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The Valley is Jolly  by Canafinwe

Chapter XXVIII: Dreamer and Pilgrim

Deep in the middle-night, Elladan awoke abruptly. He had fallen into deep slumber, and for a moment he was uncertain where he was or why the darkness was so utterly complete. He tried to sit up, but his sore shoulder protested, and the discomfort yanked his mind back into his body.

He was supine upon a low-camp bed in one of the windowless work-rooms near the chamber in which Halion lay in oblivion. The festering leg had been successfully removed, without much further loss of blood, and the stump had been sealed and dressed with all due care. The healer had risen admirably to the task and followed his instructions with care and diligence. When the sordid deed was done at last, she had excused herself, white-faced, from the room; but she had returned while the infirmarian was washing the Ranger’s broken body with rags that would have to be burned, and she had resumed her duties with quiet fortitude. She had performed well on the whole, and Elladan reminded himself – not for the first time that day – that he had to be certain to give his father a full report of her competence.

They had almost lost Halion two hours after the brutal operation. Elladan had recalled him from the very threshold of death into the pain-soaked sleep that lay upon him now, but it had taken all of the Peredhil’s skill and strength of will to do it. The effort had drained him of his last remaining vitality, and he remembered someone catching him before he could fall. A voice – Erestor’s perhaps – had intimated on no uncertain terms that it was time for him to retire to his bed. Elladan had protested feebly that he had to be near at hand lest the Man should require further attention. A compromise had been reached, he thought with the healer’s interjection; and here he was.

With a concerted effort, he rolled onto his left side and managed to sit, swinging his splinted leg carefully down to the floor. He could not use a crutch, for his reset shoulder could not bear the strain, but Erestor, ever the capable manager, had found him a sturdy willow cane. Groping about in the gloom, Elladan found it propped against the wall next to his cot. Hefting himself onto his one good foot he hobbled for the door.

Across the corridor he could see candlelight flickering in Halion’s room. He halted on the threshold, leaning against the door-post. The infirmarian was sitting by the table on which the Ranger lay, watching the tortuous rise and fall of his battered chest beneath the linen sheet. Hearing Elladan’s approach he turned towards him.

‘He is still unresponsive,’ he said.

Elladan looked at the place where the sheet fell away over the stump where once there had been thigh-bone and flesh. ‘That is a mercy, I think,’ he murmured. ‘Where is the healer?’

‘Young Faeliel? I sent her to her rest. She has laboured beyond her limits.’ The dark-haired Elda sighed. ‘It is a bleak night, my lord.’

‘I know, Ancalimon, I know,’ Elladan said grimly. ‘How fare the others?’

‘The old man will not be able to return to his labours,’ Ancalimon said. ‘The arm has been set, but such hurts heal slowly in the aged, and he is already past his ninetieth year. It is time for him to return to his folk. As for the one called Beldir, he will recover his strength in time. We have bound his ribs, and the damage to his inner organs appears to be mending: there is no longer blood in his water, and he was able to take a little broth before sundown.’

‘So I took three men from the Dúnedain, and from my fool’s errand only one will return,’ Elladan said bitterly. ‘And all for nothing. We did not find Gandalf or his dwarves, we offered no aid, and we returned with naught but an insoluble riddle for all our pains. The remnant of Arnor has paid dearly for my folly.’

The quiet eyes regarded him with sadness, but Ancalimon said nothing. He was most often silent, save when he reported on his patients. Elladan did not know what hurts had marred his spirit in Ages past, but he was grimmer than many of the folk of Imladris. At times he seemed almost old – a strange thing among the Firstborn – and Elrond had always said that he was to be treated with kindness and deference. Tending the sick and the wounded was his only joy in life: he took no pleasure in fine food, or rich wine, or in song or dancing or the works of the hands.

Elladan sighed, looking down at his numb right arm. ‘I had best get this into a sling if I’m going to be wandering the house,’ he said. ‘I want to speak with Erestor, though I think he has had rather enough of me.’

The infirmarian got to his feet. ‘Stay here and watch him,’ he said, once more in his element. ‘I’ll fetch what is needed.’

Some minutes later, his injured arm hanging from his neck in a cradle of linen, Elladan made his way out of the inner corridor. He quickly found his rhythm with the cane and fell into an odd, loping gait that placed only a little pressure upon his right foot in its brace. He reached the main entryway, and wondered bleakly how he was going to manage the stairs unaided.

Here, he could hear the sound of rain in the night. He shuddered, uttering a silent prayer of thanks that Ulmo and Súlimo had spared them that hardship at least. In the mountains rain was a wretched thing, and to those in such a state as they had been it might well have proved deadly.

