Oak and Willow

"Yet not a half-year ago you said the path was lined with caltrops, and both your horse and yourself were lamed." Celeborn glanced sideways at
the scribe and received a small nod of affirmation. "How do you account
for this extraordinary reversal? Were you lying to the Court then, or
are you lying now?"

For the first time in this sorry affair Mordir had the grace to look
taken aback. He gathered up the swinging length of his belt and
fingered the ornate strap-end, while his eyes darted from the guards to
the grim faces of his audience. Celeborn took a sip of water and waited
for the heavy silence to do its work. He could not allow himself to
smile, but inwardly he could taste satisfaction. This sordid case was
almost at an end. The next question would settle it. "So, son of
Morduin, tell me..."

"Lord Celeborn!" The great doors of the Hall of Doom trembled on their
hinges as Daeron tried to push them full open in speed. Victory slipped
out of Celeborn's hands like grasped water, but he was already on his
feet, fists clenched on the haft of the axe which had lain across his knees in symbol
of authority. "Morgoth's creatures attack?"

"No. No...I did not mean to alarm." Daeron's robe was awry, his eyes
wide and uncertain, as one who enters a dark room after a place of many
lamps. "Celeborn you must come. There is a wonder...a wonder on the
edge of the world. I hardly know how to speak of it. The King bids you
come." He turned, still squinting, though the courtroom was well lit,
to face the many petitioners who waited for judgement. "You must all
come."

Celeborn sighed Alas that the wonder could not have waited five
minutes more. "As the King commands," he said. He leaned down to
the captain of his warriors. "Bring Mordir also, that this marvel may
keep his mind from further creativity in his evidence."

"My lord." The Captain grinned.

Celeborn slipped the axe into his belt.
Too often any strange sign in the woods of Ennor later proved to be of
the Enemy's devising, and was straitly followed by bloodshed. He would
not go unprepared, not even if Daeron's face was as dazzled as if
Luthien had smiled on him.

Folk were pouring out of Menegroth as if it was on fire. Corridors were
a dappled river of lamplight, satin and flowing shadows. Shade should
have deepened as they came to the pillared vastness of the First Hall.
Here few lamps were lit, lest light should spill forth into the starlit
woods, betraying the secret realm's existence to evil things. Lamp and
candle should dim, twilight fall, darkness embrace the traveller like
cool silk, so that emerging into the woods of Doriath was like plunging
from clamour into silence. Over all the dark trees and shivering
fountains only the stars should shine, remote and holy.

"What is this?" The crowd had parted for Celeborn and, with his longer
strides, he had drawn ahead of his following. At the base of the front
stair he paused to allow them to catch up. Here, where it should have
been dark as the inside of a helmet, there was a strange, grey glimmer
which lit the walls and poured like cloud down into the citadel.

"It has grown!" Very fair Daeron's face seemed in the new light - all
narrow strokes of steel and pearl. Surely, Celeborn thought, the Enemy
could make no beauty. This could not be an attack after all. Surely it
could not.

"Come," he said, allowing himself excitement, "Show me."

Following the minstrel, Celeborn found Melian and Thingol on the crown
of the tallest hill. A great press of folk were about them. They sat
in slight chairs, clearly brought in haste, and were canopied only by
the cloaks of their nobles set upon an arch of spears. Their faces
shone with the light of Valinor - majesty become visible - and jewels
made pinpricks of brilliance in their hair and garb, yet as Celeborn
walked towards them he saw that they were no longer the most radiant
things in Ennor; they were overshadowed by the sky. The light about him
was the colour of pared lead, and a shadow streamed out before him,
moving as he did. He knew not whether to feel foreboding or joy. All
things seemed strange, and still the light grew.

Tall and terrible and glorious was King Elu Thingol, greatest of the
elven-kings of Middle Earth, and the regard Celeborn had for him was
that of son and subject both; awe, mingled with love. When he looked
close he could see no diminishment by comparison with the light; only,
as with Daeron, a new form of beauty. He went down on one knee. "Your
command, my lord?"

"Rise, nephew, and see it."

Obeying, at last he turned eagerly to see the wonder, looked out over
forest which fell away in swells of indigo and dark. There, in the
West, the sky had become as polished slate, and a line of molten silver
smouldered at the edge of the world. As he watched it moved, spilling
over trees, shimmering in the mists over Esgalduin. A curve was
uplifted over the horizon, as of some vessel which burned like a
thousand candles, serene and pale.

