Darkness and Light
The passageway was lit by the single glow from his staff. The boundaries of that light shifted as the width of the tunnel changed. When the walls opened wide, the sphere of light ended upbruptly, leaving a blackness all around. Outside in that blackness, the world ended. Beyond that light could be wall, an abyss, or it could have hid an army. The world ceased to be beyond that light.
Arancarmë held close to the light. He tried to concentrate on his hearing, to get a feel for the space around him. He knew that there could indeed be an abyss within an arms length. These tunnels haven't been explored fully, and the mad rush with which the last explorers exited, left little time for examination.
The air was getting hotter as they travelled downward. The slope wasn't very steep, but there were steps every so often and the trail led always down. Every once in a while the light from the staff the wizard held would illuminate some runes on the wall. They looked like the author's were keeping track of depth or distance. Most were about waist high, and unlovely to the Elf's eyes. Soon he noticed that the marks ceased and the walls, when he could see them, were rougher and broken in places. The ceiling would occasionally swoop down very low and the roof showed evidence of cave-ins. There was additional evidence on the floor of the passage, even when they couldn't see the ceiling. It was a constant reminder of the immeasurable weight of the mountain above the two.
After a time, when it seemed to Arancarmë that they surely have reached the very depths of the world, he noticed a difference in the nature of the light. The wizard acknowledged it with a nod of his head. His shoulders tensed and he pressed forward. The light was definitely changing color. It was becoming less the electric blue of the staff and more red. The passage ahead became gradually more visible as the light increased.
Suddenly the passage opened into a great gallery of pillars. The bases of the stone monoliths were as wide as a man is tall in some places. Some appeared as children of these in size. The roof dripped with stone icicles like the immense teeth of a dragon. It seemed that they had unknowingly walked into the great beast's mouth and were soon to be chewed and swallowed.
The new light seemed to be eminating from the far end of the cavern. The collumns were so numerous, like stone trees in a strange dark forest, that the far end was not visible. The collumns were almost a mockery of the carved trees leagues above, but had their own beauty. The constant drip, drip of time had sculpted the heart of the mountain into a marvelous work of art, never to see the light of day. The red and the blue light reflected back and forth, vieing for superiority. The red light won over and the wizard extinguished his staff.
"Your master is gone! Come out and meet us!", the wizard bellowed.
Arancarmë jumped at the sudden sound. There was a grinding and a shuffling as of some great beast awakening from slumber. The light grew noticably. It grew hotter too.
"Begone", came the rumbling voice from the far end of the cavern. It was so deep, the Elf felt it in his chest, a vibration that made his heart race as he tried to control his fear. "Begone and trouble me no more, or you will feel my lash".
"I have felt that, though it was not yours", replied the wizard. "Come out!", he commanded again. Arancarmë felt his fear lessen when he spoke.
"You cannot abide here any longer", he continued.
"I will abide where I will, old man. I will not come out." The voice spoke wearily , as if a great fatigue has been infused in it.
"You must, or you will be destroyed!"
"Isn't that what you are here for Istari? To destroy me?"
"I do not wish it, yet I will do what must be done", the wizard replied.
"Begone, I am weary of this".
"You must come out", he repeated. Arancarmë felt that this was not going as hoped, but as expected. The wizard's resigned expression told him he felt it too. His sword was in his hand, yet the Elf felt it would fall from his fingers as any moment, so great was his fear.
A blinding light flared in the chamber. A deafening roar filled his ears, shaking the floor. When his eyes adjusted, Arancarmë saw the vastness of the cavern. He saw that there were signs of great violence on the wall, the ceiling, as if a man of immense size had swung his fists into the hanging collumns. Arancarmë controlled his fear.
"You can repent and return!", the wizard yelled into the light.
"I am the Flame! There is no return!" The light replied.
"There might be! You must try or be destroyed!"
"There is no return! I took this form. It is mine. There is no return." The voice trailed off.
"Then come and face me!" He shouted.
"I will come." And Arancarmë's fear rose to strangle him. He swallowed hard.
The light shifted as it moved through the pillars, throwing bars of shadow on the far walls. The floor shook from the footfalls of the great weight. He wanted to step back, but stood his ground. Then he saw the first of the flames. It was like a forest ablaze, the wind driving it towards you. The heat was becoming unbearable. It was indeed man-shape, as the tales told, but huge. Much larger than he anticipated. Yet it seemed to shift, to shrink as the ceiling sloped lower in places.
