Rendezvous

The two days ride south from Fornost had been uneventful.  He had seen nary a soul, though it was not surprising considering the rumors that the old castle was haunted. 

It was a warm early spring day, light breeze and brilliant sun filtering through the still bare branches of the old trees arching over the grassy avenue of the Greenway.  He was near the northern edge of what the locals called Chetwood where the landscape of intermixed forest, shrub, and grassland to the north thickened to an old stand of weathered hardwoods that continued down to the East-West Road.

Aranarth had recognized certain subtle signs marking the presence of the path that would take him to the Rendezvous.  He eased his dark russet mount off the Greenway into a small gap in the trees on his left.  It was a narrow track, barely wide enough for passage, partially overgrown, winding between the large gray shoulders of old beech and birch trees.  Off to the right and left the first low green verge of undergrowth and scattered wildflowers was emerging from the damp faded brown leaves that carpeted the forest floor.  The earthy scent of early spring was in the air.

In half an hour he encountered a small stream rimmed with ferns, its clear waters sparkling over rounded cobbles under the noon sun which spilled still unhindered through the early budding branches overhead.  To all but the practiced eye the faint trail he had been following appeared to end at the water.  But Aranarth crossed the stream and turned east, carefully marking the position of small mossy boulders and the occasional beech with a strange twist to its lower branches, one of only a handful of men who knew the signs and markings that gave ready passage through an otherwise wild stretch of forest.

As he confidently picked his way though the woods, the land began rolling gently upwards towards the Weather Hills, 20 leagues distant.  Hills became steeper and stream corridors deeper between rocky slopes.  After an hour he rounded the foot of an extended ridge and made his way laterally across its southern face, which plunged two hundred feet below to a small rushing brook.  Soon a genuine trail emerged, guiding him down the steep slope around rock outcrops and boulders, past gnarled trees clinging tenaciously to the hillside.

Aranarth reached the stream at the base of the ridge and made his way along its banks, moving steadily uphill.  The rocky trail hugged close to the rushing brook, hemmed in on his left by the steepening hillside.  In a few hundred yards the deep ravine was more of a small gorge, its nearly vertical rock walls adorned with small tufts of grass and moss, confining a narrowing chute of water splashing noisily over small boulders.

As Aranarth rounded a sharp bend in the frothing brook, its voice began to fade behind the more insistent sound of falling water.  The air became heavy with a fine, cool mist, floating over the water, corralled by the walls of the gorge.  The rock walls grew slick and dark with moisture.  Just ahead now he could see it, the source of the stream, pouring over the precipice of a 60 foot cliff that spanned the thirty foot gap between the unforgiving granite walls of the gorge.

In a moment he reached the end of the trail as it met the foot of the cliff.  His horse snorted uncertainly, faced with the dilemma of no place to go with the spray and rush of the waterfall just a few yards away.  Aranarth dismounted and fished around in a black leather saddlebag, producing a long, curiously serrated gleaming steel knife.  He whispered a few calming words in the horse’s left ear, then stepped forward, placing the meaty palm of his left hand on a protruding knob of wet dark rock.

His fingers seemed to settle in almost imperceptible shallow grooves in the stone.  Just above his thumb he spied a familiar thin slit in the rock.  With his right hand he inserted the tip of the blade in the opening, pressing forward, listening for the small clicks as the serrations made their way deep into the rock. 

There was a louder crisp thunk when the hilt finally met the damp wall, the blade locked in stone.  Aranarth gave a strong pull on the knife hilt.  There was a momentary grinding sound, then a portion of the rock face swung smoothly outward, pivoting on hidden hinges, revealing an opening in the cliff face.

The entrance was just barely enough to admit him and his horse, single file, up a passage carved from living rock long ago.  On the inner side of the secret door his hand found the grip of another knife.  Withdrawing it he heard another click, signaling that the outer knife was free.  He tucked it in his saddle bag, led the horse in, replaced the inner knife in its slot and pulled the door shut behind him, cutting off the sound of the falls.

The passage was cool, damp, the walls glistening faintly with a sheen of water.  A low vibrating rumble was a reminder of the plunge of the falling water on the rocks just outside.  Aranarth whispered again to his horse, calming its nervous instinct in the tight space.  Ahead, up a long steep grade carved in solid rock, a tiny square of light marked the eventual exit from the tunnel.

