west of the moon, east of the sun

The Halls of Mandos were filled with the spirits of the dead—far more than had been there when Fëanor had come, and more than he had ever expected. The flood of them after the Fifth Battle had been terrible. It was quiet, for the dead did not speak, instead passing thoughts in a rush of whispers, and in that time the sounds of their lamentations had been like countless leaves rustling in an unfelt breeze. He had watched the tapestries, seen the battle unfold, red and brown and black—had seen the chaos on the eastern front as his sons were confronted with treachery, had seen the disaster in the west, when Fingon had faced down the host of balrogs alone, and been slain.

He had looked for Fingolfin, then, but Fingolfin was nowhere to be found. Fëanor had watched that unfold, too—that duel that had filled him with equal parts horror and envy, for he had desired the very same confrontation before the gates of Angband.

It would not have ended any differently.

He still wished it had been him.

Now a great crowd of spirits, both Elves and lingering Men, were gathered before the newest tapestry as it fell open down the wall, luminous, gold and silver threads glittering in the pale light of Mandos. Fëanor gazed up at it, astonished. Unlike most other tapestries there was only one figure depicted here, dominating the scene. His hair was woven with warm golden and yellow threads; his skin was tanned and sunburned; Vairë had even picked out the details of its peeling across his nose, and had rendered painstakingly all the frayed threads of his tattered clothes, and the sand and dust encrusted on his bare feet. His eyes were the same warm blue as the sky above him, and his face, weary with grief and stained with tears that seemed to be woven with a thread spun from diamonds, was lit from beneath by the jewel in his cupped hands—the Silmaril, unmistakable even recreated in threads. It almost seemed real, as though he could reach into the tapestry and pluck it from the figure’s hands to have it hard and solid in his hands, shining like a fallen star in the gloom of Mandos.

Beside him he heard a soft sound and turned to find Turgon gazing at the tapestry, hands outstretched—not toward the jewel but to its bearer. “Eärendil,” he cried, “Ardamírë! Precious child, how came you thus to Máhanaxar?” Others took up his cry, until the name Eärendil filled the halls, like a rush of wind in the whispered voices of the dead, tremulous, hardly daring to believe what his coming into the west, bearing a Silmaril, must mean.

More quietly, Turgon whispered, heedless of all others around him, “ From you and from me a star shall arise —so Huor said to me long ago. He is gone; he did not linger to see, but now at last I understand his words. Aiya E ärendil elenion ancalima! Brightest and most beloved son of Men and Elves, child of hope, child of sorrow—would that I had heeded Ulmo’s message.”

Fëanor did not understand those words—not until the next tapestry was unveiled, of a ship gilded in silver sailing up toward the heavens. Eärendil stood at the prow with the Silmaril bound upon his brow, and alongside the ship as it soared was a great white bird. The stars were sewn in diamonds and mithril and the feathers of the bird were of shimmering silk, every pinion delicately stitched. The figure of Eärendil was turned toward the bird, his hand outstretched; he shimmered as though Vairë had scattered stardust upon the tapestry before setting it upon the walls of Mandos. It glittered, even the darkest threads of black and deep blue. With the unveiling of that tapestry the word that echoed through the Halls was not E ärendil, nor even Silmaril , but estel .

“Your Silmaril now is safe from all evil,” Nienna said to Fëanor, appearing as he gazed at the tapestry, counting the threads of it. “What do you say to this, Fëanáro?”

He looked at the tapestry, and at the one before it. “What does it mean, Lady?” he asked.

“The pleas of Elves and Men have been heard,” Nienna said, her voice the whisper of wind through grass, of rainfall upon leaves. “It will be a sign of hope to all who look upon it, from now until the ending of the world. Will you be content, knowing that the work of your hands shines in the morning and in the evening, carried by one who risked everything for the love he bore his family and his world?”

Fëanor bowed his head. “Yes, Lady. I will be content.”

