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Gulls wheeled and cried overhead as Frodo made his way down the sea path, one hand upon the wall of the cliff face. Loose rocks skittered from under his feet and clattered over the cliff edge, spattering the drifts of madder and sea thrift, battered by wind and clumsy Hobbit feet, that clung to the cliff face. It was not a wholly treacherous path, but it required all his attention, and there was no other path he had yet found that offered such a view of the sea, nor of the cliffs, stippled in yellow gorse. But that was not to say that it was an easy descent.
Tol Eressëa, he thought not for the first time, was not made for Hobbits. Rather, it seemed even the land itself—not to speak of the architecture—had fashioned itself for the sure, fleet feet of the Elves.
But it gave him a task to occupy his mind with other than thoughts of Bilbo, which pressed more worryingly upon him with each day and shadowed even his happiest moments. Celebrían, glimpsing the shadows that clouded his silence, had bade him leave Bilbo with her and Elrond for the day, waving off his concerns and protests.
“Not even Elrond would tend to those in his care without rest and respite,” she had told him, kindly but firmly, “and you have borne a burden greater than was ever laid upon him, and have but recently been relieved of it. Do not burden yourself unnecessarily when there are others now who might help you bear this weight. And,” she had added with a smile as she steered him to the door of her house, “you may rest assured that Bilbo can find no better care in all of Aman than in the house of Elrond.”
Celebrían, he was finding, had something of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins’ stern spine in her.
Thus it was that he found himself upon the cliff path that led to the shore, buffeted by winds and the firm resolve of the former lady of Rivendell. He held his hat upon his head as he descended and turned his face against the wind.
Below him, the path led to a shallow cove, hemmed in by sea cliffs and buttressed at the further end by an arch of natural rock. When the tide was low, as it was now, he could walk beneath the arch to the adjoining beach, where many tide pools crowded the shoreline.
The path grew wider and sandier as he neared the shore, and the madder and sea thrift of the cliffs gave way to the rust-red fronds of shore dock and thickets of dense grey grass, bending and parting beneath the combing fingers of the breeze. In the lee of the cliffs, the breeze gentled and stirred only the brim of his hat and the curls of his hair that lay against his neck.
His feet sunk into the deep-drifted sand, warm from the sun that rode high overhead, its glare hidden by the cliffs. He walked without hurry, bending and examining the clusters of silverweed and sea mayweed that grew amongst the drifts of sand. Elrond had taught him the names of many of the plants that grew upon the shore, recalling them from his childhood in the Havens of Sirion and naming them in tongues of Elves and Men.
Frodo straightened and peered across the sea, shading his eyes with his hand. Somewhere beneath the silver sheen of the sea lay the remnants of Elrond’s childhood home, ravaged by war and then by the waves. Elrond grew quiet sometimes after talking of Sirion, and Frodo did not press him. He knew too well the pain of a home destroyed.
He had not thought to find that so many here did.
Starting from his thoughts, Frodo caught a flutter of white upon the sand and saw that the Lady Galadriel was walking beneath the sea arch, arm in arm with another Elf who bore the same golden hair as hers, unbound in the breeze. Their heads were bent close together.
Frodo paused, not wishing to intrude upon their conversation, and had nearly turned to go back up the sea path when Galadriel called to him and beckoned him across the sand.
He saw as he drew closer that she was dressed simply in plain white raiment, and that she, as he, walked unshod upon the sand. She wore her hair braided in a crown upon her head, loosened by the wind, and Frodo recalled the tales Celebrían had told him of her mother’s youth, when she had bound her hair in a crown upon her head and sparred with the princes of the Noldor and bested many of them. He could see now in the lines of her limbs the Elf-maiden who had once done so, and in the keenness of her glance the lady who had once ruled Lórien and withstood the searching of Sauron, and in the unfettered joy of her smile the woman who now walked again upon the shores of her youth after centuries uncounted.
