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He crashes into the river. He should feel lucky, he thinks distantly, that water broke his fall; but for one who has spent four decades aloft in the skies, to be brought down at all is world-shattering.
He inhales one breath of water—another. Then he breaks the surface, gasping. Somehow, he finds the riverbank. Somehow, he crawls ashore. Somehow, he coughs up the water and takes several deep, ragged breaths of pure air.
Then he collapses, and all is dark.
When he wakes, it is still dark—but he is not on the riverbed.
Eärendil blinks, trying to find any pinprick of light. Slowly, his eyes adjust, and the slightest glow of something—a worm? a fungus? a jewel?—pulses in the distance.
“Shhh,” says a high voice. “Ahh, shining boy, do not stir...you are still weak.”
His blood runs cold. He knows that voice. He has feared it, heard it in his nightmares, since he was a child. But it could not be, he was dead, fallen to the rocks below, slain by Eärendil’s own father—
“Maeglin?” he croaks.
There is silence. Then the voice says:
“You know my son?”
“You’re—dead,” Eärendil rasps. “You—he—both of you. Fallen. Dead.”
Eöl hisses. Eärendil can still barely see, but he feels his captor skittering about the dark cave, circling him.
“Dead, fallen, broken,” he spits. “And my son too? I told him he would suffer the same fate as I. More fool him to trust those shining jailors—”
“You’re dead,” Eärendil repeats. Horror slowly creeps over him. “Am I—dead?”
Now Eöl laughs, stopping. Eärendil feels long, thin fingers caress his cheek. “Oh no, no no no,” Eöl assures. “Very alive. You shine with it. Can you not see it?”
Eärendil looks down at himself. He cannot.
“Psh,” Eöl scoffs. “My wife couldn’t either. And I was living then, too. Still I saw it. And Maeglin did. I know. Is that why he tried to kill you?” Sharp nails pinch at his ears, pointed but not so long as a full-elf’s. “Hmm, what are you, boy? Not an elf, but not not an elf...”
Eärendil chose his fate, though in times like this he wonders why. “I am an elf,” he protests. But if this thing is also an elf...
Elwing is an elf, he reminds himself. Mama is an elf, wherever she is. So is Arafinwë, and so are many others, good and noble.
“Tch,” Eöl says, not fully believing him. “Then a strange one. T’would I had the time to study you...” Those fingers dance over his chest, settling over his heart. “But no. No no no...”
Eärendil swallows back a wave of fear. “Time?” he asks.
Now a light flares, and Eärendil flinches back. Eöl has lit a candle, and holds it close to his face. It is hard to make out his features, but what he can see is so much more like Maeglin: thin, pale, dark of eye. But his hair is white, and the paleness goes deeper than his skin; it is bleached through his whole body. Indeed he seems—hardly there at all.
“I am dead,” says the shade frankly, “but do I follow the call to your prison of souls? Oh no, no no no no. I remain. There are many caverns deep in the mountains, that snake beneath the earth and spit rivers out their mouths... I follow the water. It leads me here. I am free.” The candle flickers, and he sets it aside. He does not cast a shadow.
“But I am dead,” Eöl hisses. “I need life. I do not want your brightness, shining boy, but it makes you easy to see. You’re not so bright as she was...”
Brightness. Panic overwhelms Eärendil: the Silmaril. What had happened to it? Had it fallen with him into the river? Did Eöl have it? But surely it would have burned him. Surely this thing could not bear the holy jewel.
Eöl presses his lips, cold and clammy, to Eärendil’s ear. “I sucked it out of her,” he hisses. “I will take it from you, too.”
A kiss at his earlobe. Eärendil shudders. For the first time, he tries to stand—but something holds him still. It is not rope or binding, but he cannot move.
“You cannot escape, shining boy,” Eöl croons. “I have you here. Poison does it; always does it. Kills you, dulls you, keeps you still. With her I needed subtlety. With her she could not know. With you...” He shakes his head. “I haven’t the time. I will take what I need now. ’Tis a shame,” he muses. “She was much more fun to play with...”
Cold hands at his ankles. They feel their way up his legs, to his waist. Higher, higher, until those long, clammy fingers are wrapped around his neck.
