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It was quieter, now. The inferno in the far north had cooled, for now, and the horrible clanging that had been the Edain’s constant companion these past few months had ceased, though Andreth still heard it in her dreams, at times. Winter had passed them by. It was spring, now. The changing of the seasons should have been a relief, proof that the Enemy could not prevent the world from renewing itself after the passing of winter, even in the face of all else that he could do. It was of little comfort to Andreth, as she waited for a knock at the door.
A pall of reeking smoke blanketed the scorched forests of Ladros, befouling what should have been clean, sweet air. Andreth could not take so much as one step outside without falling to coughing, and her old, aching lungs couldn’t tolerate being outside for more than a few minutes before she had to retreat back within the shelter of her house, where the stench of the smoke had wormed its way in, but not strongly enough to strangle. The water from the well was tainted—Andreth had yet to see anyone, even herself, feeble as she was, fall ill from drinking it—hard and stale with a horrible taste that put the drinker in a black mood for hours. The nearby streams were no better, and Beren had carried a report back to her that the waters of Aeluin had been defiled, that pool once clear as glass now yellow with sulfur.
Around her, the world was changing.
It was a few weeks ago now that Emeldir had finally resolved to brave the Ered Gorgoroth with the women and children, the old and infirm of House Bëor following after her. The pronouncement—Ladros was lost, and anyone who stayed fought a losing battle. Andreth’s heart had rebelled against forsaking her home, or perhaps it was her body that rebelled against the idea of making the trek over the Ered Gorgoroth and through Nan Dungortheb to Dor-lómin. Old age had stripped most of Andreth’s illusions away from her, though there were still those she was loath to voice to others. She was old, and she was feeble. She was not the girl who could run through forests and over the plains as fast as any man. Even discounting Orcs and Spiders, she would die on the road to Dor-lómin.
I wish to die here. Here, in this house. As tended to happen (more often than she liked), an old echo from younger years surfaced from the deep, starlit pool that was her memory. I do not wish to die at all. I do not wish to face the nothingness that awaits me after death, the unknown country that awaits the dead of my people—if there is anything for me at all. I wish to prolong my life as much as I possibly can.
The Gift of Men was as ambivalent a gift as it had ever been, but the inexorable truth of the world was that it came equally to all Men who lived. It stretched its fingers out from whatever realm it took its harvested human souls, and it was making its way towards her, just as it sought out all children of Men, Edain and Easterlings alike. Andreth did not know when it would come; all she knew was that she would not be ready when it came.
(Part of the reason, Finrod had told her decades ago, with averted eyes, finally showing the grace to be shame-faced, that he had counseled Aegnor to give her up was the briefness of her lifespan compared to those of the Elves. Andreth-adaneth would die long before Aegnor of the House of Arfin, that much was plain. Spare yourself the pain of losing her for all time, spare yourself the pain of having to spend the rest of time until the world breaks alone, as your precious Powers dictate the Elves must. Spare yourself the pain, and leave her behind. She will die, and you remain, so just separate from her before the pain of doing so can grow deadly enough to kill.
There was a part of Andreth, heaped with the bitterness of ninety-five years and the burning of her homeland and the death of her kin, that wished she could summon Finrod before her and ask again what he thought of the short lives of Men.
The news had come to her, borne by Edain riders tearing down from the north, scorched and smoke-stained and in utter despair. Angrod and Aegnor, sons of Arfin, consumed by fire in the north. Andreth Saelind, Andreth-adaneth, frail daughter of frail Men, had outlived this mighty son of the Eldar.
It gave her no joy, no more than it gave Andreth any joy not to know whether Finrod had made it back to his kingdom alive after Barahir reached him during the worst of the battle. Outside, the world was changing, and sometimes Andreth fancied they were both here with her. That they were in another room, just out of sight, and would come join her at any moment. Finrod had told her that Elven spirits could choose to linger in Ennor, rather than fly to the Undying Lands to put themselves in the hands of the Powers. It was, Finrod had told her so gravely, so earnestly, willful and unwise and frankly blasphemous. Houseless spirits, as he called them, were vulnerable to being corrupted and bent to the will of the Enemy, and would no matter what eventually fade into utter non-existence. The worst possible fate of Men after death, realized in the Elves—Andreth wondered if Finrod’s mind ever wandered that way.
Willful and unwise and frankly blasphemous it might have been, but it was something Andreth could imagine Aegnor doing. It was hardly as though he wasn’t willful, Andreth could not lie and say that he was the wisest of his kind she had ever met, and in their talks together Aegnor had not been shy about professing beliefs his oldest brother would likely have considered at least mildly profane, if not outright blasphemous. He could. It was hardly out of the realm of possibility.
Or perhaps the fires of Angband had consumed Aegnor’s spirit along with his body. It might... might not be so difficult. His body had been wearing away already, hadn’t it, his spirit shining through the thin patches? If there was little left of his body, perhaps it would not be so difficult to consume his spirit.
“Await us there, my brother—and me.”
Finrod thought there was some chance that they would see each other again, after the world was broken and remade. No, it wasn’t just that he thought there was a chance—he was certain they would. To him, there was no question of Men’s spirits flying out of the circles of the world to some undiscovered country after death. That was the truth, and any suggestion that they winked out like candle flames and became nothing was nonsense.
