“Father, all the Arts have their patron but this one.”
Oropher raised an eyebrow at his son, and a shadow creased his smile. “Do you not give your thanks to Aulë when the wire bends true, and mere metal becomes a song in the hand?”
“Of course,” said Thranduil, but he was a perceptive boy, and he saw the shape of something he was not being told.
~
The boy, bending wire into spiraling baubles, became a youth; the youth began to learn the arts of fire, and mere baubles became gleaming jewels, more suitable for wear than for dangling to adorn a window’s arch. He wore them in deliberate contrast to stark and elegant Oropher, and when he ran and danced with the other youth of Nivrim, often the chime of metal on metal accompanied him.
Still, the thought did not leave his mind that all other Arts had a patron; that all other patrons had a shrine, be it Aulë’s grotto tucked away beneath the roots of the greatest oak, or the open, living structure of intertwined trees dedicated to Elbereth herself. Aulë was the master of all crafts, yes – but in his shrine were the loom and the brush, the chisel and the potter’s wheel. The forge was conspicuous by its absence.
Still he could not find the answer; still the shape of something hidden teased at his mind. Asking bore no fruit, for the elder Elves merely frowned and asked why he wanted to know; pushing for an answer received only his mother’s gentle remonstrance, and an overheard argument wherein she wanted to tell him… whatever it was… and Oropher did not. “He is still too young,” Thranduil heard, and he clenched his teeth and crept away silently through the branches. He did not hear “I do not want to burden him yet,” nor did he hear “Our little wild thing will fly to the forbidden, so best we do not forbid.”
None the less, he was drawn to the vacuum, and in a surge of great feeling he ran. Down the boughs, into the carved and ornate cave that served his family as home, flying like the deer before the hounds. He took up his tools, and took a great breath, and ran again.
Past his own room, half sheltered in stone and half shaded by great trees, and out into the forest, to a place he and few others knew, he darted. It was a quiet limestone hollow, its entrance a low arch crowded by unshaped roots and hidden beneath an exuberant spray of flowering canes. A hollow in the trunk above let in light, filtered by leaves.
Inside was a low bench, crafted of twisted wood and carefully planed and polished. He swept aside the few bits of wire that adorned it.
What did a shrine need? Open space – the oak wood had that aplenty, and this little chamber had some of its own. Quiet seclusion – that was here also. And something to direct the mind, to focus the thoughts. To guide the work.
Thranduil knew not what he was focusing on, save that he felt keenly the lack of something to which to dedicate himself. Yet, he had a thought, and in careful secrecy he assembled it.
A ceramic tray, blackened from the fire below and glossed irregular white with flux above; a hammer, a delicate thing with a handle of silvery wood; a pair of copper tongs, impeccably clean, but their tips rainbowed with heat. Last, a single unburnt rod of charcoal, still showing the texture of the bare wood it had once been.
At last the youth arranged the tools upon the tray, blew out a breath he hadn’t realized he held, and sat back.
He contemplated his work for a short time, smiled, and took out a hair-fine wire, and a tiny glittering stone to spin upon it, to craft an earring. This was no place for hot work, not yet- but it could be, and perhaps it would.
In all innocence, he sat and worked his project, in contemplation of his new shrine to the Maia of the Forge.
It began like an itch, something tickling up the spine.
There was little to do in the darkness of the keep but wait, patient as a stone, for scouts and messengers to bring tidings from afield. The sensation burned brighter in the absence of distraction.The throneroom was cold; the castle empty of servants to tend and maintain it. The marshland air lay heavy and damp, and the wet crept up every wall and grew on every tapestry. Wolves gnawed at bones in the courtyard while orcs patrolled he halls.
With a sudden intake of breath, Thû was filled with a sudden longing for heat, for the ringing of metal. Cold ashes swirled in the dead fireplace, and he ached to set it ablaze. What was it that had snuck into his brain like a gadfly? And why did his exile to this wet, chilly island feel so especially unbearable today?
The smithy here was pitiful; a peasant’s excuse for an anvil rusted unused in the abandoned court. Who stoked the fires in the Great Forge at Angband, now that he was gone? Was his workplace, too, gathering dust? Abandoned since his dubious “promotion”?
Unbidden, his heart recalled the rush of ignition, the oxygen-devouring inferno, the shimmer of convection and the white heat of molten ore. He remembered his forge– not at the heart of Thangorodrim, nor even Utumno, but farther back in the reach of his past; a place he’d tried to forget, the memories interlocked with the sight of familiar red hands, rough as sandstone, guiding him, offering support and direction.Thû closed his eyes, growling with a shake of his head that sent stray guard wolves cowering. Behind his eyes, he sought the source of this irritation, isolated it to a single point. And as he focused upon it, it grew; like a knock at the door, like a stranger calling his name.
He was not accustomed to being the recipient of prayer. He was not like Ossë, to whom the Falathrim built shrines, who sailors praised and offered supplication. Nor was he Melian, whose name was thanked day and night by those she sheltered, lending her strength. He was The Cruel, The Abhorrent; loved by none save those as removed from the Valar’s light as himself, and that had been the nature of his existence since before the first elf opened their eyes to see the stars.
