The Case of the Silver Letters, Part 2
May. 10th, 2011 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarielIf you have ever longed to read a Holmes pastiche set in Ithilien after the Ring War - you can now. But read Part 1 first.
The Case of the Silver Letters, Part 2
Beyond the window, the rain is falling in grey sheets. It’s been falling for days. The room is nearly bare. Everything that’s going has been packed. Only the people remain, waiting for salvation.
He’s a tall man, dark-haired and grey-eyed, wearing a long black leather coat. On his left hand is a black and silver ring. On his chest, above his heart, he wears a black brooch etched with the design of a white tree. Above the tree is a crescent moon lying on its back, like a white eyelid. For nearly an hour now, this man has been pacing this empty room, his footsteps echoing off the chequered floor. Whenever he passes the window, he looks out, at the sky, at the water flooding from the sky.
Near the door, a woman and two small children are waiting. They’re all dark-haired too, and grey-eyed, and dressed for a long journey. The woman, in furs, poised and elegant, watches her husband’s hopeless circular pilgrimage. Suddenly the younger of the two children gives a small sob. His mother leans down and kisses him softly on the top of his head. “Hush,” she murmurs. “Hush.”
As she speaks, they hear it: a whirring, thudding noise, how the wings of great birds would sound if they were made of metal. Whatever it is, it’s coming closer. The man and the woman look at each other in terror. The older child never forgets that look.
The man strides over to the window once more. Is it too late? Or, worse, have they been forgotten? He puts his forehead against the window pane, hiding his face so they won’t see. Is this the payment, then, for all those years of faithful service? The glass is shuddering in the frame from the tumult overhead. And then the black and silver shape takes form, and he realizes what the noise signifies.
He turns to his family. His eyes are bright as stars. “They’re here,” he says. “They’ve come. We’re saved.” Quickly he crosses the room. He lifts up one of his children. She has the other.
“Time to go,” he says. And they run from the house, into exile.
***
What have we given?
All that was ours.
Why did we give it?
For the sake of our faith.
I woke up. The room was filled with milk-white light, the full moon passing easily through the curtains. I knew that brightness would keep me awake, so I got out of bed and slipped downstairs, thinking that I would find a bite in the kitchens, and then curl up in the library until moonset or sleep came. But as I reached the kitchen doorway, I saw a light and heard voices.
I stopped and peeped inside. Mother, Father, and Amrothos were sitting around the big table. They were poring over the plans from Father’s cabinet and swigging beer from bottles. Mother was in her night clothes, but Father and Amrothos were dressed for outdoors. Amrothos looked almost respectable in a beautiful dark blue cloak trimmed with white fur. My father looked wholly disreputable in his old ranger gear. I frowned. Were they intending to go on this expedition without me?
“Perhaps I should come along,” my mother said, “if only to see the pair of you spinning around under the moon.”
“Hmm,” said my father, then drained the last of his beer and stood up. The leather of his jerkin creaked slightly. My mother, rising, patted his stomach. “Very snug,” she said.
“Hush, woman,” he growled, and kissed the top of her head.
They were going without me! Furious, I dashed back up to my room and dressed very quickly. I crept downstairs – a true ranger’s daughter – and out through the west door. If they were going up to the old house – and that was surely their destination – they would be heading towards the south gate and the hill path. I ran outside into a cool night soaked in moonlight, and sped through the west garden and out onto the lawn. I saw the yellow speck of their lantern a little way ahead, and hung back so that they did not discover me. I let them pass through the gate, and then followed them out. Already my father was setting a good pace with his long stride. I had to hurry to keep up with them, all the while trying not to be heard, although it helped my cause that there was much soft talk and laughter between them.
I had never come to the old house at night. Under the full moon, the ruins had taken on an unearthly aspect, deep blue shading into black. I looked up at the moon, full and bright, and my heart was filled with love for my land, Ithilien. With the new pictures in my mind of the house conjured from the old papers, I could have walked in the ruins all night, amidst the shades and echoes of my long gone ancestors who had once lived here, when the walls stood tall and proud, and Gondor was at her height.
But time was passing, and my father and his cousin were getting ahead. I hurried on after them, past the old walls and over fragments of broken floor, and out onto the old lawn that Amrothos and I had explored earlier in the week. I saw the yellow lantern again, and the dark figures of my father and Amrothos. They were standing at the edge of the field, and seemingly had already measured out the point that Amrothos and Léof had calculated between the pine and the stump of the redleaf tree. Their voices carried on the night air over to where I was hiding.
“Should we do the turns now or later, do you think, Rothos?”
“Perhaps we should try both now and later.”
There was a pause. My father said, “Oh. You want me to do them.”
“You are the Prince of Ithilien.”
“And thus perhaps it might be beneath my dignity— Oh, very well.” With a sigh, Father began to spin slowly round. “I can only hope nobody is awake to see this.”
“Quiet, cousin, I’m counting! There, that’s seven. Now two, the other way. Then five, clockwise again, then twelve...”
“Twelve! I’ll be sick!”
“No, you won’t.”
“Next time is most assuredly your turn.”
“Next time you’ll still be Prince of Ithilien.”
“Remember that I am from a long-lived family, sir, and can wait years for revenge. There, that makes three. Can I stop now?”
“What? Oh, yes.”
“And has that served any purpose other than to make me dizzy?”
Amrothos shrugged. “This is hardly an exact science, Faramir. Now the steps. Which way is north?”
My father pointed.
“Off you go. Twelve and twelve.”
“Why not simply say four-and-twenty?” my father wondered out loud, as he strode off northwards.
“For the same reason we’re carrying out this whole business under moonlight, I should imagine. More poetic. Are you there yet? Then east. Six and six – or twelve, if you prefer.”
Obediently, Father strode off again, and, reaching the end of that set of steps, turned south and began pacing again. I stuffed my fist in my mouth to stop the giggles and wished more than ever that Bron was home to see this.
“Now west by one and one!” Amrothos called out.
“One... and... one... and... look where that brings us!” My father gave a short laugh. “Rothos, I fear you are going to be disappointed.”
