Goterdammerung II
Second chapter from the story of Iuberge of Rohan and his Hobbit companion. Any comments greatly appreciated.
II
Íuberge’s narrative continued
I set down for the night, not so far across the country as I would have liked, but then I was in no hurry to return to Edoras. There was nothing there for me. My family were all ash upon the wind. I had never married, and those I had loved were likewise scattered about the world, though in a more corporeal sense, I trust. I had no one save the Order, though we were all weary men, who took to the service of the Valar in order to discern what it was about their life that was unsatisfactory. We give our allegiance in exchange for enlightenment. I know some whose bargains have been honoured. Mine has not, as yet.
But though I am an old man, I am not ready for my funeral pyre yet. I passed through life ever clinging to the hope that I would find that solace one day.
For the most part I had learned to hold from calling to the stars and demanding that the Valar show me my way. I had let loose the bitterness that broiled in my heart when I found no answer. And in time I learned not to seek my purpose out. Since then I found things came to me loaded with meaning, even if I did not understand. Like this day and the fact that I knew I would not visit Minas Tirith again, though it was my most beloved place in Middle-earth. I did not question why that knowledge should come to me. I merely accepted it, and then I could only wait and see if the riddle unfurled.
I built a small fire and cooked the roots and mushrooms I had gathered. Still the ghosts were about me, dancing around my little flames. In my mind I heard the battle ringing out across this land. If I closed my eyes I could see the soldiers thrashing through the fog and mud. Far in the distance the White Mountains formed a band of shadow between the wilderness and the stars; legends said that on the peaks of those mounts, great bonfires once burned, so that the two nations from whom I gather my heritage could come to each other’s aid. Though I do not know if this is true.
I was glad of the ghosts that night, for with their voices around me I did not feel quite so alone, sitting there beneath Varda’s starry veil.
Yet I was not alone for long.
Something far more substantial than a ghost approached me through the bushes. I heard twigs crack beneath a particularly large footfall and I let out a beleaguered sigh as I scraped the mushrooms about the small cooking dish I carried with me everywhere.
‘Won’t you join me, Mistress Took?’ I called. ‘The potatoes need a minute or so more, but the mushrooms I believe are perfect.’
I waited a moment, then I looked over my shoulder and smiled. The young Hobbit lass edged out of the darkness, sheathing her knife as she came closer (I suppose I should have been glad of that, at least). Her eyes never left my face, her suspicion as vibrant as the embers twirling around my fire.
‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘You’ll get more warmth from the fire if you sit beside it, than if you linger by my shoulder all night.’
She glowered all the more, but did in time walk around me and flung herself down upon a rock beside the fire, stretching out her hands towards its glow. I ate all that I needed from my dish then handed it to her, my heart sinking as I watched the poor creature devour everything down to the juices. I had rarely come across Hobbits in my time, for they were an uncommon sight about the world, but those I met in the North all seemed to relish their food. The idea of one going hungry therefore struck me with a heightened sense of tragedy.
‘Perhaps,’ I mused, ‘you should steal from farms rather than tombs. Would not a pot of broth serve you better than a dead man’s gold?’
‘If you mean to preach to me, star-worshipper, then I shall go…’
I raised my hands and smiled. ‘Forgive me. It is a habit of my calling.’
She finished the last of the food and looked up at me, mouth full. ‘You cook well.’ Then, after swallowing, she added, ‘For one of the Big Folk.’
‘Do your people still call us that?’
‘When we are being kind.’
‘And do you see much of your kin? Are there many of you about in the world still?’
‘What does it matter to you?’
I shrugged. ‘If I worship anything, Mistress Took, it is knowledge. Many of my kin are concerned only with their own affairs, but to me, there is no way to know one’s place in the world without knowing what else goes on in it. I have not visited your country in a long time. It is no easy task for an old man to cross the sodden plains of Eriador, and the sea creeps ever inland with every year. Yet I read stories of your folk’s great deeds and I had to see it.’
‘There is nothing of that now. Only stories that the old folk cling to so they do not have to see how foul things are. They talk as if another hero will appear at any minute and save us, while the young ones are left to fend for themselves. There are too few of us to survive and there are less each year. But the Thanes and Mayors for all their titles will not ask Rohan for aid or land. They say we began to die two hundred years ago.’
