Faramir Fiction Archive

The Moon Has Waned (PG-13)

Written by Erfan Starled

22 August 2010 | 17300 words

A.N. j_dav sent me the poem by Sappho, thank you!

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Chapter Eight

The moon has waned
and the Pleiades have reached the middle of their night;
youth fades,
and I in my bed remain alone.

Eros shakes my heart
like wind on the mountain
which bursts among the oak trees;
and he melts my limbs and stirs his fire into them,
sweet bitter untameable serpent.

But for me neither bee nor honey;
I suffer and I desire.

~ Sappho ~

Days passed. Faramir refrained from the indignity of escape attempts bound to fail, but nor had he yet conceived any way he might succeed, while mile after mile they walked on into the southern plains. The sun burned in the wide skies before ever it reached half-way toward its roaring zenith. The heat took its toll on him. He was faltering and knew it, but hid his weakness. Even so, the sheer expanse of these lands still awed him.

In Gondor, on Mount Mindolluin’s peak, a man could stand and gaze around him as if seeing all the world. Here too a man could see all around and still, everything was different. The land was so flat, and in the cold of each dawn the light so clear, that the horizon took on an immensity he had never imagined. Even trudging in the daylight heat, when thirst was a problem for him that seemed not to affect the others, the unbroken horizon without mount or forest in sight seemed extraordinary.

Hajiri took on stature as they strode into the flatlands under the bright rising sun, his men equally at ease though they kept up their careful guard. The change, when it came, was gradual as the grasses grew shorter and the earth turned sandy. Narrow-leaved thornbrush and other spiky vegetation made their first appearances followed by fat, fleshy growths of brilliant green. The heat increased and the soil petered out until it was only sand that sank underfoot: the great desert was nearly upon them.

This was an alien world, free and fierce, that would test a man to the limit. For Faramir, time had nearly run out.

Another day dawned and the sun rose high and glaring. Faramir stumbled against one of the others, but no-one laughed or cursed him. A hand caught him up at the elbow and he was handed a skin of water. He knew, without being told, that he should be sparing with the offering. He wet his mouth, and took one swallow. Then he took another mouthful, and held it in his mouth, bathing dry, dusty tissues with relief for the brief time before the water dissipated in his throat.

“Keep it,” rumbled Hajiri. “Tonight there will be plenty of water. We will stop now, for a little while.” He signalled the others and they settled on the plain to rest.

“A jihabi,” said Hajiri, “We wear these in the desert. It will help you.” He gestured with a few words and one of his men unpacked a slim fold of cloth that opened in Hajiri’s hands into a much longer length smelling of cloves and something like lemon, but sweeter, and of something else unknown to Faramir, a woody, heady undertone.

“Here,” he said, “You shall walk the land as we do, my Iraehel.”

The word made no sense to Faramir though he did not ask its meaning.

“We wrap it around like this.” Deftly, he swathed Faramir in the cloth, starting with a fold over his head and then around again, leaving the loose ends to hang completely over his shirt, over his legs. He could see, thanks to the gap between his forehead and his cheekbones. The fabric felt soft and light, and all he could smell was spices and Hajiri, who slipped a band around his head and a pin at his shoulder, Hajiri, whose touch and voice wound him about more surely than any garment.

“Utalik,” said Hajiri, seeing him inhale, and added, “Itariq.” He asked a question in his own tongue and his man shrugged in answer. “I don’t know the name in your language. We wash them in scented soap, and store them with spices. Even when we travel long and hard, there is still something more than dust and sweat to aid the way.”

The spell was almost complete — the hand reaching for him drew him in, the hard body against his felt right. Hajiri was taller than Faramir and leaner, hard of bone and muscle. The hawk mouth smiled fiercely, in satisfaction. “Iraehel,” said Hajiri, again. “Shall you play the sweet dove for me?” The strange spell shattered.

With all his strength, Faramir pushed him away.

“I will not,” he said, and then more calmly, “no, I cannot.”

“No?” said Hajiri, with his head cocked. “Perhaps in time you will choose differently. We will see.”

They stopped, at last, and he found himself steered into the cool depths of stone. Dimly he realized that these were caves, but they sat him down and, almost immediately, he slept. When he stirred again, he wondered if he had passed out rather than fallen asleep, but though he had a pounding headache he did not feel the same exhaustion.

“Here. Drink it slowly, but there is plenty more, a welling from the ground, small but ever-faithful.” Hajiri put the water skin into his hands again and Faramir drank eagerly, finding it so cold that it hurt his throat to swallow — or was it the day’s toll of dry heat that left him so pained? He refused to think it might be fear. His stomach coiled in protest but thirst over-rode all.

Hajiri tapped him sternly with his foot, standing upright once more. “Slowly, I said. Or you will be ill. You have the heat exhaustion.”

Reluctantly Faramir restrained himself, tipping dampness into his hand and washing the back of his neck and then his face, and hands. He could not remember when water had ever felt so good.

He drank some more, as Hajiri had said, slowly, and when his headache lifted somewhat he slept again. When he awoke, he felt better, a comfortable, rested lethargy. Night had fallen. He lay in the darkness of a stony overhang, with stone at his back and dry dust underneath, facing the open ground where the others were gathered. He could see Hajiri and could hear his rumbling accents. He was almost certain they used more than one language as they talked. There was laughter — one man touched another on the shoulder, a natural gesture. He found himself watching Hajiri again, and drifted in lassitude, enjoying the sound of his voice.