Amrothos ran lopsidedly over to my father, and I hurried after, as close as I dared. My father was standing next to an old stone wall, about six feet in height. Another wall ran away from it at right angles, with a long-cold fireplace and some crumbling decorations, but that was all that remained of whatever room had once been here. I had often picnicked in the shade of these walls with Bron.
My father sighed. “It seems we have reached the end of our quest. I know this spot well – the rangers often camped here. There’s what remains of a frieze over on that wall, but no inscription that I ever saw. If once there were more directions, the wind and the rain will have long since taken them.” His shoulders fell. “Ah well, it was a good try.”
“Hmm.” Amrothos was clearly unwilling to give up quite yet. “Perhaps the frieze might still be worth a look.”
“I promise you I know every square. I spent many a long watch counting them.”
“But a fresh pair of eyes might make the difference.” Amrothos turned around slowly, the lantern swinging in his hand, casting dim yellow light across the sharp contours of his face. “I’m sure I’m forgetting something...”
“And under,” I muttered, willing him to remember, almost ready to give myself away so great was my frustration. “One and one, and under!”
Amrothos slapped his forehead. “Under,” he said, and pointed at the ground. They both looked down, and then both burst out laughing. “Trapdoor!” they said as one.
My father knelt down and began clearing away the moss and briars about their feet. Amrothos, holding the lantern for him, grumbled, “So in all those long hours spent here you never noticed the trapdoor?”
“I swear it was not here!”
“Thinking of your supper, no doubt.”
“Thinking of shelter, Rothos. We’d have had this open in a heartbeat, if we’d ever seen it.” Taking the iron ring in both hands, Father braced one foot against the ground, and, with a slight grunt of effort, dragged away the ancient piece of wood more easily than one would have expected from a cover that had surely lain on the spot for centuries. “Steps!” he said, looking up at his cousin and, in the lamplight, I caught a glimpse of his face. He was grinning like a boy. “I’ll go first, if I may.”
“Who else?” said Rothos, and held up the light for him again. My father disappeared from view. Rothos passed the lantern down and followed.
I dashed out from my cover and across to the trapdoor. Sitting on the edge, I listened until their voices became more distant, and then I quietly put my feet on the top steps. I raised myself up again, counted myself down seven steps – and then slipped on some moss and fell down the last three.
“Who’s there?” my father called, in his captain’s voice. He stepped out from the gloom, one arm raised, with a stern expression upon his face. He saw me sprawled on the floor, rubbing furiously at my shin. “Morwen! What are you doing here? You should be in bed!”
“Father!” I said hotly, for my dignity had taken something of a bashing, “I’m not a little girl!” Then, undercutting my point rather: “It was mean of you not to bring me along!”
Father helped me back to my feet. He was starting to look extremely annoyed, the line between his brows furrowing deeply. Behind him Amrothos was chuckling. Father jerked his thumb upwards. “Did you see all that business earlier?”
I nodded.
“If I let you stay, would an account reach your mother’s ears?”
I gave him a look to say, what do you think? He made a soft growling noise at the back of his throat. “Wretched child,” he muttered. “Very well. You can take charge of the lantern. No, wait!” His eyes gleamed in the darkness. “I have a much better punishment! Come along, Morwen – seven turns, clockwise... then two, counterclockwise...”
Between them, he and his cousin mercilessly and speedily took me through the whole sequence: seven, two, five, twelve, one, three. When we reached the end, I slumped queasily against my father’s side. “Oh...” I breathed.
“The pursuit of knowledge can carry a heavy cost,” Father said.
“Oh!” I said again, more crossly.
Gently, he ruffled my hair. “You can go home if you’re feeling ill.”
“No! I’ve earned this!”
He burst out laughing. “Indeed you have, blackbird! Thoroughly earned!” He tugged my ear. “Well, if your sea legs have now returned, shall we see where this passage leads?”
We went in single file, Amrothos first with the lantern, myself next, and Father at the rear. The passageway was damp and mossy, and after a hundred yards or so, came to a decided dead end. Amrothos stared at the dark wall ahead. “Have we missed an opening along the way, cousin?”
“Not that I noticed,” said Father, who would have noticed. “Is there no way through?”
“Not that I can see...” Amrothos touched the wall, and gasped. My father’s hand was on my shoulder at once. “What?” he said sternly.
“This is metal!” Amrothos exclaimed. “And by the feel the surface is not flat. Yes, quite definitely, curved...”
Father reached over my shoulder. I saw his fingertips brush against the wall, and then twitch up briefly, as if in surprise, before he put his whole palm down flat. “Metal,” he agreed. “Morwen, would you take the lantern from Amrothos, please, so he might have a better look?”
I gladly took it. Amrothos carried on his investigations, his clever sensitive fingers running up and down the black metal barrier in front of us. “Goes right on to the ground, and is high enough for a man as tall as you to pass through, Faramir.”
“If it were a door,” Father said. “But it has all the appearance of a wall to me, cousin.”
“Hmm.” Amrothos scratched his chin. “More like something embedded in the wall. Hold the lantern over to the right, please, Morwen.”
I did so, and the lamplight gleamed suddenly off something there. Amrothos moved in quickly to take a closer look. “What do we have here?”
The three of us peered at it. Two strips of dark metal had been set into the larger curved piece that barred our way. These two strips were about a foot long, and ran vertically side-by-side. Each bore distinctive marks. The one on the left carried twelve silver marks like runes from a map in a story book, each one raised up like pegs. The marks on the right-hand side were dark and very mysterious. My father ran his finger down the left-most set of marks. “A shield or a crest of some sort?” he hazarded, doubtfully.
“Don’t you recognise them?” I said excitedly. “They’re the letters from the silver case! But running down and not across!”
My two accomplices glanced at each other and looked again at the markings. “I do believe she’s right,” Father said. “Well done, Morwen! Well spotted. What now, Rothos?”
His cousin did not reply at first, merely examined the letters closely again, muttering to himself as he did. After a few minutes, he sat upon the ground, put his forearms upon his knees, and rested his head against them. I heard him whispering to himself. Father and I exchanged a few glances, and waited patiently. And at last Amrothos began to laugh, very softly. “Of course,” he said. “Of course. How simple. Not letters. Numbers. A list of numbers.”