‘We all began to die then,’ I sighed.
I had often thought about our history, and I sometimes wondered if we were all meant to die in that plague. Was it sent perhaps by Eru, whose mysteries I devoted my life to understanding, to rid the world of our pestilence? Were we all intended to perish? Was our time on Arda now borrowed? Yet though the thought clouded my mind, I found it hard to believe, given what I saw; my glimpse of hidden wonder.
‘The thing with Men and Hobbits,’ I went on, taking out my pipe, ‘is that we have no choice but to survive. We often say that we will give up, and one or two actually do so. But in the end most of us must continue. We are driven to it. And Illúvatar would not set that force into our hearts without purpose.’
The Took sneered. ‘I find it hard to believe in a god who never shows himself.’
I regarded her wearily and lit my pipe. ‘Do you see that tree?’ I asked.
‘The old oak?’
‘Well, I was looking more towards the yew, which is my namesake, but yes, the oak will do. Do you know how that tree came into being?’
She snorted. ‘Of course I do, I’m not a child and I did have lessons when I was a little one!’
‘Then you know it grows from a seed, an acorn, which falls from another tree and buries itself in the soil, then waits until the time is right before it becomes another tree. Something so small as an acorn, with no mind so to speak, knows exactly when it is needed in the world, and it knows how to grow, how to make acorns of its own, how to spread its leaves to catch the sunlight. It has no tutors, no parents to tell it how to do those things, and yet it does.’
‘That’s because it’s a tree.’
‘And what then tells it how to grow, if not God?’
She thought for a long while. ‘Perhaps the Ents teach it.’
‘Ah, you believe in Ents but not in God?’
She blushed. I ought not to have teased her, for in fact it was refreshing to hear a child talk of Ents. Too soon the young ones of my own race grew and gained that cynical knowledge that there were no such things as Ents save in stories.
‘But you cannot tell me you believe in God simply because you like how a tree grows?’ asked Buttercup.
I sat back, drew hard on my pipe and watched the smoke curl towards that from the fire. ‘It is my place in the world to look for God, child. You called me ‘tree-worshipper’ and ‘star-worshipper’. That is all most people see of our Order. They see us collect the fruits and bark and leaves from the forests of the world but they do not stop to ask why we gather such herbs and plants. They never ask, when they see us look to the stars, what it is that we are looking for.’
‘And what are you looking for?’ she laughed dryly.
‘Answers. Guidance. The Valar once looked upon the world and heard our prayers, and I believe they do so still. When I send a prayer to Varda, I look to the stars to see if there is some sign that she has heard. I look for patterns that might tell me my answer, that might teach me what is to come. For how else would the Star-kindler reply, but in some glittering, heavenly script? We cut trees to make balms and potions not just to heal the sick - and believe me, when the plague hit both our peoples, all were glad of our knowledge - but also to condition our minds into the proper state to see those patterns. It also helps us when we look into places that the mortal eye does not see, for often such visions can harm the mind.’
‘What places?’
I shook my head. It was not that I did not want to talk about my visions; I simply did not know how to express so profound a thing to the child.
‘That I cannot say. It is the custom of my order to make all initiates pass many tests, and only when those tests are finished shall he be permitted to look beyond the circles of the world. When I looked, it was as though my eyes had opened for the very first time. I beheld a country such as I had never seen, and no land has seemed as green or as fertile since. Indeed, the sight fuelled a great disquiet in me for many years, for I wondered how I could ever live in so grey a world as this, when I had seen the vibrancy of those shores.’
‘You were drunk? Or is that something even stronger than Old Toby in your pipe?’
I smiled. ‘I was not drunk. I was as lucid then as I am now. More so, in fact, for I had not the ravages of age upon me then. There are things, young Took, in this world that hearken to a distant age, and we cannot comprehend their mystery. Hands far more skilled than any of our craftsmen fashioned stones and jewels of immense power. Stones, in which another world seems trapped, in which a mind can travel…’
I broke out of my reverie and saw the Hobbit staring incredulously at me. My students once looked at me that way, when my mind wandered during lessons.
‘Now you think me mad,’ I chuckled.
