Chapter 18. A ford is a ford is... a ford?

Walking through the ruins of the ancient city of the star-dwellers... no, star-people was what my companion called them... is more difficult than one might think. Yes, the ground underfoot is relatively even, comprised of paving stones. But the stones are overgrown with tangles of weeds that catch at my feet as I walk along. They do not trip me – not exactly, for plant life is more yielding than stone or rubble. But they do throw me off balance, time after time, as they first catch a foot and then give way.

Though the darkness hides my companion, I can hear his footsteps beside me as we make our way. He can go quite lightly, indeed – not so light of foot as one of my hobbits, I should suppose – but for my sake, he takes each step with deliberation, just loud enough for me to hear that I am not alone.

You are not alone, the Voices reassure me immediately after the thought crosses my mind. I snort softly but then think the better of it.

What is it? my companion asks.

I am not alone, I answer. I hear him shake his neck; the sound is soft but unmistakeable.

We pace steadily onward, following what must have been a wide avenue running along near the riverbank, passing between the remnants of broken walls, past the occasional pillar thrusting to the sky, the top jagged and broken off yet somehow echoing an impression of a graceful shape, the white stone shining through choking vines under the light of the stars. At intervals the walls fall away, and eventually I come to realise that the open spaces are crossroads where lesser streets run into the highroad we are following.

Lesser streets? Perhaps. But each crossing is wider than the main street that runs through Bree, all the same.

As I am thinking of that main street in Bree, my companion says, This thoroughfare leads to the centre – a large open space bordered by ruins on all sides that might have been large and impressive structures, upon a time.

Something like the market square in Bree, I say. I thought the inn there quite large and impressive at one time, with its three stories. I wonder if the buildings we are passing stretched higher before they were cast down? This... thoroughfare, as my companion called it, is so much wider than the main street that passes through that town.

Somehow, though I cannot see him in the darkness, I perceive my companion's nod. Something like that, he says. Only much larger and grander, of course. "Towers tall and slender, and many halls and houses of fair white stone did their masons build..." my Rider told me as we travelled earlier. "For the Noldor delighted then and now in all crafts of the hands, though not many of them remain in Middle-earth in these latter days..."

Noldor? I query.

Elves, he answers. Part of the Eldar we spoke of earlier.

Why not say Eldar, then? I ask.

I hear him shake his head again. All Noldor are Eldar, but not all Eldar are Noldor, he answers.

It sounds like a riddle to me, but I am not sure it is one I am capable of solving. Still, pondering the many words that seem to pertain to Elves helps to pass the time. I am weary, but my companion walks steadily without stopping to rest, and before the light was completely faded from the sky, I saw him walking warily, head high and turning to look and listen and smell in every direction. 

After what feels like an interminable time of walking, the ruined walls seem to fall away, and the dim starlight reveals that we are walking in a large, open space that, my companion tells me, was once filled with fountains and gardens and statues.

No sound of falling water echoes on the still air, so I deem that the smell of water must come from the river that has paralleled our journey through the ruins.

My companion adjusts our course directly towards the dark, slow-flowing water, saying, The main roads radiate from this central place like the spokes of a great wheel. Half the wheel is on this side of the Glanduin, and the other half of the wheel is on the other side of the river.

Is this where we will find the ford? I ask.

My companion does not answer immediately, and when he does speak, it is not a direct answer to my question. The city once had many bridges, he says. Some of the roads that crossed our path used to lead to bridges at one time. The largest and most beautiful bridge was here at the centre of the wheel...

Was...? I repeat, emphasising the word as I say, Was, but is no more?

There are no bridges here now, and have not been for a long time, he says. Yet my Rider told me that the safest crossing is to be found here. And so, here is where we will cross the flowing waters. 

But is it a ford? I ask. 

The waters are shallower where the mighty bridge once spanned them, the great horse answers. Over the centuries, the current has worn down the broken blocks and carried silt from upriver to fill in the in-between places.

Which means...? I press.

It is a ford, he says, but then he adds, of sorts.

...which is hardly reassuring.

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, one of my hobbits whispers at the back of my mind. I wonder what they would do if they had to cross without a bridge?

But they wouldn't, it seems. Dimly, I remember another ford. Youngest rode atop the bundles I carried (because he was the smallest and lightest of the hobbits, as I recall), and Our Big Man and the Shining One carried my Sam and the more-frantic-than-Merry hobbit across the deep, treacherous waters on their shoulders. I say "treacherous" because those waters had only recently swept away many great and powerful tall horses and the Fear they carried on their backs.

And on the far side of that ford was sorrow and grief, sobs and wails, tears and despair: a steep, muddy bank, and at the top, the Master, lying terribly still, crumpled at the feet of the tall Elf-horse who had carried him across. Dead, as it seemed to us – or worse.

I realise I am trembling when my companion rests his head gently on my back and murmurs, Steady, little one. I have crossed here before, and I will lead you across the Stepping Stones that lie under the water and offer a ford of sorts.

I am not afraid, I say defiantly, raising my head, even though I am, rather. I am merely remembering a different ford.

What is to be found on the far side of this ford, I wonder?

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Author's note: The information Gandalf shared with Shadowfax about the Noldor reflects a passage in The History of Middle-earth: Volume 10. Morgoth's Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.

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