He stood up. One by one he began to turn the pegs that bore the strange silver symbols: the seventh, clockwise; the second, counterclockwise; then on to the fifth, the twelfth, the first, the third. As he turned them, they began to glow, as if moonlight were captured within them. There was a grinding noise, of metal rubbing against metal. My father murmured under his breath; a prayer, perhaps. The wall in front of us moved slowly back, and I peered into the blackness beyond.
“So,” Father said dryly, “all that spinning around did indeed serve only to make me dizzy.”
I held the lantern forward and aloft. My eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness beyond, and I saw a dim chamber, with rounded walls, a huge hollow sphere with a flattened floor. Heaped in the middle of the chamber was a dark shape, like a huge sack. “Morwen,” my father said, and there was no humour in his voice, no jest, only command, “you are not to enter this room.”
I whispered my assent, and clutched on to the lantern. Slowly, my father stepped inside the strange round chamber. When he reached the dark shape, he bent down to touch it. Then he sat back on his haunches, his head bowed. After a moment he looked up at Amrothos. His eyes were like stars in the darkness. “Turgon,” he said, crisply.
Amrothos, entering the chamber, went to kneel beside him. “That explains why the trapdoor was uncovered.”
“Aye. And then, having come here alone, the door must have sealed again behind him, and there was none outside to open it, nor any means inside to force a way out. Foolish, imprudent man! Why did he not come to me?”
Amrothos placed his hand upon my father’s shoulder. “In order to cheat you of whatever wealth he hoped this room might contain, of course. For this must be the family vault, Faramir, surely?”
“Whatever that is worth.” Father rose, and I watched him slowly circle the chamber, his hand upon the metal. The whole space must have been no more than twelve feet at its widest point. “An empty room and a lonely death,” he said to himself, and then, no doubt remembering that I was there, collected himself. “I assume the room is otherwise empty?”
“Not quite...” Amrothos replied. Reaching past Turgon’s still form, he picked up, from beside the body, a small dark box, small enough to nestle in his palm. “Is this familiar, cousin?”
My father bent to examine the find. “No, nor the device either. The white tree, of course, but with a crescent above it?” He shook his head. “That I have never seen.”
All the while my father and Amrothos had been exploring the chamber, I had remained by the door, holding the lantern up for them. Feeling it starting to hang heavy from my arm, I swapped it over to my left hand, and rested the tired arm against the wall of the passage. As I did so, I noticed that a change had come over the second vertical strip of metal. Where before the marks upon it had been dark, now they were alight, shining like the silvery numbers that ran alongside them. There were eight in total, strange broken shapes that ran through a full bright disc down to a white eyelid. I stared at these new shapes so hard they seared themselves into my vision. As if from a distance, I heard the grinding sound and, moved by some gift of sudden knowledge, I grasped the meaning of the pattern and my heart became stone in my breast. Turning suddenly, I screamed:
“Father! Get out! Get out! Daddy, please – get out now!”
My father did not even stop to think. Grabbing his cousin, he pushed him towards the door. Already that was beginning to close, sealing away this terrible, lightless tomb. Amrothos scrambled out into the passageway, and then my father, with mere moments to spare, shoved his way through into my outstretched arms.
The lantern had gone out. For a while there were only the eerie patches of light from the panels and the ragged sound of our breathing through the darkness. Then I heard the striking of a tinder box, and Amrothos held up the lamp, which swung to and fro. “You lead a charmed life, Faramir,” he said, mildly, his voice steady if his hands were not.
“I am lucky in those I have around me,” Father replied. “Morwen, tell me what you saw.”
From the circle of his arms, I pointed at the second set of marks. “Phases of the moon,” I whispered, letting my head fall against his chest. “The last is new, and dark.”
***
Let us draw a veil over what Mother said that night. But picture us, if you will, the following morning, processing through the grounds of the old house. Mother strode at the fore, all sunlight and fury, followed at a slight, safe distance by Father, his face grave and his hands clasped behind his back. Léof and I trotted along next, accompanied by Amrothos, and after us came two members of the White Company, dragging a cart.
We went first to the pine tree and the stump of the redleaf, where Léof piped up cheerfully to explain to Mother how it is possible to calculate a point between two trees where two imaginary lines of the same length meet, provided you know the heights of both trees. Watching my mother’s face I thought how fortunate it was for my younger brother that he was such a favourite with her. My father nobly stepped into the breach. “Once we knew where to start,” he said, “we were able to pace out the steps as detailed in the rhyme which Belecthor told to Morwen and Rothos. That led us there.” He pointed across the field at the two ruined walls.
We marched over, without repeating the sequence or offering Mother the opportunity to do so. The trapdoor was still where Father had left it the previous night. Mother and Father went down the steps, followed by the men from the White Company. I decided that it might be wise for now if Léof and I waited above ground with Amrothos.
My father’s cousin began poking around the area near the trapdoor. After a few moments he called me and my brother over. “Look,” he said, and gestured down at a pile of turves, which, when reassembled, would easily have been large enough to cover the trapdoor and the area around. A heap of torn-up briars also lay nearby. “Now we see why the rangers never discovered the entrance,” Amrothos said. “Turgon had to clear a way through.” We examined this evidence with interest, and then my father’s men emerged, carrying between them the covered body of the unhappy Turgon. They lay this on the cart, and headed back towards our house. Amrothos went down the steps to join my mother and father. Léof and I waited a few moments before following him down.
There was a faint white glow at the end of the corridor, unlike the light a lantern might cast, and soon I could clearly see the tall silhouettes of the adults ahead. Mother was standing at the very edge of the entrance of the doorway, peering inside as we had done the night before. The strange new light was emanating from inside the chamber. Amrothos stepped inside, but when Father moved to follow him, Mother blocked his way. “No!” she said. “On no account.”
“It isn’t dangerous now, Éowyn,” Amrothos called from inside the chamber.
My mother threw up her hands in frustration. “How can you know that? How can you be so sure?”
“Morwen knows,” Amrothos called back. “Don’t you, Morwen?”
