Reunions Long Delayed
Across the Celebrant, the forest thinned, but the foothills of Hithaeglir's eastern face were wooded enough to afford good cover to the trio as they threaded their way southward. Sticking close to the mountains for added concealment, they had spent two more days in the wild when Rhavanielle bade them look up. The dwarves made out two specks to the south against an azure midday sky.
“Eagles!” she said. Sfeithi shook his head and shrugged.
“So what?” he asked, catching his breath. The two dwarves strained their eyes but could make out no details.
“They are looking for something...someone...” She hmmd to herself
“The great eagles are no threat to us. Maybe they hunt orcs,” Gorm offered. Rhavanielle nodded. “It's been long since I've seen great eagles so far south. Over Calenardhen.”
Neither of the dwarves had anything to offer on the matter, so they continued on their way through the uplands as the mountain conifers began to give way to a forest of mainly oak. Fangorn had no precise boundaries on the north but the friends were aware of the changes as the trees around them grew older and older. As evening of the tenth day of their journey began to darken under the tangled boughs above, Rhavanielle bade them make their camp on a rocky knoll festooned with tufts of ferns. The bole of a mighty tree that had fallen long ago lay moldering, volunteer trees growing from its corpse and a multitude of fungi sprouting from it like reliefs on a ruined manor house. Here the fading light of the westering sun still gave sustenance to a scattering of ground plants and Rhavanielle gathered some herbs and made for them a cold tea which seemed to relax the dwarves as much as a good cup of ale. Their feet felt less sore and their legs less weary.
“I think it best to set no fire and entreat you not to take any live wood, nor especially to cut any live tree.”
“Don't worry about that,” Gorm said. “We dwarves have many stories of the haunted wood of Fangorn. I think we can get by without any fire anyway,” he went on. “It's quite warm enough to sleep in the open. And at any odds, I'll wager I could sleep through an avalanche after today's march.”
Rhavanielle smiled and wandered off a bit to explore the area about their little camp as the dwarves made themselves comfortable on their blankets and spoke together in their own tongue. She sang softly of leaf and bough. A song to cheer the trees all about, as was her habit, for she was Avari and loved Middle Earth and all the things in it.
While making water, the elf was suddenly aware of an intense scrutiny. Suddenly wary after being so surprised in a very private moment, she closed her eyes tight and put her hand onto the nearest tree, a linden of great size, whose crown towered above the other trees round about. Thoughts went out. Thoughts returned. Thoughts that were not thoughts, but an alien tangle of emotion, feelings, occasionally intentionality. Names were exchanged. She opened her eyes and looked about. The sunlight filtering through the high thicket had nearly failed at last. An evening breeze blew over her from the east. Warm and calming. She spoke a charm. In a language forgotten by all but the wisest and the eldest. Did she speak it? Or think it? Did it matter? The words existed in the in-between. She saw color. Patterns in the air as the veil thinned. Why do you speak to me now? Where have you been since our seedbearers seedbearers seedbearers took root here?
Rhavanielle felt her head spin a little with a dizziness she could not quite shake off. There was a sensation of being stared at, which the elves are of all folk most sensitive to. And then she felt a branch touch her shoulder. Other branches touching her waist, her legs. She felt herself hoisted aloft. And then a real voice. Emerald eyes big as dinner platters popped open and regarded her drowsily.
“What a long sleep I have had!” came a rumbling. The booming voice was like small stones grinding together. Or wood bending to the point of splintering. Or water over rocks in a spring stream. All those things.
“I have not spoken to the trees of Fangorn for many a century,” she said apologetically. “I admit I had forgot quite what it felt like.”
“Then why wake me now?” came the voice of the linden-that-was-not-a-linden.
“I didn't wake you! You picked me up, silly ent.”
“Your song awoke me, silly elf-child,” laughed the old ent. “I have not heard an elf singing since I was a mere sprout. It drew me from a long dream. Do you come to speak to the trees?”
“Three of us seek shelter,” she answered. “I pass through Fangorn with two dwarves.”
