Chapter Text
Elwing and her small company rode through the stunted woods that huddled behind the low hill of Amon Ereb to the south, and did not know what was in her own heart as a beam of unmistakable light issued from the topmost tower and swept over each of them in turn, lingering. She felt the familiar lightening of heart as the Silmaril’s light engulfed her, and then she gasped, because the tree beside her was smoking. "It’s too bright!" she exclaimed. "What are they thinking? They’ll set the forest ablaze!"
Their dour Fëanorian guide, who called himself Hathaeg, an ill-omened abeneth, or perhaps an even more ill-omened emelneth, turned in his saddle. "Anything that burns under the Silmaril’s light is Morgoth’s work." He made some hand signal and the light intensified. The tree burst into livid flame, giving off sour smoke that made one of her councillors sneeze. "Cover your face," said Hathaeg. "The smoke of such things is ill breathing."
"It is a tree," Elwing said, sternly.
"In these woods, some things wear the guise of trees that are not trees. And some even of the true trees have fallen to the Enemy," said Hathaeg, ominously, and they rode on, the beam of the Silmaril occasionally sweeping over the forest.
Elwing took the time to rally herself after the first moment of shock. The Fëanorians might have agreed to serve as her sworn liegemen in exchange for the Silmaril, and their words had been very fair in all they sent or said to her, but beneath the surface, it had been very clear that she had but two choices: to accept their fealty, such as it was, or to face them in battle and risk the lives of all her subjects, most of whom had already lost one home, if not more. The debate between her advisors had been sharp and bitter, and there were still some who were not on speaking terms because of it. Eärendil had been away, on one of his many voyages to seek for Tuor and Idril. She wished that he had not been. She had needed his steadiness, his calm. It was not easy for him to lay aside the anger he bore against the kinslayers, but it was possible for him, raised in Gondolin as he was, cast from his home by Morgoth and not by the hands of his own kin. The long shadow of the sack of Menegroth had lain over every word Maedhros Fëanorion spoke to her. She had not forgotten the blood in the Thousand Caves and she would not forget it, and showing such weakness before even the soldiers of the House of Fëanor was unwise.
The South-Gate of Amon Ereb was built of great interlocking wooden planks, the joints made nearly invisible by some art Elwing did not know. The bars were light, unrusting Noldorin steel, and no doubt there was more of it behind the gates, strengthening them against assault from the rear. They stood open now, to welcome she who was styled the Lady of Amon Ereb, but even at the lightest glance, it was clear to whom all those in the keep truly answered. The Lord of Himring and the Lord of the Gap, bereft of their lands, kinslayers, night-terrors of the children of Doriath, stood in the shadow of the gate to receive her, and it was at their signal that the garrison of Amon Ereb stood to attention.
Her progress through her stronghold, led by her nominal vassals, was swift, but they spared no detail. She felt as if it were calculated to leave her in suspense for as long as possible. The soldiers of Amon Ereb and their kinslaying lords went about the business of their day quite as if there was not a great silver flower of glass and what had to be mithril and silver set atop the otherwise squat and prosaic keep, doubling and redoubling the light of the Silmaril until it was too bright to look at directly even for elven eyes, before its blinding beams were sent out to reflect off of other, lesser mirrors and finally to revive or scorch the scanty vegetation on the northern side of the Amdram Wall. The ray of light that had passed over her party as they drew near was barely a tithe of the intensity of those which played constantly over those northward hills. "So this is why you traded with us for sand," she said, attempting to hide her awe at the great flower of light.
"Yes," Maglor said, voice soft and musical in a way that was utterly unlike anything she would have expected of him. "Sand, and silver, and mithril. Even steel. To make it all of mithril would have been best, but we saved little of our store from Himring, and most of what we have is needed for weapons."