Mother and Father turned to look at me and I trembled, confronted with the steely severity of that double stare. But I plucked up my courage and said, “The room is safe during the day, and can be opened at will.” I pointed at the wall. “See? There are no warning lights. The second panel is dark. I think... because one might reasonably want to enter the chamber throughout the day, and work in there. That is why it has its own source of light. And if the door should happen to seal, someone outside could open it easily.”
“But why would that be any different at night?” my mother said. She took my father’s hand. “Why have the entrance seal at night?”
“One must think of the reasons why one would come to such a place at night,” my father said quietly. “To hide something, quickly, or to retrieve something, quickly – or else perhaps because one has come in secrecy, to steal something kept within. In such cases, the door would seal after a short length of time, as it did for poor Turgon, and one would either be aware of this limitation, and leave before, or else be left inside and unable to rely upon any accomplice to aid an escape.”
“Try it, Éowyn,” Amrothos said. “Turn the pegs back.”
“With you still inside?” Mother shuddered. “I shall not!”
“There truly is no risk,” he said. “And it will prove to you once and for all that you need not be afraid.”
No doubt it was the imputation of fearfulness that provoked my mother into trying; Amrothos was a perceptive man. “The seventh, then the second,” Father said, helpfully, and she turned the pegs as he directed. The metal ground and the door sealed. Mother blanched, cursed, and hastened to turn the pegs once again. The door opened, revealing my father’s cousin, beaming back at her.
Only now was Father permitted to re-enter the chamber. Again he circled the small space, coming to a halt in the centre. “What kind of world must it have been?” he wondered, gazing round, his arms folded. “To promote such secrecy and mistrust amongst men that they would desire to build such a device? Such a cruel trap, springing from a cruel cast of mind...” He shook his head. “Aye, that surely was the true Downfall – the Enemy’s handiwork indeed.”
“So you are certain it came from the Land of the Star?” my mother said. She looked inside again with the kind of apprehensive awe with which she often treated her husband’s weird inheritance. “Brought by those of your ancestors that came back?”
“Look at the craft, love.”
“And what do you think it once contained?” she said.
“I would guess – those of their possessions that they were able to pack in the time they had.”
“Such a large space, my love! Yet we are not living daily amongst work such as this.” Mother rapped her knuckles against the metal, which gave a hollow response. “What happened to the contents, do you think?”
“Some small things have survived,” my father said. “The leather case which has so enchanted Morwen, and a few other pieces that you have seen in the Steward’s House. Some I think my father destroyed...” A shadow sped briefly over his face, like a cloud across the moon. “But most will have been lost when Ithilien fell to the Enemy. All gone,” he said, holding up his hands, and giving her his sombre, tender smile. “Like the house beneath which it was hidden.”
She strode inside to join him. “Ah love,” she said, grasping his hands and holding them to her, “I would have settled for ruins, if that was what there was.” And they kissed, and for the first time I understood the depth of his sense of loss for our land, and the nature of their pride in its restoration.
On her way back out, Mother gave both us children a fierce look. “This,” she pointed behind her, “is out of bounds.” I never transgressed this rule – although naturally when Bron returned home I gave him full information as to where the vault could be found and how to enter, and I should not dream of speaking for either him or Léof.
***
Mother’s directive meant that I did not see much of Amrothos for the rest of his visit, since his days were spent investigating the vault and its workings. (But spare a thought, if you will, for the poor member of the White Company despatched by Mother to stand outside while Amrothos was within, to watch for the waxing of the moon-marks.) He was also delighted that we had found the meaning of the silver ‘letters’ on my case, which he was sure held the key to deciphering several fragments that had long languished untranslated in the City archives. I believe he tarried there for several days on his journey home to Belfalas.
My father, too, was richly compensated for his labours. The box found beside Turgon’s body was of no particular worth in itself, being made of an ordinary dark wood, but within lay a great treasure – a ring wrought of black metal, wound about with a thin thread of silver. There could be no doubt of its origin. Like the vault in which it had lain undisturbed for centuries, it too had surely come with our ancestors when they fled Númenor, faithful servants of the Lords of Andúnië, rewarded for their loyalty with their lives. A rare gift it was indeed, to have survived the double losses suffered by our house – Númenor and Ithilien, the Land of the Star and the Land of the Moon. The ring fitted perfectly on the middle finger of Father’s left hand, and I never saw him without it again.
And I? I, at heart, was a simple creature, easily satisfied. I threw myself with great pleasure into the preparations for the yáviérë festival that was coming at the end of the month. The day itself was made complete by the letter I received that morning from Bron, brimming over with outrage at missing out on such a great adventure, and which I store, with all my treasures, in my black-and-silver case.
***
Author’s notes: For Isabeau of Greenlea, who has been promised an Amrothos Holmes story for a very long time, and has waited so very patiently. Hope this suffices, dear accomplice and partner-in-crime!
Thank you to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
espresso_addict for the suggestion that gave me my point of view character.
On the Númenorean section: The device of the white tree and the crescent moon I’ve made up. I intended it as the insignia of Elendil’s secret police (don’t tell me he didn’t have one), of which I have made Faramir’s ancestor the head. In her dream, the machine that Morwen hears coming to save her ancestors is Elendil’s Chinook, or the Númenorean equivalent (don’t tell me they didn’t have those either).
The family vault is based on the black stone of Erech in The Lord of the Rings, a great black stone globe twelve feet in diameter. Makes you wonder if there’s anything inside that too.
Insincere apologies to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for the scandalous rip-off of The Musgrave Ritual.
Altariel, 4th-10th May 2011
The Case of the Silver Letters, Part 2
Beyond the window, the rain is falling in grey sheets. It’s been falling for days. The room is nearly bare. Everything that’s going has been packed. Only the people remain, waiting for salvation.
He’s a tall man, dark-haired and grey-eyed, wearing a long black leather coat. On his left hand is a black and silver ring. On his chest, above his heart, he wears a black brooch etched with the design of a white tree. Above the tree is a crescent moon lying on its back, like a white eyelid. For nearly an hour now, this man has been pacing this empty room, his footsteps echoing off the chequered floor. Whenever he passes the window, he looks out, at the sky, at the water flooding from the sky.