‘I think you talk like the old folk,’ she mumbled. ‘Only stranger.’
‘The old folk might hold more wisdom than you give them credit. It would sadden me to learn that all in your lands had lost their love of life. If that is so, then we are truly at the end of all things.’
I sat forward and allowed a moment of silence to pass. I saw the Hobbit look away, her mind so obviously off on a journey through memories that, from her expression, were anything but happy. I did not want to seem like a sheriff and put streams of questions to her, for no doubt that would shut up any doors I had so far opened. And something within me warned against leaving this child to wander alone.
‘I rarely sleep,’ I said finally, ‘but if you need to rest, then do so.’
‘So you can steal my gold when I sleep?’
‘Do you truly believe that? Besides, we in the north burn our dead for a reason - the plague that culled both our peoples could still lurk within us, and those who touch the dead are more at risk. Though I know you do not wish advice from an old man, I would implore you to seek your spoils elsewhere. The mounds of Edoras and the old tombs of Minas Tirith are not safe.’
‘What else am I supposed to do?’ muttered the Hobbit.
‘What can you do? Surely you have skills? You wouldn’t survive otherwise, out here in the wilds. All you need, child, is someone to show you how to put those skills to better use.’
She snorted. ‘And that will be you?’
‘Indeed it will not. I have my own path, and my own problems. But should you wish it I will see you safe to Edoras. There, if you can find no work, I should think you would find someone travelling north who would give you transport.’
‘And why should I go with you?’
‘No reason in the world. But if any part of you wishes to have an easier life than the one you lead now, a safer life indeed, then I think you will come.’
I gave a great sigh and rose, rubbing the aches from my back. ‘Well, I intend to sleep, if only for a while. Kill me once my eyes close if you will. Or think on what I have said. I leave the choice to you.’
I let out a load groan as I settled on the ground, my back against a tree. My body let out a sigh as the muscles relaxed and suddenly the aches of the day’s travels were upon me. In truth, it might have been a foolish thing to do, to lower my guard with so desperate a creature as that Hobbit in my midst.
But I would not have lasted so long in the world, and so long in the Order, were I not a man of faith.
II
Íuberge’s narrative continued
I set down for the night, not so far across the country as I would have liked, but then I was in no hurry to return to Edoras. There was nothing there for me. My family were all ash upon the wind. I had never married, and those I had loved were likewise scattered about the world, though in a more corporeal sense, I trust. I had no one save the Order, though we were all weary men, who took to the service of the Valar in order to discern what it was about their life that was unsatisfactory. We give our allegiance in exchange for enlightenment. I know some whose bargains have been honoured. Mine has not, as yet.
But though I am an old man, I am not ready for my funeral pyre yet. I passed through life ever clinging to the hope that I would find that solace one day.
For the most part I had learned to hold from calling to the stars and demanding that the Valar show me my way. I had let loose the bitterness that broiled in my heart when I found no answer. And in time I learned not to seek my purpose out. Since then I found things came to me loaded with meaning, even if I did not understand. Like this day and the fact that I knew I would not visit Minas Tirith again, though it was my most beloved place in Middle-earth. I did not question why that knowledge should come to me. I merely accepted it, and then I could only wait and see if the riddle unfurled.
I built a small fire and cooked the roots and mushrooms I had gathered. Still the ghosts were about me, dancing around my little flames. In my mind I heard the battle ringing out across this land. If I closed my eyes I could see the soldiers thrashing through the fog and mud. Far in the distance the White Mountains formed a band of shadow between the wilderness and the stars; legends said that on the peaks of those mounts, great bonfires once burned, so that the two nations from whom I gather my heritage could come to each other’s aid. Though I do not know if this is true.
I was glad of the ghosts that night, for with their voices around me I did not feel quite so alone, sitting there beneath Varda’s starry veil.
Yet I was not alone for long.
Something far more substantial than a ghost approached me through the bushes. I heard twigs crack beneath a particularly large footfall and I let out a beleaguered sigh as I scraped the mushrooms about the small cooking dish I carried with me everywhere.
‘Won’t you join me, Mistress Took?’ I called. ‘The potatoes need a minute or so more, but the mushrooms I believe are perfect.’