They emerged into a flat open space perhaps three hundred feet across, roughly circular in shape, surrounded on all sides by sheer cliffs two hundred feet high.  On a far wall scores of rivulets of spring water poured from holes in the rock facing, gathering into a long deep pool along the foot of the precipice.  This overflowed into a running stream that coursed through a channel in the lush early spring grass that carpeted the floor of the natural amphitheater.  A hint of mist at the eastern end of the open space marked the plunge of the stream over the falls to the base of the gorge sixty feet below. 

Today the cliffs echoed with song, a booming baritone from a tall, lean, broad shouldered man stripped to the waist, swinging a huge axe.  As usual, his younger brother Arthed had preceded him, converting trees blown off the high cliffs by winter storms into kindling for their campfire. 

Aranarth stood quietly, watching the effortless rhythm of his axe.  Arthed had his back to him, hewing at the tree while his light brown horse grazed quietly near the edge of the spring fed pool. 

Aranarth smiled to himself, reminded about how they were opposites in some ways.  Arthed easy, almost gregarious, in contrast to his own more dour mien and often spare conversation.  Physically Arthed was a head taller, like their father, but raw boned and sinewy while Aranarth remained massive and thick limbed. 

They’d just been boys when Arvedui, last king of Arthedain, had first brought them here, before Ardugan’s birth.  Their father was vague about its origins, intimating that it was already old when the first great gray stones of Fornost were laid.  When they pressed him further in their youthful curiosity he had silenced them with words he still remembered.

“It is place where kings and their sons gather and talk, as my father did and many before him” 

His hard stare and the finality of his response was enough for them not to pursue the subject.  Aranarth long suspected that the hidden entrance, the narrow stone tunnel,  shallow caves in the high cliff walls, and perhaps even the shape of the cliffs themselves were dwarvish work.  Yet the set of knives Arvedui had given them that day had an elvish cast to them.  Though the mystery was never resolved, Arvedui had spent many an hour here instructing them on the history of Arnor, the fall of Numenor, the secrets of the now lost palantirs and other matters of greater import than the origins of their secret hideaway.

It became the beginning of a rite of passage into manhood, and more importantly over the years of repeat visits, the formation of a unique bond between them.  Sadly, for Ardugan the returning threat of Angmar arose just as he reached his teens, forfeiting for him the chance to share in that bond.

Today the place was simply called the Rendezvous, a sanctuary where the three brothers now met each spring to share news from their wide ranging travels. 

Aranarth quietly secured the reins of his horse around the saddle and let it amble off to forage in the rich pasture.  Ahead Arthed was finishing off the rooty tail end of a massive oak trunk with one last thunk of blade on wood.

“Have a care you don’t lose a toe with that swing!” Aranarth shouted

Arthed turned, laughing, leaning on the haft of the axe, brushing his long gray streaked medium brown hair back from a well weathered face.

“Nor you your nose drawing that clumsy broadsword” Arthed roared back, grinning at the old joke from their youth, striding forward to embrace Aranarth in a big bear hug.

It had been this way for more years than either of them cared to count.  Long months patrolling the borders of a kingdom faded from memory, interspersed with all too brief moments with family.  Arthed had settled well east of the small crossroads village of Bree.  His wife and three sons, grown men with families of their own now, quietly managed their crops and livestock away from prying eyes.  In recent years they had taken turns joining him in his journeys to the south, to the west of the Misty Mountains, through Mihiriath and Enedwaith, and occasionally into Gondor itself.  It was necessary training for the days when they would take the full burden themselves.

Aranarth had two sons.  The eldest, Arahael, dwelt at Rivendell with his wife Oriel.  Aranarth’s other son lived between the Lune and the Emyn Uial.  

The brothers released their embrace and walked through the deep grass towards the spring fed pool at the foot of the cliff.  Beside its crystal clear waters four ornately carved marble benches ringed a small central table of polished granite.  They sat facing each other.

“You look well Arthed” Aranarth commented matter of factly

“As do you Aranarth” Arthed smiled wryly

It was another old jest between them, their way of acknowledging the irony of their long lives as descendants of Numenorean kings in the utter absence of the physical manifestations of a kingdom.

