps, he is looking for a particular pond in the SPA…” she winked at Celeborn with a mischievous smile. “Jerzy knows how many leaves our trees lose every autumn… and how many beetles live on each tree. The guys say that he even names them…”

“Come on, Maria!” the young forester sounded aggravated but she flashed him one of her beautiful smiles.

“Be good to my friend, Jerzy, will you?” she pleaded. “You can order lunch from the cafeteria until half past noon. I’ll be back at two at the latest…”

“Fine, fine, I will take care, now go!” the young man finally gave in with faked annoyance.

“Do not go anywhere,” she warned Celeborn, picking her parka from the cloth rack. “You will help me cook dinner and then you can tell me where you have been all this time… behave, Jerzy!” she added, patting him fondly as she left. Celeborn had to chuckle inwardly at the smitten expression on the young forester’s face as he continued to look at the main door after it closed behind her. Maria’s ability for charming her co-workers, allies, subordinates and even enemies into doing what suited her also reminded him of his wife.

“So what are you looking for, Mr. Silvertree?”

Three hours later the two of them leant over the spacious table in the meeting room, littered with satellite pics of the area, historical series of vegetation maps, and the remains of venison sandwiches. The young park ranger turned out to be a shrewd, intelligent post graduate in forestry. He kept good track of the most subtle changes in the forest mass in the whole park, and his discoveries left little room for hope. Celeborn straightened back on the chair and looked out of the window, holding the mug of hot tea between his hands.

“These percentages are truly worrying… I wonder why I do not see them in the annual reports…” he said.

“They would ruin the general effect,” the young scientist shrugged with humorous bitterness. “I am not saying that Maria is lying to the committee…she’s doing a fantastic job here,” he hurried to explain, perhaps remembering that the calm, intelligent man who had listened with deep interest to his theories for long hours was, after all, a good friend of his boss. Celeborn smiled gently and urged him with a soft nod, lifting his mug to his lips to disguise his amusement while the young scientist squirmed on his chair.

“But?”

“She is doing a great job,” the young man insisted. “She has managed to get us supplementary funding, and even fuel for our vehicles… and we have a small group of armed guys patrolling the border…We are doing what we are being asked to do,” he admitted tiredly, at last meeting Celeborn’s steady gaze. “But the fact is that the density of the forest canopy continues to thin out by the year, the numbers in each and every species are decaying and the forest is slowly but steadily receding… and we still don’t know why…”

“Why do I have the feeling that you have a reasonable guess?”

The young scientist shrugged. After a brief hesitation he shuffled the pile of maps and aerial pictures and then brought out one. “Look at this,” he suggested.

Celeborn held it in his hand and could not hold back a sigh. From the air, the shape of his forest came out painfully clear. He could see the area between the two rivers, the Naith, and the hill upon which, he knew, ages ago Caras Galadhon had stood.

“…taken this spring. Now look at this one, only two springs ago.” The youngster was handing him another picture and he compared the two.

And then frowned.

“And this one was taken five years ago, when I first came here. I was working with Dr. Grodinski then…”

Celeborn met the glum, if somehow triumphant gaze of the young scientist. The aerial pictures showed a strange discoloration spreading steadily, year after year, across the top of the oak woods.

“What is that?”

“In my humble opinion, and I do not have yet enough data to sustain my claim, so that is why she will not hear of it officially, it is a mix of factors, but mostly contamination…”

“Water?” Suddenly, Celeborn was deeply worried. If the only place in that strange world that he still somehow could call home was in danger, it meant that everything else was in danger and perhaps there was no hope for him… for them…

“The atmosphere. I suspect that the increased amount of ultra violet radiation, together with air pollution, is causing deeper changes than those we normally see...and measure, so our data cannot be consolidated to prove my… our theory as accurately as would be needed. We suspect that there is a deep change going on in the chemical balance at top canopy level that is affecting mainly the oaks…for now, but that could be extending to other species as the oaks succumb to it and the decrease in their numbers affects the whole ecology of the forest floor…We have already seen that certain species that grow on the border of the forest line are succumbing due to excessive radiation as well. This thinning out also increases the amount of radiation reaching other trees used to being more protected and is causing a chain effect of unpredictable consequences…”

Celeborn interrupted him. “You are working with  Dr. Thomas Grodinski!” Suddenly, it all made sense. The young ranger looked away.

