NIGHT and FOREST: A Glimpse of Beauty

SUMMARY: Lost in darkness and beset by unimaginable horrors, one of the Edain finds beauty in the most unexpected place.

MEFA 2008: Honorable Mention: First Age and Prior (General)

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He killed the last of the horrors as the sun was setting, falling upon his knees some paces away, using the snow to wash the grime and grume from his sword and body, though what he really wanted was some way to scrub the filth clinging to his soul. The horrors he had witnessed, the evil he had endured had begun to wear him down.

He remembered when he had first dared the sheer cliffs of the Ered Gorgoroth, abandoning at last his adar’s tomb beside Tarn Aeluin after four years of hunting and being hunted by Sauron’s orcs. He must have been a little mad at the time, for no sane man would have ventured down those sheer precipices into the cursed valley of Nan Dungortheb where neither Man nor Elf dared walk.

The first time he beheld one of the loathsome monsters which roamed this dread valley he had stuffed the tattered hem of his cloak into his mouth to keep from screaming aloud. He had felt his very soul shrivel at the sight and fear became his constant companion. Later, when he felt it safe enough, he became violently ill and thereafter wandered aimlessly, his mind bereft of reason. Only the fact that another equally noisome monster had attacked him forced him to regain some measure of himself enough to fight the monster off. Thereafter he steeled himself against what he was forced to see and experience, knowing that to do otherwise was to die.

Not that he wasn’t already dead, anyway, he thought to himself with a grim smile on his ravaged visage. He had had little to eat in this hellish place and he dared not drink from any stream that meandered through the dark woods. Instead, he gathered snow into a metal cup whenever it fell. It was little enough but it was all he had.

He had lost track of how long he had been wandering through this shadowed valley where the sorcery of Sauron and the power of Melian vied with one another. He recalled seeing the grey-green smudge on the horizon that marked Doriath when he was traversing the mountains and it seemed that the memory of those trees was as a lodestone, drawing him ever closer to sanctuary, if he could only find his way out of this deathtrap he had allowed himself to enter.

Yet, in truth, what choice did he really have, he reflected as he sheathed his now cleaned sword and went in search of a place to hole up for the night. Experience had taught him that even in the trees death stalked the unwary, but it was still safer than the forest floor. He had no intention of sleeping anyway. Sleep meant dreams and his dreams were full of darkness and horror no less terrifying than what stalked him in the flesh during the day.

No, he had had no choice. Sauron had placed a bounty on his head that rivaled even that placed on Fingon. That drew a mirthless smile to the Adan’s face. I bet that didn’t go over well with Fingon when he found out, he thought with a silent chuckle. He shook his head. It mattered not. The orcs had run from him but even so Dorthonion had proven too dangerous even for him, and now he was here in this trackless forest. His one true regret was having to abandon Tarn Aeluin and his adar’s grave. He absently fingered the ring which now graced his hand, a ring which had once belonged to his adar. It was more than an heirloom; it was a symbol of a sacred trust and an oath. Perhaps one day he would be able to redeem that oath from the one who had given it.

One day....

The winter had been especially harsh but now as he made his way further south it had slowly made way for spring, reluctant and false though it might be. He sensed that he was near the borders of Doriath but could not be entirely sure.

Ah... that tree will do, he decided and in minutes he was safely ensconced in the crook of an old pine, his sword drawn as he waited for night to flee and dawn to come.

****

Two days later, around noon, he came into a small glade and stopped, looking around in confusion. There was something familiar about this place but he couldn’t....

It was the sight of the rock that gave him his first clue. It was a boulder really, taller than he, standing like a sentinel near the center of the glade. He walked around it and when he saw the fracture running along one side he was convinced: he’d been walking in circles all morning!

He looked about him, trying to remember from which direction he had originally come into the clearing and which way he had left it. There. That was the direction he had gone. Well, he would try a different way and see what would happen. He had the uncanny sense that he was nearer to Doriath than he suspected. Melian’s power might be leading him astray.

He shrugged and set off, this time marking his trail as he went. It was an hour before sunset when he entered the glade again and now his anger knew no bounds.

"I will not be denied!" he screamed into the encroaching night and the sound of his voice actually frightened him, for he could not remember the last time he had spoken. "Do you hear me? I WILL NOT BE DENIED!"

With that, he set off again, heedless of his direction, heedless of the fact that night was nigh and the dangers would increase tenfold. He did not care. He was dead so it mattered not. All that mattered was that he would not die in this haunted and cursed place. If he must die at all it would be on Thingol’s doorstep. Why he felt that was so important he did not know, for what did the King of Doriath even know of one such as he? He only knew that he wished to die under a clean sky and upon clean earth. He was nearly weeping with the need of it as he stumbled into yet another clearing.

He looked around in what little light remained in the early spring night and realized this was not the same glade. There was no standing stone, only meadow grass and the sweet scent of pine and beech and now he wept for real, falling to his face and smelling the rich loam unstained by any evil. As his tears abated, he fell asleep, unheeding of any danger. It was the first time he had truly slept in months.

****

Spring gave way to summer as he wandered the woods, never sure where he was or where he was going. He only knew that he was no longer in Dungortheb, though the memory of his time there clung to him as insistently as the unseen webs of Ungoliant’s get had clung to whatever had been foolish enough to fall into them. His sleep was often disturbed by nightmares too horrific for his waking mind to remember. He recalled staring into a still pool at one point and not recognizing himself, so grey and bent with sorrow and privation was he. He had aged until he looked more like his adar.

In spite of the beauty of the forest surrounding him, he could not see it or appreciate it. He grew somewhat stronger in body but his soul had shriveled like fruit withering on the vine before an early frost. He also felt cold. He dared not light any fire, but that had nothing to do with it. The spring nights were mild. No, it was a cold that came from some other source, a cold that sapped his spirit. He feared he would never feel warm again. He had ceased looking upward at the stars glittering brightly in the velvet night. Their beauty no longer enthralled him as it once had while lying under the alder trees of Tarn Aeluin with his adar beside him telling him tales of the stars and the one who had created them.

He heard the sound of running water and made his way towards it, coming upon a river. It was not just a streamlet, as he had encountered elsewhere in the forest, but an actual river flowing swiftly into the gloaming. He bent to take a sip from the clear water, reveling in its freshness and then paused as he lifted his head.

The moon had risen behind him and cast its silvery glow over all. Just past where he had stopped to drink there was a bend where a stand of beeches came down to the river. He was not sure but he thought he had seen something beyond the trees. Moving silently he made his way to the beeches and slid soundlessly through the undergrowth until he found himself looking upon another forest glade. He sat there in astonishment and disbelief.

She was beautiful...no, that wasn’t right... she was Beauty personified. Her dark tresses flowed over a gown that was as blue as the unclouded heavens. Her form was lithe and where her feet touched the ground as she danced flowers sprang up. A light shone from her that had nothing to do with either moonlight or starlight yet had the qualities of both.

She was exquisite.

And as he beheld the daughter of Thingol and Melian dancing in a forest glade under moonlight, for the first time in over four years, Beren son of Barahir smiled.

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Adar: (Sindarin) Father.