“Still quiet west of the mountains?” Aranarth inquired

“Very.  The Dunlendings stay close to the foothills.  The South Downs remain a land of ghosts and one can ride through Minhiriath and Enedwaith for days not encounter a soul.”

“And of further lands?”

“Gondor remains strong, though years of wars and the loss of the line of kings has taken something of its heart away.  Fortunately the Witch King makes no further move.  To their north the rumors continue of an evil growing in the Great Wood.”

Aranarth nodded.  They had been following this development for years.  Ardugan would have more information.

“Well ‘tis quiet in the northwest at least.  Our people remain scattered in small hamlets between the Emyn Uial and the Ered Luin.  East of the Nenuial the land is still largely deserted.  Further south the halflings continue to prosper.  Their numbers have more than doubled since the days of their first Thain.  A curious and industrious people Arthed.”

There was a sense of movement off to their right.  A lean midnight black stallion picked its way across the deep grass towards the other horses.  Aranarth and Arthed smiled knowingly.  The figure of a man appeared at the mouth of one of the two caves that flanked the springs issuing from the cliff face.  He was of average height, compactly built, clad in gray-green leather garments of his own design.  Short, golden, curly hair  tending to white at the temples framed a face notable for its large widely spaced pale blue eyes, and a small mouth fixed in a smile, half knowing, half mocking.

Unlike his brothers Ardugan carried no large battle weapons.  A leather bandolier of throwing knives draped over one shoulder.  A fine strong bow and a quiver of steel tipped arrows occupied the other shoulder.  Various pockets in his tunic and long pouches in his leggings held snares, cords, and other less savory devices of his own manufacture. 

But his most deadly weapon was his stealth and an uncanny ability to see in the dark.  Not a vivid vision, mind you, but adequate enough with his unnaturally large eyes to draw in enough light, especially with the moon out, even half a moon, to stalk with the rest of the night creatures.

Indeed he had learned much from them in terms of craft and silence.  He was separated from his brothers not only by years, but by fundamental nature and cruel circumstance.  Just a youth when the kingdom fell, he was not with Aranarth and Arthed in the final battles that defeated Angmar.  Crucial years they had as young men with their father were denied him. 

And he was physically different.  His brothers were big men, each inheriting an outwardly obvious attribute of their larger than life father.  In contrast, Ardugan was small as a child, though eventually reaching adequate height.  But he did inherit some of his father’s strength, though it was economically packaged in a deceptively modest frame. His golden curly hair was a gift from his mother, but his eyes were something that no one could explain, nor his night seeing. 

The eyes were overly large which was vaguely unnerving in itself, drawing immediate attention.  But it was their vivid pale blue coloration, from the day he was born, sometimes seeming mixed with gray, other times a dusty green, that fit no direct ancestry. 

He knew the history of his lineage, his mother had seen to that, finishing the education his father scarcely had time to begin before his death.  The line of Elendil the Tall, who in turn traced bloodlines back through the ages to others great and powerful, some immortal.  Were his eyes and his seeing some strange quirk, some mix of exotic and ancient inheritances long subdued, now momentarily resurfaced? 

So he had always consoled himself.  After his father’s death he lived with his mother Firiel until his 21^st birthday, though the nights spent prowling the woods along the Lune estuary had begun well before that.  His brothers were abroad in the land, trying to fulfill a destiny or as it would later turn out, to define its limitations.  In any event he was on his own and soon after turning 21 he simply disappeared. 

Most thought him dead and in a fashion he was or wanted to be in his own mind.  Since childhood he had felt apart, too young to share in the camaraderie of his older brothers,  too different physically to blend in, isolated by his strange ability, left behind in a land leaving its very identity as a kingdom behind.  Firiel understood.

“You are leaving tonight” she had suddenly said to him as they stood on the terrace overlooking the Lune estuary, watching the sunset.  He had not replied, in part startled by her intuition and a sense of guilt for what he had planned as a departure without goodbyes.

“You need not speak Ardugan.  All sons must leave, some full of their own promise, seeking tests and challenges.  Others feeling empty, ashamed of what they see as weakness in themselves, seeking oblivion out of which they hope to emerge anew.”

She was a head taller than him, regal, gowned in creamy white with golden accents, the permanent house guest of Cirdan, the Elven shipwright.  Arudan turned to face her.

