Before You Go

Thanks to Cressida for Betaing.



~ BEFORE YOU GO ~

“We spoke to our father, Denethor, Lord of Minas Tirith, wise in the lore of Gondor. This only would he say, that Imladris was of old the name among the Elves of a far northern dale ...”
-- Boromir, The Fellowship of the Ring, “The Council of Elrond”



It is good, strong, Firien oak smoothed now by many generations of hands, though I might number them all. Now it is my fingers stray over the familiar carvings: heroes, hunts, flora and fauna. Not so long ago, it seems, I counted them as allies. Now they are betrayers giving no hint as to whether the room’s occupant is within or not. Once, they held away all unbidden disruptions at my behest; now I have become one of those disruptions. I cannot help but note the irony, before raising a fist to the wood.

I knock firmly, but without malice.

“Come.”

The voice inside is imperious, yet I am pleased to obey. There is no longer anyone else I would let order me so.

“Father!”

Up to his elbows in his own rucksack, my son is surprised to see me.

I grunt in acknowledgement. It has been many years since I crossed this threshold, though once this room was mine, the first domain of all elder sons from nursery to bridal bed.

My Boromir alone of us, I observe, has changed things.

Like the sun he diminishes all that has gone before him. Swept away are all the trappings and comforts, changed for furniture of a more utilitarian style. The only scheme of decoration is a fine and rare collection of armaments and I wonder idly if this is what he does with the considerable allowance I accord him. The bed, even, he has relegated to a dark corner (I suspect he keeps another in the city), and now a large library table has the room’s one place of prominence in the bay of a large window. He has made it a soldier’s room, I see, oriented to the East.

And, true to his calling, my son quickly extricates himself from ambush and advances, arms at the ready, to embrace me.

“Forgive me, Father. I was expecting no one.”

But I wave him off. There is no need for apologies, no need for forgiveness between us. Not this night.

With ease he changes tactics, offers me wine and gladly do I receive it. Would that it would ease my tongue, cloven as it has been to the roof of my mouth these several days.

Still, it is some minutes before I speak, and then I can muster only trivialities.

“So. It will be tomorrow.”

I might as well have commented on the weather.

Yet I have put him on his guard, I see. He lifts his glass and swallows much of what I’m sure is on his mind to say, leaving only –

“I will hear no more dissuasion, Father.”

“No.” I agree, for the first time in days. “And I have brought none with me. You have exhausted my supply.” He raises a brow in disbelief, and then two in surprise as I nod. “Indeed; possibly the first argument I have lost since your grandfather died. Or, perhaps, your mother …”

Then I, also, drink.

But our son steps forward eagerly to clasp my arm. “So you agree. The quest is mine.”

“You mistake me. I do not agree,” and for a long moment his gaze and mine do battle anew. I can almost see the arguments assembling in his throat, though his reasons he has kept to himself all these long days and I will not deign to guess them. It was long ago we ceased to play games together.

And I am true to my word: I did not come here to argue.

In concession I lay a hand upon his shoulder, suddenly an old man’s hand without the strength to retain that which it treasures most. “I do, however, apprehend the strength of your conviction, and it is some time since I learned to heed your judgment in such things.” Still I cannot resist the temptation to put him in his place, a little. My hand tightens.

“Was it not I made you Gondor’s Captain, and gave to you this power by which you now dispose of her troops, and your self, as you will?” and never once made me regret that gift of freedom, until now.

But he is too well armored, of mettle I myself forged in him, and my reproof does not pierce. So, like any skillful warrior tasting his opponent’s surrender, he repays my efforts with comfort. “Do not worry, Father. Faramir will stand you well in my stead. Gondor will not miss me.”

Gondor!? … What is Gondor if not in this room?

But with carelessness born of success he has already returned to the wine, and I am moved toward the deepening dusk of his window. Beyond, the Eastern sky flames anew: a false dawn, promising darkness. My eyes fall.

His table is littered with the detritus of his leaving – parchments, clothes, supplies all tumbled together. Without noting it I unearth a map, and just as carelessly set it aside. “Have you thought by what path you might chase this … fantasy of your brother’s?” I cannot keep the sneer from my voice, although I do try. “You and your horse, I’m sure, know the way to Edoras blindfolded and your hunting parties with young Théodred have doubtlessly taken you as far as the Isen, but do not look for the Rohirrim to guide you. Though once they came from the distant North, now not even their legends extend so far.”

“Yet, it is for a legend I must seek, so into the past I must go.”

He smiles winningly at his cleverness, but I suspect the joke is not his alone and I cannot see the humor in it. Directly he retrieves the map I so idly set aside and proffers it to my view. Now I see evidence of his brother’s hand at work, for only he in Minas Tirith can claim to know the archives of the City nearly as well as I do, and what Boromir sets before me is an ancient thing, long left alone and at peace. Faramir, at least, does not begrudge my eldest this usurpation.

Now before me is spread all the vastness of Middle Earth, from the Gulf of Lune to the sands of Haradwaith. Can he think I have not pored over every inch of maps such as this in all the endless hours of the last few nights? But none can show me the road my son will find back to me. I, too, have laid the world at his feet, yet he will not forsake the folly of this journey.

“Here, Father – ” his finger slips through the Gap of Rohan to trace a faded grey line northwest; “the path Isildur took as he fled to join his father.” He pauses to tap a small patch of once-bright blue. “And then …” as his finger glides east unobstructed it gains speed – “the road he and Elendil took as they joined with the Elven army from the coast and made their way –” triumphantly he seems to sweep up the slopes of the Hithaeglir – “to Imladris!”

But the destination he settles on is merely parchment, pinnacles of nothing more than faded ink. Surely, his own journey cannot be as smooth as skin against paper.

And I need no map to show me what he will find in the North: ruin – ruin and insurrection. When have our dealings with Elvenkind brought anything but loss to Gondor? the loss of kingdoms, the loss of kings … my son rides to the death of his hopes, to the loss of us all.

Now the map has blurred to emptiness, and I cannot raise my eyes for what I would see: my son, alone, standing between myself and the rising fire of Mordor.

“Father?” once more his voice is softened in my ear, and begins to smooth over my emnity, but I cannot so easily let it go, for what else has he left to me?

“Father? I would welcome your counsel ...”

But I have none he has not already heard and discarded. These freedoms he takes bind my hands and tie my tongue. He leaves me hollow, peremptorily bereft.

And I will not condone his choice with aid.

Instead I turn from him with a clap of robe punctuated by the slap of boots, but find I am halted again by that door, and his voice, reaching out to me a last time.

“Will you not take your leave of me, Father?”

And this, at least, I find I cannot withold from him.


“In the morning.”