The Elf at her side was alike in appearance, tall and fair and grave, and yet as merry as midsummer. Upon his brow he wore a circlet of pearl and abalone, and his golden hair lay loose upon his shoulders, from which fell all the colors of the sea. His eyes, bright and keen, held the clear green of forests in spring and the wisdom of centuries.
At once Frodo knew him. He was Finrod, Felagund who knew no fear, who had hewn vast caverns and built mighty towers and died in ancient days in the dark dungeon of wolves.
“Felagund,” Frodo said in amazement and bowed deeply, too startled to say more in greeting.
A light came into Finrod’s eyes and he smiled. “It has been many a year since I have been called that. Ingoldo I hear more often now.”
“Well met, Frodo,” said Galadriel, and she smiled at him. “Little did I think that our paths might lead here when first you walked beneath the eaves of Lórien, bearing the doom of Elves and Men.”
“It was only through the charity of the queen,” Frodo said humbly. “And the meddling of Gandalf, I suppose.”
Galadriel laughed, light and clear. “The meddling of Mithrandir has achieved many things, but few wonders as great as this.”
“There is a tale here, I see,” said Finrod. “And I have been keen to hear it since Celebrían first told me that she had sheltered in her garden the one who was Sauron’s undoing and said that he was of a kindred unknown to the Elves of the First Age.”
Galadriel slipped her arm from his. “This tale I know already and will not interrupt the telling of, but I will warn you, Frodo, not to be chary with your words, for my brother is a keen listener and will draw them from you whether you would or no.” And she bade them farewell.
Finrod’s laughter spilled like wine, rich and heady. “Will you walk with me, Ringbearer? I will ask no more than you wish to tell, and if you wish to tell me nothing at all, then I shall tell you whatever you wish to know about Aman.”
“I hardly know where to begin,” said Frodo, overwhelmed and awed at the position in which he found himself.
“Then I will tell you what I have learned of the downfall of Sauron, and you may tell me what you wish of your part in it. I know of the making of the Three and their hiding, and of the One and its disappearance and finding. And I know too that you were aided by a company, and that one among them married my sister’s granddaughter and became a king of Men. Do I have this right?”
“Yes,” said Frodo, and he wondered that the Elf-kings of old knew his tale as well as the bakers and laundresses of Minas Tirith did. “There were nine of us in that company, though only eight now remain. Three were Hobbits, two of whom were my kinsmen.”
They passed beneath the sea arch, and its shadow fell upon them. But even in shadow, Finrod seemed to draw light to himself, and his eyes and hair gleamed bright, as if still touched by the sun.
The ground beneath Frodo’s feet grew rockier, pitted with small hollows and pools filled with seawater. Bright lichens and sea stars clung to the rocks, and small creatures scuttled from pool to pool, vanishing with light splashes. Within, he caught glimpses of fronds and grasses, hidden amongst the hollows.
“And an Elf and a Dwarf who renewed the friendships of old.”
Frodo smiled, stepping carefully to avoid slipping on the slickening rocks. “Yes, though you wouldn’t have thought it at the beginning.”
“And one of these companions went with you into the very fires of Orodruin?”
Frodo fell silent. “Yes,” he said at length. “Sam. He alone knows the terror of Mordor as I do, though he did not feel the full weight of Sauron’s malice, and for that I am glad. I would have done anything to spare him that.” He fell quiet again. Finrod, too, seemed distant. Though they had passed from beneath the arch and walked again in the sunlight, it seemed a shadow had fallen, or a cloud had passed over the sun. Frodo’s hand went unconsciously to the white gem around his neck, and it glowed warm against his hand, and the shadow passed. A breeze tugged again at his hat and sleeves, and the crying of the gulls overhead seemed clearer, and the rush of waves running along the shore rang louder in his ears.
“You may find that many here know something of the terror of Sauron, the members of my company not the least.” Finrod’s gaze cleared, and his voice lightened as he turned to Frodo. “Tell me of this companion of yours.”
