Archive of Our Own ^beta

In Selih, they tell a legend of a princess-broideress, a hero's mother, who fell into a sleep beyond waking, and he starts when he first hears it, too similar as it is to a different truth. Like as not, it is an echo, perhaps even of things he himself has carelessly revealed somewhere or other, but the likeness of it disquiets him. He stays only a week to earn some coin for a good headscarf and leaves at dawn.

In a village by the Bay of Kenteh, an overjoyed middle-aged woman comes running up to him. It is the thin slip of a girl with dark braids, now greying, the last in a line of foundlings, who had caught the eye of a boy here, when they were passing through thirty years ere. He had stayed a while then, long enough to see her married and safe, but that was so long ago he would not be surprised if she had stopped believing his promise to return one day. I am a man of my word, he says lightly, as if it meant no more than that, and then, feeling pressed to be more honest, though he is as ever speaking in riddles and allusions — I only broke a vow once, but it was not one worth keeping. He tries not to look in the direction of the Sea.

Sarakhir has seen two dynasties risen and overthrown in the century since he last visited, and they say one of the Blue Wizards was seen in Verna. He curses and heads further south, but he's grown adept at evading Istari by this point.

He does not enter Ekithmar. They brand thieves and murderers on the hand there, and he is a thief and a murderer, many times over, but, all the same, he prefers not to make it known. They have no mark for one who has left it all behind many lifetimes of men ago, he reasons with himself, although be feels guilt for the luxury of being able to choose — where to stay, where to go — places where gloved hands do not arouse suspicion, and he can hide the truth about himself. He makes a wide circle around the city and its lands.

By the Verid they speak in hushed voices, when children are abed, of Khand and even of the land of Mordor, and of the eternal fate of peoples with such neighbours. Young men take down heirloom swords from their places of honour and try the feel of them in their hands. The deret of Sorah levies tax for his army, and so does the king of Dul-im-n'Kar farther east, but the people on either bank of the river have strong doubts about whom the latter wishes to mount troops against. In rumours he is allied with Uvrath Il-Khand, or even, in the wilder ones, with the Sorcerer.

Maglor partakes in conversation at times, but listens more, though the weight of the truth behind the reports cannot be ascertained, and he has heard talk of Sauron arising every other century. He tests his old skill with a blade, and gives a few lessons to eager youths behind their stables and farmhouses.

Ivratu has killed its king again. From the vantage point an immortal walking through a land of mortals has, it does this regularly, every two centuries, give or take one. Why the regularity, Maglor can't say, unless that perhaps everything is easier to repeat when you've done it once. He should know, he laughs ruefully, as if what governs a mob was ever the same as that which governs the decisions of a single man. But if cities have traditions, Ivratu's has become to kill those brave, or foolish, enough to try a hand at ruling it, and its denizens are proud of this dark history. Maglor might suppress a shudder, but he reprovisions at the markets and listens to the bloody gossip.

Evralthum does not exist anymore, swallowed up by the Mridyanvan Empire (he walks the ruins of the old royal palace and sings a lament for its laughing princes). The people are still there, scattered in a few jungle villages. It is hard to kill a nation, and they have little love for Mridyanva; so perhaps not all is lost for Evralthum, Jewel of the Veda, whose kings were once his friends. Farther east lie Olondë, Milyan-kai, Ta-L'nau, places he wishes to visit, if only to see how they've changed, but the rumours lying on his mind press him to retrace his steps, back to the Verid. If there is to be war with Mordor in the west, he wishes to be there for it.

There once was a boy he had picked up in Zûnar, a laughing ten year old with copper skin and closely-shorn black hair. And another one, before that, whom he had left in Rivendell after a time — or no, that was further north. In Zûnar they care little for potential war; they've had a dry season and are at the risk of famine. He stays there awhile, to sing some water into the fields in secret, and an early and abundant harvest; having witnessed which, he leaves the very South.

Mild Gondor winter is great relief after a Harad drought, though he needs to acquire a new set of clothing, and the kingdoms-in-exile, Arnor most, but the other too, have always reminded him, in the slightest, of his own people. It comes with sorrow and guilt, and the whispers that follow him here strike too close to the truth at times, but he has learned not to stay in one town for too long. He earns his keep as a minstrel, and, his song done, keeps vigil in the inns deep into the night, listening to soldiers' talk. Mordor must be stirring indeed.

He wonders whether to go see Artanis — it is near enough — but as much as he desires to meet his only surviving cousin and hear his mother tongue again, it would mean several months delay, and he has things he might do in the South that he cannot do here, conspicuous as he is. Still, it would be a pity, if he were to fall at last, for Artanis not to know where, and in one of the taverns there is a kid of the sort that vows he will seek the Golden Wood. He doubts that he might be allowed entry even if he goes through with his talk, but it does no harm to give a letter for the astonished boy to carry. In the Pelennor fields, he buys a horse and a sword.