Silmarillion Writers' Guild

I set out just before dawn. Not quite early enough, I found, for my sister was already awake and perched atop her windowsill, staring into the lightening east. She turned and saw me, and in a swift movement she slid off the sill.

"Findekáno," she said. "What are you doing about this early?"

"I was enjoying the morning air," I lied. She glanced at me, her eyes-- a shade lighter than thoset of myself and my brother-- wary and alert. She had taken to watching me lately; sometimes I thought that she knew me too well. Her gaze lingered on the knife and sword hanging at my belt, the bow slung over my shoulder and the pack I wore on my back.

"So was I. We could enjoy it together."

"Irissë--"

"What, Findekáno? Is my presence hateful to you now?"

What could I reply to that? I fell silent, walking beside her. She was concerned, I knew, and sharp enough to know that something was amiss. We made a round of the camp as the sun rose and gilded our hair. I found that she was as tall as I now, and wondered when she had grown so. Little sister, I beg of you, do not hinder me.

We arrived at the door of my cabin, and I paused. "I think I'll go down to the lakeside," I said. On a sudden inspiration, I grabbed my harp from the behind the door. "To play my harp." I saw her hesitate, her lips pursing. "Irissë," I whispered. "Please. I must do this."

She took a deep breath. "I shall go to the campfire. You will be at the lakeside playing your harp, and I will not disturb you." She looked around, and when she saw that nobody was near, murmured to me, "Use the lake." She gave me a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek, and she was gone, a pale fleet form in the sunrise.

I walked out of the gate, and the guards saluted me as I passed. I made sure to walk sedately in such a way that the harp was clearly visible, and the cloak hid my weapons as well as possible. I made my way down to the shore, out of sight of the camp. Use the lake. What had that meant? I stared at the water. Water. It came to me then, suddenly. I yanked my boots off, rolled up my leggings, and waded into the lake. The water was very cold against my skin, and sharp pebbles pressed into my feet as I sloshed through it for some distance along the shore. When I judged myself far enough away, I went up onto dry land again and put my boots on. Then I turned to the north, and began.

***

The north-mountains, where I knew Angamando to be, were nearly two hundred leagues away. It was a long road, and I wished I had a mount; but none had survived the Helcaraxë. As I got closer to the barren northlands, I started seeing crows. I shot every one that I could find, fearing that they were the eyes and ears of Moringotto. When possible, I retrieved my arrows from their dead bodies, but still my arrow-supply dwindled.

I found that I hadn't brought enough food. After the first two weeks, my food-bag was very nearly empty, with only a few pitiful chunks of dried meat. I didn't know just how much longer my journey would take, or whether there would be anything to eat further north. It never occurred to me to consider the road home. I kept the last of my food, and subsided on the crows I shot. I didn't dare to light any fires; I plucked the feathers off the carcasses and ate them that way, trying not to think where they had been or what they'd eaten.

I picked my way across the difficult terrain by day and curled up between large boulders at night, trying to hide from anything out there. As I went further the days became dark, and Vása was ever shrouded in a dark cloud of Moringotto's weaving. It was a stroke of luck, for in the darkness I could slip by unnoticed, hidden from any spies that might be watching me. On the twenty-sixth day I came to the foothills of the Iron Mountains. Five days later I had climbed halfway up the central peak. I looked back then, as I hadn't done in the days past, trying to see if I could catch a glimpse of Mithrim. I couldn't, of course. I was beyond help now.

The next step would have been to seek a way into Angamando itself. I'd assumed that there would be some back way, some fissure or crack whence I could slip into Moringotto's fortress. Stupid of me, of course, but there were many things that I hadn't considered before setting out, including what I would do once inside Angamando, how I would seek Maitimo then, how I could avoid being captured myself. Then it seemed utterly hopeless, and with a sudden burst of irrational anger at the injustice of it all, I took up my harp: the useless thing I had carted around for weeks merely because it was a reminder of home.

I knew then that I hadn't come here in hope of accomplishing anything. I came here to die. Well, so be it; I wouldn't die like some cringing rodent starved in the wild-lands. I strummed the harp, noticing with surprise that my fingers still retained their skill after everything, and I sang. It was a song that Macalaurë made, and that we had all sung in the golden days of Valinor before any darkness came upon us, of joy and friendship. My voice echoed around the mountains, ringing and desperate, expecting at any moment Urqui or Valaraucar to come upon me and seize me. And then I heard it. Something that wasn't an echo, that was so faint that I could barely hear it, but also familiar. I held my breath, listening with every fibre of my body. It came from above me. I set the harp down and climbed until I was at the foot of a sheer precipice. I looked up, and my throat closed painfully with tears.