Frodo sought for the words, suppressing a pang of grief. “He was my gardener and faithful companion,” he said at last, “and very dear to me.” He fell silent, and Finrod walked in silence next to him, waiting. “I suppose,” Frodo said slowly, wondering if he ought to say this, or if it would offend Finrod, “he was rather like Beren was to you, or you were to Beren, there in the darkness. A steady hand and voice in the darkness, carrying me when I did not have the strength or heart to go on and hardly knew myself anymore.”
“There is no greater aid in the darkness than that.” He glanced at Frodo, his eyes keen and kind. “But I think that we touch on a hurt that still lies near.” His voice gentled, and when he spoke, his voice was no louder than the wash of waves, and his words went deep into Frodo’s heart. “The House of Finarfin knows better than many the price of loving those whose doom lies apart. There are those I love who I, too, will not see again, unless it be in the remaking of the world. But of this I know little.”
Frodo remembered then that Celebrían had said something of an uncle who would not return from the Halls, for love of a mortal woman. At the mention of his name, Galadriel, who had been sitting near, had become grave and sad and her gaze had turned inward, and she did not speak.
And as the stories went, it was Finrod himself who had first discovered Men, and taught them, and loved them. How many of them had he loved and lost over the long centuries of his life?
And Galadriel herself had left her heart in Middle-earth with Celeborn, whose fate for now lay apart from her, across the sea. Who could say how many years it would be until he sailed?
Frodo stilled and looked out over the sea, where terns and petrels winged over the waves, darting down swiftly and rising with water wicking from their wings. Even they could not wing over the long leagues of the sea. “I never thought it could be so wide,” he said softly. “Before I sailed, I thought I might see it—the curve of the coast, or the lamps of the White Towers shining over the sea, and then I would not feel that I was so very far away. But I can see nothing but the waves, and they only remind me of how long lies their path over the sea.”
“The White Towers?” Finrod questioned.
“They are three towers of the Elves that stand upon the borders of the Shire. I visited them often before I left. Wandering companies of Elves would often come and look from the towers into the West, or gaze into the palantír that the westernmost tower held and look along the length of the Straight Road to the shores of the Blessed Realm. So the leader of one of those companies told me.” He thought back to Woody End and his conversation with Gildor, and the whispers of smoke that had drifted from the fire up to the stars beneath the fading leaves of autumn, and the soft voices of the Elves like the rustle of leaves in wind. It seemed so very long ago now. “That palantír is gone now; Gandalf said it was taken to the courts of Tirion.
“But the towers still stand, silent and empty. Strider—the king—ordered that lamps be lit in their upper chambers and tended to, so that those leaving Middle-earth would have a light to guide themselves by as they set their ships upon the sea.” Already the towers had been lit when he and the company of the Keepers of the Rings rode past it on their way to the havens. A wind had stirred over the hills, sending whispers through the grass and causing his pony to dance beneath him, and the flames in the towers had flickered then steadied. He had turned quickly from the towers and set his face to the havens, unsettled by the sight of the lonely towers standing at the end of the world.
But when the ship had slipped from the quay and the winds had gathered full in its sails, he had turned and looked again at the towers and their flames that flickered in the falling dusk and watched them recede into the twilit hills, until the sea and sky stole all sight of them, and he had felt the loss.
“And so at last the works of Fëanor come to an end,” said Finrod softly to himself, “and those that return only the least in his heart.”
“The palantíri?” Frodo said. “No, some still lie over the sea, reclaimed from evil. But they are in the hands of Men now.”
Finrod smiled, thin and faint. “I do not think that would comfort him.”
But Frodo’s thoughts still strayed to the White Towers and the Seeing-stone of Elostírion, and he remembered suddenly the other words of Gildor—that he had named himself as of the House of Finrod. “The one who told me of the White Towers—he named himself Gildor Inglorion of the House of Finrod.” He peered up at Finrod. “I didn’t remember until now.”