Elwing could not make up her mind whether they were showing her honestly the places where their defences were lacking, or feigning weakness so that she would lower her guard. She was silent, watching the play of light over the barren hills. If, as her escort had said, no soldier of Morgoth could endure it, the star-flower with its attendant mirrors and lenses, marked with runes at whose purpose she could only guess, were a formidable defence indeed, and yet there were, if one watched long enough, gaps in the pattern; paths along which a cunning commander could lead a small and cautious group of soldiers. She observed as much to Maedhros. "Yes," he said, deep voice as calm and as level as it had been when he was showing her the granaries. "The best defence has no weakness. But the next best has only one weakness, and one you know. We could use these mirrors to bathe all the hills before us in light day and night, or near to it, but if we did, the Enemy would only contrive a more effective weapon, and we would not know what it might be or when it might strike. A few winged dragons would do for this fortress, even with the Silmaril. But he is a miser, and it is only his weak weapons that he spends freely. Nor does any creature who serves under him, slave or free, desire to bring him news of failure. If his orcs can harry us, his captains will not send for aid, and our walls will not be tested against balrogs and dragons. Not for a while longer." He clapped his single hand on the parapet, and Elwing thought for a moment that the whole wall rang under her feet like a great bell. "This is good stone. But it is not that good."
After that disquieting statement, they led her up the tower to the room below the star-flower. At closer range, it revealed itself as a masterwork of craft and power and, yes, of beauty. Even the incongruous pulleys and levers that controlled it — "the Men of this fortress must be able to use it at need, and they cannot speak words of power, though it will answer to them also" — were elegant, decorated with both the star of Fëanor, at which she scowled, and other devices, whose meaning she did not know, if indeed they had any besides their beauty. Finally, they each took a set of dark glasses, giving one to her as well, and led her out onto the tower roof. Even with heavily smoked glass over her eyes, the brightness was nearly blinding when the petals shifted so that the Silmaril was visible. The device was not truly a flower, nor truly a star, though it resembled both, but it was the nearest word she could find. The inner petals were of glass, and closed over the Silmaril in a cunning arrangement that allowed them to focus or broaden the light. The outer were of Noldorin steel polished to a mirror sheen and silvered with mithril. As they watched, something moved in the twisted hills to the north, and Elwing pointed with a cry. "Scouts," Maglor said, keen vision not troubled by the smoked glass or the brilliance of the Silmaril. "Shall we let them go?"
"Lady," said Maedhros, even his voice seeming somehow more resonant in the hallowed light, "do you wish to see what the defences of Amon Ereb can do?"
There was only one possible answer, though a part of her shrank from it, even though they were orcs. "I do."
Maglor spoke a word that rang through the star-flower’s petals like a far-off trumpet call waking echoes from a silver bell. It turned gracefully, petals tightening to brighten the beam, until there was a distant wail and a sudden flurry of motion, equally suddenly ended. Maglor spoke another word and the flower unfolded again. "It does not do to let them become too comfortable," he explained, as Elwing looked grimly out to where the orcs had been and were no longer. "We change the pattern every so often, and sometimes we light the whole hillside, but never for long. The orcs seem quite persuaded that there are limits on the light it can put forth." He laid a hand on the base of the star-flower, whether in reverence or affection she could not tell.
Elwing felt that some response was expected of her. After all, she had been shown the great work of Amon Ereb, and the use to which the price of its’ defenders fealty had been put. But neither could she admit that the idea of using it thus, as a weapon, not a jewel for adornment and blessing, had never even crossed her mind. It was characteristic of the sons of Fëanor to turn even the greatest beauty into a thing that killed. "It is very skilfully arranged," she said. "Do the orcs ever reach the walls?"
"Only when we permit them to," said Maglor. "It would not do for our garrison to grow slack in the practice of arms. Sometimes they besiege the gates for a few days. We have never directed the light into the shadow of the walls, though we can if we wish. The more persistent forces sometimes hold on for a fortnight, but we generally send out a sortie if it takes longer than that."
This sort of war was strange to Elwing. She had heard tales of the last desperate defence of Gondolin from Eärendil and his surviving lords, and she had been told by her own guardians the tale of the fall of Doriath, though, she suspected, it had been somewhat softened. In neither of those had there been this kind of calculated move and counter-move, like a game of King’s Table where there was no victory but survival.
Maedhros and Maglor, she realised, were looking to her in expectation. They had done the duty of vassals, showing her truly, so far as she could see, the fortress that was now sworn to her. It was hers, now, to speak of it, and yet the words of praise she should have spoken stuck in her throat. "The evil winds have been fewer in Sirion, this winter," she said, in the end, giving them a truth, even if it was less than their desert as her vassals. It was more than their desert as the murderers of her parents. "And no raids have troubled our folk."
"That is well," Maedhros said, and it seemed that he was satisfied.