“Mother, I…”  She waived him to silence with a curt gesture, though her eyes were warm and a smile softened the lines of strain that often etched her face.

“You ARE different, Ardugan. You know it and it pleases me that you do not expend yourself in futile effort trying to imitate your brothers.  You will not be king…neither will Aranarth…there will be no kings for many lives to come.  But you have in you the blood of the line of kings and some day there will come a task for you and your special abilities.  ‘Til then you must make your own way as you will.”

“I may not return for some time”

“Or at all, Ardugan.  Make no promises.  Now take this.” She handed him a small circular object, thin, clear, bound about its perimeter in silver.

“A family inheritance Ardugan, from my father.  Something fashioned long ago and brought over the sea.  It gathers the sunlight into a spot of great heat.  A useful device for a man living in the wild don’t you think?”

Ardugan had examined it for a moment, holding it between thumb and forefinger, then secreting it in a small pocket in the short leather tunic he already favored.  A shy smile played across his lips and a hint of green swept through his pale blue eyes.

“Thank you mother for this…and all your parting gifts.”  Ardugan embraced her, then stepped back for a moment, gathering in the memory of her face as the final light of the sun splashed the harbor in molten copper.  Then she turned away, walking across the terrace to the railing overlooking the water, her long gold and white hair catching the early evening breeze as dusk began to steal over the land.  Hours later she still stood there watching the stars, knowing that Ardugan was long gone, making his way by their light.

He never saw her again.  Thirty years he spent in the wild, his existence a rumor, his very identity almost gone as the memory of Arvedui, last king of Arthedain, faded with the deaths of those who lived in those increasingly distant days.  He insisted that it meant little to him, travelling alone as he did mostly at night, in the deep forests, along the margins of the swamps and fens, even to the far north, dwelling for a year with the people along the Ice Bay of Forochel, staring out at the ice choked waters that remained the graveyard of his father and the palantirs. 

All along the west side of the Misty Mountains he ranged, from the barren rocky north, along the high spine of snow clad peaks all the way to Isengard, then south across the gap to the Ered Nimrais.  Back north again, through the margins of Fangorn, skirting the perimeter of Lorien which hinted at danger of trespass yet called in some dim, distant way.  The great wilderness of Mirkwood held him for years.  Relishing in its trackless expanse, unconcerned with the fell creatures and twisted vegetation that had infiltrated its southern expanse, he honed his skills in stealth and survival, becoming a whispered addition to the array of increasingly strange denizens that made their way north.

Those who had crossed him, whether Dunlendings, Pukel men, orcs, wolves, or worse, found swift death, surprised at his unexpected strength, the deadly accuracy of his weapons and snares, and the remorseless cast of grey darkening the pale blue skies in his eyes.  And always the signature of his passing, the mark of the half moon on the head of his victims. 

Then after a time he wearied of his nomadic hermitage.  Not that he sought out the company of men in any active way.  But he could be seen in the corners of the small taverns along the Long Lake where the men of Dale dwelt, on the outskirts of the gathering of trading parties during the spring and fall near the Carrock on the Anduin, or in the smoky recesses of the inns at Bree. 

There in the year 2016 he saw two ghosts, one tall and lean, gregarious, the other a head shorter but massively built, more taciturn.  They sat at a table in a dim corner of a noisy tavern, sharing a conversation with two younger men who bore a resemblance to the others.  Ardugan watched uneasily from a vantage point in the shadows, tugged by an urge to steal out quietly, unnoticed, yet transfixed by the sight of his brothers whom he had not seen in over thirty years.  Then one of them, Aranarth, suddenly stopped in mid-conversation as if sensing something and stared across the tavern room to the spot where Ardugan lurked, standing absolutely still.  Aranarth whispered to Arthed who also turned.

The two younger men could be seen questioning, but Aranarth cut them short as he stood up and began to slowly make his way across the wooden floor, easing men aside as he parted the raucous throng like a great ship effortlessly sailing through turbulent seas.  Ardugan felt a cold sweat emerge beneath his leather tunic, began to back away in the shadows toward the door.  So focused on Aranarth he missed Arthed stealing up along the far wall towards the door, cutting off his escape.  All at once he was between them, Arthed at his back, Aranarth facing him with an unreadable expression on his dour countenance.  Suddenly Aranarth smiled and his eyes lit up with a seldom seen joy.

