The Veil Lifted

[Celuien]

The Star had been passed on irrevocably, and Becca's smile was now tinged with sadness. The paths to Faery were closed to her. That knowledge came with a pang, but one that was eased by Sid's understanding of the gift. She felt that she had chosen well.

She spoke, and her voice was low and gentle. "There are some gifts, Sid, that are too precious for one person to keep. Special gifts that are bigger than any one person. Gifts that aren't owned, but only held and loved for a time until they're meant to be shared. The Star is one. It was time for me to pass it to the next person, just as it has been passed on from one keeper to the next for more years than I know.

I can't go back. But I'll always know and remember, and that's more than any but a very few people can say. And, even more importantly, I know that someone else will come to know Faery after me. You."

"But why me?" Sid's eyes were still full of silver bright tears.

"So many reasons. But mostly, it seemed like you were meant to have it. On this one night, you were here, and you helped me. There's more at work in the world than chance, you know."

"I wish...I wish that you could still go too."

Becca brushed Sid's shoulder. "It's okay, Sid. It was time. And if there's anything I've learned from having the Star, it's that there's a little bit of Faery all around us, all the time, if only we keep watching for it. Look!"

They turned and looked out at the night, and the stars glittered in Becca's eyes.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Is it the dark hand that worries you, Aiwendil? Do you feel it “encircling” the city?’

Jack had said it far better than he could. This night was different than other nights, even different than those times in previous years when they'd trudged into the city to celebrate the passing of the year. But it was not a kind of difference that made Aiwendil terribly comfortable.

"Can you give me a hand with this door?" Aiwendil barked over to Gilli and Darlariel, his voice laced with worry. The door that they were standing by was not the back entrance they'd used to come inside the library, but the heavy wooden door that faced onto main street.

"But it's locked," someone objected.

"No, not tonight, and certainly not now." The three of them pushed with all their might. Then Aiwendil turned the handle and, as if by magic, the door spun open on its own. He walked outside and stood on the porch. For a moment everything was quiet. A single star glittered in the sky. "Perhaps I was wrong," he muttered to himself. He stood and waited to see if anything would happen.

It was then that he heard it: an ugly, rasping voice, full of menace and envy. Then other voices quickly joined in. They weren't really voices in the manner that a man might speak, but Aiwendil did not know what else to call them. The sounds made the istar tremble. Too many bad memories. Worse than that, the sounds were getting closer.

"Close the door now!" The old man whirled around and ran in from the porch, slamming the door behind him. He reached up and secured the latch and then looked over at Jack. "I don't like it at all. They are outside.....a whole crew perhaps. This shouldn't be happening. Not tonight....not now. And I have no idea how to deal with this. Elves and Balrogs.....at least I understand those. But Orcs, wicked Orcs and trolls, I have never understood. I thought that perhaps it would be a houseless Elf or two, but I never suspected anything like this. Well, my friend Jack, I am hoping you have some idea what to do. Either that or one of you. " He glanced around at the others. "I thought this place of wisdom would act as a refuge. Even an Elf who has lost his soul has some respect for books. But these folk are different. The building we have chosen as our fortress may turn out to be a prison from which there is no escape."

[Undómë]

Jack poked his head over the balustrade at the sound of Aiwendil’s voice. Three small books found their way into his coat’s large pockets as he raced down the steps; his long legs taking two or three at a time. Behind him, the shadows between the stacks seemed to move forward until they crowded in along the oak balusters watching the scene below.

‘Ah, good! You’ve got the door secured.’ He stood, hands on slender hips, thinking. ‘And the basement’s all locked up; I reset the keypad.’

The sounds grew louder, more raucous beyond the thick door. Jack looked up at the stacks, his eyes flicking round the circumference. ‘Guard your barrow well, my friends. We’ll see what we can do from behind our old foe.’

Jack turned back to Aiwendil and the two women. ‘Come, there’s a way beneath the grounds to the old library building. A nice dry tunnel where the steam pipes run. There are many less popular books stored in the old building, as well as a place where the book repairer works. We can cross over there and come up behind the foul Orcs and Trolls.’ He smiled grimly at the trio. ‘That is if you’re up to a little skirmish this fair night.’ He opened his long coat, the slender fingers of his right hand pointing to a tarnished blade that now hung by his side. ‘Gift from old friends above.’ He nodded to the shadows crowded on the upper landing. ‘Not all the Elves of Imladris sailed West. Some stayed; some died. Many of their fëar found familiar places of refuge.’ He raised his brows as he regarded the main door once again.

‘One could almost feel sorry should those creatures breach the entrance.....almost.....’