“I used to, but then he…she…” His gesture was clear enough, and Celeborn nodded. He was familiar enough with his friends’ differing approaches to the same field of research to guess what had happened.

“And what are you doing now?”

“I am leading the tracking-tool program for felines,” the young scientist admitted a bit reluctantly. "The park hired me on a full-time contract and offered me a grant for my research, but I still help Thomas in my spare time,” he added eagerly. “I expect to complete my thesis in one more year… and then I would like to devote more time to those canopies. No one has ever thought of studying the ecology of the high canopy of oaken woods and I…”

“Except for Thomas Grodinski,” Celeborn thought sadly, thinking of his friend, and the strange expression he had glimpsed in Maria’s face when he had asked about their oaks, and the leaflet that he had found half-hidden under her papers…

“So what were you exactly looking for, Mr Silvertree?” The young rangers’ mildly chagrined voice brought Celeborn from his thoughts. “We have spent four hours with my speculations and Maria said that you were looking for something…”

“I could manage with this map, if you could lend it to me...I will return it to Maria after the New Year. I am looking for a particular pond at the bottom of a particular ravine…”

“Sure, keep it.” The ranger handed him the aerial picture that had so stricken him and a detailed map of the central part of the SPA, The Glade, the heart of Bialowieska Forest where the oldest trees grew. “I do not know about ponds,” he added thoughtfully. “There are bogs and swamps, and then the lake…but perhaps in this area…”

They were again bent over the maps when the front door opened.

“So you’re still here! I told you would have a great time, didn’t I?” Maria quipped, collapsing on the chair closest to the door. Despite her apparent good humour, Celeborn knew that she was trying to hide her disappointment. 

“It was very instructive,” he admitted. “Thank you very much for all the information, Jerzy,” he added, helping the young scientist put away his maps and charts. “I will return the maps to Maria…”

“Oh, you can keep them. I have more copies….”

“Good boy,” she interjected, nodding to her young colleague with a sad expression on her beautiful grey eyes. “Perhaps you can talk him into financing your hot-air balloon thing as well… Dr. Silvertree is one of the greatest donors to Bialowieska Foundation, I forgot to mention...” she added with a mischievous grin, while the boy gaped as a fish that leapt out of the water.

“I... no, you… but, Dr. Silvertree, I…”

“Go home, or to your New Year’s Eve party, Jerzy. Dr. Silvertree will be here next year… and if he is not, I will tell you how to find him!”

“I will be thrilled to hear about your hot-air balloon device,” Celeborn promised seriously, though he could not stop a small smile from tugging at the corners of his lips at the expectant look in the young scientist’s eyes.

“I will send the designs to you! And do not mind the budget, it can be made for much less, but we thought…”

“Happy New Year, Jerzy!” she laughed, and cast him a pointed look. With a nervous shake of hands Jerzy finally took his leave and walked away, banging the front door behind him in his excitement.

“A hot-air balloon?”

She shrugged and met not his amused glance. “Surely he told you about that high canopy research project he had with Thomas… and he will be needing the money, since the tracking tool program will receive no more funding…” she confessed in a low, bitter voice. Celeborn extended a long hand and pressed hers comfortingly. He could feel that something had happened at that meeting, something that had dampened her light and her hope. He waited in silence. It always worked.

“They have reached an agreement with the Belorrusian authorities, and now they say that the problem is over,” she continued in a scornful, outraged manner a moment after. “They say the Belorrusians will control their side of the forest and in sign of good faith we must pull out our armed patrols… and since there are going to be no more poachers –they say- there is no pressing need for tracking the felines, since they are not going anywhere…Oh, Silvertree, I am so angry!” 