There were no words to describe the beauty and newness of this thing.
It made his ribs ache, as if his heart desired to leap from his chest
with joy. Astonishment and awe stopped his breath, and he could not
speak above a whisper. "What is this miracle?"

He turned to Melian. If any would know, she would, for she was a Maia
of the Blessed Realm, strong and wise. But she shook her head, her eyes
glimmering, a shadow of unknown colour sliding across her smile. "I
know not, my fair one." She said with answering joy, "But look, it has
the colour of your hair."

The comparison was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard, freeing
him to laugh out some of the painful delight. "Ah, now I see! The
Powers have sent it merely to quench my vanity. I am sorely outshone."

At the levity, Thingol gave a snort of disbelief. His face was
troubled. "I have no doubt the Powers sent it indeed, but why? Never
have they cared for us, forsaken on the long march. Why should they
begin now? That they turn their gaze to Ennor at all, I deem portends
ill."

For a while all gazed in silence, and the silver light broadened, until
the vessel was lifted wholly above the trees and revealed. Round as a
plate, or perhaps as a ball, smooth and wondrous and unmarked as a
pearl. "A Maia guides it," Melian said at last, her clear eyes fixed on
the heavens, "Though he is unbodied and cannot be seen. I know him -
Tilion of the Silver Bow, who hunts with Orome." Her smile became
wistful, "At least I may now gaze at one of my people from afar."

"Then it is a blessing, is it not?" Celeborn asked, hating the look of
homesickness which fled briefly across her face, "A sign of hope. A
sign that we have not been forgotten."

"But it is blotting out the stars!" Luthien the King's daughter cried
from where she sat a little apart, surrounded by her maidens. Knowing
well how she loved to dance in starlight, it was easy to understand her
regret. "Are we never to see their glory again?"

"Aye," Saeros the archer called, "Must the Valar intervene only to take
from us what we love?"

"This is a gift, not a theft," Celeborn began. Over the past few
centuries the Enemy had seemed ever present, and it was not hard to see
how that threat worked fear and distrust in the Doriathrim. But it
should not be permitted to take hold. He had begun to say more, but the
sweetness of a harp struck across his words, and he fell silent,
trustingly, when Daeron began to sing.

Justly was Daeron honoured in Doriath. All voices fell silent and all
faces turned to him, as the song took to the sky like a white-winged
hawk. It too - in the newborn light - was almost more beautiful than
flesh would support, with a pure strength the minstrel's day by day
personality belied. He told of the waters of Awakening, where the
Quendi had come into being - and how strange and new everything was in
the world; how every day had been filled with another wonder, another
discovery. He told of the Long March, when they had followed the Valar
Orome in hope of a new land. Grief overwhelmed, soft as falling snow,
as he sang the Teleri's loss of their king, disappeared in the dark
woods of Nan Elmoth. How kin had left them, abandoned them to go into
the West, yet they, ever faithful, remained - waiting, waiting.

Ice and snow melted, and fountains of joy burst forth as he sang of Elu
Thingol's return to his loyal people. How greatly the King had changed
- grown yet more powerful, yet more fair, with an angelic power beside
him as his Queen. And as Daeron sang the final verses, extolling the
pride and brightness of the Kingdom of Doriath, other singers took up
the melody with him, accepting, understanding the message of his tale.

We have survived great upheavals, Celeborn joined his voice to
the counterpoint, With our honour intact. And not all changes are
for the worse.

The song, like the history of which it spoke, was long, and Tilion had
guided his vessel across the dome of the heavens ere it ended. He
lowered now towards the eastern rim of the world. "And perhaps the
stars will flower now in the west, until he comes again," said Luthien,
as she sent her maidens to fetch fair white bread and wine for all.

But Melian said, "I think it is not ended. I feel, even here, an
awakening, as if some other power is made ready. This is a holy day.
Let us celebrate it, and wait for the sign that is to come."

So Thingol gave orders that none should work, but all await the
foresight of the Queen. And the Doriathrim spent their time beneath the
stars in dancing, singing and the telling of tales, and when Tilion
arose they would watch his strangely wayward progress across the sky
with increasing love, as comfort drew the sting from fear.

But on the seventh day the heavens were reshaped once more.

"Look!" One of the dwarves shouted as Tilion dove into the utter east,
"The horizon is stained with gold."

Celeborn laid down the lute he was playing and turned to see. Revels
ended abruptly across every hillside, and lovers drew together for
mutual strength. Thingol, who had been winning a race, sat down
quickly, to reassure his people that whatever changed, he was still
there. Melian lay her hand on his arm, and Luthien came and sat by her
father's feet. Daeron's singing was silenced.

