Village of Windton, Southern Rills, the North of Westeros
Daytime, 297 AC
When the bowls were empty and not a crumb of bread remained, Aerindir set his dish carefully on the table.
"My thanks for the meal" he said with a sincerity that seemed strange in such a wretched dwelling. "Your hospitality is more generous than that of many kings I have known."
Hobb merely grunted, but the gleam in his faded eyes showed the guest's words pleased him. He rose, brushed the crumbs from his knees, and tossed a slab of peat into the hearth. The smoke from the peat was thick and oily, nothing like the clean flame of wood.
"Sit by the fire, m'lord" Hobb gestured the others closer to the heat. "Your bones will thaw faster here."
Aerindir moved to a low stool beside the hearth, trying not to grimace at the stench. It smelled of smoke, stale sweat, dog, and sour milk. The fire warmed pleasantly, driving out the chill that had settled in his body after the cold sea.
Olden and Will, fed and drowsy with warmth, settled on a heap of furs nearby. Marda and Torr cleared the dishes into a rough chest by the wall and sat in the corner. The woman took up net-mending; the boy whittled his piece of wood - but their ears caught every word.
I sat by fires after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, when the ash of the fallen blotted out the sky. The smoke smelled of death then, but there was honesty in it. Here the smoke smells of poverty.
A silence fell, broken only by the crackle of peat in the hearth. At last Hobb sighed heavily, rubbed his palms before the fire, and ventured the questions that had been on everyone's tongue.
"So tell us, Aerindir..." the fisherman began, squinting through the smoke. "How did you come to be in that storm? What happened to your ship? And why..." he hesitated, searching for the words, "why did you first speak a tongue we didn't know, and knew nothing of Westeros? You're no southerner, and no wildling from beyond the Wall - that's plain. But you're not of the Seven Kingdoms either. So where are you from?"
The elf gazed into the dancing flames. The shadows on his face made him look like a statue from ancient legend come to life.
"Our ship sailed south" he began quietly, his voice like the distant music of a flute. "We pursued a shadow - an ancient evil that survived the Great War and hid itself in the depths of the sea. For a long time it eluded us, hiding among the waves and mists, but at last we found its trail. It fled across the water, hoping to vanish into the abyss once more, but this time we overtook it."
He fell silent, staring into the fire, and images surfaced in his memory. The white ship cleaving the waves. Silver sails taut with wind. Fifty warriors on deck, stern-faced. And he, standing at the prow, searching the horizon. Then the shadow beneath the water. Vast, writhing. Tentacles thick as ancient oaks. Eyes burning with a hatred as old as the mountains themselves.
"The storm caught us on the tenth day of the chase" Aerindir continued, and Marda stopped sewing, frozen with needle in hand. "It was no mere wind and waves. It was fury made manifest in the elements. The waves rose higher than the masts, black as pitch, crowned with foam the color of old bone. The sky split with lightning, and in every flash we saw it. The creature - a spawn of Darkness."
Torr dropped his knife. Olden, who had been dozing in the warmth, woke and rubbed his eyes.
"What creature?" the boy breathed.
Aerindir turned to him. In the firelight, the elf's eyes seemed silver.
"Imagine a serpent, Torr. Not a little grass snake from your stream. A serpent as long as your village, with thick scales and long tentacles that seize ships the way you seize that piece of wood you were carving. Such things we call úvanimo - 'spawn of Darkness.'"
"Old Gods preserve us" Marda whispered, clutching the cloth. "Was it... a monster of the Drowned God?"
"I do not know your Drowned God" Aerindir shook his head. "But this creature served Morgoth, the Enemy of the World. When its master was defeated, it fled and hid for ages in the darkest depths of southern Belegaer. We found its trail only after many centuries."
Marda frowned and shot a quick glance at her husband. Will blinked in bewilderment, and Olden gave a quiet grunt, as though he'd heard a strange tale. The fishermen exchanged looks, at a loss for a reply.
Hobb studied the embers in the hearth for a time.
"And you fought it? On the ship?"