He nodded in sympathy. Politics and the short-term pressing needs of management always caused that even intelligent top ranking officers were quick to believe that saying was the same as happening. Against that, even his all-powerful foundation was almosthelpless.

“I am so looking forward to leaving this all behind!” she snapped, hitting the desk and growling in impotence.

“Leave?” 

She nodded briefly and sighed, again not meeting his concerned eyes. Instead, she stood and began putting out the lights and turning off computers. “Come, let’s go! We can talk while I cook!”

It was the most domestic afternoon that Celeborn could recall in quite a long time. He sat at the large table in the spacious kitchen in his friends’ wooden cabin and watched while Maria prepared the pierogi, the tasty dumplings filled with a mix of farmer’s cheese, fried onion and mushrooms that they would eat as first course, after the soup. They joked, and exchanged small talk, and then Celeborn prepared the venison and placed it in the oven while she opened a bottle of white wine and put a couple of crystal goblets and a plate of pickles on the table and smiled softly at him.

“To the Old Year,” she toasted, clinking her goblet with his. “Because it brought you back to us when most welcome!”

“I am but a phone call away from my friends when they need me,” Celeborn scolded her mildly.

“I know, but at times one does not know what she is needing…until it pops out of thin air before herself… you looked like a leszi today in The Glade… Like one of those elf lords in the old tales, the lord of the forest protecting his creatures…”

Celeborn chuckled and raised again his glass to hide his emotion. “So what is that story about leaving?” he asked, while she toyed with her drink.

“I have been offered a research grant at Forest Research, in Scotland,” she admitted with a shy, proud smile. “They want me to manage a new program in the Upland Forest preservation strategy….”

“Congratulations! Actually, I saw their brochure on your desk this morning… and you featured there as resident researcher….Something to do with oaks, I suspect?”

She looked away and sighed. “Yes. And among other things I will be part of a team led by Cyrus Feldman, the geoscientist…” Celeborn nodded quietly to indicate that he was familiar with the name. “He is leading a worldwide research on the Sudden Oak Death…”

“I thought it was agreed that it was directly caused by a fungus, the Phytophthora…”

“Ramorum… yes, but there is a research being conducted to learn more of its behaviour under natural conditions, and how it adapted so efficiently to such a varied range of conditions…”

“And what does Thomas say to this?” Celeborn’s tone was cautious, but not enough.

“He says nothing.” Suddenly her eyes flashed and her voice froze to a coldness that made him shiver. “But I suspect that he will be glad to talk to you, since you seem to be of his opinion,” she snapped, releasing an exasperated sigh. “You too think that I should remain here and help protect this forest, rather than researching a wider occurrence and caring for other forests around the world, don’t you?” she accused, challenging him with glaring eyes that reflected deep grief and stern determination.

Taken aback by a sudden pain that flared with the freshness of a newly inflicted wound, Celeborn sat back and shook his head in bewilderment, fighting to control a sudden burst of feelings and memories that bubbled out to the surface as a mountain creek after a quick and unexpected thaw.

“That is unfair, Maria, you…”

“It is,” she acknowledged sadly. “But it is how things go.” She wiped her eyes quickly and shrugged. “I wished that he would accuse me of stealing his research, but he says nothing. I managed to obtain a position as assistant professor for him…but he wouldn’t even answer them,” she whispered. It broke Celeborn’s heart to see the fear underlying her determination and hear her silent cry for support. It also reminded him, painfully, of another parting that had happened ages ago.

He shook himself from the contemplation of a guilt that at times took also the form of bitter regret and untamed resentment. These are Maria and Thomas! he berated himself. Their problems are not your own, they are not facing a separation beyond time and space, or fighting the soul-splitting clash of duties and loyalties that you bore for all your life, that made you remain here while your wife sailed away! “I do not see Thomas as an assistant professor at Saint Andrews…” he half-joked, trying to enliven the mood.