That was perhaps why the feeling took him by surprise, why the faint brush of acknowledgement against the walls of his spirit eluded naming.But whatever it was, it had a child’s voice. And it came from just beyond the border of Melian’s Girdle, on the edge between forest and fen.
It was a long, long way from Tol Sirion as men might travel. But for a spirit unclad, it was a short journey, and in a grove shaped by water and stone and root, he found the source of his peculiar, gentle torment.
He moved without shape, without sound, and watched the oak-dark fall of hair over delicate shoulders stooped in concentration, observed the silverwood hammer, the tongs, the tools of his trade set into a hastily made shrine, built with both impudence and sincerity. And the little nut-brown prince, all fawn-limbs and intense eyes, whose nimble fingers bent jewelry out of spider silk wire, attentive yet carefree.
Curiosity moved him more powerfully than caution or cunning.
“Boy,” he asked, moving the air with thought rather than sound, “what are you doing? Why do you build to me, whose name you do not even know?”
It started with a breath of heat, barely felt – the sensation unexpected, and thus worrisome. Then, a voice – real and deep, and unlinked to any presence that should lend it such weight.
On the wire, the gem stopped its dance and glittered in a brief backward arc. Swift brown fingers caught it before it could tumble free, just as quickly set the silver web to rights. Thranduil glanced about, half off his bench before he was satisfied that nobody else had entered the little grotto.
Nobody, that is, that he could see. The back of his neck prickled. Why did he build to – then –
He was torn between laughter and flinging himself to the ground in fear; between fleeing at top speed and dancing his sudden delight. It was real, whatever else it was. It had worked.
Then, a perilous thought: it worked, yes; but he was no priest, nor son of a priestess. The forms of address were
foreign to him, and the risk of offending this mystery seemed suddenly
very high. He palmed the half-completed earring, careful to conceal without damaging it, equally careful not to think that Something capable of speaking without a mouth may also be able to see without eyes.Truth would be the only possible recourse. “I saw no shrines for the metalworker.” Had his voice sounded so reedy, when he was begging his parents for information? Or was it comparison that made him sound a piping bird next to the terrible unsourced sound?
“And I thought – I didn’t expect – “ he floundered to a stop, glancing about for anything to address.
What matter of being was this – and why hadn’t he learned its- no, his – name?
For the metalworker?
The child’s words flitted about in his brain, unable to find purchase. At last, something in memory stirred; titles he’d left behind him, all those eons ago, titles he’d never had a chance to use, or be called by anyone. Aulë was of course The Maker; but he had been the First Smith.
They will have need of fire, of heat, metal, tools, and craft, he’d been told, and the ancient word for “craft” encompassed all invention, all innovation and progress made from the first rock ever chipped into an arrowhead to the building of towers that scraped the heavens. His duty had once been overseer of the first forge– the patron, he supposed, of all forges. But even the Khazad did not refer to him by name; perhaps because they had never known it, or because they did know, and were too wise to use it. The figure in the back of Mahal’s shrines was nameless, his history omitted.So had this boy, this sapling of a Silvan elf who had never lain eyes upon the Valar, summoned him by chance alone?
Was it so easy to reach through time and distance, working backwards to find the source of something one had no name for, but knew must exist by virtue of its observable effects on nature? How very clever… how much like an Aulendur. he felt an unlikely thrill of pride move his spirit, like a smile.
Thû laughed. “You did not know to whom you spoke or if I would even appear, is that it? What a precocious young priest… You invented rites for me and reached into the darkness and plucked me down to bear witness, all on your own. You do not even know what I am.”
Bodiless, he saw the full circumference of the room simultaneously, heard the whispers of the boy’s unguarded thoughts. He was sparking with emotions, fear and excitement and dismay going in all directions. The earring he’d strung together sat in his palm like a glittering insect he was being careful not to crush; To Thû it seemed limned with silver, and shown through flesh and shadow quite clearly. It called to him like a little bell; he knew in his heart he was meant to acknowledge it in some way, before taking his leave.
He stretched out his spirit to touch it– how little prince’s heart hammered! Like a wild rabbit in a snare. As he brushed the silver glow, a bolt of clarity shot from his presence in the grotto all the way back to his body, left in the damp throne of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. It startled him, but pleasantly; it seemed to blow fresh heat into his coals.
A breathless sigh stirred the dry leaves on the floor.
“No one has ever given me tribute before,” he mused, his thoughts echoing distantly. “I did not expect anyone ever would…. How warm it feels.”
He paused, focusing for a moment on the young elf’s face, reading his eyes, his features. “You are both very brave and very foolish for inviting me here. But I thank you all the same– is there anything you wish from me, as your ‘patron’?”
How he shook.
That terrible Being was… not a wild cat, but the presence of a wild cat. He could feel it circling, and his ears rang for the roar, the nape of his neck prickled for the bite. Thranduil took a deep breath through flared nostrils, and counted the seconds as he let it go.
And then the earring he’d palmed, half-strung, chimed with that radiant mind, in a way he could neither describe nor expect. He lost his breath and kept his hand from leaping up only because he clasped it with the other. In the thin wire, he knew the sensation of dark and cold, of an ancient and cunning malice.