Andreth wasn’t blessed with that kind of certainty. The truths of the world were not so certain nor so concrete. But she thought that, had she possessed that certainty, she would have traded it away in exchange for having the two of them here with her, now. In a heartbeat, she would have.)
Outside, the land was changing, metamorphosing into some blighted child of the Enemy’s fancy. That was something else she had heard of him—he could not create new things, only take what already existed and twist it to his liking. This was told in explanation of how Orcs and dragons came to be, though frankly Andreth was at a loss to imagine what poor creature the Enemy could possibly have taken and twisted to produce the dragons. Andreth had never heard tell of him being able to twist living things to his will from far away, but if it was an ability belonging to the Powers, she had little doubt that she was watching it in action now.
The men had stayed behind, their numbers continually dwindling. A month ago, there were more than a hundred from Andreth’s settlement. Now, word came to her that there were no more than forty, and from the other settlements altogether, perhaps no more than fifty. The forest encroached upon her house, and Andreth had never seen so much as a single Orc step out. The men were loath to discuss these things with her, but Baragund had eventually admitted to him that neither had they.
There were hunters in the woods, things that stalked the sons of Bëor. They were not Orcs.
Andreth had seen nothing she could positively identify as a “hunter,” but there were certainly things she had seen. Within, there was a part of her spirit that quailed, a milksop that begged her to come away from the windows, to forebear from looking to be spared the danger of being seen. The other part of her itched to take a quill in hand and document what she had seen. Morwen was no longer here—she could not benefit from her teacher’s observations or interpretations—but perhaps Beren could be persuaded to take care of the slim little volume Andreth was filling, once the Gift of Men was hers and she could write no more. It was slow going, though. Every ounce of sense in her mind plus the warnings of the men told Andreth that it was good practice to douse the lights after dark. No sense in making herself too easy a target.
The light was waning fast. The sky was red as blood. Andreth paused over her parchment, and looked out the window at the dark, encroaching forest.
This was what she did, now. Morwen, her student, was gone, so there was no one left for her to teach. Rían and Calwen and all the other children were gone, vanished over the Ered Gorgoroth in Emeldir’s desperate party. The grown-up children who chatted and argued with her were gone. Chatter was stilled. Incessant begging for stories was stilled. Laughter was stilled. Ladros was locked in an apprehensive pall of silence, that which was broken only by the distant howls of wolves.
Andreth sat by the window, and watched the forest.
Little by little, the forest was changing. The trees were growing taller and darker, their trunks by turns as white as a corpse (and yet leaves still grew from these trees’ branches, pale and blighted though they might have been) or growing dark and darker still, until they were black as pitch. The trunks and branches were bent, twisting in odd shapes that dipped towards the ground. Only the branches closer to the ground still had leaves; the treetops were dead and barren, as though the touch of the Sun was poison. The roots had erupted to the ground, gnarled and knobby and grasping, stretching fingers ever closer towards Andreth’s house, on which dark, stooped saplings had sprouted.
Sometimes, past the reeking smoke, Andreth caught the scent of another noisome odor emanating from the forest. It was reminiscent of the stench of rotting flesh, but… It was different. She wasn’t quite certain how to describe the difference, but there was just something… Rotting, and yet not dead. There were many things abroad in Beleriand now, Andreth feared, that did not quite fit the conventional definition of “alive.” However inquisitive her mind might be, Andreth had no desire to meet any of them.
She knew not to stir from the house at night. As an old woman, Andreth found she needed less sleep than she had when she was young. She often sat up and waited for the men to return, if only because she knew there was every chance they’d leave again come the morning; she might need less sleep, but she needed companionship as much as she ever had. That was not a need she had ever been able to cure herself of.
When night fell, Andreth had the feeling that the world was shrinking, and yet opening up like an abyss born of an earthquake. Her little house was like an island, and if she stepped outside, she would be lost. The sea wasn’t empty, was it? It was dark and deep and teeming with creatures monstrous to human eyes. Ladros must have become like the sea, for Andreth had the sensation that it was teeming with things that would have put a poet’s wildest imaginings to shame. When she stared out her window into the dark, she had the sense that there was something staring back.
It wasn’t the men; of that much, she was sure. They lit lanterns when they neared the settlement, and took special care to pass by her window on the way to the door so Andreth would have a better idea of who she was opening her door to. She’d never seen them, not even their eyes shining in the dark. Around her, the world was changing, and Andreth had only seen the surface. What lied beneath yet eluded her.
This was what she watched for now. Not children playing in the woods, for there were no children left. What nameless things crept in the forest she had once known? What distorted creatures had taken the place of the animals she had known? The world was changing, and Ladros was fast becoming a place that had no place for the likes of Andreth Saelind. She would taste the Gift of Men one day… perhaps soon. But until that day came, she had a quill, she had ink, she had parchment, and she had the will to write. Beren would keep her notes after she was gone. Maybe… maybe he would carry them to Morwen. Maybe not. Maybe it was kinder for Morwen not to know how her teacher had spent her last days.
(And maybe Beren would take one look at what Andreth had compiled and set the parchment on fire. There were times when Andreth suspected that would be the only fate of her last work.)
Night fell over Dorthonion, the sky black and starless. Andreth put her candle out, and drew a weary breath. Outside, the forest was impenetrably dark. Even as she stared out the window at it, she knew that it was staring back at her.
She heard a knock at the door.