I waited a moment, then I looked over my shoulder and smiled. The young Hobbit lass edged out of the darkness, sheathing her knife as she came closer (I suppose I should have been glad of that, at least). Her eyes never left my face, her suspicion as vibrant as the embers twirling around my fire.
‘Sit down,’ I said. ‘You’ll get more warmth from the fire if you sit beside it, than if you linger by my shoulder all night.’
She glowered all the more, but did in time walk around me and flung herself down upon a rock beside the fire, stretching out her hands towards its glow. I ate all that I needed from my dish then handed it to her, my heart sinking as I watched the poor creature devour everything down to the juices. I had rarely come across Hobbits in my time, for they were an uncommon sight about the world, but those I met in the North all seemed to relish their food. The idea of one going hungry therefore struck me with a heightened sense of tragedy.
‘Perhaps,’ I mused, ‘you should steal from farms rather than tombs. Would not a pot of broth serve you better than a dead man’s gold?’
‘If you mean to preach to me, star-worshipper, then I shall go…’
I raised my hands and smiled. ‘Forgive me. It is a habit of my calling.’
She finished the last of the food and looked up at me, mouth full. ‘You cook well.’ Then, after swallowing, she added, ‘For one of the Big Folk.’
‘Do your people still call us that?’
‘When we are being kind.’
‘And do you see much of your kin? Are there many of you about in the world still?’
‘What does it matter to you?’
I shrugged. ‘If I worship anything, Mistress Took, it is knowledge. Many of my kin are concerned only with their own affairs, but to me, there is no way to know one’s place in the world without knowing what else goes on in it. I have not visited your country in a long time. It is no easy task for an old man to cross the sodden plains of Eriador, and the sea creeps ever inland with every year. Yet I read stories of your folk’s great deeds and I had to see it.’
‘There is nothing of that now. Only stories that the old folk cling to so they do not have to see how foul things are. They talk as if another hero will appear at any minute and save us, while the young ones are left to fend for themselves. There are too few of us to survive and there are less each year. But the Thanes and Mayors for all their titles will not ask Rohan for aid or land. They say we began to die two hundred years ago.’
‘We all began to die then,’ I sighed.
I had often thought about our history, and I sometimes wondered if we were all meant to die in that plague. Was it sent perhaps by Eru, whose mysteries I devoted my life to understanding, to rid the world of our pestilence? Were we all intended to perish? Was our time on Arda now borrowed? Yet though the thought clouded my mind, I found it hard to believe, given what I saw; my glimpse of hidden wonder.
‘The thing with Men and Hobbits,’ I went on, taking out my pipe, ‘is that we have no choice but to survive. We often say that we will give up, and one or two actually do so. But in the end most of us must continue. We are driven to it. And Illúvatar would not set that force into our hearts without purpose.’
The Took sneered. ‘I find it hard to believe in a god who never shows himself.’
I regarded her wearily and lit my pipe. ‘Do you see that tree?’ I asked.
‘The old oak?’
‘Well, I was looking more towards the yew, which is my namesake, but yes, the oak will do. Do you know how that tree came into being?’
She snorted. ‘Of course I do, I’m not a child and I did have lessons when I was a little one!’
‘Then you know it grows from a seed, an acorn, which falls from another tree and buries itself in the soil, then waits until the time is right before it becomes another tree. Something so small as an acorn, with no mind so to speak, knows exactly when it is needed in the world, and it knows how to grow, how to make acorns of its own, how to spread its leaves to catch the sunlight. It has no tutors, no parents to tell it how to do those things, and yet it does.’
‘That’s because it’s a tree.’
‘And what then tells it how to grow, if not God?’
She thought for a long while. ‘Perhaps the Ents teach it.’
‘Ah, you believe in Ents but not in God?’
She blushed. I ought not to have teased her, for in fact it was refreshing to hear a child talk of Ents. Too soon the young ones of my own race grew and gained that cynical knowledge that there were no such things as Ents save in stories.
‘But you cannot tell me you believe in God simply because you like how a tree grows?’ asked Buttercup.