‘Shall we go?’ Turning toward the area of the main floor where the check-out terminal stood, Jack motioned for them to follow him through a small door behind the desk. It led into a small dimly lit landing at the head of a winding spiral of metal stairs.

Behind them the shadows had come down from the upper stacks. Good hunting..... came the soft murmuring of fair voices, though in an elder tongue not many now would understand.

[piosenniel]

Gilli called out after Jack’s retreating back. ‘Hey! Some of us need a little more light than you, m’dear.’ The soft-lit glow from the main room of the library illuminated the landing, but once the door had closed only a small rectangle of light shone in through the door’s little window. Gilli felt about on the wall just inside entryway until her hand found a switch. She flicked it up and down but no light came on.

She fished about in her pack, her hand finally finding her little flashlight. The light from it was wan and she muttered a curse beneath her breath for not remembering to buy new batteries.

In the soft, dim circle of light that wavered on the stairs from her torch, Gilli and the others made their way down the stairs. Their footsteps clattered and rang on the metal steps.

‘Shhh!’ Someone behind her called softly for a halt. ‘Listen!’

From the darkness pooled at the bottom of the stairs came muffled noises.....

[Dimturiel]

The night had proved darker than Darlariel had thought it would be. Dark things that had been until then well hidden, showing themselves only in troubled nightmares, had now emerged into the real world. They had been forgotten, their haterd was now a matter of legend, but they still remembered the world of men, they knew it and loathed it. Here they were, ready to attack again. And this time, they had chances of winning. None believed in their existence, it would take time before people would really accept that such creatures of shadow still lived. And they did not have that time.

These thoughts were in Darlariel's mind as she was following the others in the dark tunnel. The beam of Gilli's torch glittered somewhere in front of her, a tiny ray of hope in the darkness and dread that she felt all around her. She told herself that what Jack had said to them in the library meant that they need not despair completely, not yet. But she felt too afraid to pay much attention to that. What could four people do against such dark things, were they to encounter them? What else save resist long enough to make a brave stand that would be worth many songs? Yet what songs? The time when people sang lays in which they praised the brave deeds done by others was long passed.

Darlariel shook her head, wanting to drive such thoughts from her mind. What cared she about songs? And so what if she were to die that night? If that was to be her fate, she would not complain. She would not regret her meeting with Aiwendil, indeed, she would not regret even the fact that she had followed him in the library even if she had had the choice of turning back.

Suddenly the sound of whispers came to her ears. She stopped short, together with the others. They were now near the end of the tunnel, but there seemed to be a commotion there. She could hear movement and voices talking to each other, although whoever it was spoke too quietly for her to make out what they were saying. Yet she was not sure she would have understood even if they had spoken louder.

Darlariel looked uneasily at the others. She knew they had no choice. Sooner or later they would have to go down, and meet whoever was already there.

[Noinkling]

Heavy footsteps rattled down the spiral stairway. And echoed in the entry to the pitch-black tunnel. Some light, a lantern of some sort, he thought bounced wildly off the walls and shown through the perforated metal treads of the stairs. Tolly craned his head out from the dark interior of the tunnel trying to see what sort of beast or beasts were moving down toward them.

‘It’s somethin’ big tromping down the stairs!’ Tolly whispered low to Bran. ‘Something real big . . . or maybe a whole flock of ‘em,’ Bran said, shivering a bit at the thought of who or what approached them.

Daisy reached out and pulled Ferdy back from the tunnel’s edge. He was younger than she by three years or so. And being the older sister she felt obligated to see to his well being. ‘You two get back here, too!’ she hissed at Bran and Tolly, slipping into the rustic Westron dialect they most often spoke among themselves. ‘I knew we shouldna sneaked in here this year to see the Professor’s new books. Not really a bookstore, you know,’ she went on. ‘I heard the Missus that runs this place doesn’t really like us leaving those silver pennies for her books.’

‘Well, I like getting them here,’ Ferdy broke in. ‘You get to feel the covers of the books, smell the leather bindings. And riffle through the pages to see if you like the pictures.’ He swiped the back of his sleeve across his mouth, clearing it of the last traces of chocolate bar he’d been munching on from his trick-or-treat. ‘Better than trying to figure out that Amazing.com and what things you’re supposed to click on to get your book.’

‘Quiet you all! Quick! Hide here. It’s nearly upon us!’ Tolly grabbed for his friends and shoved them in behind some old wooden packing crates stacked along the tunnel wall. The Hobbits crouched down, holding their breaths as they waited for whatever beastie it was to pass them by.