“In the forefront of the charge they saw two great horsemen, clad in grey, unlike all the others, and the Orcs fled before them; but when the battle was won they could not be found, and none knew whence they came or whither they went. But in Rivendell it was recorded that these were the sons of Elrond, Elladan and Elrohir.” - Peoples of Middle-earth, “The House of Eorl”

- -

A peal of bright laughter drew Sam and Frodo’s attention as they wandered the halls of the palace in Minas Tirith. It was an enormous place, labyrinthine and echoing, with high ceilings and tall windows that let in plenty of light, and yet seemed somehow shadowy. “On account of it being empty, I suspect,” Sam had said when Frodo had remarked on it earlier. “There’s not been much cause for light lately, has there? But Strider and Lady—I mean, Queen Arwen, they’ll put it to rights, like everything else.”

The large hall where the laughter had come from was a gallery of sorts, with frescoes upon the walls between finely woven tapestries, and busts and statues scattered about, and occasional paintings hung in ornate frames, dark against the pale stone walls. Frodo peered curiously at the tapestries, which depicted scenes he only vaguely recognized, from tales he had heard in Rivendell what seemed like a hundred years before, or perhaps from Bilbo long ago—tales of Númenor, and of Elvenhome, or of the Elder Days and the great wars in the drowned lands, when Glamdring and Sting had been forged.

At the far end they found Elrond’s sons with Legolas and Gimli, and with Éomer King and Lady Éowyn, standing before an enormous fresco of a charging army of horsemen. “Why, isn’t that what just happened, the way it was told to us?” Sam exclaimed, looking up at it.

It could not be, of course. This painting was old, with faint cracks running through it and the paint faded or discolored in places. The figures upon the horses did look like Éomer and Éowyn, with long golden hair flowing under their helms; some held horns to their lips, and Frodo thought of Pippin trying to describe the sound of the horns of the Rohirrim as they came at last with the rising of the sun. They held swords and banners of green and white, though the design was not like that of the banners Frodo had seen.

“No! This is a painting of the Battle of the Fields of Celebrant, long ago,” said Lady Éowyn, smiling at them. “Gondor called to our forefathers for aid, and Eorl the Young led them into battle against the Easterlings and the orcs that allied with them. See, there he is upon Felaróf, from whom all the Mearas of Rohan are descended. It was after this battle that the Steward Cirion gave our people the lands of the Riddermark where we have dwelt ever after.”

Frodo peered up at the horse, a splash of white upon the otherwise brown and green and golden paintings. Whether or not he had been so in life, Felaróf was painted larger than any of the other horses, and like Théoden had on the Pelennor Fields, Eorl outran his host—but he was far younger than Théoden King had been, and the expression upon his face was fierce and bold.

“It is said also,” Éomer King said, with an amused glance at Elrond’s sons, “that there were two who joined the host of the Éothéod who did not dwell in the northern vales of the Anduin, and who fought valiantly and yet vanished into the evening before any could do them honor.”

Elrohir laughed; it was he and Elladan who Frodo and Sam had heard before. “So there were, though I did not expect Gondor to have remembered it also!” And sure enough, on the edge of the painting were a pair of dark-haired riders upon dark horses, clad all in grey, with stars on their brows and shining swords in their hands. “It was chance that brought us to the lands of the Éothéod when the Red Arrow came, for we had been hunting orcs in the Misty Mountains—and it was to the Misty Mountains we returned, after taking news of the victory to our father in Rivendell. It would have been an honor to ride into battle with your people again, Éomer King, Lady Éowyn, had we not been called upon another path.”

“We are glad to know that the spirit of Eorl the Young lives on in his descendants,” Elladan added.

“I hope another painting will be added to this gallery, to commemorate the charge of the Rohirrim onto the Pelennor,” Legolas said.

“It will be remembered in song, if not in paint,” said Éomer, “by our people and the people of Gondor.”

And in plain words in the north, Frodo thought, thinking of Bilbo and his book waiting for them back in Rivendell. He would have the tale of it from Merry and Pippin, and anyone else who might care to tell him. He looked up into the face of Eorl the Young, and thought that he looked not so much like Éomer, but like Éowyn, who stood aglow before him in the sunlight streaming through the high windows of the hall, all vivid gold and bright white and silver in contrast to the fading yellows and greens of the paint.

Then sudden Felagund there swaying
Sang in answer a song of staying,
Resisting, battling against power,
Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,
And trust unbroken, freedom, escape;
Of changing and of shifting shape,
Of snares eluded, broken traps,
The prison opening, the chain that snaps.
- The Lay of Leithian, Canto VII

- -