Maitimo was chained on the side of the sheer cliff. Chained is too merciful a word. He was suspended by one arm, his head slumping upon his chest, his body hanging limply like one already dead. He was so thin, like a sack of bones and as pale, save where old clotted blood and scars marred his skin. But he sang, and the wind carried the faint words to me. In that place and in that time, the sound of his broken, painful singing very nearly broke me. I started to call to him, but stopped myself. A moment ago I was careless, heedless in my despair; but here I had found him, and caution seized me anew.

"Findekáno," he gasped, his words almost too faint for me to catch. "Kill me."

It took me a split second to register his words, and then I trembled involuntarily. Kill me. I saw the evidence of what had been done to him before my eyes, but his words revealed more, that he could see me and think of not rescue, but death. I couldn't kill him. I'd wanted to in Araman, when we saw the fire upon the horizon, wanted so desperately to hurt him as he had betrayed us; but I couldn't actually do it. Not when I came here. Not when I'd seen this. There had to be a better way.

"Kill me," he said again, his voice cracking, as if he were at the end of his strength. "Please, Findekáno." My tears spilled over, and I took the arrow from my quiver. It was the last arrow, for I'd spent all the others. I dashed the tears from my eyes, for I could not afford to miss even a little. I must strike him in the heart or the throat for a clean death, or I would only add to his pain. I clenched my hands, set the arrow to my bowstring, and I prayed, though in this desolate land, and cursed as we were, I had little hope of my prayer being answered.

"O King to whom all birds are dear, speed now this feathered shaft, and recall some pity for the Noldor in their need!" I cried, and drew my bow back. I saw him close his eyes, and I willed myself to loose the shaft. Then the miraculous happened. There was a flurry of wings, knocking my bow and arrow from my hands and sending them clattering into the ravine. My first thought was that it was one of Moringotto's creatures, but then I saw that it was an eagle, one of the race of birds beloved of Manwë. And somehow, inexplicably, I knew his name.

"Sorontur," I breathed, and the great eagle inclined his head and bent down before me, and the message was clear. I climbed onto his back, and he spread his wings. I felt gravity pulling at me, and grabbed Sorontur's feathers. Higher and higher we soared, until he careened close to where Maitimo was, and I slid off and scrambled onto the narrow ledge where he was as Sorontur circled above us. Now I could see just how Maitimo was chained to the rock face: his right hand was caught in a sharp-edged iron band, and his wrist was dark with old blood; yet the band was not tight enough to cut off circulation and feeling. His feet were suspended in the air, dangling helplessly, straining but never reaching the ledge that was mere inches below them. Such cruelty smote me, and for a moment I felt dizzy.

There were stairs chiselled into the stone on his left side leading all the way up to the top of the mountain, no doubt used my Moringotto's minions. To reach the band I must climb it and lean across him, clinging to the rock with my right hand. I drew my knife from my belt, chopping at the band with my left hand. The knife was one Fëanáro had made for his eldest son, and which he in turn had given to me. In all the lands of Arda there could be few finer. But on the second stroke against the iron band, the knife broke, leaving me holding three inches of jagged, twisted steel.

"It can't be broken," said Maitimo faintly, his breath against my ear. "They told me. Nothing can break it. Findekáno, kill me, or else you leave me to this."

I took a deep shuddering breath, and then I saw a way, even as my thought recoiled from it. "Maitimo," I said. "Your hand. If your hand were to-- to go, you could slip your wrist through the band--" I hated myself for saying that, for opening the possibility of mutilating him. Yet, between his hand and his life...

He was silent for a long while, so long that I feared he had fainted. At last he swallowed. "Do it," he said, and turned his face aside. I saw his jaw set, in a determination that years of pain had not worn away, and prepared to do the deed. The merciful way, I knew, would be to knock him unconscious; but then there would be a high risk that he would topple when cut free and meet his death in the ravine. I couldn't and wouldn't chance that. I swung out further and clutched at the iron band for support, and jerked back, almost falling, for the band burned with unnatural cold. I swung myself out again and closed my fingers around the band, refusing to let go this time.

I had the presence of mind to undo my belt and wrap it thrice around his upper arm in a makeshift tourniquet, and to use what remained of the knife as a saw. I bit my lip, and made the first cut: a deep, circular incision around his right wrist, slicing through skin and flesh. He made the small choked noise of someone trying not to scream, and his legs scrabbled madly at the rock. My mind was reeling, but I went on, remembering only dimly what I had learned about limbs in my youth. Under the skin was muscle and tendon, angry-red and exposed by the cut, blood welling out despite the tourniquet. I sawed at the muscle with the knife, and he screamed then, burying his face in my shoulder and biting me through my tunic to muffle the noise lest we be heard.