Wonder touched Finrod’s face. “He was a knight of my house, valiant and faithful. He would have gone with me to the Isle of Werewolves, but I charged him to remain and guard my family, and I am told he did so faithfully until Nargothrond’s fall.” He looked at Frodo in amazement. “I see now that you know more of the Eldar than even my sister told me.”
“He aided me,” said Frodo, “at the beginning of my task. I might not have made it out of the Shire, if it were not for him and his company. And I know not what other aid he lent to us in the wilds to secure our flight. He came with us to the havens, but he wasn’t ready to leave, though Elrond would have gladly taken him aboard with us.”
A smile touched Finrod’s face, glad and warm, and he laughed suddenly. “You have spoken of many wonders to me, Frodo, and this one the most joyous. I had thought my house ended in Middle-earth, and my people lost to grief or the Halls, and yet now I know that it is not so.”
He cast a glance to the sky, where the sun rode low upon the horizon and sent banners of gold unfurling over the waves. “The day grows old, and we have talked long and strayed far from your home, but I would speak with you again, Frodo, and learn what other wonders you have not yet told me.”
Frodo realized suddenly how sore he was, and he felt the fatigue that had been creeping up on him. But he found even so that he was not wholly weary, as he might have been those last days in the Shire, and felt he could walk a good many miles more yet before needing to rest. “Omentielv’ alassea ná,” he said courteously and bowed low.
“And versed in the speech of Valinor!” Finrod exclaimed. “You must tell me sometime how you came to learn the tongue of the Noldor, when so few dwelt in Middle-earth.”
“Then you must meet Bilbo,” said Frodo, “for he was my teacher.”
Thus it was that several days later Frodo found himself opening the door of his and Bilbo’s cottage to the once-king of Nargothrond, who ducked low beneath the lintel and sat with care in one of the armchairs before the fire. The morning sun streamed through the open windows and seemed again to gather about Finrod, as if he drew all light to himself.
Bilbo stirred from his nap before the fire and opened his eyes upon the king of Nargothrond. “Ah!” he said and clapped his hands. “Well, this is a wonder, Frodo, my lad.” He rose slowly and bowed, greeting Finrod courteously in the Elven tongue, and Finrod responded in the same, with great courtesy and sincerity.
“You know,” said Bilbo to Frodo in a loud whisper, snagging his arm as he brought over the tea things, “you might have told me we would be entertaining one of the kings of old.” Frodo wondered himself at the fact that he now found himself pouring tea for kings of the Elder Days in his sitting room and marvelled at the strangeness of it all.
“I had rather thought,” said Bilbo confidingly to Finrod, “that we would be living quiet, unremarkable lives out in the country, like the two hobbit bachelors we are.” He looked suddenly and sharply at Frodo from under his brows. “Is this Gandalf’s doing? The old meddler; it would be just like him to send a king to our door without so much as a by-your-leave.”
“My own, I’m afraid,” said Frodo. He tactfully withheld comment on Bilbo’s own tendency to meddle.
Bilbo sat back in his chair and stirred his tea. “Well, you might have warned me, my lad. I might have pulled out my party waistcoat for the occasion. But never mind that now. I am not ungrateful, mind you.” He turned to Finrod. “Far from it. I had hoped very much to meet the Elves of the Elder Days and ask their thoughts on some of my poems and histories. It’s only that I find myself sleeping more than writing, and when I venture out of doors, my feet take me only to the garden and my seat in the sun, and I cannot find it in me to venture further. And I suppose Elrond has warned off all the Elves, anyways.”
“He said nothing to me,” Finrod said, casting a smile at Frodo. “Nor did Frodo.”
“Well, now that you’re here—” Bilbo patted around the armchair, searching for something. “Oh, I seem to have forgotten it on my desk. Frodo, will you go and fetch my poems?”
Frodo went and collected the poems, and Bilbo shuffled through them, muttering to himself. “I don’t suppose you know Gil-galad?” he said.
“I do,” said Finrod.
