Eowyn: The Cage - Ch. 01

11 May 93 (Fourth Age), Emyn Arnen

I am named for the father of a legend. In his time this father claimed a measure of renown, but that was three long Ages of Middle-earth ago, and to history he has been lost...save in a name of nearly forgotten heritage, and as inscribed upon faded pages in dusty books of lore. His son — perhaps the greatest in our people's history — lives on in name and memory, though even one once judged so mighty crumbles beneath the relentless accumulation of history. Many could say what he did, and why, but few would remember how he did it. Not with any accuracy. Tale has long replaced truth.

That is as it should be. What we do in our own day, however great it seems, must inevitably submit to the editing of time. Fact becomes history, history becomes legend...and what is legend but the evolution of fact into mythos? This is the natural order of things, and to attempt to arrest this process is to overvalue that which has passed. A sin to which we Men are all too susceptible.

My grandfather was born to a throne, in a sense, and while a great man in his own right and time he never achieved it, and will most likely fade into history as a name in a rarely opened book. He played a crucial role in one of the Great Stories, yet that story was not his own, and even now he has already been mythologized beyond fact. His name may live on, for a time, but his memory will not be him.

So be it. He must be content that mythology remembers him well. He deserves that honor.

Yet even though the memory of modern-day legends already grows dim, all agree that my grandmother was one. She achieved something that, according to prophecy, neither Man, nor Elf, nor Dwarf, nor Wizard, nor any man of her age (or any other) could. It will be long, I deem, before her greatest deed is forgotten. Though she also played a part in my grandfather's tale, and he in hers, it is on her own that she is remembered, and with a clarity he can no longer claim. Even as I write these words, decades later, her historical fact and her legendary fact remain largely the same.

Thus it was that I thought I knew her, as all our people do. Of course, as her grandson I believed I held special, personal insights. That I knew her better than almost anyone.

Then I found her secret journals.

I no longer believe in legend. Or history. Or fact. I don't know what to believe, anymore.

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Once, sneaking about my grandparents' home — as misbehaving youth are wont to do — I found a sturdy box behind a hidden panel in my grandmother's closet. At first I thought it a mere (albeit heavy) block of decorative wood, and was about to toss it aside in favor of some more interesting yet equally ill-gotten trinket when I felt something move within. I turned it over and around, but I couldn't discern what it might contain.

The only recognizable mark on its surface was a galloping white horse crossed with sword and spear, the points of which were rather absurdly entwined with long braids. I knew this symbol. When my grandmother wished for something to carry a sigil, but felt that the object merited neither the heraldry of Gondor, nor Rohan, nor Emyn Arnen, she applied this device. It was private and somewhat bitter joke regarding the division between warrior and woman, or so she'd told me when I'd asked, and over the years she'd shown me many an amusing item carrying the symbol. Most seemed specifically chosen to challenge a society in which the roles of men and women were understood to be entirely separate and distinguishable, and as I grew older I came to understand her subversive purpose in using it when and where she did.

In my furtive and curious youth, however, I was entirely uninterested in symbolism. I was far more distressed that I couldn't open the box.

For years, given any brief chance, I secretly returned to their quarters and puzzled over this mystery. The box often changed position, so it was clear that someone else — likely my grandmother — was handling it, but its secrets remained opaque. It was entirely without clasp or visible seam, and though I searched long and hard for a key of some sort, I had no idea what I might be looking for, and thus my quest proved utterly fruitless. I occasionally considered forcing it open, but that damage was likely to be irreparable. Worse, my grandmother would almost certainly suspect the cause of such destruction, and I trembled at that consequence; she was a patient, kind, and loving woman despite all her well-known physical gifts, but her rare moments of fury were truly fearsome to behold. So I waited and wondered, hoping that the wisdom of age would eventually bring insight. Instead, as I grew towards adulthood and its many distractions I gradually forgot about this puzzle of my misspent youth.

Two weeks ago, in the somber aftermath of my grandmother's funeral, my father led me to her dwelling — now hers alone, for my grandfather had passed years earlier — and bade me take anything that I wished. He left, and long I searched in a weary haze of sadness. Little did I wish for most of her belongings, and some of those that I did crave belonged not to me, but to our people, for they were a public testament to her legacy rather than a selfish heirloom. Those items I could not take.

At last I chanced upon a small sword that, long ago, she'd used to spar with my overeager, adolescent self. She always claimed she was no longer any sort of warrior, but even then I remember the precision and confidence of her strokes, and on the rare occasions I was able to convince her to "play" thus with me, she was insistent that it be treated more seriously than mere play. Content with this treasured memory, I was about to depart when, poking absentmindedly through her closet, I placed a hand on the long-forgotten panel, and moments later the box hidden behind it.

I left with two gifts. One a memory, the other a mystery.

Later that night in the privacy of my library, with the windows thrown open to admit a cool nighttime breeze that I found soothing amidst my weariness and grief, I applied my now-adult mind to the task. Nothing was revealed, and I was reconsidering the possibility of breakage — though it still seemed somehow disrespectful — when I noticed something strange. Whenever I aligned the box along a certain axis, the sigil blurred. I tested this until I'd found the direction of maximum diffusion, and though I shook and pulled and pried, the box still didn't open. Whatever was happening, it was only the beginning of an answer, not the entirety of it.

As I stared in confusion, a beam of moonlight slipped past the window frame and fell directly upon the sigil. I'd lost track of time in my puzzling, and rose to close the shutters. But then I stopped, gaping.

Where the heraldic white horse had been, a new shape took form. It was difficult to see in the pale light, but with the aid of a glass I finally discerned its outline: a red hand, off-center in a pair of ovular white fields.

I was taken aback. Was this a symbol of the old Enemy? No...His hand — in heraldry at least, for who among the mortal living had seen Him before his fall? — would have been black, nor (according to legend) did he ever employ white for any purpose. The corrupted Wizard, then? His name escaped my memory, though it didn't matter at the moment, but I did recall that his original color had been white, and thereafter a feigned white, and even in my father's day there'd been remnants of a breed of particularly fierce and fearless orcs who carried that symbol into battle.

But if it was neither of the obvious antagonists, then whence the red? Another of my grandmother's dark jests? It didn't feel like one. Even if it was a jest, there was something foreboding about it. To me, and (I believed) to all who knew her, she was a lady of unquenchable light — both in spirit and in beauty, both of which remained remarkably undimmed by age — and only rarely was she seen in any raiment other than white. Red, certainly, was a color she'd never worn nor employed, at least in my lifetime.

As I wondered what strange secret this symbology might portend, a thin seam appeared around the exterior of the box. It had not been there before. Fearing a lost opportunity even more than what I might find within, I lifted the top.

At first, my anxiety seemed misplaced, for inside were revealed a half-dozen books and an empty vial. The latter bore the unmistakable symbol of a faded white hand, and that was a dismaying surprise, but for the moment I set it aside. The books' covers were inscribed with dates, and I placed the oldest upon my lap, tense and trembling for no reason I could fathom. Taking a deep breath, I opened it.

It was a diary written in my grandmother's bold, strong hand. Though the tale it told was no tale of strength, and with every passing word legend, history, and fact crumbled into dust...