Yet the rains of Rivendell were comforting, and Elladan longed suddenly for the sweet smell of wetted grass and the soft caress of water upon his weary face. Abandoning his quest for Erestor, he limped to the front door and with some difficulty opened it and slipped out into the night. The rains were driving hard and the night was very cool for the season. This was not a gentle shower of Imladris, but rather a merciless, pounding deluge from the Hithaiglir, no longer tempered by Vilya’s influence and its wielder’s will. After taking a few uneven steps onto the green, Elladan decided that this would not be a pleasant experience after all, and turned to hobble back into the house.

A soft sound barely audible over the pattering of the rain gave him pause. He looked around, even his Elven sight straining in the cloudy night. Under the beeches his eyes picked out a dark figure huddled on one of the ornately carved benches, hocks tucked up against hams, and arms wrapped tightly about the knees. Recognizing the body by its size rather than by any distinguishing feature, Elladan made his unsteady way down the path towards the bench.

‘What are you doing out here?’ he asked, easing himself down next to the boy. He was rocking a little against the bench, and his wet hair hung in straggles over his eyes and face. Elladan used his good hand to lift the sodden tresses away, trying to discern the child’s expression. Beneath his fingertips he could feel the mortal body shivering. ‘It’s very cold to be running around in your night-things.’

‘I w-want to be cold,’ Estel said belligerently, hugging himself more tightly and oscillating with greater force.

‘You have taken up the practice of self-flagellation?’ Elladan asked wryly. ‘The mortification of the flesh for the purification of the spirit? That is a practice of lesser Men, wild people of the far countries. Enlightened folk do not cause themselves unnecessary suffering.’

‘I am not suffering,’ Estel muttered. ‘W-while I am cold I w-will not fall asleep.’

‘Why should you fear to fall asleep?’ queried the warrior, wrapping his arm about the rounded back and hugging the drenched body to him. He wondered grimly how long the child had been sitting thus, half-frozen in the rain.

‘I did not rest today; I was occupied,’ Estel confessed wretchedly. It was no true answer to Elladan’s question, but he did not interrupt. ‘I did not mean to. Now I am w-weary and my mind will not obey me. I tried to overcome it inside, but I was failing. I did try. Truly I did.’

He sounded almost penitent, as if he were guilty of a tremendous transgression or some grievous failure. As Elladan was at the moment most sympathetic towards such feelings, he drew Estel nearer and said soothingly; ‘I am certain you did. But why do you seek to elude sleep? It is a balm for body and spirit alike. I feel much renewed by my brief hours of slumber, and I look forward to more.’

Estel made no immediate reply. He huddled against the warmth of the adult’s body and tucked his toes under the hem of his sodden smock. ‘Atarinya says that fear does not make a coward,’ he ventured at last. It was more of a question than a statement.

‘He is correct: it does not,’ Elladan said firmly. ‘Only inaction and deception make a coward. There is no shame in fear.’

‘I am afraid.’

The bluntness of the confession struck Elladan momentarily dumb. ‘Of sleep?’ he managed when he rediscovered his voice.

‘Of dreams,’ Estel answered. The in a voice made unsteady by horror and by cold he spoke of the terrors that visited him by night. He told of the visions of darkness and destruction and despair, of death and desecration and defilement. He explained how he had tried and failed to endure them alone, and he described the practical but unusual stopgap that his foster-father had proposed.

‘It was helping,’ Estel concluded in a low, broken tone that wrung at Elladan’s heart. ‘But today as I w-was preparing for bed the Dúnedain arrived…’

‘And you are now well into your second day without sleep,’ Elladan concluded. ‘I understand.’

Estel made a deprecating noise and buried his face in his arms.

‘I speak in earnest,’ Elladan told him. ‘I know what it is to fear slumber.’

‘But you are fearless,’ Estel said, raising his head with dauntless admiration warring with the hurt and vulnerability in his shadowed eyes.

Elladan almost regretted the imminent shattering of the boy’s grand perception of the inviolable Peredhil twins. It was rather flattering to be so idolized, and doubtless Estel had woven many elaborate imaginings around the objects of his adoration. Yet the boy would be better served by the knowledge that those he so esteemed were not immune to fear or suffering, but were as vulnerable to these as any Man. It would make his own lot easier to endure if he understood that he was not alone.

‘When my mother was rescued I was plagued by imaginings of her torment,’ Elladan said. ‘They haunted my days, but they poisoned my nights. If once I paused to think, for any reason, the images would come. I was afraid to sleep, to rest, to stop moving even for one moment lest the thoughts should surface and overwhelm me utterly. So I did not sleep. I did not rest. I kept myself occupied with whatever task I could find, so long as it kept my body in motion and drove any meaningful thought from my mind.’

‘What happened?’ Estel asked.