“And I do not see us apart,” she sighed softly. “I believe the venison is ready, what do you think?”

Thomas arrived while they were laying the table. He strode into the kitchen still shaking newly fallen snowflakes from his wild mane and he was delighted to find Celeborn there. All in all it was a happy meeting of good old friends. On unspoken accord, none of them brought up the subject of oaks and they allowed themselves to enjoy a merry celebration.

By midnight they had laughed at shared memories, and had toasted several times to the Old Year and the New one, and to lasting friendships and healthy forests, and had downed two bottles of strong, red wine. At that point, Thomas decided that it was time for singing.

“May love last longer than oak woods,” he declaimed darkly and then embarked in a sad, glum song of a man who waited beyond death for his beloved to return. Even without the ever present violin, it had the tragic, melancholy Polish mood. Thomas’ tenor rang full of sentiment as he unfolded the sad story of faith betrayed and hopeless wait until the man became a wraith that haunted the oak woods.

“Very appropriate, my husband,” Maria observed coldly, a deep frown obscuring her beautiful face. “Couldn’t you hold back your resentment before our guest?”

“He is not a guest, he is a brother!” Thomas retorted in a voice that was too loud. “A man needs not hide his bleeding heart, does he, Silvertree?” he asked, lifting his glass and drinking again. “Wine,” he spat in contempt, putting away the goblet. “That is for poets and softies! For the pain that is soul-consuming you need vodka, my brother!” he decided, dragging his chair back and stumbling towards the kitchen. “I’ll show you what I have been keeping…”

“I am sorry,” Maria whispered. “Let him drink until he falls asleep. You know where the guest room is. We can talk in the morning,” she added, leaning forth to place a soft kiss on Celeborn’s cheek and walking away briskly towards their room upstairs.

“Here it is! Where is Maria?” Thomas had returned with three glasses in one hand and a bottle in the other.

“She said she was tired, she went to sleep…”

Thomas cast a regretful look towards the stairs and shook his head. “Well, then it is the two of us, my friend. Come, let us sit by the fire…”

Celeborn sat on one of the comfortable armchairs and extended his hands towards the heartwarming flames while his friend dragged a low table and placed bottle and glasses before them.

“Pure Bison Grass Vodka,” he said, handing Celeborn a small glass filled to the brim with the pale, slightly golden liquid. “Not that Zubrovka commercial stuff. Home made in a century old distillery and flavoured with grass pulled out under the noses of Bialowieska park rangers in dark moonless nights,” he chuckled raising his glass. “To us.”

“To us.” Celeborn drank down in one long swig and closed his eyes to better appreciate the deep tang of the forest. Bison Grass Vodka was a century old tradition that hailed back to the Middle Ages. A commercial brand had usurped the name and only part of the ancient recipe, but Thomas always managed to obtain the authentic stuff, home distilled and mixed by the few remnants of the old foresters who had patrolled Bialowieska in the name of the old king even under the Communist rule. With a satisfied sigh, Celeborn placed the glass on the table and looked at his friend. Thomas was studying his glass with a lost, distant look on his eyes.

“You know that British writer who said that drinking Zubrovka was as delightful as listening to music in the moonlight?” he spat. “Shit. Delightful. Ha! True Bison vodka is like drinking the forest, the cruel spirits of the bogs and the wild heart of the bison, and the twisted souls of the oldest trees deep in the glade…you have seen them Silvertree…Delightful! What did he know, eh?” He lifted the bottle and poured another round. “To the trees,” he said, raising his glass towards Celeborn. “May their hearts live longer than the love of a woman…”

“To the trees.” Celeborn downed the second glass and placed it upside down on the table before him. Thomas eyed it skeptically and then shrugged.

“You are out of shape,” he commented, pouring another shot for himself and then sitting back and closing his eyes. For a while, they listened to the clacking of the flames in the hearth.

“She is leaving, Silvertree, she is giving up and abandoning me...”