Somewhere within him he was shocked at his body’s easy capitulation. Somewhere within him there was guilt and there was shame, but his body knew what it desired. Had it not always done so, faithful to Faramir’s nature? His body knew nothing of denials…

He forced himself to think. What of Denethor, his father? What of the treason of fraternising with the enemy, carrying the penalty of death? What of the illegality of consorting with another man — any man? A soldier so doing, if anyone cared to press charges, could find himself exiled or imprisoned, old-fashioned though such charges were. Disgrace and dismissal were the more likely outcomes, but out here there were no city rules to hold sway. There was more laughter, and the same two men who had touched earlier rose and left the circle.

Hajiri, too, rose, but he did not depart. No, he was coming toward Faramir, stooping under the overhang, and he laughed as Faramir scrambled up into a sitting position.

“I did not think you were asleep,” he said.

Faramir tried to glare at him, effort wasted in the rocky shadows, and sat stiffly upright. Hajiri seated himself in the fluid way he had, courteously distant, and settled his weapons though they barely needed adjustment. His hands he rested on his knees and his gaze he bent on Faramir.

“So, my enemy. What shall we do with you now?” He gestured. “This is the point of no return, once we go into the heart of the desert. From here, I can release you. With enough water and the jihabi you would make it home, I am sure.” Solemnly, he looked at Faramir.

“But I wonder why I should? It is not to my advantage. If I take you home, my status there would be very great, my authority assured with so rich a prize.”

A silence fell then. Faramir would not beg, and confused by what he felt, he doubted that he could speak without betraying himself with brash defiance.

Hajiri said no more but nor did he leave. He stared before him, abstracted as if gazing into a fire though only sand-dusted stone lay between them. As if the desert’s inexorable patience had invaded the cave along with all the drifted golden grains of wind-ground rock, each one the work of ages, Faramir felt his bearing loosen. Thought gradually fell away, replaced by the same odd spell of distance from home and the draw Hajiri exerted on his feelings.

Faramir had learned the voice of these desert fringes, so different than his beloved woods, or his city’s constant man-made noise. They filtered muted into the cave, despite the sense of vast quiet. The burble of a desert bird was answered by another close-by, perhaps a pair of Hajiri’s doves. They called again, and then were still. The wind was barely audible so softly did it rise and fall. Another sound had puzzled him, until he realized the sand itself rustled as it sifted with the wind.

Hajiri sat silent, and Faramir with him.

“How do I know you would let me go?” He barely more than breathed the words into the dust-dry air of the cave around them, into a dark as old as the desire that beckoned him.

A flash of white teeth told him Hajiri heard him very well. The fine head tilted. Faramir sat out the scrutiny. “Trust,” breathed Hajiri, “is a sacred word in our tongue. Ischem. An ancient word. You would call it ‘honour’ — in our language, it means both. We lie rarely; it is not our way.”

He unfolded to his feet. “Come outside with me where the stars are bright. The moon has waned. It disappears to nothing, like time before a parting.”

Faramir stood, awkwardly, under the shelving stone above him.

“So. Tomorrow, I set you on the way home, with water enough for one of your ilk. You shall wear my jihabi, and you will know which way to go — tonight I will teach you the stars and the mountains of the north to guide you home.”

Outside, beside a small fire, they ate and drank while Hajiri drew his maps. A cloak held taut and covered with sand made a good tablet for pictures with his finger-tip scoring through the grains.

“These peaks, here — they will be the first you see if you hold true by the stars. You should go by night at first to avoid the heat, but when the moon is grown half-full it will be time to start looking for these three peaks by day’s light until they rise into view. Then keep them to your right, but ahead like so, and you will come to the borders of the lands you know, where we departed them. But first use the stars, there — see?”

Hajiri came behind him, and moved Faramir gently, showing him the stars he meant by pointing over Faramir’s shoulder before going back to his sand drawings.

Faramir shivered, misliking the voice echoing from within. ‘Never trust him. He’s the enemy, and treachery is all he knows.’ But when had his father trusted any man? What councillor, what captain, had Denethor placed confidence in? Did he not look down on them all, lacking his own proud blood? Did he trust even Faramir to do his best, or that his best was good enough?

He loved his father, though he found him impossible to please. Boromir, whom he loved joyously, rewarded him ten-fold with his warm affection. Denethor would cry horror upon Faramir’s temptation, but would Boromir? ‘Come home safely, brother.’ Boromir’s smile had split his face as he said farewell when last they parted. ‘Come home soon, and safe.’

“Ischem,” said Faramir, tracing in the sand anew a copy of the constellations and then the mountain horizon that were to serve as his beacons home. He took a deep draught of the strong liquor the Southrons had somehow made or saved during their service in the black lands, welcoming its fire.

“Ischem,” said Hajiri, and rose, holding out his hand. Faramir, looking up at him, felt as if to stand would be to touch the very stars, so closely bright did their sweeping glory fill the sky.

End of Chapter Eight

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