“Ardugan…is it really you, younger brother?”

“I...how did you…” Ardugan stammered

“We too live in the wild...part of the time, brother” Arthed replied easily, gently resting his hand on Ardugan’s shoulder. 

“And can feel a stare, whether man or beast.” Aranarth added, reaching out and lightly gripping Ardugan’s upper arm.  “But this stare was different…and yet familiar”

“When we were young, Ardugan, the two of us sharpening weapons, playing at war, little more than youths ourselves…and you would watch us from behind a door, quiet as a mouse, staring at us.  After a moment I could feel it somehow…your stare, don’t ask why or how.  And since then I’ve had many others when the stare was from a hungry wolf or a more dangerous stalker on two feet.  That kind you feel differently, from the outside.  With you I always felt it from the inside first.  Tonight was the first time I’d felt it in more than 30 years.”

“Will you join us at the table?” Arthed inquired gently

“Who are they” Ardugan replied hesitantly, nodding towards the table at the opposite end of the room.

“Trusted friends…”

“No…I cannot…it is…”

“It is all right Ardugan.  And much to contemplate in so short a time after so many years” Aranarth said reassuringly.  “When you are ready, perhaps another time.  But Arthed and I do meet each year in the early spring at a special place west of the Weather Hills…it is just weeks away…it would mean much to us if you could be there”

“I know…” Ardugan replied quietly.  “I have followed you there for the last two years.”

They two older brothers exchanged a glance, their eyes widened with momentary astonishment.

“There are ways inside the Rendezvous that father never taught you…I suspect he knew only the door near the falls himself”

“How…where…?” Arthed replied, unsettled.

Ardugan looked at them enigmatically, his luminous blue eyes tinged with green, a wry smile playing upon the corners of his mouth.  “I thought it obvious…but then again I entered at night when things look different.  But I must go now”

“Go?! But we have just met…after 30 years! There is much to discuss” Aranarth protested.

“Let him be brother” Arthed stepped forward, his tall frame edging ever so slightly between Ardugan and Aranarth.

Ardugan glanced up at Arthed, a trace of gratitude in his eyes, his face framed by golden curls, still with the appearance of youth despite his more than 50 years.  “I will see you at the Rendezvous” he whispered, fastening the hood of his cloak about his head.  Arthed stepped aside and Ardugan stole out the door into the night.

Weeks later he met them at the Rendezvous, last to come, appearing at the entrance to one of the two caves that opened out either side of the springs issuing from the cliff face, as he would for decades to come.  Despite all their efforts, they had yet to find his secret entrance to the caves from outside the walls of the cliffs.  Indeed they suspected that he had yet a third secret passage.  This they felt was confirmed after they each had stood watch at the rear of the caves for two days only to see him sitting comfortably on one of the benches, contentedly munching on some nuts and dried fruits.

They had ultimately given up on prying the secret from him, feeling that it was his way of maintaining a certain distance that could not be overcome.  They would accept what he would be willing to share and love him for the common ancestry they alone could understand. 

“Ardugan!  Come join us!” Arthed shouted from the table.

Ardugan scanned the ground, glanced to the sky, the instincts of a man of the wild hard to suppress even in these surroundings.  He made his way to the table, taking a bench next to Arthed.

“You look well Ardugan” Aranarth commented

“As do you, brothers” Ardugan replied politely. “Methinks we will have a visitor before long”

“A visitor?” Aranarth replied a bit sharply

“One of the two large hawks that have been tracking you these last few days.  If you would care to look at the sky, one of them hovers over us even now” Ardugan smiled smugly

Aranarth glowered momentarily, then succumbed to the temptation to look up.  Sure enough a dot circling high in the sky lent credence to Ardugan’s words.

“And what would you know of this” Arthed interjected, sensing Aranarth’s discomfort with being put off guard by Ardugan.

“Nothing…nothing at all, just passing on what I see.  A good thing it would seem for those who never lift their heads.”

“We’ve yet to lose them Ardugan as you may have noticed and no doubt we shall see about your hawks in due course.  But there is more to talk about beside birds and heads.  You have been north and east this past year.  What news can you share with us.”