Celeborn squirmed in his armchair remembering the leaflet on Maria’s desk and the well-known logo on it. He could not tell Thomas that it was one of his foundations hiring his wife, luring her outside the forest that was her life, and that of her husband, the forest that had taught them all they knew and had nurtured their love. It was one of his foundations that had capitalized on her hunger for knowledge and her yearning for the wide world, opening the doors for her while Thomas remained behind, an old oak that was firmly rooted to the land, an old oak who gathered news from birds and winds and raindrops and beetles, and who felt the changes in its roots.

“Maria was never a tree…” he said softly, almost unwillingly. He was surprised to see his friend nod sadly, without opening his eyes.

“She is a bird, I know, but until now she had been contented in this forest…”

“She will return, Thomas, it will be a matter of time…” The tall man opened an eye and shook his head dejectedly.

“Once she leaves Bialowieska, she will not return. There will always be another forest to know, new trees to meet…new things to learn… she will never return, I know that. If only she had learnt to hear their voices….”

“Their voices?”

“The oaks are dying, Silvertree. I know they are dying across the world, but it is not because of a fungus, mark my words! You can only learn the true extent of what is going on if you sit still and listen to them for enough time…”

Alert, Celeborn tensed on his armchair. “What do you mean,” he inquired softly. The big man cast him an amused glance.

“You taught me how to listen to the trees and the forest, and how to let let them guide me to the root of their ailments,” he insisted. “A decade ago the tanners reported a change in the quality of oak bark. No one takes tanners seriously, disgusting trade of theirs, but I listened to them and began studying oak bark and its ecology…and that led me to the canopy. Did you know that up there at twenty something meters over the ground there is a whole new ecosystem that no one cares to research because it is so difficult to reach up there?” He snorted derisively and extended his long legs. “I had to design a device lifted by a hot-air balloon for my first canopy research and almost got myself killed!” He chuckled bitterly and stretched to place another log on the fire. The flames played games on his animated features, lending a reddish tinge to his long, unkempt mane. He looked more like an old, crazy tramp than a respected scientist with two doctorate degrees, but Celeborn knew him well and just nodded and waited.

“Up there is where the delicate chemical balance of the trees takes place, that basic, unimportant service that they perform for us unmarked, just purifying our air,” Thomas continued with an ironic sneer. “Air pollution, climate warming and increased ultra violet radiation are changing the nature and characteristics of high canopy populations, and this is affecting the delicate balance of chemical processes… and weakening the trees and the entire system that they support, from bacteria to insects to birds…That affects the quality and amount of chemical exchanges and secretions, and also the quality of the soil, the ties that keep the land packed together, the quality of the river beds and the waters, and the vegetal cover and the very soil that sustains life…not to mention rain patterns. And then someone finds that damned Phytophthora eating up weakened oak woods and everybody goes crazy about a fungus that just happened to be there, and suddenly everybody goes spending millions in studying a poor soldier while the armies march along unimpeded…”

This time Celeborn did not refuse another shot of the strong spirit. He knew the bleak prospects only too well, but he still found it hard to accept that decay was affecting his forest as well. Thomas continued with his aggravated speech. “And my wife will go to a shiny old university and pretend that she will achieve something so very important… banning imports of Rhododendrons! And when they find out that forests continue to fade, wounded by hundred different ailments… what will she do then, eh?he almost sobbed, raising his glass towards Celeborn.

“And what would you do, Thomas?” Celeborn demanded softly after they drank in glum silence. “It has happened before, with drownings and ice ages and climate changes, it is not the first time and…” he stopped short, mindful that he could not say for sure this wouldn’t be the last time.

“Well, I don’t want it to happen in my lifetime,” the big man sighed sadly. “I just want to protect this forest, and they will not let me,” he complained bitterly. “They would not give me the funds, arguing that my research was not well founded…” he chuckled angrily. “Even my wife, can you believe that? She said that I had no data to sustain my claims -how could I when they would not give me a single euro?- and thus she denied me the funds…she said that all I did was wandering the forests listening to old men and coming up with crazy theories and making “politics”…she has become a bureaucrat, Silvertree, can you believe that?”

