“We'd best get to it. Our good host's apprentice seems to have disappeared. Doubtless to spread the news.” Sfeithi's interjection cut into the nimbus of wonder that embraced the little group.
Ceawlin shook his head once. “What strange days we live in!”
Rhavanielle stood proudly and shook her hair loose. We were Eru's children and now we go about hidden. No longer, she thought. “I know the charm that gave this pendant its power, but I have not the skill to mend the gold. Who will help me?” she asked. Sfeithi looked pointedly at Gorm who stepped forward.
“Let me have a look at that, if you will,” said the older dwarf. He took the pendant from the elf and examined it “This is passing strange! The marks are marred as though a great heat were applied to just a finger's breadth of it. As though a very hot thumb had pressed into it. I can't think of a better way to explain it.”
Rhavanielle looked off into the distance. As though she had spotted something on the other side of the wall. Looking inward to memory. She sighed heavily. “I think it was marred on purpose. To spoil the charm that was put into it.”
Gorm glanced her way. “Write it out. What it ought to look like. And I can promise I will repair the art. The charm is your part of the work.” He walked purposefully into the smithy. Ceawlin closed the large doors. If Hereward had gone to alert his young friends then surely there would be a knot of gawkers gathered soon enough.
Gorm pulled up a stool and perched himself upon it, taking a spiral of gold wire from a pouch full of oddments and bits of gold he had retrieved in Moria before Balin's expedition began to fall apart.
Sæðryð dashed to the mead hall to fetch Rhavanielle bulky rucksack from which the elf took up a marvelous mechanical stylus and piece of papyrus a hands' breadth in size. Meanwhile, Gorm cut a bit of the golden wire into tiny granules. Setting to work heating the granules, he began carefully restoring the pendant according to his friend's drawing.
All the while, Rhavanielle sang a soft and subtle song that wove several themes together. Simple in themselves, in an elven tongue they lifted the hearts of the knot of people clustered about the elf and dwarf. Rhajawyn looked on in wonder as her fondest hope was being fulfilled before her eyes.
As Gorm completed the work, he laid it on the table to cool properly and Rhavanielle said a spell over it. Short and in a secret language, the runes that stood out in relief on the pendant glittered briefly as though they were made of adamant.
“Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis’s bethad, do chél dénmha”
The light streaming in through narrow windows seemed to grow in intensity and the flame of the forge quickened and leapt upward in answer. Gorm's eyes widened in wonder. He had looked on as products of his craft were infused with prayers and spells. It was a curiosity to one unschooled in such arts. But this was something altogether different. A hush came over them all. Rhavanielle took up the pendant on its leather thong and handed it down to gape mouthed Rhajawyn who took a moment to take her eyes off the bright runes and take the thing.
“This then is the heirloom of your house. Bear this as a token that you are an elf-friend, Rhajawyn, daughter of noble Ceawlin and esteemed Sæðryð. It will protect you and yours in times of peril. Better than it shielded my little Enelyë. Though I wonder...” she looked deep into the little girl's eyes again, her jaw set. There was something hidden from her there, she felt. Rhajawyn felt as though the contents of her mind were being emptied as one might empty one's pockets. But then it was gone. Rhavanielle was not cruel and did not put forth the power that was in her to settle this mystery. She knelt and embraced the child and said to the dwarves. “It is better we had gone, I think.”
Ceawlin thrust open one of the gate like doors to the smithy and those mortals among them blinked at the dazzling sun. When they recovered, they were none of them entirely surprised at what they beheld.
Outside had gathered what seemed to be the whole village of Stoke.
