It is hard after waiting and watching to suddenly stride right into battle. Not that I’ve had the opportunity to kill more than a couple goblins in my life! But that this long war I’ve waged, this war against time and Great Aunt Gwinwath’s illness, it has come to its final battle. Her fall and the pursuing fever, they have debilitated her to such an extent that when she wakes from sleep it is not to wakefulness of mind. I must muster my strength now to do what must be done.
I must find Dammadîl, dear Gwinwath’s collegue, and one-time companion. Oh that old vagabond! I’ve only met the elf on two occasions, passing through as if time meant nothing, fleeting, fleeing on to his newest discoveries, full of trivia. It was in compiling his letters that I became acquainted with his true faithfulness. I know he will come, if only as a witness to mortality, if only to remember the hour – and perhaps to say goodbye.
Up on the middle ridge, the men keep a tight ship. Only the very skilled would notice any difference between here and the outer borders: the broken-up pattern of brambles, the finer litter of leaves and pine needles, the sheer lack of trolls and their tread, the quiet absence of craban calls. And I’m right.
Before I have a chance to freeze like a shadow against the shaggy bark of a big pine, Old Fallon rises out of a tangle of broken limbs. He smiles with that far-away look he always carries, and lowers his arrow. He approaches before speaking, steadily, and without breaking a twig.
‘Suilad Fíriel Ae’gwîn! Man sír ruiwim?’ he asks mildly in his clear tenor voice: ‘Greetings maiden Aegwin! What are we hunting today?’ Fallon likes to ask this question when I go out foraging, since he knows I’m rubbish at hunting. He smiles, his lank white hair framing his narrow face. It looks almost green as it catches the morning light.
He seems to notice my altered mood today and comes even closer, stringing his bow across his chest and out of the way as he moves in that slow deliberate pace of his, careful from either age or experience. He is unhurried, almost like an ent, but his clear grey eyes cloud over with concern, beneath the furrow in his pale brow.
‘Pân alna mae, im tírein. Man ten neitha?’ he asks: ‘All is not well, I can see. What is the matter?’
‘Sír ruiwim mîn ellon, estae Dammadîl, mellch Fal’lond,’ I quip: ‘Today we hunt an elf named Dammadîl, dear Fallon.’ It’s a poor excuse for well wishes.
He looks off into memory with a half-smile. ‘Sen ellon im ehpedain – reviathril sen metethril ned gobennas. Hae narenia, rîw ned iaur rin, egor rîw ned iphant pairf,’ he answers merrily: ‘I walk with this elf – a wanderer and lover of history. He never strays far from the edges of ancient walls, nor the margins of old books.’ Then he asks, ‘Man’ani?’ : ‘What is it?’
I have to frown away my feelings at this; I am so close to tears. I remember. According to Aunt Gwinwath, Old Fallon holds memories from the fall of his village in the Ettens, years ago – horrors that he will not tell, nor can bear to. I have often wondered what events he has witnessed, but now it seems he wonders that same thing of me. His clear eyes search me as I find the words to say.
‘Nín besoneth… He danna. He alna mae,’ I mumble: ‘My aunt… She had a fall. She’s not well.’ I let out a long breath. It’s more than that.
‘Ae! Anann le bedherich toltho elvellyn tîn, ha na?’ he questions, as if I were asking the outrageous: ‘And so, you judge it time to summon her friends, is it?’ I hang my head. Are ends really so foreign to my folk?
Fallon pauses when I don’t answer, and looks at me as if scanning for tracks of a different nature – for tracks of some large foe passing over the ground my heart. Perhaps he really does see the frayed cuffs of my coat, or the callouses from carrying so much water, for all the washing that must be done for one trapped in bed. Maybe he notices the circles under my eyes, or my drawing thin from the lost sleep and missed meals. Maybe he can look into the true depth of my desperation and see the dwindling flame of my hope.
He lays a hand on my arm, and simply nods. Whatever he saw is enough.
‘Canin rimti. Telithanim Dammadîl parf-mad, Ae’gwîn,’ he says: ‘I’ll call for a company. We’ll find that book-eater Dammadîl, Aegwin!’ I look up suddenly startled. Then Fallon takes his longbow down from his back and gestures with it towards the invisible two rivers behind me – and my cottage. ‘Si Noro!’ he says with a ring of command I’m unused to hearing from him: ‘Now go!’ And I do.
((Sindarin translations by myself, and I admit, not with full attention to mutations. Practice for a better next time! Sources: Tolkien Gateway, and Hisweloke's on-line Sindarin Dictionary))