“Well!” said Bilbo. “I ought to have come here years earlier. And you—” He fixed a keen eye on Frodo. “You might have brought him by sooner, before I had gotten quite so tired. But never mind that now. We shall make do. Ah, here!” He withdrew a small sheaf of papers, heavily marked and struck through. “I thought once in my younger days to try my hand at translating the Lay of Leithian. Strider—”
“The king of the reunited kingdom,” Frodo supplied, smiling around the rim of his teacup.
“Yes, yes.” Bilbo flapped a hand at him. “Strider said it was a bother of a poem to translate into Westron, on account of the meter it was written in in its original tongue, but I endeavored nonetheless, and the Elves of Rivendell humored my attempts. It is this, here”—he pointed to a heavily emended line—“that I cannot get past.” He handed the bundle of pages to Finrod. “You needn’t tell me now, unless you wish to. I’m in no rush, though I suppose I had better finish sooner rather than later, if Gandalf is to be believed.”
Frodo's smile faded from his lips, and he busied himself with clearing the tea things and returning them to the kitchen. He paused at the door and watched as Finrod leaned near Bilbo and made suggestions. It was a sight he couldn’t quite believe: A king of old sitting in a hobbit-sized armchair, reading scraps of Bilbo’s poems as if they were verses written by the lore-masters and poets in Tirion or Avallónë, and Bilbo next to him, muttering and marking, the white, curling thatch of his hair barely visible above the back of his chair.
And yet Frodo knew it was a sight he would store in his heart for all the days and years to come.
“Frodo!” called Bilbo. “Come and listen to this line.”
Frodo obliged and nodded and commented where he was due, but his thoughts were not on the poem. They continued until Bilbo’s speech began to slow and his head began to droop, and Frodo quietly withdrew the papers from his hands and set them on the sideboard. He tucked a blanket around the old hobbit’s thin shoulders and stoked the fire, for even though it was summer, their home beneath the oaks remained cool, and Bilbo grew chill easily.
“I think he has worn himself out with excitement,” he said apologetically to Finrod. “But he was very glad to meet you, and he will want to see you again to recite the poem, I am sure. And, no doubt, to ask for your aid on a great many more, though I am not sure how many more he has left in him.”
“I am glad to offer aid,” said Finrod, kindly. “It has been too many years since I have spoken to anyone not of the Eldar, and I have grieved it. But I think next I shall invite you to my home, since you have welcomed me into yours.” And then he ducked beneath the lintel and went out into the summer sun, and Frodo watched in wonder.
Several weeks later, a summons came to the house in the form of Gandalf rapping on the door. “Well!” he said, leaning on his staff. “You have certainly made friends quickly—and without any of my help. I have been requested to take you to Avallónë, to the house of Finrod by the sea.” He raised his bushy eyebrows at Frodo. “You might tell him that I object to being used as a messenger.”
“You might tell him yourself,” Frodo returned, fetching his hat from its peg by the door. He paused, torn. “But what of Bilbo? I cannot leave him by himself.”
“Finrod has asked Elrond to visit for the day, and he is to arrive shortly.”
Mollified, Frodo took Gandalf’s hand and climbed into the waiting wagon. Avallónë was too far to walk to, but it might be ridden to and from within the span of a day. So Celebrían had told him. But he had had no cause to visit the city yet beyond his initial debarking from the ship, and in truth he had been reluctant to, overwhelmed by the thought of all of the figures of the Elder Days who dwelt within its white walls. He and Bilbo were only two small hobbits, far from home in a land of myth and enchantment. They didn’t belong in cities full of figures of legend.
Gandalf flicked the reins, and the wagon rumbled off beneath the trees, down the walking path that led through the woods to the road. Beams of sunlight ran over them with dappled footsteps, peering and flitting from behind the boughs of the oaks and elms.
The woods thinned as they drew near the road, and then ended completely, fading into a land of gentle hills and flowering heaths. The sea drew near on their right, gleaming beneath the morning sun.