By this time my vision had narrowed down to the tendons under my knife, suppressing if only for the moment the rest of my mind, which was reeling in horror and babbling a litany of pleas. Eru, Eru, please let this be over soon, if you have mercy, please... My left hand burned with agony, but it was as nothing to what I felt as I cut into him. He was still screaming, only in little bursts between breathlessness, producing wordless cries of pain. His blood flowed over my hands and down my arms, warm and sticky and slippery. He clung to me with his left hand, and I worked frantically, saying meaningless words of comfort, urging him to stay conscious. I half-supported his weight as I started to saw at the first bone, praying that it wouldn't splinter. The jagged edges of the knife made a terrible grating noise, and I shuddered through a mist of tears, but my hand seemed to have a life of his own, and kept on sawing.

The first bone snapped. I started to work on the other one, with muffled screams ringing in my ears and my heart beating painfully, aching with each cry. "Just one more," I whispered. "Just one more." It was the bone closest to me, and I cut at it quickly, knowing that it would splinter if I hesitated. At last it broke with a little sickening crack, and he slipped down the few inches to the ledge, swaying but conscious enough to cling to the rock and shy away from the edge. I climbed down from the stair, shaking so hard that could barely stand. I gathered him up, and before he could react I punched him on the chin with my bloody fist. His head snapped back and he slumped in my arms, mercifully unconscious now.

Sorontur came, swooping down near the ledge. Eagles couldn't hover, but he fluttered up and down madly for a few seconds near me, and with all the speed I could muster I clambered onto Sorontur's back, almost slipping. He spread his wings, and we soared off. I should have been exhilarated, joyful at our escape, but I felt only grief.

***

The return journey was much swifter, but even so we travelled for two days. Sorontur was strong, but even he couldn't fly without rest, and so we spent the nights in rocky perches in the mountains. I wrapped Maitimo in my cloak. When he woke, I dribbled a little water, warm with the warmth of my body, down his throat. The dried meat was too hard for him, so I chewed it before feeding it to him. After that he slept, though fitfully. I didn't sleep, but watched through the night, making sure to loosen the tourniquet for five minutes of every hour lest I cut off the circulation in his arm.

In the night he wakened, clutching his right arm and moaning with pain. I shushed him, cradling his head in my arms as he had done when I was a child. "Shh, shh," I murmured. "It will be all right. It will be," even as my stomach turned over at the evidence of what I had done. What I would have given to spare you this! His breathing was ragged, but he lay back.

When the morning came, he would not wake. He looked as one dead, and that frightened me. By all rights, after so long in Morgoth's captivity, he should have died already, and I could but wonder what had kept him alive through everything. It might have been Morgoth's minions, healing him just enough to keep him alive, but I doubted it. They did not know how to cure, only to harm. More likely that it had been Maitimo's own endurance that had kept him alive and tormented, and his own strength that had been his undoing.

I clambered onto Sorontur's back once more with Maitimo in my arms, and we set off once more, this time westwards. He was cold, colder than anyone should be, though he was still wrapped in my cloak. I removed my tunic and wrapped it around him, then held him close, trying to warm him between myself and Sorontur. Sorontur's body burned with heat, and slowly Maitimo's cold face regained some of its normal colour.

In the afternoon I saw the pale wisps of smoke rising from our camp, and the sun glinting off the water. Sorontur screeched his fierce eagle-cry, and I saw people, looking as small as ants from this height, rushing around. Sorontur swooped, and my stomach lifted in the strange weightlessness before he alighted on a stone in the middle of the camp. I heard someone shout my name, and heard the murmurs of those who had gathered there, but they did not register in my mind. I stood, my ears ringing strangely, slipped off Sorontur's back with Maitimo in my arms, and they parted before me as I bore him to the nearest cabin.

The healers, in their white clothing, had gathered in a group, their voices escalating as if in disagreement. I grabbed the nearest one, who stared at me with wide and frightened eyes. "Tend to him," I cried, half commanding and half pleading, feeling the ground rock beneath my feet as the nausea I had not dared to give way to until now struck me. I retched, though there was nothing to bring up, and felt hands lift my hair out of the way.

"Findekáno." It was Irissë, and she took my hands in hers, heedless of the blood-- Maitimo's blood-- on them. "What happened?" It was a question that I couldn't answer properly. Instead I wept, gasping for air in between my sobs, shook my head, and retched again all over her dress as I clung to her, and my father approached and murmured soothing words that were meaningless to me.

It was a long time before I could speak of what passed on that mountain. As for the stories of the bards in after-years, they sang Maitimo's version of the tale, where I was the brave rescuer, and there were many things-- the blood, the pain, the fear-- that he did not tell them of.

Findekáno = Fingon
Maitimo = Maedhros
Irissë = Aredhel
Sorontur = Thorondor
Moringotto = Morgoth
Angamando = Angband
Urqui = Orcs
Valaraucar = Balrogs