"We fought" the elf confirmed, his hand falling instinctively to the hilt of his sword. "My blade sank into its flesh. It screamed - a sound that would have deafened mortal warriors. Its blood was black, and wherever it fell upon the deck, the wood charred. We wounded it. But it struck back: one tentacle sheared the mast, another split the hull. The ship began to sink. The last thing I remember... the cold abyss. Darkness. And pain."
"Mortal warriors?" Will frowned.
"It is a manner of speech among my people" the elf replied. "We use it to speak of men."
The fishermen exchanged glances. Will's eyes slid to Hobb, as if asking: did you hear that too?
The silence was absolute. Even the fire seemed to hush.
"And your people? What became of them?" Marda asked softly.
"I do not know. I woke here, alone. Without my ship. Without my company. Under an alien sky."
They may have survived. Elves of the Noldor do not drown easily. But the sea here is dead. If they came here... if this cold, grey land has taken them...
"As for the language, and Westeros..." Aerindir raised his gaze to Hobb. "My home is very far from here. In my lands we speak Quenya, the High Tongue - older than your kingdoms. The knowledge of your language came to me suddenly, when I woke upon the shore. Like a memory that had slept and then awakened. I cannot explain it. Perhaps... perhaps the land itself wished me to be understood."
Hobb nodded slowly, digesting what he had heard. He understood less than half, but he grasped the heart of it. Before him sat a warrior who had endured what most men could not fathom even in nightmares.
"Sounds fearsome, m'lord" he said simply. "And beautiful. Like the songs, only... real."
"Real" Aerindir echoed hollowly.
He straightened abruptly, casting off the stupor.
"I must go to the shore" he said firmly, steel in his voice. "I cannot sit here in warmth while my warriors may lie on cold sand, gnawed by crabs or picked clean by thieves. I must find them. Living or dead. I must know."
Hobb shook his head. The cottage fell silent, and every eye turned to the elf. Ash crumbled in the hearth and hissed on the stones.
"Don't be foolish, m'lord" he said plainly. "Look out the window. The day's already turning toward dusk, see? The clouds are closing in again. Soon it'll be so dark you won't see your own hand. The shore here is treacherous. Rocks sharp enough to cut your legs to the bone. If you go now, in the dark, we'll lose you too. Find you in the morning with a broken neck in some crevice. Or not find you at all."
"Hobb's right" Olden put in. "Going there now is madness. The sea at night is black - you can't tell water from land. Three of us locals went to check the nets one night, and one nearly drowned, fell straight into a hole. Barely pulled him out."
"Stay the night with us" Hobb said more gently, meeting the elf's eyes. "There's not much room, but the furs by the fire are warmer than the dunes in the wind. Come dawn, first light, Will and Olden and I will help you. We'll take the boat and follow the shore all the way to the far rocks. Faster and surer that way. You have my word."
His fists clenched of their own accord. Every moment of delay was a pain in his heart. Kirael, whose laughter rang even before the battle line, who found a jest where others found only fear. Aranfil, whose poems by the campfire after a long march made weariness forgotten. Faelas, whose spear on the night watches in the hills of Emyn Beraid was as sure as the sunrise. Mallas, the youngest, admitted to the Guard by Aerindir himself, who had not yet seen true war. Fifty names. Each a life measured in centuries. And I left them. But wisdom, earned through countless campaigns and wars, told him the fisherman was right.
"Very well" he breathed, unclenching his fingers. "I accept your counsel, Hobb. And your help."
Olden, who had been eyeing the elf's armor and cloak, cleared his throat.
"M'lord" he said, with poorly hidden envy, "that iron of yours is fine, no question. Gleams and gladdens the eye. But it chills you. Winter is coming, and the nights here are enough to freeze a wolf to the bone. You'd do well to throw something over those plates instead of that cloak. What good is beauty if you freeze to death?"
Hobb slapped his knee.
"Right! Marda, fetch that old sheepskin coat. Moth-eaten, to be sure, but it keeps the heat in."
Aerindir tried to refuse, raising a hand in protest.