Near the door, a woman and two small children are waiting. They’re all dark-haired too, and grey-eyed, and dressed for a long journey. The woman, in furs, poised and elegant, watches her husband’s hopeless circular pilgrimage. Suddenly the younger of the two children gives a small sob. His mother leans down and kisses him softly on the top of his head. “Hush,” she murmurs. “Hush.”
As she speaks, they hear it: a whirring, thudding noise, how the wings of great birds would sound if they were made of metal. Whatever it is, it’s coming closer. The man and the woman look at each other in terror. The older child never forgets that look.
The man strides over to the window once more. Is it too late? Or, worse, have they been forgotten? He puts his forehead against the window pane, hiding his face so they won’t see. Is this the payment, then, for all those years of faithful service? The glass is shuddering in the frame from the tumult overhead. And then the black and silver shape takes form, and he realizes what the noise signifies.
He turns to his family. His eyes are bright as stars. “They’re here,” he says. “They’ve come. We’re saved.” Quickly he crosses the room. He lifts up one of his children. She has the other.
“Time to go,” he says. And they run from the house, into exile.
***
What have we given?
All that was ours.
Why did we give it?
For the sake of our faith.
I woke up. The room was filled with milk-white light, the full moon passing easily through the curtains. I knew that brightness would keep me awake, so I got out of bed and slipped downstairs, thinking that I would find a bite in the kitchens, and then curl up in the library until moonset or sleep came. But as I reached the kitchen doorway, I saw a light and heard voices.
I stopped and peeped inside. Mother, Father, and Amrothos were sitting around the big table. They were poring over the plans from Father’s cabinet and swigging beer from bottles. Mother was in her night clothes, but Father and Amrothos were dressed for outdoors. Amrothos looked almost respectable in a beautiful dark blue cloak trimmed with white fur. My father looked wholly disreputable in his old ranger gear. I frowned. Were they intending to go on this expedition without me?
“Perhaps I should come along,” my mother said, “if only to see the pair of you spinning around under the moon.”
“Hmm,” said my father, then drained the last of his beer and stood up. The leather of his jerkin creaked slightly. My mother, rising, patted his stomach. “Very snug,” she said.
“Hush, woman,” he growled, and kissed the top of her head.
They were going without me! Furious, I dashed back up to my room and dressed very quickly. I crept downstairs – a true ranger’s daughter – and out through the west door. If they were going up to the old house – and that was surely their destination – they would be heading towards the south gate and the hill path. I ran outside into a cool night soaked in moonlight, and sped through the west garden and out onto the lawn. I saw the yellow speck of their lantern a little way ahead, and hung back so that they did not discover me. I let them pass through the gate, and then followed them out. Already my father was setting a good pace with his long stride. I had to hurry to keep up with them, all the while trying not to be heard, although it helped my cause that there was much soft talk and laughter between them.
I had never come to the old house at night. Under the full moon, the ruins had taken on an unearthly aspect, deep blue shading into black. I looked up at the moon, full and bright, and my heart was filled with love for my land, Ithilien. With the new pictures in my mind of the house conjured from the old papers, I could have walked in the ruins all night, amidst the shades and echoes of my long gone ancestors who had once lived here, when the walls stood tall and proud, and Gondor was at her height.
But time was passing, and my father and his cousin were getting ahead. I hurried on after them, past the old walls and over fragments of broken floor, and out onto the old lawn that Amrothos and I had explored earlier in the week. I saw the yellow lantern again, and the dark figures of my father and Amrothos. They were standing at the edge of the field, and seemingly had already measured out the point that Amrothos and Léof had calculated between the pine and the stump of the redleaf tree. Their voices carried on the night air over to where I was hiding.
“Should we do the turns now or later, do you think, Rothos?”
“Perhaps we should try both now and later.”
There was a pause. My father said, “Oh. You want me to do them.”
“You are the Prince of Ithilien.”
“And thus perhaps it might be beneath my dignity— Oh, very well.” With a sigh, Father began to spin slowly round. “I can only hope nobody is awake to see this.”
“Quiet, cousin, I’m counting! There, that’s seven. Now two, the other way. Then five, clockwise again, then twelve...”
“Twelve! I’ll be sick!”
“No, you won’t.”
“Next time is most assuredly your turn.”
“Next time you’ll still be Prince of Ithilien.”
“Remember that I am from a long-lived family, sir, and can wait years for revenge. There, that makes three. Can I stop now?”
“What? Oh, yes.”
“And has that served any purpose other than to make me dizzy?”
Amrothos shrugged. “This is hardly an exact science, Faramir. Now the steps. Which way is north?”
My father pointed.
“Off you go. Twelve and twelve.”
“Why not simply say four-and-twenty?” my father wondered out loud, as he strode off northwards.
“For the same reason we’re carrying out this whole business under moonlight, I should imagine. More poetic. Are you there yet? Then east. Six and six – or twelve, if you prefer.”
Obediently, Father strode off again, and, reaching the end of that set of steps, turned south and began pacing again. I stuffed my fist in my mouth to stop the giggles and wished more than ever that Bron was home to see this.
“Now west by one and one!” Amrothos called out.
“One... and... one... and... look where that brings us!” My father gave a short laugh. “Rothos, I fear you are going to be disappointed.”
Amrothos ran lopsidedly over to my father, and I hurried after, as close as I dared. My father was standing next to an old stone wall, about six feet in height. Another wall ran away from it at right angles, with a long-cold fireplace and some crumbling decorations, but that was all that remained of whatever room had once been here. I had often picnicked in the shade of these walls with Bron.
My father sighed. “It seems we have reached the end of our quest. I know this spot well – the rangers often camped here. There’s what remains of a frieze over on that wall, but no inscription that I ever saw. If once there were more directions, the wind and the rain will have long since taken them.” His shoulders fell. “Ah well, it was a good try.”
“Hmm.” Amrothos was clearly unwilling to give up quite yet. “Perhaps the frieze might still be worth a look.”
“I promise you I know every square. I spent many a long watch counting them.”
“But a fresh pair of eyes might make the difference.” Amrothos turned around slowly, the lantern swinging in his hand, casting dim yellow light across the sharp contours of his face. “I’m sure I’m forgetting something...”