“The Stunted? Do they bear axes? Do they bear fire?” The voice bore a tinge of veiled anger.
“At my urging and by their own good sense, they keep their iron put away and they make no fire.”
“You will pass to the Wash?” the tree asked. “Beware the Men of the grass sea. They fear to enter the deep wood, but in times not so far past to us, they brought us fire and hewed us.”
“Are there orcs?” she asked.
“In the mountains,” came the answer. There was a long lapse. “Will you stay a while as once you did?”
The elf felt a wash of sadness. No time for old friends. Time moved so fast now. Even for ents. “I cannot. Alas! I cannot. Awful things are happening. Will happen here too. Soon we must all play our parts. Even you, old friend.”
There was another lapse of time. Her mind perceived a tingle of apprehension all about. There was a creaking and the deep shadows of Fangorn blurred and moved as bough and branch high above swayed without the wind.
“I feel something bad. Far off, but growing. Toward the rising.” came the voice. “But this forest is gone almost to sleep. Still there are many of us who continue the old way. Perhaps if you spoke to them? So few of your people come now. And those that do? They go straight to The Setting and hardly speak to us here in the north. A mere greeting!”
“For which I dare say they would allow me to offer apology. I suspect there will be a lot more speaking between my people and yours ere all is done. Maybe it will be that you will speak to Men, even. Or dwarves.”
The vast linden shuddered immensely and a cascade of lichens, dead leaves and dust drifted from the boughs above. The branch that held her fast lowered her gently to the ground.
“You shall be protected, elf. Inasmuch as I may protect anything anymore. Hroomph! There is more darkness now in the wood than ever there was before. And horrid things that crawl on us and worms that corrupt.” The ent sounded a resigned grunt and its leaves rustled despite the still air. Rhavanielle looked up. Her voice was full of a sudden sadness as a well of ancient memory was all at once opened up. She felt a single tear. The salt tasted funny on her lower lip and she sniffed and licked the moisture away.
“I will return,” she said firmly. “I owe it to your forebears to dwell here again ere all is ended or I go into the setting at last.”
“I don't think you will. Or if you do, I don't think I will be at hand to greet you, Rhavanielle of the Lost Lake.”
“We shall see.” She pronounced the ent's name in full. And the names of his ancestors for two hundred generations. Pronouncing the full ancestral name of the ent took her some time, so she sang it and it seemed that as she sang, she was accompanied by the chirping of night-insects and the screeching of bats and the hooting of owls and the chittering of tiny furry things that hunted by night. It was a song they thought they had all forgot for endless turnings of the stars, but which brought them a joy that only their ancestors had ever felt.
And on a pair of wool blankets some distance away, two dwarves dreamt of home and kin and woke much restored.
-------
The three made their way through the tangle of Fangorn without incident. Gorm wondered aloud to Rhavanielle that the wood seemed so peaceful, but the elven woman offered a sleepy half smile and a shrug. “It's not as dangerous as is thought in many quarters. You just need to bring good cheer with you. If you bring fear, then you'll have cause to be afraid.”
Two more nights camping in Fangorn and as the sun passed its zenith on the third day, there was a gentle downward slope to the land until the Onodlo could be discerned through the thicket of gnarled trees.
“We may be delayed looking for a ford, for I have not crossed this river in many years,” Rhavanielle stated. When they reached the river, they found that it was not especially broad, but that it was deep.
“We could swim,” offered the elf, but the dwarves did not relish the idea.
“There's no special hurry is there? There will perhaps be a ford further north?”
“Quite likely. More so as we work our way toward the headwaters. Very well,” she answered with a shrug.
And so they worked their way to a place where the river was divided into several rivulets that, while fast moving, were strewn with great boulders and no more than shoulder depth. Being able to see clearly the bottom of the crystal clear waters, the dwarves hopped like great overburdened toads from great stone to fallen tree bole to gravel islet until they had reached the opposite bank. Rhavanielle seemed to enjoy leaping with graceful ease from one stone to another, dancing back and forth across the streams as the dwarves grumbled and rolled their eyes at her apparent frivolity. “Don't mock us so,” said Sfeithi.