Celeborn sighed. He remembered Thomas as a young graduate, a brilliant botanist and chemist who loved the forest passionately and paid attention to details that other scientists even refuse to acknowledge. He was a true child of the forest, and very often as they patrolled together The Glade in the harsh days of the perestroika Celeborn had wondered whether the tall, red haired scientist had Wood elven blood in his veins. Thomas learnt greedily from Celeborn and had then increased his knowledge through long familiarity with the forest, slowly but steadily forsaking the more speculative, scientific pursues for another, different manner of gaining knowledge; and that had earned him as well the scorn of his colleagues.

On the other hand, Maria was a bright mind and an obstinate, strong woman, one who had managed to climb the academic ladder through sheer talent and had then jumped into the managerial highway with the same grace with which her husband crossed the most secret trails of The Glade. Celeborn shook his head sadly. Time and different interests had slowly but unavoidably driven his two friends apart and they now stood at a point where they were about to lose sight of each other and knew not how they had reached there. He knew how it hurt.

“I don’t want to live without her, Silvertree.” The pained admission came in a low, subdued voice. “But I am fifty-two. I do not want to leave this forest either… Even if I know that it is a lost cause I want to defend The Glade until the last tree dies out…what am I going to do?”

There was no answer and Celeborn did not try to offer one. With a heavy sigh the big man dragged himself upwards and patted Celeborn’s shoulder. “It is good to have you here, my friend; you have always been a light in dark times…”

Celeborn nodded silently and listened as the man climbed the stairs slowly and finally entered the room at the end of the corridor, no doubt in search of comfort in his wife’s arms. He sighed deeply and watched the changing flames. He felt tired. Suddenly the burden of endless ennin of hopeless struggle felt too much to bear. Thomas’ fight was no less futile than Maria’s, and he knew everything about fruitless wars, but that night, above all, he missed his wife badly. Not for the first time in his long ages alone he wondered what on Arda had possessed him to remain even after the last ship had departed, fighting the long defeat.

Surrendering to a heaviness of the soul that he could not fight, he closed his eyes for a brief while, or so he thought, and fell abruptly in the path of elven dreams. He was walking in The Glade as it was ages ago, and strange stars shone above him. He followed someone along a path that was almost invisible amidst the tall, strong trees that sang healthily at their passing. Hard as he tried, he did not manage to get a glimpse of his guide, for every time a branch or a bush would impede his vision, leaving him to follow a shimmering trail and soft footsteps that did not leave any mark. Suddenly, the path became familiar and he could identify where he was, close to where once his mighty city of tall mellyrn had stood. He trembled in his dreams as he followed his invisible guide into an enclosed garden and down a stair into a deep green hollow, through which ran murmuring a silver stream. And there, as he recalled it, upon a low pedestal carved like a branching tree stood a basin of silver, and a tall thin elven woman crowned with a garland of radiance greeted him. “Come, my lord, it is not all lost,” she said, extending her hand to him with a soft, tender smile that he knew so well. Just when he was about to hold her, he awoke with a start and let escape a soft whimper as he found himself sitting before the hearth.

“Oh, Galadriel!” he sighed, passing a long hand across his tired eyes. “What does this mean?” A log clacked in the fire, and for a brief while he thought he had glimpsed her inside the hearth, waving at him, urging him to follow her. Unsettled, he stood up and paced the living room. The dream had been clear as if he had been there, and he seemed to recognize the area. Muttering to himself he picked up his parka, opened the door and walked out. It had stopped snowing and a dense, eerie silence blanketed the night. The moon shone full in the winter sky and Eärendil twinkled steadily right above him.

“What do you want from me?” he whispered to the unyielding star.