Ahead, Avallónë shone white in the sunlight, and the tower in its center pierced the sky with its silver spire. There, it was said, dwelt the Master-stone, from which one could see even to the shores of Middle-earth. The city rose in white terraces about the tower like skirts of seafoam and gleamed bright in the sun. Frodo could not look at the city for very long without it hurting his eyes.
The road branched in two, and Gandalf steered the wagon onto the lower road that led near to the sea. Many ships were out upon the water here, and many with nets thrown over the side. Others lay at anchor, bobbing on the tide.
They passed the outskirts of the city and came to the quays that crowded its feet, where their ship had docked at last on a cool autumn evening after many weeks at sea. The clamor of the quays, strange and foreign after the silence of the sea, had rung loud in Frodo’s ears as he had stepped from the gangplank and craned his neck to look at the city that sailed above the sea like a great moonlit ship, with a mast of silver that pierced the stars. Even now, the noise of the quays struck him; he had never seen so many Elves in one place; even at the Havens, the quays had been quiet, pierced only by the cries of the sea bells and the slap of waves against the hulls of the ships.
Gandalf clucked the horse on and they passed the quays and rode up a white-stone road that curved about the foam-flecked feet of the city. The buildings here were larger and fewer and hidden by terraced gardens, spilling with the froth of flowers. The sands washed against the streets, glittering upon the white stones, which shone as if burnished to iridescence. Looking closer, Frodo saw that the streets were not made of stone, but of pearl, luminous and lustrous.
Upon a curving street, and a little apart from the rise of the city behind it, stood a white house, many-terraced. The music of fountains filled it, and Frodo glimpsed the glimmer of falling water hidden behind white walls and spilling over others into basins and troughs, in which floated the blossoms of flowers Frodo could not name. Many balconies looked over the sea, and the windows of the house stood open to the sea breeze. Finrod was, Frodo recalled, a prince of both the Noldor and the Teleri, and his house bore the mark of both kindreds.
Finrod waited in the gardens beneath the white-clad boughs of a lairelossë, a harp in his lap. He rose as Frodo approached. “I thought we might walk upon the shore,” he said.
A little distance from the house, the shore widened, and Frodo’s feet sank softly into the gleaming sand, which gleamed with a faint luster. Bending, he drew some into his hand and rubbed the grains between his fingers in wonder. It was pearl, crushed into many fine grains that caught the light of the sun and the city. He dusted the sand from his fingers, and then caught the shimmer of something else in the sand and saw, curiously, the glimmering curves of jewels buried in the sand, scattered amongst the shells and tide-wrack.
Following his gaze, Finrod said, “Of old, the Noldor gifted to the Teleri jewels they had harvested from the mountains of Valinor, and the Teleri, who cared little for coveting or storing up treasure, spilled the gems of the Noldor upon the shores of Eldamar so that they would be made even fairer.”
Frodo withdrew a jewel from the sand, washed smooth and round by the waves but still glimmering, and he turned it over in his fingers, touching the work of the sea, and then let the jewel fall back onto the shore. It shimmered and sank, lost among the grains of pearl and the gleaming gifts of the tide.
“Much of the trials and grief of the Noldor could have been avoided, if we had done likewise with the treasures that came into our hands.”
“You name yourself among them?” Frodo could remember nothing from the tales Bilbo had told him and the others that he had read in the house of Elrond of Finrod harboring jewels that had led to ill ends.
“The deeds of the few laid heavily upon the many, but neither do I hold myself apart from them.” Frodo saw that Finrod’s gaze went over the hills of Eressëa to the distant gleam of Valinor beyond, where lay the shores upon which his kin had been slain—shores not so different from the one upon which they walked, but that they had been washed in blood. There Finrod had turned from his kin and followed the hosts of the Noldor into the darkness.