"There is no need. My cloak was woven in Valinor, it"
"Your cloak is beautiful" Hobb interrupted, getting to his feet. "But thin as a cobweb. I can see that, m'lord. Silk, or some such fancy cloth, is it? Only lords wear the like at their feasts down here. For a northern night you need hide or a heavier cloak. Don't slight your hosts by refusing. In the North, no one turns down warmth."
Marda rose, set her sewing aside, and disappeared behind a curtain of sacking that screened off the sleeping alcove. She returned with an old sheepskin coat, patched all over, moth-eaten and darkened with grime in places. The fleece had matted and worn through to the leather, but the coat was still thick and warm.
Aerindir took it in both hands, feeling the weight of a plain, earthly kindness.
"My thanks" he said, looking Marda in the eye. The woman glanced away, flustered.
Aerindir unfastened the clasp of his cloak. The silver brooch, wrought in the shape of a leaf of Telperion, clinked softly in his fingers. He removed the cloak carefully, folded it, and handed it to Marda. She accepted it gingerly, as though the thing were too precious for her hands, and laid it on the bench by the wall, well away from the hearth and reaching fingers.
The sheepskin coat settled on his shoulders. The wool was coarse and prickly, smelling of smoke and livestock, but warmth came almost at once, cutting the icy draft that prowled the house. In this garb he looked less like a shining lord from legend and more like a strange man who had spent his coin on fine armor but could not afford a decent cloak.
"My thanks" Aerindir said quietly, shifting his gaze to Hobb. "I will return it as soon as I learn what became of my company."
Hobb merely grunted and waved a hand.
"Forget it, m'lord. That old coat sat idle a long time. Belonged to my late brother, it did. Just lay there... waiting for the moths to finish it off. Now at least it'll be of use to someone."
Aerindir bowed his head in silent gratitude.
* * *
Before long, Olden and Will said their farewells and left for their own hovels, promising to come at dawn. Aerindir, feeling the need to be alone - to step away from the stifling warmth of the hearth and the clinging stares - asked leave to go outside.
"Just don't go far" Hobb cautioned, settling onto his furs. "Wolves don't often come close to the village, but you never know."
Aerindir held the fisherman's gaze for a moment. This man was worried for him. For a stranger he had known a single day. And yet he had not the faintest notion what manner of creatures the elf had faced in battle.
"I will only look about the surroundings" Aerindir replied, pulling up the hood of the sheepskin coat.
He stepped outside. The air was damp and cold, but after the stuffiness of the house it felt almost refreshing. The sky was choked with cloud - not a star, not a moon to be seen. Only grey murk hanging over the village. He walked slowly down Windton's muddy lane, trying to avoid the puddles. The coat, cut for a man of ordinary height, barely reached the tall elf's knees and bunched at the shoulders, but it shielded him well enough from the cutting wind.
Here the evening life went on: heavy, joyless, but alive.
By the well, a woman struggled with two full pails of murky water. Her back was bent, her arms trembling. In Valinor, water flowed from springs of its own accord, pure as the tears of Varda.
In a low, soot-blackened forge, the smith hammered at a piece of rusty iron, trying to straighten a ploughshare. The blows were feeble, and the metal was old. In Gondolin, the Noldor forged swords that sang in the hand. Here the smith forges ploughshares so as not to starve.
On their doorsteps sat old men with faces like baked apples - wrinkled, dark, and toothless. They were wrapped in rags and stared vacantly into nothing. Elves do not grow old. We fade from sorrow, but not from years. These people burn out like candles.
Folk stopped and followed him with their eyes. In their gazes he read curiosity mixed with wariness. Some whispered prayers to the Old Gods and turned away. Aerindir felt himself an outsider, a bright blot on a grey, threadbare canvas. I am a gold ring in a dung heap. Beautiful. Useless. Unwanted.
In Valinor, labor was a joy and an act of creation. The Eldar made because they could not help but make. It was in their nature, like breathing. They wove tapestries that sang of the history of the world. They raised gardens like waking dreams. They forged swords that became legends. Here, labor was a struggle for survival.