Filled with a sudden decision, he picked Maria’s truck and drove inside the Forest. When the snow was too packed even for the truck, he descended, cast a brief look around and walked into the forest filled with certainty, choosing his path with sure foot. He walked in Eärendil’s light and he felt not alone, as the Silmaril cast its warming light over the sleepy trees. Trembling in anticipation, Celeborn soon recognized the trail and knew that he was bordering what had once been the southern slope of Caras Galadhon. He found the remains of the hedge, the traces of a stair and the ravine with the singing stream. No basin, as he already knew, but a small pond where the stream had been dammed by logs and fallen stones. He cast a quick look around, half expecting her to appear before his eyes and then laughed bitterly at himself.

“What am I doing here?” he wondered. And then a soft glimmer that came from the pond caught his attention, and he bent over the polished surface and first saw his own face and Eärendil above him and then the pool that had remained undisturbed for ages blazed in a sudden burst and Celeborn gasped and watched in enraptured delight as the face that he knew so well appeared before him.

****

An Interlude in Valinor.

Taniquetil.

“It was not a mistake. I do not make mistakes.”

A laden silence crossed the garden on the topmost peak of Taniquetil, where the Valar were gathered at Manwë’s request. Finally, a soft voice broke it cautiously.

“Then how do you explain his obsession? Perhaps he was not ready to be released when…”

The Lord of Mandos frowned.

“As I said before, I do not make mistakes, Varda Tintallë. There must be some other reason…”

“And what would that reason be, Oh Voice of Doom?” the Lord of Waters asked with undisguised glee. Unlike the rest of his siblings, he seemed to be terribly amused by the whole situation and was not impressed by Namo’s deepening frown.

“It is not that easy,” the Judge of the Valar retorted. “This is a completely new event, it cannot be treated as…”

“Not so new, Námo, not so new,” Ulmo chuckled. “Why, it is what, the third time that he attempts the same trick?”

“The fourth,” Aulë corrected dryly, and this time not even Manwë could hold back a quiet laugh at the memory.

“Indeed! I had forgotten that time when he tried to dig out his way under your very nose…” Aüle’s brows met each other over the Valar’s glaring eyes while the rest of the Powers laughed helplessly. “So let us see…he hid in the bilge of Eärendil’s ship,” Ulmo began, extending one long, scaly finger. “Then he bribed Thorondor, then he dug that tunnel under Aulë’s house and now he has stolen one of the Shipwright’s ships and almost convinced Elwing and her seabirds to sail him back….” He waved four wet fingers and looked around pointedly. “I would say that we have a problem here, Manwë, what do you intend to do?”

“Why don’t we send him to Irmo’s gardens?” Námo hit back viciously.

“It would not work,” the Lord of Lórien hurried to warn his siblings, waving his hands in nervous rejection. “Remember when we last tried that? We had a lot of complains then because of the tales that he would tell about the lands beyond the waters…Dreams were not what they used to be for some time after his sojourn in my gardens…”

“He could spend some time in the deepest forests…either with my Maiar or with Oromë, but I doubt that would appease his longing for the lands beyond the waters,” Yavanna offered haltingly. “I suspect...”

“…That you already have an idea, Manwë,” Aulë ended his wife’s thoughts curtly, then winced at her annoyed frown. “So I do not know why you bother us…” All the Valar turned expectant glares on the King of Arda.

“I agree that this particular Firstborn is giving us an inordinate amount of trouble, although I would not say that he pins for the lands beyond the waters, but rather that he worries for those who remain there, as he always did,” the King of Arda observed. “But there are other things as well to take into consideration. I summoned you all up here because I wanted to show you something, if you would follow me…”

Intrigued by the King’s unusually mysterious manner the Powers trailed obediently after their brother, who led them outside his windswept garden and along a narrow path that led towards the very top of the Hallowed Mountain. Up there on a flat ledge was a high seat carved in stone, in which Manwë used to seat and look East and pierce the mists of time and space to learn what happened across Arda. The seat was placed beside a huge, irregular boulder, an outcrop the Valar had named Gonlath –and seldom dared they come there because the simple sight of the stone troubled them deeply.