Oh! The Valar had been gentle, Celeborn thought, to send Tilion
first. Without his forewarning, this would have been terrifying.
Climbing up the sky now, blotting out stars, was a great sheet of
exultant colour. It had begun palest gold, but strengthened swiftly
into white flame. Clouds were lit with citrine and topaz, or boiled,
red-stained as steam lit by fire. And the sky!

"The very sky alters!" Saeros cried, his voice full of panic and
disapproval.

"Blue as periwinkle," Celeborn said in reply, emphasizing his own joy, that folk could see there was nothing to fear, "And the clouds
like snow. Look at the trees!"

Light strengthened, came crashing ocean-like over Beleriand. All the
hidden mysteries, all the glades full of darkness and shadowed waters
were shown forth like jewels in candlelight: oaks clad in emerald; beryl
of new beech; willow in peridot, strung on waters that flamed like
mithril. Beauty sharp as pain.

It burned still brighter, and now heat caressed his upturned face,
prickling his skin. Yet astonishingly all of this was held in a vessel
no larger than Tilion's. He tried to discern if it had markings of any
kind, but the light was too fierce to gaze on, and when he turned to the
Queen he saw through eyes in which its image marked her like soot. "Is
this also one of your friends, Lady?"

"Her name is Arien, but I knew her little." Melian leaned back in her
seat and exchanged a glance of mutual foreboding with her husband. "You
are right, beloved. They would not have moved like this unless great
changes were afoot. And whatever now passes, we cannot continue to live
as we once did."

Her hair, which had been shadow, was now revealed to be glossier than
ebony, and embroidered flowers of a hundred shades glowed on her
raiment. Thingol's hair was as silver as the great lakes below,
gleaming in the golden light. All the world shone as colourful and warm
as a lamplit room. "But then, why should all things go on always the
same?" Celeborn said, "And I like this."

Thingol laughed, the jewels of his circlet scintillant in the
brightness, "Ever the optimist, nephew?"

"There seems little point in asking them to take it back." He shrugged,
"So perhaps we should embrace it."

Melian laughed then too, and tugged his sleeve playfully. "Wise words
from one so young."

"And perhaps it means," Thingol's eyes gleamed speculatively, "That they
are finally ready to come forth and do battle with Morgoth. That
I am more than ready for."

"My lord?" The guard Captain approached Celeborn respectfully, "Mordir
would speak with you."

"By your leave?" Celeborn bowed and left the sovereigns talking
together. The Captain lead him to a hollow in which the prisoner stood,
surrounded by his accusers. The son of Morduin looked pale but
determined, Arien's light unflattering to his thin nervousness. "What
is it?"

"Lord," Mordir began, tentatively, "Is this the beginning of a new age?"

"So it seems." Celeborn took off his cloak and spread it on a rock.
Then, sitting, he took the axe from his belt and placed it once more across his knees.
The court was reconvened.

"I don't want this on me any more, Lord. Evil can't prosper under this
light, I see that." Mordir wrung his hands, stooped away slightly from
the press of Arien's heat. "I confess. I did falsely accuse my
neighbours. I wished to see them suffer. I wished to deprive them of
their lands and honour, which I envied...but if this is not a sign I do
not know what is." He drew himself up, as if he finally remembered what
dignity was. "So I will make reparation, and be punished, and begin
this new age clean."

Mordir was of the Green-folk, but lately settled in the safety of the
hidden city. Many Doriathrim thought them savages, but this was not the
first time they had impressed Celeborn greatly. And he is not just
being cunning, knowing he was closer than ever to having his guilt
proved. Sincere repentance was evident even in his fea, which was
strengthened by honesty.

"Very well, son of Morduin. The tally of reparation is with the
scribes. You will satisfy it completely. And you will further pay the
King twelve sesters of honey, for the nuisance you have been to his
Court."

Mordir bowed, and sighing, straightened up to face his doom, steady
eyed.

"But because, in the sight of the works of the Valar, you have turned
away from your lies, I will not lay any punishment on you. Pay your
dues and go free."

Celeborn knew the decision would be unpopular. It did not trouble him.
So often the correct decisions were. And mercy was called for on a day
so holy. He looked up at the vessel of Arien once more, risen high and
shining over them all in the strange azure vault of the sky. Whatever this
new age brings, he thought at last, It is a comfort to have begun
it well.