Perhaps that was why he kept a house here on Eressëa and did not live solely in Alqualondë or Tirion, or perhaps it was merely to see Galadriel and the others of the Returned, who could not set foot upon Valinor but once every seven years. Frodo did not understand the purpose of such distinctions—had the Returned not paid a penance of their own, just as those who had dwelt within the Halls of Mandos?—but he did not question the laws of the Valar. It was enough that he had been permitted to live here amongst the Elves, however strange the laws of the land might seem to him.
Finrod fell into silence, and Frodo walked quietly beside him, looking in wonder at the glistening shore and the city rising like a thing of story, white and gleaming, behind it. It was easy to forget, tucked away in his little house in the country, what land he truly dwelt in, until he saw the cities of the Elves, greater and fairer than any he had seen in Middle-earth.
And yet Avallónë reminded him, strangely, of Lothlórien, and the bridge of memory that seemed to bind that land to ancient days, for Avallónë, too, wore the silk of ancientry, even as it welcomed the dispossessed of the Hither Lands.
“What is it you think of, Frodo?” Finrod’s voice broke through his thoughts.
“I was reminded of Lothlórien,” he said. “Avallónë reminds me of it, somehow, in its ancientry. And yet—” He sifted his thoughts to find the words. “And yet there is a sorrow to it, I think, that Lórien did not have, though it knew it.” Perhaps it had been the silence of the city as he had slipped from his chamber that first night after debarking, finding himself too unsettled to rest, or perhaps it was the city’s immutable grandeur. It would never weather the wearing of the world, as Lórien now would, but it would never change, either; it would simply endure, as it had since its first stones were laid. It would last, white-walled and skirted in foam, washed by the waves of the sea, until long after Frodo had joined Bilbo beneath the grass.
And yet—he felt a sorrow there that Lórien had never known, a seam of grief unmended from Aman’s first wounding. Aman had never known war, as Lórien had, and yet it had known hurt, and Avallónë’s white walls could do nothing to fence it out, nor to mend it. Perhaps it was the burdens of the Returned that held it unmended, or perhaps it was the immutable power of the land that held it as if trapped in amber.
He was glad, suddenly, for his cottage beneath the oaks and the warmth of Celebrían’s house and the trees that wore their seasons on their limbs. There was no memory of grief there, no seed of it hidden within the earth; there were only the trees and the grass and the light that fell upon all.
He felt Finrod’s gaze upon him and faltered. The Elf regarded him keenly, and Frodo felt that he read in him more than he had said, and more than he had meant to reveal.
“Not lightly were you named Elf-friend, Frodo of the Shire,” said Finrod. “You have seen this city clearly. It is a city of the Returned and so bears their griefs, for the portion of the Eldar is memory, measured out in the length of our years. And it is also a city of Aman and so bears the grief of the first wounding. What might lie forgotten beneath the kingdoms of Men lingers in the cities of the Eldar, unforgotten.”
“Why do you stay, then,” asked Frodo, “if the memories lie so near? It was for that reason I could not stay in the Shire.”
“In Alqualondë and Tirion dwell griefs deeper still than those of Avallónë, as does the memory of my part in them. Here I have no such memories. And”—here he smiled—“I have been too long parted from my sister, who I would not see but every seven years, were I to stay in Valinor.”
Frodo considered this and was about to ask Finrod of the reason for such laws, but as he did, he heard from afar over the walls of the city the sounds of singing. But though he strained, he could not make out the words.
Finrod glanced at him. “Do you hear that? They sing of the Ringbearer and the casting down of the Dark Tower.”
“But I cast down no towers,” Frodo said. “I did not even have the strength to relinquish the Ring.”
“Even so, it was your doing that brought the Ring to Mordor, and thus to its end and the end of Sauron. And in so doing, you did what the Elves of the First and Second Ages could not.” He looked closely at Frodo. “What I could not.”
“But I failed,” said Frodo again, and the cold guilt that he had borne within him since the days of his recovery in Minas Tirith came creeping through his heart unbidden. He turned from Finrod, unsettled and unable to look in his eyes that read too much. “When the time came to cast the Ring away, I could not. It was another who destroyed it, and in so doing destroyed himself.”