* * *
Aerindir sensed the watching eyes before he heard the rustle. Behind a woodpile, beside the last half-ruined house on the edge of the village, children were hiding. Three of them. Two girls of about six in grimy, patched little dresses, and a boy a bit older, in trousers mended so many times they looked more like a patchwork quilt. They believed themselves unseen.
The elf stopped, tilted his head slightly, and spoke - quietly, but loud enough for them to hear.
"I see you, little shadows. You hide poorly. Do you wish to ask something?"
A beat of silence, and the children burst out. There was no fear in them - only greedy, unbridled curiosity.
"Are you really a sailor?" the older girl blurted, tugging a braid as thin as a rat's tail. "Or a traveler?"
"Your hair is like the sun!" the younger one added, bouncing on her toes. "Can I touch it? Please?"
The boy stared mutely at the sword hanging from the belt. His mouth hung open. Aerindir crouched to bring himself level with them. Something in their guilelessness, their unfeigned wonder, reminded him of the children of Valinor who romped in the gardens of Lórien, asking a thousand questions about everything under the sky. Children are the same everywhere. Even here, in all this grey, they can still marvel.
"I have sailed many places" he said gravely, as he would have spoken to an adult. "I have seen lands you have never heard of. But I came here by chance. The storm cast me ashore."
The younger girl reached for his hair without waiting for permission. Aerindir did not pull away. Small, dirty fingers touched the golden strands and stroked them.
"Soft" she whispered with reverence, as though touching something holy.
"Lora! Bert! Emma!" A woman's shriek shattered the moment. Two women came running, skirts hitched, nearly falling in the mud. Their faces were twisted with fright. "Get away from the gentleman! This instant! Don't you dare touch him!"
The children were snatched up like kittens - roughly, by the scruffs. One of the women, thin, with frightened eyes, clutched the boy Bert so tight he yelped.
"Forgive us, m'lord" she babbled, bowing so low she nearly struck her forehead on Aerindir's knees. "Forgive us! They meant no offense! They're foolish, small - they don't understand you mustn't bother noble folk! I'll switch them, I swear I will!"
"They gave no offense" Aerindir answered gently but firmly, rising to his full height. The woman flinched - he towered over her like a tower. "Curiosity is no sin. Do not punish them."
The women looked at one another, at a loss before this strange lord who had not flown into a rage, had not ordered the children flogged, and had not demanded recompense for the "insult." They dragged the children away, glancing back over their shoulders, murmuring thanks.
"He's kind, Mama" came Lora's thin voice before the darkness swallowed them. "His eyes are sad. Like Granddad's when he remembers Grandma." Aerindir stood still. Children see more clearly than their elders. Even here. Especially here. They have not yet learned to lie - to themselves or to anyone.
He watched them go, then walked on.
* * *
He reached the edge of the village, where a sparse, sickly wood of stunted pines began. The trees were crooked, deformed by the wind, their branches bare. Among them, on a small, muddy clearing, an old gelding grazed: grey, sway-backed, with clouded eyes. It was tied by a rope to a stake driven into the ground, listlessly chewing withered grass. Aerindir's heart stirred. Horses.
Horses had always been friends of the Eldar. They understood their thoughts, sensed their moods. Words were not needed - only the touch of mind upon mind, ósanwë.
He approached the animal, extending his hand slowly. The horse raised its head, regarded him with a dull, indifferent gaze, and went on chewing.
"Rocco... Horse..." Aerindir whispered in Quenya, and the word was like a song. "Málo... Friend... I will not harm you."
He reached out with his mind, as he had done a thousand times before. Can you hear me? I am here. Do not be afraid.
Emptiness. The horse did not flinch, did not prick its ears. It did not even look at him. It simply chewed, mechanically working its jaws.
Aerindir tried again, pouring into the silent call all his will, all the experience of centuries. He closed his eyes, concentrated, envisioned a thread of light reaching from his mind to the animal's. But the thread met a void. Where there should have been consciousness - simple, bestial, but alive - there was a hole. The animal was deaf to his mind. It was merely a lump of flesh and blood, chewing grass, stripped of the spark that bound all living things in Arda.