“I am sorry,” she apologized. By way of atonement, she waited for them at the southernmost bank.
Now having made their way west-northwest, they had gone deeper into the forest and Rhavanielle remembered a place not so far where of old the ents had gathered seasonally, but she felt that word of their passage had already gone before them, carried by bird and beast and whispered on the leaves of the trees. She felt no need to trouble the ents further since they had been granted passage already. But there was another she might visit, she thought. Curunir the Wizard dwelt in Isengard. He was held chief amongst the wise of Middle Earth and greatest in lore.
“I think we might profit from visiting Saruman the White,” she said to her companions. “He is held in high esteem by the Calenardhrim...by the Rohirrim and if we came out of Isengard, the Rohirrim might let us pass through their land. We should then be able to take the ancient highway to Minas Tirith and not bother with the dangerous eastern lands, or hoping for the good fortune to find a boat.”
The dwarves found this idea agreeable. The thought of being inside a building, any building after the days and days of living in the forest had left them yearning to sleep indoors in a safe place.
And so it was that they at last came to a sudden cliffside where below the land fell steeply away down and in the distance they were able to make out a black spike surrounded by a circle of white. The Ring of Isengard.
“Well there it is. We'll have to make our way further south to find easier paths down.”
“Do you think we'll get a bed to sleep in and something to eat beside jerkey, dried fruit and small game?” asked Gorm as he looked at the faroff edifice.
“Don't worry about that,” answered the elf as she set off down a deer trail leading back south and east. “Curunir is a great wizard, a generous and wise spirit. The least he'll offer us will be comfortable accomodations. Now let's go. Unless you want to spend two more nights under the stars instead of just one!”
Rhavanielle and her companions found their way to the gate of the great ring where a cluster of bored looking men stood guard over an open gate. The dwarves wondered at the stonework with wide eyes as the guards smiled and waved them in after Rhavanielle announced their business and intent. “The Master will be up in the tower, I reckon,” said the guardsman, his voice thick with a Dunland burr. “Rest yourselves and we'll send word.” Rhavanielle bowed royally and they wandered into the long tunnel through the Ring.
“Who made this place? It is as though the very earth was commanded to rise up!” marveled Gorm, who was an accomplished mason and miner. “And why have I never heard tale of it?”
“The Men of Avallone made this place in the days of their mastery. The Noldorin lords shared secrets with them, I am told,” she added. “Though I was far away when Angrenost was wrought.”
“How old are you, anyway, Pointy?” Sfeithi suddenly asked. It had occurred to him several times to ask her, for she seemed full of peculiar thoughts and invoked many memories of things he had never heard tell of.
“Older than this place. But not so old as Curunir,” she said. Sfeithi had to content himself with her vague non-answer. They lapsed into a silence broken only by the soft padding of the dwarves' battered boots. Rhavanielle made not a sound as usual. Even in the wild, tramping through the underbrush she could go unheard, a fact the dwarves found disconcerting.
The long dark of the tunnel was lit by torches and all the while they could see ahead the light of the vast inner court of the Ring. As they drew nearer to it, they could make out the storied gardens and once they emerged from the tunnel, they beheld the wonder of Orthanc jutting skyward like a clawed dragon's arm challenging the azure sky.
Rhavanielle and her friends wandered the gardens briefly, taking a rest by a small pond upon which swans floated majestically. They took off their boots and threadbare wool socks and let their aching feet float in the water as they lay.
Sfeithi looked a while at Rhavanielle, who lay flat on her back, wiggling her toes in the cool pond. Noticing his stare, she sat up, propping herself up on her elbows. “What is it?” she asked, looking down at her naked legs.
The dwarf blushed.
“Out with it, friend,” she insisted.
“Your legs...”
Rhavanielle shook her head. “Longer than yours. Yes.”
“They're so bare,” he said at last, prompted.
“One of many differences,” she said. Her voice betrayed a bit of confusion. “You've just noticed this?”
“I felt it impolite to even notice!” said the dwarf, sitting forward and looking at her apologetically.