‘After ten days without rest, I nearly smote off my foot while splitting kindling that was not even needed,’ Elladan said. ‘At that point, Atarinya decided that I was quite incapable of rational decisions, and he sent me into a sleep so deep that the evils of my mind could not find me.’

‘Why could he not do the same for me?’ Estel mumbled miserably.

‘For one, because you have better sense than I, and seek your rest when you can get it. But also because he is now gone from the Valley and such measures will avail you little in his absence,’ Elladan said. ‘Yet if you are determined to outlast the darkness there are more pleasant ways to stave off slumber than shivering in the rain. Come, help me inside, and we will see what can be done.’

lar

Once they were out of the storm Elladan bade Estel creep quietly upstairs and put on some dry clothing. The boy obeyed as quickly as he could, pausing only long enough to peer into his mother’s room and assure himself that she still slept. When he was warm and dry once again, he descended to the Hall of Fire. Elladan was waiting for him, having managed to change his robe for a fresh one. He was sitting at the hearth, and before him sat a platter of savouries pilfered from the kitchens, two mugs of strong dark tea, and a game of tables.

‘You know how to play, I trust?’ Elladan asked, gesturing at the board.

‘How did you manage to carry all of this here?’ Estel asked in wonderment.

‘Magic,’ Elladain said, smirking.

Scepticism supplanted marvel. ‘You had someone bring it,’ said Estel shrewdly.

This prompted an indolent shrug. ‘If it pleases you to be cynical…’ Elladan said dolefully.

‘Are you certain you wish to play against me?’ Estel asked. His energy felt renewed despite the weary ache in his limbs. He had only to last a few more hours, and then he could go to his bed – and it seemed likely that he could pass that time in the company of one of those whom he admired above all others. ‘I have been known to best Glorfindel!’

‘A dwarf could best Glorfindel!’ Elladan laughed. ‘He treats tables like an exercise in battlefield tactics. You will find me a far worthier opponent.’

‘We shall see,’ Estel said impishly, helping himself to one of the squares of artfully garnished bread. He found himself extraordinarily hungry despite his exhaustion, and the plate was quickly emptied. The tea took away the last of the rain’s chill, and their hair dried in the heat of the fire. In seven games, Elladan won only five, which Estel counted a monumental achievement on his part. So the hours of danger slipped harmlessly away.

lar

On Elrond’s fourth day in Isengard, two more parties arrived at Saruman’s gate. The first was the delegation from the Havens, half a dozen fleet-footed folk headed by Galdor. The silver-haired Sindar, who was the emissary most often sent forth from Lindon when the need arose, would always be known (affectionately) as Círdan’s Errand-Boy. He was many centuries younger than Elrond, but they had once been cohorts and dear friends, in the days of the Last Alliance when each had stood as herald to his respective lord. They passed most of the afternoon together, talking of bygone days. It was a pleasant diversion from bleak thoughts about his sons, both the natural and the naturalized, and about the dark days that lay ahead.

The other was a party of one: Radagast the Brown had arrived, having ridden from Rhosgobel in the vales of Anduin. Elrond had hoped the solitary horseman might be Gandalf, but he hid his disappointment well. Saruman did not.

‘A pity it’s you, and not your more talented cohort,’ he said, with the thinnest veneer of a smile plastered over his disdain. ‘Have you had any tidings of Gandalf the Grey?’

‘No,’ said Radagast, looking somewhat abashed. He was of a bucolic disposition, accustomed to rustic living and the company of free fowl and wild beasts rather than lords of might and majesty. Standing among the great leaders of the Eldar, all of whom had laid aside their wayworn garb for fair garments provided by their host, he looked shabby and out-of-place in his russet robes. Elrond felt a twinge of empathy: once it had been he who had stood thus, threadbare and inadequate among princes. He stepped forward.

‘You have valuable intelligence to offer us, I am sure,’ he said, offering a companionable arm to the Brown Wizard. ‘Your birds and beasts have doubtless witnessed things that even the agents of Lothlórien could not uncover.’

‘I do hope so,’ Radagast said, looking much relieved to find a friendly face in the daunting crowd. ‘Why, my good friend the fox has wandered with his friends far and wide through southern Mirkwood, and he has tales to tell that would chill your blood…’

‘Well!’ Saruman said, interposing himself between Elrond and Radagast. ‘If we are to begin our debates at once, then why do we not remove to the tower and do so in comfort?’

Galadriel came gliding over the grass, her pale gown whispering about her. ‘We are not beginning our counsels,’ she said serenely. ‘Though unless I miss my guess it is nearly time for the evening meal. Surely our business is not so urgent that it cannot await the architect of our plans.’