No. No.
Aerindir opened his eyes. His hand trembled. He unclenched his fingers, releasing the invisible thread. The horse snorted. Not in answer to the call - just clearing its nostrils. It turned its hindquarters to him and ambled away to the end of the rope.
I am dead to this world. Or this world is dead to me.
Aerindir let his hand fall. The discovery struck harder than the cold wind, harder than the blow of the creature's tentacle. He had lost more than a home. He had lost the connection. Here there is no magic - or the world is mute.
He turned from the horse and walked away with heavy steps.
* * *
"M'lord Aerindir!"
Torr's voice tore him from his dark thoughts. The boy came running across the field, waving his arms, nearly tripping over the tussocks.
"M'lord! Father's calling! Mother baked fish! Come quick, before it gets cold!"
Aerindir looked at the boy - at his ruddy face, his shining eyes, his wide-open grin. Perhaps the magic of this world lies elsewhere. Not in ósanwë. Not in the song of stones. In simplicity. In a child's laughter. In the way a man shares his bread with a stranger.
"I am coming, Torr" he answered, and the corners of his mouth stirred in a smile. The first true smile in all that endless day.
* * *
At supper the mood was somewhat livelier. The hearth burned bright; the fresh peat hissed and crackled. The baked fish - which Marda had coated in clay and buried in the coals - proved surprisingly good, if simple: white, flaky flesh that smelled of smoke. The bread they soaked in fish oil.
Aerindir ate slowly, with dignity, but without distaste. He noticed that Marda and Torr ate less, leaving the larger share for him and Hobb.
"It is good" he said, and it was the truth. The food had been won by labor and prepared with care. Marda flushed at the praise.
Aerindir noticed that in the corner of the room, next to Hobb's gaff and leaning against the wall, stood an old sword. The blade was nicked and rusted in places; the hilt was wrapped in cracked leather. Beside it a shield: round, wooden, split with age. On the shield a faded symbol could just be made out - a coat of arms, perhaps, or merely a pattern.
"I have seen weapons among some of the villagers" he remarked, nodding toward the sword. "Do the common folk here go about with swords? Axes? Why? Does Lord Ryswell not defend his lands?"
Hobb broke off a piece of bread and chewed slowly.
"Lord Ryswell sits in his castle, m'lord" he said, staring into the fire. "Five days' ride from here, if the horse is good and the roads dry. Seven after rain, if you get there at all. He's a good lord, a fair one. Doesn't fleece us beyond measure. But he is far."
He paused and drank from a clay cup. The water was cloudy, with a taste of peat.
"And the raiders... damn them... they come fast. At dawn, or in the fog. They plunder, burn, kill. Gone before anyone can send a rider to the castle. By the time the lord gathers his men and arrives, it's too late. Ash and bone."
Marda whispered prayers to the Old Gods. Hobb's fists tightened.
"We have to be able to stand for ourselves. When they come, there's no help to wait for. Either you take up an axe and defend your home, or they put you in chains. Or they kill you. That's the law of the shore." He looked at Aerindir. "In your far lands, I suppose it's different?"
Aerindir slowly shook his head.
"No. Not different. Evil always comes without warning. It does not wait until you are ready. Enemies fell upon our villages the same way. By night, in the fog. They burned, killed, took captives. But we learned to fight. Every one of my people is a warrior. Because to the enemy, you are simply a target - or prey."
"Your enemies?" Torr's eyes went wide. "Who are they?"
"Servants of darkness" Aerindir answered shortly. "Hideous, hateful, living only to destroy. Do you have their like here?"
Hobb grimaced.
"Wildlings, maybe. The ones beyond the Wall. They're not hideous, but savage. They raid, they rob. Not often, though. The Wall holds them. And then..." his voice dropped, "they say there are the Others. But that's legend. No one's seen them for thousands of years."
"Legends often prove true" Aerindir said quietly, and the firelight danced in his eyes. "Especially those that speak of darkness."
A heavy silence fell.
At last Hobb rose with a yawn.