No name.
No tribute.
Very foolish, indeed.
Rustling leaves told him time was passing, while he contemplated the new knowledge. The mystery of how he’d whispered up the Presence from the depths would have to wait; for now, merely escaping intact had become the priority.
Once again he regretted his casual attention to the priests. How did it go, how did the rites close? It was formal Quenya, a set-phrase normally delivered in a priest’s warbling song. He did not trust his voice to keep from breaking, and spoke it instead. Better a simple work done well, than a fine one done badly-
“I thank you for your presence, for your eye upon my works. I need for nothing, and ask for nothing, save your grace.”
Even that had a request in it.
In stark imitation of a Noldorin priest, Thranduil crossed his arms and bowed, the tiny jewel dangling from between the fingers of his open hand. He dared not voice the thought: take it, please. It and not I.
The specifics of the rite meant little to him, he found; only its nature mattered, that the object in the elfling’s hands had been dedicated to him and no one else.
He had no body with which to accept the little dew-drop of silver, yet on a whim he extended his spirit to touch it anyway. It moved as he brushed it, and when enclosed, it disappeared– far away, in the cold fortress on the river, a minuscule weight manifested in his palm.
The voiceless spirit made a curious, pleased sound, and laughed, delighted.
Such a discovery wanted testing– and Thû wrapped the grasp of his thought around the prince’s extended wrist like a shackle.Nothing. He passed through flesh like water, and all other material that had not been pledged to him.
“You truly wish for nothing? That seems a foolish waste of a gift.” His words rolled smoothly around the genuflected prince. Their exchange had left him feeling particularly generous. “I might offer to spare you in battle, should we meet in the field. Or grant you knowledge of my craft; perhaps silver-working, or the secret of fine steel–”
He might have gone on listing temptations, but something loomed into his periphery like a fast-building tempest; the presence of another, far less artless being than the trembling boy. A grown Sindar lord rushed out from the invisible wall of Melian’s Girdle, beyond which Sauron could see nothing, and his spirit was ablaze with paternal vigilance.
“…I will owe you a favor, then,” he finished curtly, sensing this was a threat he could not ignore, even bodiless. Annoyed at the interruption, he withdrew from the forest quick and silent as a falling shadow, returning on the thread he’d spun from far away in Tol Sirion.
Thranduil would have sworn that he gripped the wire too tightly to risk dropping it, and yet, it slipped from his numbing fingertips. Despite himself he gasped and spun, searching wide-eyed across the gnarled tapestry of roots and moss that made up the floor of the hollow trunk. No little gleam of light sparked up at him, and surely it could not have fallen so far from the light.
Then a tingling, aching cold enveloped his wrist, and he knew.
That voice – oh that Voice, now a tiger’s seducing purr. It offered him such delightful things! To truly know the ways of silver and fine steel, to become an artist (dare he think it, to rival even the fated Celebrimbor -)
Outside, in the still wood, came a shout, and the high note of an elven horn.
“No-” the word was directed to the interruption and not to the Voice, but he feared it was taken in answer anyway.
“…I will owe you a favor, then.” And the blood rushed back to his chilled fingertips, stinging like a reprimand.
The horn called again, closer, its notes in the familiar cadence of quarry found. The hooves of great-stags thumped heavy on the earth, and Thranduil scrambled forth from his hiding place. No flame burned inside to give him away, nor would there be a trace of what he’d been doing – the earring was gone, utterly gone.
“Thranduil!” His father’s voice rang out – and there they were, Oropher himself flanked by a pair of hunters, with one of Melian’s sacred riding her own great-stag just behind.
The King in the Greenwood flung himself from his saddle and ran to his son, hands patting over head, shoulders, back, hips. “You’re safe? You’re… safe. You went too far, wild one – ” He blew out his breath all at once, and over Thranduil’s protest gathered the young elf up and bundled him into the saddle. The hunters, alert, kept watch with narrowed eyes under their shining helms.
He thought he’d escaped until the priestess stepped down, lithe as a young sapling despite her moon-white hair and ancient eyes. She walked a circle, from her own mount past Oropher and his wayward son, with its farthest point just at the edge of his hidden space. Back at her mount, she gathered supplies – fresh flowers, a bird’s feather, incense. “I will be some time,” she said, brusquely as few dared in such company. “Please, precede me.”
Oropher studied his son, and Thranduil started back from the merciless gaze. Yet he did not flinch, when the King reached up to embrace him and lay his head on Thranduil’s breast. “My son, oh my brave, brilliant, foolish son. It’s far past time you learned. Come home with me – there will be a fine meal tonight, and tomorrow, we will send you with the sacred ones, to learn what we should have taught you already.”
“I will be honored to learn with them, Father.” Thranduil stroked his father’s gleaming hair, taken aback.
“You will indeed. But for now – home, and safety. Your mother is worried.”
They left one of the guards with Melian’s chosen, and as Oropher swung up into the saddle and patted the great-stag into motion, Thranduil slid a hand into his pocket. The earring-stone remained missing, but its mate was there, and would doubtless sparkle on just as brightly alone.
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