Faramir Fiction Archive

Simulacra (NC-17)

09 November 2011 | 30013 words | Work in Progress

XII

Haldir stood again alone on the beach, but there was a difference, a stirring.

A change in the wind.

A sound

Or just a breath from a different quarter?

There again.

A sound.

As if something else were alive in this vast gray emptiness.

Someone else.

Haldir turned toward whence the sound had come and began to walk, his back to the sea.

Farther from the sound of the waves the fog too seemed to lessen, breaking into patterns, until forms rose from it. Vague shapes of trees. Buildings looming.

He entered.

A large hall. Dark and foreboding. Cold marble. Smooth and lifeless. Grand and majestic like the courts of the highest kings. Yet where footfalls should fill the vaulted space with echoes, there were none. Even as it was made, the sound of Haldir’s feet was swallowed. Breathless silence.

Yet there was something…

someone there.

Someone alive

and breathing.

Walking.

But where?

If Haldir knew what they were doing to him, for him, he gave no sign. After his bitter words and cry by the lake, he had lapsed into silence, resigned perhaps to what they would do next. Resigned to losing his hard sought peace. To coming back to pain, to misery. Elrond worried that, if anything, this showed even more so that he had given up. He was beyond fighting even to avoid his own pain. Even to beg for relief. When he needed, when he ached, he said not a word, but only sat, head bowed, as the shudders grew more pronounced and his gray hair hung in sweaty clumps about his face.

Then Elrohir would prepare his tincture from their dwindling supply and approach him with slow caution, speaking softly, asking gentle questions in hope of one day getting an answer.

‘Are you hurting, Haldir? Are you ready for this? I’m bringing it now. Can you hold it? Is that better? Can you hear me?’

But no answer came.

The dream always came again, yet now it was interspersed with moments of pale sunlight, of acute pain. Voices he might recognize, if he listened harder. But he was listening elsewhere.

He no longer crouched by the waves, but turned from them toward the trees. And the dark hall, where someone waited. Each time he came it seemed the breathing was closer. Whoever was here was nearby, but always just out of sight. Or perhaps it was a trick of the acoustics – one set of breaths in this immense and empty fortress echoing through the space – and across time?

If Haldir had been able to think, he would have realized that he was in the Halls of Waiting, that he was looking for a human. But such thought was beyond his state. He knew only that he was lonely, and that he searched.

And then, rounding a corner, he came to a courtyard of arched porticos surrounding a central fountain. Water filled the fountain’s pool, but none sprayed or danced. All was still.

On the edge of the fountain, staring into it, sat a young man. He gazed down at the unmoving water with a look beyond sadness. One of bland resignation, as if he had been here forever, did not expect to leave. And yet Haldir had heard him walking. At least, he thought he had.

The youth’s quietude was so tangible that even after being alone so long, searching for so long, Haldir refrained from speaking. Instead he stood unmoving in the doorway, and watched the man as the man watched the water.

Haldir returned many times to the silent courtyard where the sad young man waited. He was drawn. The youth’s beauty mirrored the stillness of the fountain — unmarked by ripples, untouched by air. Caught between moments. Waiting. He found he was loath to disturb the fragile eternity of the space and of the man.

With time, he realized he was afraid.

Afraid of what might happen, afraid the man would mind. Or would turn away from him. Or, worse still, of speaking and finding the man could not hear him. That he truly was invisible, alone. As long as he did not speak, the possibility remained that he could. But what if he spoke only to find he was mute, discarded? He would be destroyed.

No, his hope would be destroyed. He would still be here, alone.

Better to stay silent and dream.

His hair might be gold. Or maybe red. In this place, he could not tell; all color had been washed away. But it looked soft, touchable. His face too – lips always slightly parted, as if thinking of speaking a thought – but never yet. Never yet.

The lashes were long, framed against a high cheekbone, lids almost closed as he gazed downward. Haldir noticed his shoulders as well. Not slumped in the manner of one who had given up. Instead his shoulders were square and spoke of strength, perhaps not felt, but rather learned. As if the young man had been trained to sit straight and did so more as a matter of habit than of intention.

And yet, one day, it seemed as if an invisible cord had given way, and he was no longer able to sit up unaided. The habitual dignity that had held him erect seemed to have deserted him, leaving a tired and fading shell. As Haldir watched, a single tear slid slowly down the man’s cheek, hung in silent suspense, and dropped into the fountain’s pool. After so long in this unmoving hall, Haldir was momentarily entranced to see the tear actually move, and fall. He expected that, like his own footsteps in these empty rooms, the droplet would be swallowed without a trace, without a ripple.

So he was again surprised to see the tiny circle made by the tear begin to spread, engendering more ripples, until concentric circles spread to the furthest edges of the pool, before doubling back on themselves to again cancel out the motion, as if it had never happened.

But it had. Haldir had seen it if the young man had not. In that moment, he knew that things could still change.

Startled, he reached out, a word of concern rising from his long unused throat. Though the word never formed, enough strangled sound emerged that the young man turned. Raising his eyes, he gazed at Haldir in surprise.

His eyes were gray.

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