“It isn't, really. Not impolite to notice differences people have.”
Sfeithi felt relieved by her answer. “And under your arms...?”
The elf nodded. “We're rather hairless,” she said. “And in case your wondering...”
Sfeithi's eyes bulged. “I was not!” prompting the girl to merrily giggle.
“You're hairy as a monkey. Hairier even than the edain!” she exclaimed.
“What's a monkey?” asked Gorm, wary of barbs disguised as humor.
“Alright. Not that hairy, but still.”
The awkward exchange lapsed a moment until the elf produced a pipe from her rucksack and packed it. “I've been saving this all the while!” she announced. Snapping her fingers with a flourish, she produced a tiny leaping flame on the tip of her index finger. She lit the pipe, which produced a lingering nimbus of gray smoke about her, the fragrance of which reminded them vaguely of certain beers favored by the dwarves in summertime.
“What is that?” Gorm asked, lifting his head.
“Alva haisunäätä,” she answered, puffing at the pipe.
“Well, what is that?” Sfeithi enjoined, looking pained as he often did at Rhavanielle's habit of answering a question with an answer no one save an elf would understand.
“It's something you smoke,” she said. She held the smoke in for a little bit, handing the pipe to Sfeithi on her left. “Try it.”
He pulled a half grimace as he was wont to do when she was like this. Like any woman, he though. The dwarf puffed experimentally at the pipe. He breathed the smoke in, attempting to mimic the elf. His round face turned red as he suppressed a cough, blowing the smoke out in a rush. The girl to his right smiled, but did not laugh at his predicament. “I coughed worse than that when I first tried it. You're a hardy soul,” she grinned.
A shadow fell over the three, prompting them to turn their heads about. A wizened old man with a long face adorned with a voluminous white beard stood over them, tall and with flashing bright eyes, clad in bright white robes. He wore robes of brilliant white that caught the light in flashes of subtle, though brilliant color. “Welcome to Isengard,” said he. The voice was musical and warm, making the gutteral-laden Westron tongue sound nearly as fluid as a mountain stream. “Few now of the fair folk visit me here anymore, let alone Dwarves. You look to have had a wearying journey.”
Sfeithi was suspicious of men and elves by nature but was caught off guard by the rolling tones of the old man's speech.
Rhavanielle forced aching limbs to action, standing up and bowing lightly. The dwarves followed suit, not sure if this was the master of the tower or some herald.
“Curunir!” said the elf with a wide smile. “I was hoping you would be here. The last time I passed through the Gap, you were in Imladris.”
“The White Council had to consider matters too weighty and too urgent to ignore. I am sorry I was not able to offer the full measure of our hospitality. I trust you were well treated nonetheless.”
“Oh to be sure,” answered the elf with a tilt of her head to the dwarves. “May I present two of Durin's folk, Sfeithi and Gorm?”
The Wizard inclined his head slightly by way of acknowledgement. It seemed to Sfeithi that their host clearly afforded far more respect to the elf than to either of them. Which rankled him no little, being a dwarf. Still he held his tongue and bowed deeply. Saruman was held by all to be wise and just. And his presence was held by many to keep Durin's Bane bottled up in the deepest deeps of Khazad Dum. Well...better there than roaming the world. Sfeithi was happy when the old man's attention turned back to Rhavanielle. Presumably the elf was better equipped to deal with such friffery. He was a soldier and a miner and no doubt Saruman the White had little use for such common folk. Gorm for his part stood awkwardly and said nothing, merely twirling strands of his beard.
“Will you be staying with us?” asked Saruman.
Rhavanielle nodded. “If we may presume upon your hospitality?”
“I shall send a porter straight away for your baggage,” Saruman said looking at their heap of camping gear and other impedimentia. “My dear Rhavanielle, we have much to discuss. We shall dine together and I will be delighted to show your friends the tower's summit.” With that, he bowed lightly once more to Rhavanielle and strode along the path and was lost to their sight in the groves.
After a moment more, Gorm's flinty voice at last chimed in. “Well, ain't he grand?”