“And under,” I muttered, willing him to remember, almost ready to give myself away so great was my frustration. “One and one, and under!”
Amrothos slapped his forehead. “Under,” he said, and pointed at the ground. They both looked down, and then both burst out laughing. “Trapdoor!” they said as one.
My father knelt down and began clearing away the moss and briars about their feet. Amrothos, holding the lantern for him, grumbled, “So in all those long hours spent here you never noticed the trapdoor?”
“I swear it was not here!”
“Thinking of your supper, no doubt.”
“Thinking of shelter, Rothos. We’d have had this open in a heartbeat, if we’d ever seen it.” Taking the iron ring in both hands, Father braced one foot against the ground, and, with a slight grunt of effort, dragged away the ancient piece of wood more easily than one would have expected from a cover that had surely lain on the spot for centuries. “Steps!” he said, looking up at his cousin and, in the lamplight, I caught a glimpse of his face. He was grinning like a boy. “I’ll go first, if I may.”
“Who else?” said Rothos, and held up the light for him again. My father disappeared from view. Rothos passed the lantern down and followed.
I dashed out from my cover and across to the trapdoor. Sitting on the edge, I listened until their voices became more distant, and then I quietly put my feet on the top steps. I raised myself up again, counted myself down seven steps – and then slipped on some moss and fell down the last three.
“Who’s there?” my father called, in his captain’s voice. He stepped out from the gloom, one arm raised, with a stern expression upon his face. He saw me sprawled on the floor, rubbing furiously at my shin. “Morwen! What are you doing here? You should be in bed!”
“Father!” I said hotly, for my dignity had taken something of a bashing, “I’m not a little girl!” Then, undercutting my point rather: “It was mean of you not to bring me along!”
Father helped me back to my feet. He was starting to look extremely annoyed, the line between his brows furrowing deeply. Behind him Amrothos was chuckling. Father jerked his thumb upwards. “Did you see all that business earlier?”
I nodded.
“If I let you stay, would an account reach your mother’s ears?”
I gave him a look to say, what do you think? He made a soft growling noise at the back of his throat. “Wretched child,” he muttered. “Very well. You can take charge of the lantern. No, wait!” His eyes gleamed in the darkness. “I have a much better punishment! Come along, Morwen – seven turns, clockwise... then two, counterclockwise...”
Between them, he and his cousin mercilessly and speedily took me through the whole sequence: seven, two, five, twelve, one, three. When we reached the end, I slumped queasily against my father’s side. “Oh...” I breathed.
“The pursuit of knowledge can carry a heavy cost,” Father said.
“Oh!” I said again, more crossly.
Gently, he ruffled my hair. “You can go home if you’re feeling ill.”
“No! I’ve earned this!”
He burst out laughing. “Indeed you have, blackbird! Thoroughly earned!” He tugged my ear. “Well, if your sea legs have now returned, shall we see where this passage leads?”
We went in single file, Amrothos first with the lantern, myself next, and Father at the rear. The passageway was damp and mossy, and after a hundred yards or so, came to a decided dead end. Amrothos stared at the dark wall ahead. “Have we missed an opening along the way, cousin?”
“Not that I noticed,” said Father, who would have noticed. “Is there no way through?”
“Not that I can see...” Amrothos touched the wall, and gasped. My father’s hand was on my shoulder at once. “What?” he said sternly.
“This is metal!” Amrothos exclaimed. “And by the feel the surface is not flat. Yes, quite definitely, curved...”
Father reached over my shoulder. I saw his fingertips brush against the wall, and then twitch up briefly, as if in surprise, before he put his whole palm down flat. “Metal,” he agreed. “Morwen, would you take the lantern from Amrothos, please, so he might have a better look?”
I gladly took it. Amrothos carried on his investigations, his clever sensitive fingers running up and down the black metal barrier in front of us. “Goes right on to the ground, and is high enough for a man as tall as you to pass through, Faramir.”
“If it were a door,” Father said. “But it has all the appearance of a wall to me, cousin.”
“Hmm.” Amrothos scratched his chin. “More like something embedded in the wall. Hold the lantern over to the right, please, Morwen.”
I did so, and the lamplight gleamed suddenly off something there. Amrothos moved in quickly to take a closer look. “What do we have here?”
The three of us peered at it. Two strips of dark metal had been set into the larger curved piece that barred our way. These two strips were about a foot long, and ran vertically side-by-side. Each bore distinctive marks. The one on the left carried twelve silver marks like runes from a map in a story book, each one raised up like pegs. The marks on the right-hand side were dark and very mysterious. My father ran his finger down the left-most set of marks. “A shield or a crest of some sort?” he hazarded, doubtfully.
“Don’t you recognise them?” I said excitedly. “They’re the letters from the silver case! But running down and not across!”
My two accomplices glanced at each other and looked again at the markings. “I do believe she’s right,” Father said. “Well done, Morwen! Well spotted. What now, Rothos?”
His cousin did not reply at first, merely examined the letters closely again, muttering to himself as he did. After a few minutes, he sat upon the ground, put his forearms upon his knees, and rested his head against them. I heard him whispering to himself. Father and I exchanged a few glances, and waited patiently. And at last Amrothos began to laugh, very softly. “Of course,” he said. “Of course. How simple. Not letters. Numbers. A list of numbers.”
He stood up. One by one he began to turn the pegs that bore the strange silver symbols: the seventh, clockwise; the second, counterclockwise; then on to the fifth, the twelfth, the first, the third. As he turned them, they began to glow, as if moonlight were captured within them. There was a grinding noise, of metal rubbing against metal. My father murmured under his breath; a prayer, perhaps. The wall in front of us moved slowly back, and I peered into the blackness beyond.
“So,” Father said dryly, “all that spinning around did indeed serve only to make me dizzy.”
I held the lantern forward and aloft. My eyes accustomed themselves to the darkness beyond, and I saw a dim chamber, with rounded walls, a huge hollow sphere with a flattened floor. Heaped in the middle of the chamber was a dark shape, like a huge sack. “Morwen,” my father said, and there was no humour in his voice, no jest, only command, “you are not to enter this room.”