Elrond was careful not to smile. The Lady of the Golden Wood was a formidable ally, and it seemed that she was firmly on his side. Before her knowing eyes and gracious smile even the wiles of Saruman availed but little.

lar

When at last Gandalf arrived, two days later, he was on foot, unheralded by trumpets and his meeting with Saruman at the stair of Orthanc went unobserved by any of the Eldar. They were gathered together in the twilight, seated on the lush grasses amid the flowers of Isengard, listening whilst one of Galadriel’s maidens played upon her harp and sang of the tragedy of Amroth and Nimrodel. Not until the company dispersed and went to their rest did Elrond realize that the Istar had arrived: when the Elf-lord retired to his chamber, he found Gandalf reclining on the bed. They regarded one another in silence for a moment.

‘At least you might have removed your boots first,’ Elrond remarked dryly. ‘I fear you have ruined Saruman’s counterpane.’

‘He can well afford to replace it,’ Gandalf said. ‘From the look of things his holdings have done very well for him since last I walked in the Gap of Rohan.’

‘Well, then you might have had a little regard for me,’ rebutted the Peredhil. ‘It is I who must inhabit that bed tonight.’

‘Have pity on an old man, Halfelven,’ Gandalf whinged, eyes twinkling. ‘I am stiff and sore after walking many leagues, and I did not feel up to the task of yanking them off. Now you, with the strength and stamina of the Firstborn, might oblige me...’

‘I think not,’ Elrond said, coming further into the room and unfastening his mantle.

‘Perhaps the High King is too proud to wait upon a humble wizard?’

Elrond’s eyes flashed. ‘Saruman has not been speaking of that again, has he?’ he demanded, discomfited and vaguely violated.

Gandalf laughed. ‘Why, son of Ëarendil, you are flushing! Does your crown sit so uneasily upon your head?’

‘There are no Noldorin realms; therefore there are no Noldorin kings,’ Elrond said tersely. ‘I am the Lord of Imladris, and that is all the rank and title to which I have ever aspired.’ He reigned in his emotions and cleared his throat. ‘I am pleased to see that you have arrived at last,’ he remarked. ‘Saruman has wasted no opportunity to attempt to pressure the rest of us into debate without you.’

‘I expect that he has,’ Gandalf said sagely. ‘After all, the Eldar may be fair and wise and studied in the arts of war, but I am more obdurate than any of you. Save perhaps the noble Lady of Lórien, and she has schooled her mercurial temperament carefully over the long Ages.’

‘Be that as it may, I fear we shall have a hard debate, and there is little time to waste,’ Elrond said. ‘I had hoped that you would come with more haste.’

‘The agreement was that we would meet in the second week of August,’ Gandalf said. ‘I arrived precisely when agreed, and I assure you that that took some contriving. The dwarves ran into some trouble in the mountains. It was a strange experience for all concerned, and I suspect that I do not know the half of it. I left them on the borders of Mirkwood, and I hope they can contrive to follow simple instructions.’

‘Do you mean to say that you have walked all the way from Mirkwood?’ Elrond asked, marvelling in spite of himself.

‘Not all the way,’ Gandalf said, curling his lip. ‘I borrowed a horse from a friend, and rode it as far as I felt in good conscience I could. Then I set it galloping for home and continued on foot. Do you see the lengths to which I go to ensure a timely arrival?’

He sat in silence for a while, head resting against the cushions. Elrond took the opportunity to remove the long robe that he wore and to unlace his soft shoes.

‘How is the boy?’ Gandalf asked.

‘Plagued by dreams,’ Elrond murmured grimly. ‘They torment him only in the hours of darkness, and so I set him to sleep through the day. There can be no doubt that it is some contrivance of the Enemy. I do not think that he knows that he has found his mark, however, and we must strike hard and swift before he can gain that knowledge.’

Gandalf raised a finger to his lips. ‘Remember that you are not in your own land, Peredhil,’ he said. ‘Saruman may be trustworthy, but there are those among his servants who are not. Many of them are mercenaries, soldiers of fortune accustomed to furnishing the highest bidder with service – and information.’

‘I do not think that I would trust even Saruman with this,’ Elrond said uneasily. He thought of his sweet child, felled with an orc-arrow through his heart, or borne off to the dungeons of Dol Guldur to suffer the torments and hatred of a foe beyond all mercy until his valiant spirit broke and he was cast aside into death like a toy bereft of novelty. The price of discovery was too high; the secret was too dear. He did not dare to imperil Estel by bandying about his identity here.

‘Now remove your boots from my bed,’ he said, affecting annoyance; ‘or I shall call my son to remove them for you!’

‘Do that,’ Gandalf said with satisfaction. ‘I should rather like to speak to him on the matter of the goblins.’





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