Manwë stopped beside his seat and nodded towards the boulder. The stone shone with a strange, pale glimmer, as if lit up by combined shafts of sun and moon that seemed to lace the rock, or rather to be tied to it. Overcoming their reluctance, the Valar finally studied the strange occurrence and exchanged meaningful nods.

“Ah!”

“Interesting.”

“It is becoming visible…do you think it has a meaning?”

“I never heard of this happening before…”

“How long will it last, do you think?

Manwë shook his head silently as his siblings studied the rock and its bonds, which had remained invisible since the Lord of Time had first fastened the fates of Arda to the very foundation of Valinor. Three strong cords glistened occasionally, silver and gold, around the mighty rock and up to the sky, a shimmering thread that stretched beyond sight. The Powers of Arda looked at each other and then turned to their king, looking as if hit by a sudden bolt of lightning.

“But then it is…It is a matter of time!”

“It has always been, Námo,” the King chuckled softly. A chorus of nervous chuckles echoed his words. They were unsettled and he could not blame them. After all, he had had ages to come to terms with the idea. A powerful beating caught their attention and broke the spell.

“Ah, here you are!” Manwë said with undisguised relief, welcoming the mighty eagle that descended elegantly on the narrow platform and lowered its powerful body to allow a grey-cloaked figure descend from its back. “I will now explain what I intend to do with the help of our friend here…”

“He? Is he your solution?” Aulë interrupted in a voice that did not betray emotion but that echoed deep in the roots of the mountains. At Manwë’s grave nod he shook his head. “Now you have all my attention, brother,” he sighed, looking more troubled than he had in a long time.

TBC in Part 2

Notes and stuff

Bialowieska Forest in Eastern Poland is one of the most ancient forests in northern Europe, and one that to my eye really looks like Lórien of old…except for the mellyrn, of course. Supposing some minor geographical shifts along the ages, it is not so difficult to place Lórien where now Bialowieska Forest lies, for the purposes of this tale.

Sudden Oak Death –SOD- syndrome is affecting oak woods around the northern hemisphere, from northern Europe to the North American Pacific coast, at alarming rates. Scientists are now trying a systemic approach to explain global decay of oakwoods beyond a fungus. Curiously enough, the ecology of the high canopy in oak woods is a rare and little researched field. Forest oaks grow to greater heights than their isolated cousins, and it is very difficult to carry a research up there. But still some changes taking place up there, where bacteria and specialized types of insects interact with the leaves and the photosynthesis processes are affecting for instance the attributes of bark, sap, the quality of wood, the presence or absence of particular beetles and larvae and the birds that feed on them thus impacting in a chained manner the whole balance of the oak forest.

Bison Grass Vodka is an old beverage produced originally in Bialowieska forest in Poland. It is a very strong yet well balanced vodka flavored with grass from the forest, in which the European bison still grazes. Home made is a tad harsher and drier than the commercial produce branded by Zubrovka. You can still find a few locals that make it at home and pick the grass right from the Glade, for they maintain that the grass from the Strictly Protected Area was the favoured by the strongest bison. Thomas’s quote refers to W. Somerset Maugham, apparently a devoted consumer of Bison Grass Vodka.

Gonlath. In the Book of Lost Tales, Chapter IX the Darkening of Valinor, there is a beautiful tale about how Time entered Arda. After the flight of the Noldor and the creation of the Sun and the Moon, and as the Valar wondered how to control the courses of the new lights, three old men presented themselves before Manwë and offered him their craft to solve this problem. They closeted themselves in a chamber and after some time they presented the king of Arda with three heavy, invisible ropes that they tied to the vessels of the sun and moon and then fixed to a rock on top of Taniquetil that after that was called Gonlath, which means something like “strap stone”. The three old men then introduced themselves as Day and Month and Year, the children of Aluin, Time, the eldest of all the Ainur, who remained with Eru. In this manner time entered even the blessed lands of Valinor so every thing from then on was subjected to decay and fading, no matter how slow.