Finrod’s voice came gently from behind him. “Few would be strong enough, Frodo. It is not the nature of such things to be easily relinquished, nor to be borne for so long without being overtaken. It was Sauron’s nature to covet, and thus the spirit that he poured into the Ring sought to bend its wearer to covet. That you did not until the end is a wonder even to the Wise.”
A breath, and then Finrod’s voice spoke gentler still: “Some might say that I, too, failed. But even so, the Silmaril was wrested and won and the captives set free. For it has always been thus in the histories of the world: The hands of one must lay the way for the hands of others, in faith that they will succeed. And thus the failure of the first is the victory of those that follow, and therefore no failure in truth.”
Frodo did not turn.
Finrod stepped no nearer but spoke still from behind him. “It was not might or power that at last brought down Sauron, or stole the Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown, but the utmost ends of love, and faithfulness beyond all hope. It is not so very different, what you did, Frodo, as what Lúthien did.”
“But Lúthien did not fail.” Frodo spoke softly, still turned. He felt Finrod behind his shoulder, waiting, and the wash of the waves against his feet.
“It is a wholly different thing to seize than to let go,” said Finrod. “And the Silmarils, whatever doom was laid upon them in the speaking of the Oath, and whatever evil and grief may have come from them, were not conceived in malice, as was the Ring.”
“Then why,” said Frodo softer still, his gaze upon the sea, “did it feel so little like victory?” He turned, his eyes damp.
Finrod reached and drew Frodo from the sea. His hands were very warm, and Frodo felt cold clasp about his heart relent. The hands of the king are the hands of a healer, they had said in Gondor of Aragorn. Perhaps it was true of Elven kings too.
“Because it was a task none could have found victory in," Finrod said, "and because you were burdened and wounded beyond endurance. But there is healing for such hurts here.”
“I have not yet found it,” said Frodo. “Not for this.”
Finrod smiled. “That is because it is not found, but received.”
The long shadows of late summer lay upon the floor of the cottage. Bilbo slept in his armchair, and Finrod sat near him, holding the old hobbit’s hand.
Frodo set the tea things quietly upon the table. “I am sorry we are not better company today,” he said softly, so as not to wake Bilbo. “Bilbo was very eager to show you his progress, but it seems he exhausted himself too much with his writing.”
“It has been many years since I have sat thus,” said Finrod. An old grief was etched in his face, ancient and fathomless. He held Bilbo’s hand very gently.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to come,” Frodo said. “And Bilbo will be upset to have missed—”
“No,” said Finrod with a shake of his head. “I do not grudge it.”
Frodo sat down in the chair he had brought over from the kitchen. “You do not?”
“I have loved and grieved for many Men, but I have never grudged the days spent with them, even at their end. Too brief were their days to me, but bright, bright as flames in the night, and as beautiful, even as they guttered in the wind.” He stroked Bilbo’s hand and looked at the old hobbit with a tenderness that stung Frodo’s heart.
“The Eldar dwell much in memory, I have said, and yet it is not only the memory of grief that we hold, but of joy, too. To us the memory of a thing beloved is as precious as the thing itself, and these memories I have held with me in all the long centuries since as a hearth long-tended and oft-returned to.” An emotion passed swiftly over Finrod’s face, like a cloud drawn by wind, and Frodo thought that even then Finrod held some distant memory close to him.
“Little enough, I have been told, are memories for Men, and a poor currency for years. But they are the wealth of the Eldar, nonetheless.” He turned to Frodo. “But I suppose these words must be strange to you.”
“Not wholly,” said Frodo. “Memories are all that I have left now, the good and the ill.”
“Then perhaps you understand a little of the minds of the Eldar, as you have our deeds.”
“Perhaps,” said Frodo. “And perhaps I shall understand better in time, as I shall better understand myself.”
“Maybe it shall be so,” said Finrod.