“West of the mountains there is no news.  It remains an empty land between the Weather Hills and the Misty Mountains.  Oh, there are still orcs close to Mount Gundabad but they dare not venture far.” Ardugan smiled for a moment and a trace of grey cooled his pale blue eyes.  “The new people settled between the Langwell and the Greylin, the Eotheod they call themselves, see well to the security of their borders.  I was intercepted quickly, though that was in daylight by design, but having no direct business there was escorted politely, but firmly to the Anduin and bid farewell.”

“How far south along the river did you go?”  Aranarth inquired

“To the Old Ford and then east into the Forest awhile after visiting an old friend.”

Arthed arched an eyebrow.  Aranarth hulked closer over the table.

“What friend might that be, brother?”

“I doubt you would find his company to your liking, though then again you don’t seem to get around that much east of Bree.” Ardugan could see his brother’s face begin to redden again.

“But, since you ask, his name is Radagast, and he has long dwelt at the edge of the  forest…he calls his home Rhosgobel, though it is unlike anything we would call a home.

“Tell us about him, Ardugan…how you first met him…what he does so close to Mirkwood” Arthed asked with genuine curiousity.

“He is a companion of Gandalf the Grey or so he says.” Aranarth’s eyes widened at this revelation.

Ardugan continued. “A friend of the creatures of the earth other than the two footed variety.  A master of shapes and changes of hue…I quite stumbled on his abode in the early years of my wandering, so well it was disguised amidst the trees, shrubs and long grass at the edge of the forest.  A year we spent together…he knows much of the movements of animals, especially birds, who do his bidding.  And then there are the cats”

“Cats…what cats?” Aranarth inquired impatiently

“He calls them his familiars…a little vague on their origins, though he claimed that they were known in Gondor in earlier days and that they could still be found in the deep woods in places…wild and untamed, though he feared their days were numbered.”

“And what of the doings in Mirkwood” Aranarth pressed

“He fears the worst.  A power grows in the south.  It had merely lurked for years, many years, but in recent times, since the fall of Angmar, it has pressed harder.  The forest empties of its natural inhabitants, its trees and plants lose their luster.  Spiders the size of small dogs lurk in the trees, odd shaped dark furred creatures scuttle in the underbrush, small black snakes and some not so small hiss through the dead leaves, the birds refuse to nest other than the crows.  There are hints of others, beasts of another time returned to life, though the evidence is sparse.”

Aranarth stared hard at Ardugan, massive shoulders hunched, fists clenched on the white marble table.  His grey blue eyes glittered under heavy dark brows.  Ardugan began to fidget then realized Aranarth was looking right through him, his thoughts focused somewhere else. 

After a long pause Aranarth spoke.

“Gandalf had much the same concerns when we met just north of the land of the halflings two months ago.  He made no mention of this Radagast, only that there were others who, like him, had long watched the change in the forest, and that something would have to be done.”

They had all met Gandalf, though the circumstances and frequency had varied widely.  Aranarth remembered the first time, when he had arrived at Rivendell with Arahael, just a toddler, knowing that his care had to be entrusted to others.  What had promised to be a bitter moment, an act of defeat and resignation, had been rescued by Gandalf, who had turned his thoughts to the future and the needs of those yet to come.  There was something about him, a sense of power and wisdom. Yet he was accessible in a way that Elrond, the Elven Lord of Imladris, could not be and it was clear to him that Elrond regarded Gandalf with respect.

Over the many years since that day he had encountered Gandalf often enough, at least once every year, in different seasons and locations.  The years immediately after Arahael had begun his fostering at Rivendell had been difficult.  Many conflicts had beset him, the knowledge that he was the lineal descendant of the kings of Arnor, the confusion over what he was to do after the fall of the kingdom, the latent resentment he felt over the need to have his eldest son raised in the security of the Elven stronghold, apart from him.

It often seemed in those difficult times that Gandalf would arrive suddenly at the moment of his worst despair, and there were many, bringing news of the lands from his many travels, but also counseling him, reminding him of his heritage and his belief in the destiny of the descendants of Elendil. 

Aranarth, now Chieftan of the Dunedain of the North, knew well the lineage of the kings…his father had relentlessly drilled that into him, and Arthed as well.  Still, without Gandalf’s counsel he wondered if he could have survived these long years since the fall of Arthedain, the last remnant kingdom of Arnor.