I sat back, drew hard on my pipe and watched the smoke curl towards that from the fire. ‘It is my place in the world to look for God, child. You called me ‘tree-worshipper’ and ‘star-worshipper’. That is all most people see of our Order. They see us collect the fruits and bark and leaves from the forests of the world but they do not stop to ask why we gather such herbs and plants. They never ask, when they see us look to the stars, what it is that we are looking for.’
‘And what are you looking for?’ she laughed dryly.
‘Answers. Guidance. The Valar once looked upon the world and heard our prayers, and I believe they do so still. When I send a prayer to Varda, I look to the stars to see if there is some sign that she has heard. I look for patterns that might tell me my answer, that might teach me what is to come. For how else would the Star-kindler reply, but in some glittering, heavenly script? We cut trees to make balms and potions not just to heal the sick - and believe me, when the plague hit both our peoples, all were glad of our knowledge - but also to condition our minds into the proper state to see those patterns. It also helps us when we look into places that the mortal eye does not see, for often such visions can harm the mind.’
‘What places?’
I shook my head. It was not that I did not want to talk about my visions; I simply did not know how to express so profound a thing to the child.
‘That I cannot say. It is the custom of my order to make all initiates pass many tests, and only when those tests are finished shall he be permitted to look beyond the circles of the world. When I looked, it was as though my eyes had opened for the very first time. I beheld a country such as I had never seen, and no land has seemed as green or as fertile since. Indeed, the sight fuelled a great disquiet in me for many years, for I wondered how I could ever live in so grey a world as this, when I had seen the vibrancy of those shores.’
‘You were drunk? Or is that something even stronger than Old Toby in your pipe?’
I smiled. ‘I was not drunk. I was as lucid then as I am now. More so, in fact, for I had not the ravages of age upon me then. There are things, young Took, in this world that hearken to a distant age, and we cannot comprehend their mystery. Hands far more skilled than any of our craftsmen fashioned stones and jewels of immense power. Stones, in which another world seems trapped, in which a mind can travel…’
I broke out of my reverie and saw the Hobbit staring incredulously at me. My students once looked at me that way, when my mind wandered during lessons.
‘Now you think me mad,’ I chuckled.
‘I think you talk like the old folk,’ she mumbled. ‘Only stranger.’
‘The old folk might hold more wisdom than you give them credit. It would sadden me to learn that all in your lands had lost their love of life. If that is so, then we are truly at the end of all things.’
I sat forward and allowed a moment of silence to pass. I saw the Hobbit look away, her mind so obviously off on a journey through memories that, from her expression, were anything but happy. I did not want to seem like a sheriff and put streams of questions to her, for no doubt that would shut up any doors I had so far opened. And something within me warned against leaving this child to wander alone.
‘I rarely sleep,’ I said finally, ‘but if you need to rest, then do so.’
‘So you can steal my gold when I sleep?’
‘Do you truly believe that? Besides, we in the north burn our dead for a reason - the plague that culled both our peoples could still lurk within us, and those who touch the dead are more at risk. Though I know you do not wish advice from an old man, I would implore you to seek your spoils elsewhere. The mounds of Edoras and the old tombs of Minas Tirith are not safe.’
‘What else am I supposed to do?’ muttered the Hobbit.
‘What can you do? Surely you have skills? You wouldn’t survive otherwise, out here in the wilds. All you need, child, is someone to show you how to put those skills to better use.’
She snorted. ‘And that will be you?’
‘Indeed it will not. I have my own path, and my own problems. But should you wish it I will see you safe to Edoras. There, if you can find no work, I should think you would find someone travelling north who would give you transport.’
‘And why should I go with you?’
‘No reason in the world. But if any part of you wishes to have an easier life than the one you lead now, a safer life indeed, then I think you will come.’
I gave a great sigh and rose, rubbing the aches from my back. ‘Well, I intend to sleep, if only for a while. Kill me once my eyes close if you will. Or think on what I have said. I leave the choice to you.’
I let out a load groan as I settled on the ground, my back against a tree. My body let out a sigh as the muscles relaxed and suddenly the aches of the day’s travels were upon me. In truth, it might have been a foolish thing to do, to lower my guard with so desperate a creature as that Hobbit in my midst.
But I would not have lasted so long in the world, and so long in the Order, were I not a man of faith.