I whispered my assent, and clutched on to the lantern. Slowly, my father stepped inside the strange round chamber. When he reached the dark shape, he bent down to touch it. Then he sat back on his haunches, his head bowed. After a moment he looked up at Amrothos. His eyes were like stars in the darkness. “Turgon,” he said, crisply.
Amrothos, entering the chamber, went to kneel beside him. “That explains why the trapdoor was uncovered.”
“Aye. And then, having come here alone, the door must have sealed again behind him, and there was none outside to open it, nor any means inside to force a way out. Foolish, imprudent man! Why did he not come to me?”
Amrothos placed his hand upon my father’s shoulder. “In order to cheat you of whatever wealth he hoped this room might contain, of course. For this must be the family vault, Faramir, surely?”
“Whatever that is worth.” Father rose, and I watched him slowly circle the chamber, his hand upon the metal. The whole space must have been no more than twelve feet at its widest point. “An empty room and a lonely death,” he said to himself, and then, no doubt remembering that I was there, collected himself. “I assume the room is otherwise empty?”
“Not quite...” Amrothos replied. Reaching past Turgon’s still form, he picked up, from beside the body, a small dark box, small enough to nestle in his palm. “Is this familiar, cousin?”
My father bent to examine the find. “No, nor the device either. The white tree, of course, but with a crescent above it?” He shook his head. “That I have never seen.”
All the while my father and Amrothos had been exploring the chamber, I had remained by the door, holding the lantern up for them. Feeling it starting to hang heavy from my arm, I swapped it over to my left hand, and rested the tired arm against the wall of the passage. As I did so, I noticed that a change had come over the second vertical strip of metal. Where before the marks upon it had been dark, now they were alight, shining like the silvery numbers that ran alongside them. There were eight in total, strange broken shapes that ran through a full bright disc down to a white eyelid. I stared at these new shapes so hard they seared themselves into my vision. As if from a distance, I heard the grinding sound and, moved by some gift of sudden knowledge, I grasped the meaning of the pattern and my heart became stone in my breast. Turning suddenly, I screamed:
“Father! Get out! Get out! Daddy, please – get out now!”
My father did not even stop to think. Grabbing his cousin, he pushed him towards the door. Already that was beginning to close, sealing away this terrible, lightless tomb. Amrothos scrambled out into the passageway, and then my father, with mere moments to spare, shoved his way through into my outstretched arms.
The lantern had gone out. For a while there were only the eerie patches of light from the panels and the ragged sound of our breathing through the darkness. Then I heard the striking of a tinder box, and Amrothos held up the lamp, which swung to and fro. “You lead a charmed life, Faramir,” he said, mildly, his voice steady if his hands were not.
“I am lucky in those I have around me,” Father replied. “Morwen, tell me what you saw.”
From the circle of his arms, I pointed at the second set of marks. “Phases of the moon,” I whispered, letting my head fall against his chest. “The last is new, and dark.”
***
Let us draw a veil over what Mother said that night. But picture us, if you will, the following morning, processing through the grounds of the old house. Mother strode at the fore, all sunlight and fury, followed at a slight, safe distance by Father, his face grave and his hands clasped behind his back. Léof and I trotted along next, accompanied by Amrothos, and after us came two members of the White Company, dragging a cart.
We went first to the pine tree and the stump of the redleaf, where Léof piped up cheerfully to explain to Mother how it is possible to calculate a point between two trees where two imaginary lines of the same length meet, provided you know the heights of both trees. Watching my mother’s face I thought how fortunate it was for my younger brother that he was such a favourite with her. My father nobly stepped into the breach. “Once we knew where to start,” he said, “we were able to pace out the steps as detailed in the rhyme which Belecthor told to Morwen and Rothos. That led us there.” He pointed across the field at the two ruined walls.
We marched over, without repeating the sequence or offering Mother the opportunity to do so. The trapdoor was still where Father had left it the previous night. Mother and Father went down the steps, followed by the men from the White Company. I decided that it might be wise for now if Léof and I waited above ground with Amrothos.
My father’s cousin began poking around the area near the trapdoor. After a few moments he called me and my brother over. “Look,” he said, and gestured down at a pile of turves, which, when reassembled, would easily have been large enough to cover the trapdoor and the area around. A heap of torn-up briars also lay nearby. “Now we see why the rangers never discovered the entrance,” Amrothos said. “Turgon had to clear a way through.” We examined this evidence with interest, and then my father’s men emerged, carrying between them the covered body of the unhappy Turgon. They lay this on the cart, and headed back towards our house. Amrothos went down the steps to join my mother and father. Léof and I waited a few moments before following him down.
There was a faint white glow at the end of the corridor, unlike the light a lantern might cast, and soon I could clearly see the tall silhouettes of the adults ahead. Mother was standing at the very edge of the entrance of the doorway, peering inside as we had done the night before. The strange new light was emanating from inside the chamber. Amrothos stepped inside, but when Father moved to follow him, Mother blocked his way. “No!” she said. “On no account.”
“It isn’t dangerous now, Éowyn,” Amrothos called from inside the chamber.
My mother threw up her hands in frustration. “How can you know that? How can you be so sure?”
“Morwen knows,” Amrothos called back. “Don’t you, Morwen?”
Mother and Father turned to look at me and I trembled, confronted with the steely severity of that double stare. But I plucked up my courage and said, “The room is safe during the day, and can be opened at will.” I pointed at the wall. “See? There are no warning lights. The second panel is dark. I think... because one might reasonably want to enter the chamber throughout the day, and work in there. That is why it has its own source of light. And if the door should happen to seal, someone outside could open it easily.”
“But why would that be any different at night?” my mother said. She took my father’s hand. “Why have the entrance seal at night?”
“One must think of the reasons why one would come to such a place at night,” my father said quietly. “To hide something, quickly, or to retrieve something, quickly – or else perhaps because one has come in secrecy, to steal something kept within. In such cases, the door would seal after a short length of time, as it did for poor Turgon, and one would either be aware of this limitation, and leave before, or else be left inside and unable to rely upon any accomplice to aid an escape.”
“Try it, Éowyn,” Amrothos said. “Turn the pegs back.”