Little sympathy he had expected from the elves, much less Elrond, who had taken on the fostering of his son Arahael dutifully enough.  Aranarth long had wondered of Elrond’s motives, perhaps some loyalty to his long dead brother, the first of the line of Numenor of whom he knew himself to be the sole lineal descendant.  Or was it the doing of Gandalf, who alone he could recall Elrond listening to as an equal, though he knew not why.

All said he knew he owed Gandalf a great debt.  He had been like a father to him in the early years, then a wise and loyal friend as he had grown into the role of Chieftan of his people. 

Of his brothers’ meetings with the Gray One, he knew little, other than what they had disclosed.  Their contact was less frequent.  Arthed spoke on occasion of meeting him at distant points south and in Gondor.  Ardugan was more circumspect, mentioning only a meeting near Mirkwood and a predawn encounter high along the eastern slopes of the Misty Mountains.  Little more would he reveal, other than the surprise he felt at being roused from what he was certain was a secure sleep.

A sudden shadow passed over them as they sat at the table.  Aranarth and Arthed instinctively looked up while Ardugan sat smiling.  A large hawk hovered above, slowly spiraling down, circling within the perimeter of the enclosing cliffs.  There was a flutter of wings and then silence.  The proud raptor sat, clutching the edge of the fourth marble bench that faced their table.  Ardugan rose slowly, making his way towards the golden bird, now eyeing him sharply.

“At ease noble friend” Ardugan spoke softly, gradually easing down into a crouch beside the hawk.

“You remember me don’t you? Just a few months ago it was” Something softened in the hawks eyes and demeanor.  It raised and then lowered one of its taloned feet which seemed to have something attached.

“A gift…perhaps a message…let me see”  Ardugan gently released the clasp of a small brown pouch fastened to its leg. 

“We met when I last visited with Radagast.  It seems there is news for us.”  Ardugan stood, walked back to his seat at the table and placed the pouch in front of Aranarth.  The hawk ignored them, preening its feathers.  Aranarth plucked the pouch off the cool stone surface, momentarily examining it in his hand.  It was nondescript, a coarse brown parcel the size of a large walnut, secured with a knot of amber ribbon.  Aranarth slipped the ribbon off, unfolded the cloth and removed a small roll of supple parchment.  He read aloud.

“Please pardon my intrusion in your affairs, but there is to be a gathering and your presence is needed.  Lord Elrond has asked that we meet in a fortnight in Rivendell to discuss matters of importance.”

“That is all?” Arthed responded.

“It is enough.” Aranarth replied heavily. “The message carries Gandalf’s sign at the end.  He would not take the trouble to find us in so remote a place if the need was not urgent.”

Aranarth glanced at the sky…it was late afternoon.  Still early in spring it would be dark in a few hours. 

Though the night held no fears for any of them, the horses could use some rest. They had only arrived and there was more to discuss.  Though Rivendell was easily a hundred leagues away, they would comfortably arrive in less than a fortnight on horseback.  The affairs of elven lords and their friends could wait long enough to allow three brothers to share an evening together in this special place.  Though still in their prime, he knew there would be a time not far off when such a meeting would no longer exist. 

Aranarth paused, looking at them.  Arthed, warm, secure, trusting in almost an innocent way, though in battle a ferocious defender of their birthright.  Ardugan, secretive, skittish, yet possessing a formidable knowledge of the land, the night, and its inhabitants that rivaled that of the Wood Elves.  And himself, still hugely strong, yet steeped in the history of his race to a level belied by his rough travelling garments, often grim disposition, and thick muscled frame.

They were as different as three brothers could be, yet together he knew the represented many of the disparate qualities that characterized the race of men, that made them either noble and strong or base and weak, depending on their will, character, and fate.

No, tonight they would spend together.  He sensed something was coming that would test and change them. 

“We will head out at dawn.  The horses will be rested and well fed.  As should we.  Arthed…Ardugan…surely you have not arrived without something we can feast upon tonight.  Myself I have brought some ale from the halflings which they were more than accommodating to part with in trade.  Arthed, if you will start a fire with the product of your axe, Ardugan and I will set the table.” 

The two brothers grinned their assent.  The first night of the Rendezvous was often the best.  Though this would be their only one this time, given pressing business in Rivendell, Aranarth was determined to forget the worries of the world for this one evening of tales and boasts and remembrances of times long past in the memory of men.