Eöl forces his jaw open. Eärendil retches, chokes, but those fingers pry his teeth apart, reaching down.
Light, light, Eöl hisses without words. Life! Give it, give it to me—
And somehow, Eärendil can feel himself surrendering. Death and destruction, war and loss, none of it has broken him—but Eöl, this thing, this foul spirit, invades him.
Lips close over his mouth. If it is a kiss, it is an evil one. Eöl pulls at his spirit, the fëa of him that is unambiguously elf, inhaling his essence, his very life—
And then, just before Eärendil give up entirely, the earth shakes around them.
Eöl stops—pulls back—wails. “No, no!” he cries. “No!” He knocks the candle over, but instead of snuffing out, the flame catches on something—parchment? clothing? moss? Eärendil doesn’t care. All he knows is that the light is suddenly blazing, and he is free.
Whatever poison kept hold of him is faded enough for Eärendil to stumble to his feet. The fire licks at the walls, surrounding Eöl with a vengeance, but Eärendil does not stick around to see if spirits can burn. He sees a tunnel, lunges toward it, unsteady but moving—
The earth groans, and rocks fall. Eärendil dodges one boulder, gasping in horror, and can feel cool air hit his lungs. The entrance must be close!
Another tremor shakes the cavern, and then—light. Shining, brilliant, holy: the Silmaril! Elwing!
She reaches for him, and he reaches back. As soon as he stumbles into her arms, he collapses, and knows darkness again.
She has found him. When he wakes, he is back on Vingilot, cradled in her embrace; the Silmaril lies on his chest, and all his aches and fears are gone.
“El,” he whispers, and her eyes, once closed, fly open.
“Eärendil!” she cries softly, and kisses him. She is warm and gentle and kind, and she saved him, as she always has.
When she leans back, he presses his face into her shoulder and sobs.
“What happened?” Elwing murmurs, running her fingers through his hair.
“How did you find me?” he asks, not knowing how to answer.
“Our bond,” she says. “And the jewel. It knew where you were, I think...”
“I was afraid I’d lost it.” He swallows. “Lost you...”
“I caught it,” Elwing whispers. “I couldn't catch you—you’d fallen too far, and I was only a bird—but I could catch it...I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head. “You saved me.”
“Why were you in a cave?” she asks. “And what—what was that thing?”
“Eöl,” he says, and she stares at him in horror. “I don’t know how...but he was there. Took me from the riverbank... El, he wanted my soul.” He shudders. “He would have had it, if you hadn’t...”
“But I did,” she says fiercely. “I did. You are safe now.”
“Where did I fall?” he asks.
“Nan Dungortheb,” she says. “I worried...some of Ungoliant’s spawn may have found you...”
“Worse.” Eärendil grimaces. “He—I think...I think I understand Maeglin, now. At least a little.”
Elwing’s face hardens. She has always told him he needn’t feel bad for “that monster,” shouldn’t feel guilty for his death. And Eärendil knows she’s right, but it’s not about that, this time.
“I only mean—with a father like that...” He sighs. “Eöl was feeding on his mother. Maeglin was born into that nightmare. It shaped him. He never had a chance. I’m...only glad he didn’t seem to know what I was. Who I was.”
Elwing’s frown barely hides the suspicion he knows she has, that Maeglin was just like Eöl, but Eärendil is the one who knew him. However dreadful, he was not like that.
“Where are we now?” he asks, changing the subject.
“Over the Sea,” Elwing sighs. “I thought it safest...for you to recover.”
“We have to go back,” Eärendil says. “Make sure he’s truly...gone, whatever that can mean for him.” He pauses, then adds, “And rejoin the war.”
“Eönwë told me you were not to return for at least a week,” Elwing says firmly. “The war has lasted near fifty years, Eärendil. It will last a little longer without you.”
“But...”
Elwing kisses his forehead, and lays him back down. “Rest,” she urges. “I am with you.”
And Eärendil, so newly rescued, so newly safe, cannot resist. He sighs, and leans into her arms, and lets himself relax.
He only hopes his dreams are of his wife, and not the wicked spirit in the caves.