“With you still inside?” Mother shuddered. “I shall not!”
“There truly is no risk,” he said. “And it will prove to you once and for all that you need not be afraid.”
No doubt it was the imputation of fearfulness that provoked my mother into trying; Amrothos was a perceptive man. “The seventh, then the second,” Father said, helpfully, and she turned the pegs as he directed. The metal ground and the door sealed. Mother blanched, cursed, and hastened to turn the pegs once again. The door opened, revealing my father’s cousin, beaming back at her.
Only now was Father permitted to re-enter the chamber. Again he circled the small space, coming to a halt in the centre. “What kind of world must it have been?” he wondered, gazing round, his arms folded. “To promote such secrecy and mistrust amongst men that they would desire to build such a device? Such a cruel trap, springing from a cruel cast of mind...” He shook his head. “Aye, that surely was the true Downfall – the Enemy’s handiwork indeed.”
“So you are certain it came from the Land of the Star?” my mother said. She looked inside again with the kind of apprehensive awe with which she often treated her husband’s weird inheritance. “Brought by those of your ancestors that came back?”
“Look at the craft, love.”
“And what do you think it once contained?” she said.
“I would guess – those of their possessions that they were able to pack in the time they had.”
“Such a large space, my love! Yet we are not living daily amongst work such as this.” Mother rapped her knuckles against the metal, which gave a hollow response. “What happened to the contents, do you think?”
“Some small things have survived,” my father said. “The leather case which has so enchanted Morwen, and a few other pieces that you have seen in the Steward’s House. Some I think my father destroyed...” A shadow sped briefly over his face, like a cloud across the moon. “But most will have been lost when Ithilien fell to the Enemy. All gone,” he said, holding up his hands, and giving her his sombre, tender smile. “Like the house beneath which it was hidden.”
She strode inside to join him. “Ah love,” she said, grasping his hands and holding them to her, “I would have settled for ruins, if that was what there was.” And they kissed, and for the first time I understood the depth of his sense of loss for our land, and the nature of their pride in its restoration.
On her way back out, Mother gave both us children a fierce look. “This,” she pointed behind her, “is out of bounds.” I never transgressed this rule – although naturally when Bron returned home I gave him full information as to where the vault could be found and how to enter, and I should not dream of speaking for either him or Léof.
***
Mother’s directive meant that I did not see much of Amrothos for the rest of his visit, since his days were spent investigating the vault and its workings. (But spare a thought, if you will, for the poor member of the White Company despatched by Mother to stand outside while Amrothos was within, to watch for the waxing of the moon-marks.) He was also delighted that we had found the meaning of the silver ‘letters’ on my case, which he was sure held the key to deciphering several fragments that had long languished untranslated in the City archives. I believe he tarried there for several days on his journey home to Belfalas.
My father, too, was richly compensated for his labours. The box found beside Turgon’s body was of no particular worth in itself, being made of an ordinary dark wood, but within lay a great treasure – a ring wrought of black metal, wound about with a thin thread of silver. There could be no doubt of its origin. Like the vault in which it had lain undisturbed for centuries, it too had surely come with our ancestors when they fled Númenor, faithful servants of the Lords of Andúnië, rewarded for their loyalty with their lives. A rare gift it was indeed, to have survived the double losses suffered by our house – Númenor and Ithilien, the Land of the Star and the Land of the Moon. The ring fitted perfectly on the middle finger of Father’s left hand, and I never saw him without it again.
And I? I, at heart, was a simple creature, easily satisfied. I threw myself with great pleasure into the preparations for the yáviérë festival that was coming at the end of the month. The day itself was made complete by the letter I received that morning from Bron, brimming over with outrage at missing out on such a great adventure, and which I store, with all my treasures, in my black-and-silver case.
***
Author’s notes: For Isabeau of Greenlea, who has been promised an Amrothos Holmes story for a very long time, and has waited so very patiently. Hope this suffices, dear accomplice and partner-in-crime!
Thank you to
espresso_addict for the suggestion that gave me my point of view character. On the Númenorean section: The device of the white tree and the crescent moon I’ve made up. I intended it as the insignia of Elendil’s secret police (don’t tell me he didn’t have one), of which I have made Faramir’s ancestor the head. In her dream, the machine that Morwen hears coming to save her ancestors is Elendil’s Chinook, or the Númenorean equivalent (don’t tell me they didn’t have those either).
The family vault is based on the black stone of Erech in The Lord of the Rings, a great black stone globe twelve feet in diameter. Makes you wonder if there’s anything inside that too.
Insincere apologies to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for the scandalous rip-off of The Musgrave Ritual.
Altariel, 4th-10th May 2011
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2011-05-10 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-10 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-11 07:49 am (UTC)How did you know?
That was an utter delight. I thought it had just the right elements of children's adventure stories, too - puzzles, treasures from the past (but not heaps of gold), and the perilous scene by moonlight, with the trees and the gardens and the vault. And bonus archives!
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Date: 2011-05-11 08:15 am (UTC)It came to me in a dream...
I'm so pleased you like it! Gosh, I had so much fun writing it. And I was definitely aiming for a children's adventure feel too: I wanted Faramir and Amrothos to have the Famous Five adventure that they never got to have as boys. Of course, Morwen wasn't going to let them exclude her.
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Date: 2011-05-11 08:48 am (UTC)ETA: It was an utter delight to read this over my morning cuppas. I am sure that the fun you had writing (hurrah for fun while writing!) was a huge part of making it such a joy to read.
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Date: 2011-05-11 10:38 am (UTC)I have had a vast amount of fun with this one. Tore through it, cackling and chuckling most of the time I was writing. Very therapeutic and satisfactory experience.
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Date: 2011-05-12 12:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-12 12:38 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-05-20 12:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 02:10 pm (UTC)Your suggestion for a female narrator was one of the final impulses that set the story going, so thank you very much. Although I suppose Faramir is playing Watson here (former soldier, the one who does all the heavy lifting). Morwen lets the whole take on the flavour of a children's adventure story. As I said above to
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Date: 2011-05-20 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-21 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-21 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-22 05:34 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2011-06-05 10:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-06 09:55 am (UTC)