"Right. Time for bed. Early start tomorrow. M'lord, take the spot by the hearth - it's warmest. There are furs enough. Marda, Torr, and I will settle in the alcove."
Aerindir nodded. He lay down on the heap of furs. They smelled of sheep, of dog, of people - but they were warm. The hearth was dying; the coals glowed a dull red. He closed his eyes, but sleep would not come. My warriors. Where are they? Alive? Dead? Taken by some power of this world?
The house creaked in the wind; somewhere in the village a dog barked. Hobb was already snoring. Aerindir opened his eyes. He could not lie here without seeing the stars.
* * *
He rose without a sound, threw on the sheepskin coat, took his sword, and stepped outside. The night was clear: the clouds had parted, and the sky stood open. Aerindir made his way back to the thin wood, away from the light of windows. He needed to see the sky. The clouds that had shrouded the horizon all day had scattered by nightfall, revealing a fathomless blackness strewn with a myriad of lights.
And he froze.
He searched for familiar bearings. Those he had known for thousands of years. He searched for Menelmacar - the constellation of the Swordsman of the Sky. Seven bright stars arrayed in the figure of a warrior with raised blade. It was not there.
He searched for Valacirca - the Sickle of the Valar, the sign of Morgoth's doom, burning on the northern sky with an eternal cold fire. He did not find it.
He searched for Helluin - the Blue Fire, the star that burned brighter than all others, the star of hope kindled by Varda after the awakening of the elves. It did not shine in this sky.
The sky was alien.
The constellations formed unfamiliar patterns. Beautiful, but not his. The stars burned cold and indifferent, telling no stories, offering no comfort. They were mute.
This is not Arda.
The thought he had driven away all day fell upon him with its full weight. This was not simply another land. This was another world. Under another sky.
"Where am I?" he whispered into the cold emptiness. "Manwë... Varda Elentári... tell me - where am I? What are these lands, where there is no power of the Valar, and the stars that hallowed the birth of my people do not shine?"
No answer came. Only the wind, keening in the bare pine boughs. A boundless loneliness closed over him and pressed him to the earth. He was not merely in a foreign country. He was beneath a foreign sky, severed from all he had loved and known. From home. From his people. From Arda itself. I am alone. Alone in a world that neither knows me nor remembers me. A world where magic is dead. A world where even the stars do not sing.
His knees buckled. Not from weariness. From horror.
Aerindir fell to his knees in the mud. His hands clawed at the earth - alien, cold, and mute. And then he sang. It was not a song of victory, not a battle cry. It was nwalmë - a lament, as his people named it. An ancient, mournful melody that the Eldar sang when loved ones perished, when cities fell, and when hope died.
His voice, clear and high, soared toward the alien stars, filling the cold air of Windton with a sorrow this world had never known.
Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen,Yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron!
Ah! Like gold fall the leaves in the wind, Long years numberless as the wings of trees!
The words poured forth in Quenya, a tongue this land had never heard. He sang of Valinor, of the light of Laurelin and Telperion that had illumined the world before Sun and Moon. Of the shores of Alqualondë, where the white swan-ships rocked upon the waves. Of the gardens of Lórien, where sorrow was unknown. Of Tirion upon the hill, whose towers shone like stars.
Anar caluva tielyanna. The Sun shall light your path.
Nai hiruvalyë Valimar. Maybe thou shalt find Valimar.
The song flowed on, mourning the lost light, mourning the home he might never see again. Mourning the warriors whose fate was unknown. Mourning himself - an exile, cast into a world without magic, without meaning. His voice trembled, broke, but did not fall silent. Tears - rare for an elf - ran down his cheeks and froze in the wind.
And though no one in the village understood the words, many that night dreamed strange, luminous dreams. Dreams of lands where winter never comes. Of gardens where silver flowers bloom. Of cities of white stone, bathed in a warm light. Of a world they had never seen - yet which their souls, for one fleeting instant, remembered. As though once, in the beginning of days, they too had lived there.
Aerindir sang until his voice grew hoarse, until his strength left him. He sang until the last note dissolved into the night.