The gentle strains of harp music flowed over the Hall of Fire like soothing water. The light from the setting sun was further softened as it filtered through the high boughs of the trees of Imladris, finally casting lengthening shadows from high windows in the Last Homely House. Another day, in a near eternal string of days, was coming to a soft spoken, genteel end.
The young harper paused to check a string and continued, letting the music form itself to the quiet, leisurely mood of the hall so that the tune, as well as the harper, seemed to vanish altogether. One of the few useful pieces of advice the harper had ever gained from his kinfolk was “Whenever possible, be unseen, disappear”. Each of his relations practiced the art of being unseen in their own way. One sister, she disappeared into the background like a stalking predator while the other sister chose to be unseen by attracting every eye to her, to let the assumptions of others hide her. As for his parents, they were as unseen as if they had never existed at all. Perhaps they never had, the harper could not recall them at all. They could be dark myths, save for the fact he had often been reminded of his “parentage” and how it reflected on his manner, his mode, and his music.
As more people gathered, his tune brightened, to sweeten evenings just beginning. Already the denizens of the Last Homely House were seeking one another’s company and conversation, soon they would seek wine and song, and then other pleasures in the gleaming night, here at the edge of the end of the world. The harper however, as befitted his birth…went unseen.
A man, young in the way that all elves were young, sat himself heavily near the fire, soon joined by a woman who brought with her wine. He seemed in a foul temper, which his companion sought to sooth with their conversation already in progress.
“But why was he so out of sorts?” she asked, passing her companion a glass.
The man shrugged dramatically. “How am I to know for sure, my Lord Elrond need not tell me of his business, Norien. I am simply there to be chastised for nothing, it seems.”
The woman clucked her tongue, but not at all mockingly as the man pouted…well, mostly not mockingly. “Come Gwingloth, you have served the Lord for many years now, surely you guess something of what vexes him. Tell me, I swear it will never go further…I simply wish your spirit to be eased by fellowship.”
Gwingloth sipped his wine, and sighed, but grinned a bit pridefully and lowered his voice. “Some weeks past, a traveler of the second born, called upon the Lord Elrond and asked a boon of him…a most peculiar boon. His name I overheard that day to be Rathvald. I heard the lord mention that name again in anger a day or two ago, and not that name alone. I suspect that is still what troubles him.”
Norien raised an eyebrow. “And what boon did the Lord Elrond grant this great captain of Men?”
“No great captain was he, but a wanderer of no repute. His tongue was glib and his boot was polished, but he was no captain.” Gwingloth snorted slightly remembering the scene. “When I heard his request I expected the Lord to send him away with a caution, but it was not to be so. The Lord Elrond heard him out, and after careful consideration, granted him what he asked for. I was frankly stunned.”
The woman’s eyes lit up with curiosity. So did the unseen harper’s. “And what had he asked for?” she asked breathlessly.
The man smiled, enjoying very much the effect the story was having upon his companion. “One of the Morgul weapons that my lord has been studying, one of those that he says were smithed in ancient Angmar, and had been reforged but recently for some fell purpose. A silver dagger specifically…the most recent of these loathsome objects to come into the Lord's possession. He wished to take it away with him, to aid some woman of his in a secret endeavor.”
Norien stared, as in truth did the harper as well. “And the Lord Elrond GRANTED such a request…was that not a dangerous thing to allow to leave the valley?”
Gwingloth nodded. “Indeed it was, yet my Lord Elrond wrapped it in samite cloth himself and presented it to this Rathvald as if he were Isildur himself come again. The man then went his way with the evil thing. I thought it passing odd, but perhaps this Rathvald was in truth a wizard, oft times they look most disreputable. I put it from my mind as I had other duties that required my care…however three days past I heard the Lord Elrond curse the name Rathvald…and curse many times over other names which I have heard also. Two born in this very valley to our shame, the daughters of Anerial, the Kinslayer of Thangúlhad.”
The woman looked confused for a moment, then recalled. “Ah yes…he ran mad did he not, his mind poisoned by the shadow, and slew his soldiers thinking he was saving them from defeat by the enemy? He and his kin were sent West to heal their broken spirits…no, not all his kin. His children remained did they not, two daughters I think?”
“Indeed, and distinguished themselves in the war outside our lands. Some say they did good service, but I for one do not think anything they might have done could replace the lives lost to their father’s foul hand.” Gwingloth drained his wineglass. “The Lord Elrond named them as somehow involved in this matter, which now he was so enraged by. Xandilif was the elder, and Xanderian the younger though both are still little more then children, acting out against their betters. He called them abominations, swore that they would be exiled now as they should have been long ago, and that they and their fellows should be brought to justice for unleashing some great evil back upon the world. I have rarely seen him so angry, though in truth he seemed more angered at himself then these others. He then wrapped himself in the study of ring lore for the first time in ages, which he had not turned away from until today, when he saw fit to find fault in everything I did. Clearly he was unhappy with whatever his study taught him.”
Norien rose. “Now you get above yourself, my handsome companion. It is not for you to question the moods or actions of the Master of Rivendell. Now come ride with me while the moon rises, as soon these beautiful nights will be but memories as the winter descends.”
Gwingloth nodded and rose, happy to be out in the air after his difficult day. For all his grousing, he trusted utterly in the wisdom of Elrond to avert any danger and make only right choices.
The Harper did not share his confidence however, and his harp fell silent as he watched them go. He cursed under his breath and looked at the fire, though he had silenced that channel of communication long ago. Had he done so foolishly?
“What have they gotten themselves into now? Banished? The Lord Elrond would never dare take it so far..or would he?” The Harper asked himself as he put away his Harp for the night. “For the Banshee possibly, but the Monk has always drawn a certain guilty sympathy from his eye. Still…morgul weapons, raising evil, late born tricksters…all that sounds very much like my sisters, damn their stiff necks. They are in trouble again.”
The last time the Harper had spoken to either of them was some years past now, when he had resolved in anger that he would remain in Imladris and have nothing more to do with either one. He wished to leave their legacy of rebellion and war far behind him, until he was no longer called “Kinslayer’s Spawn” to his face, if that could ever be. Harsh words were spoken, the sort that could never be taken back, and he had immersed himself in his studies and his music, now an orphan in all ways, disappearing as his kin had always urged him to do.
However they were his sisters…his only kin on this side of the endless sea. Could he abandon them to their fate, even if it were a fate they no doubt had brought upon themselves?
“Damn them both” muttered Xanir as he strode out of the Hall of Fire. It would take all the coin he had saved to book a horse to the man-village of Bree. That was where he had seen Xanderian last, when he had still entertained the thought of being an “Adventurer” like them. The blood and horror that he had seen of their lives, even in those few weeks, made him value the quiet of Imladris all the more, as his sisters should have but never did. He had renounced their madness…but he could not renounce them altogether. They had tended him when he was but a baby, and did their best to shelter him from a harsh world....even as it made them harsher still.
Slinging his harp over his back and drawing his hood down, he was resolved. He would go to warn them at least of Elrond’s anger, then let them do what they wished about it.
That way, he could not blame himself later, whatever happened.