It was moving faster than he had thought and he felt an urge to flee, but fought it down. The wizard stepped forward, his sword drawn. It glowed in the light of the flames. Arancarmë took a step forward too, a much smaller step than he had intended. He felt small behind the wizard, who had seemed to grow suddenly, to match the advancing horror.
It was moving flame, yet a blackness was at it's core. It's true shape indiscernable. It was impossible to look into that shadow and not be blinded by it. Like the opposite of the bright shapes one sees when he glimpses a bright light. Great wings of blackness spread to the ceiling. They seemed to move through the stone icicles like water around stones in a river.
"Begone!" The Balrog roared. The flames lept upward and it swung his arm back behind his head. A sword of flame burst into new fire from his hand. The arm came forward and with a great explosion was met by the wizard's sword. Arancarmë was thrown to his knees from the force of the blow. Fireworks played across his vision from the flash of the blades.
His eyes cleared in time to see the immense arm swing back again. As it was raised high above it's head, the flames from it's mane wreathed around it, dancing up the blade and licking the ceiling. As it was beginning to come back down, the wizard lunged forward and with a slashing blow, struck the Balrog across the torso. There was a sound of metal slicing through stone, a grinding shattering sound. The Balrog roared in pain and swung high, the heat and blast of the blade blowing back Arancarmë's hair. The sword seemed not to hurt the monster, but fire poured from the wound onto the ground at the wizards feet. He stepped back and to the side and before the Balrog had a chance to regain it's balance, drove the blade upwards into it's exposed side.
Aracarmë wished to run forward and strike a mighty blow for the Elves. To slay a Balrog, like his father's fathers had. But that was a different age. The old man had warned him to stay behind him. He was there to aid him if he faltered. It didn't look to him that the wizard would falter. He looked as though he could have withstood Morgoth himself like Fingolfin, dodging the tremendous blows of Grond, Hammer of the underworld.
But Fingolfin would triumph this day. The wizard pulled his sword from the Balrog's side and flame erupted from the ragged hole rent in it. Again it roared, a sound like rocks in an avalanche breaking the mountainside, grinding trees in it's wake. The sword arm swung back to strike the thing tormenting it's owner, but the wizard deflected it with a deafening crash.
The wizard reared back to strike again, but as he did, the lash the Balrog wielded with it's other hand swung around and wrapped around the old man's waist. He grunted in pain as the fire in it's many thongs bit into him, scorching his robes. He was pulled down to his knees as the arm yanked back on the whip. Immediately Arancarmë felt a pop in his ears. A protective barrier must have been around them and when the wizard was struck down, it was lost. The fear fell on him immediately. It had left him in the first moments of battle with the Balrog, but now it struck him down like a blow from that flaming sword.
He looked at the wizard, saw the pain on his face, but stood stooped, not moving, the fear paralysing him. With tremendous effort, he forced himself to move towards him. "Just one step", he thought, "Move! Now!" And he took a step.
The fear broke with an almost audible crack, falling off of him like ice falling off an old oak in early spring. He lunged forward and hewed at the thongs. Immediately they evaporated, the strands around the wizard's waste steaming off like mist. He leaped forward another great bound and struck the beast's knee with his blade. The shock ran up his arm into his chest. There was no grinding sound, no fiery blood issuing forth.
Yet Arancarmë could see that his blade had hurt the Balrog. It jerked it's leg back from him. It leaned back to strike at him. He swung his blade around to block the blow, in an arc that seemed to take days to finish it's sweep. He could see the tip of the fine steel slice the air in it's path, could see the edge glint with reflected fire. Could see his father's face in the Runes drawn along it's length. His father who had died on the Gladden Fields before the Black Gate. Some said Sauron himself had slain him, but Arancarmë didn't believe them. He saw his father's face reflected in the flat of the blade, his mouth wide.
His father screamed "Noooo!" and Arancarme was knocked to the ground, his arm coming down hard to break his fall. He heard the rush as the Balrog's blade of fire came down, but instead of the agony he expected to come and end his long life, he heard the great rending crash again, and looking up saw the wizard striking the blow aside. With a speed and ferocity he wouldn't have thought the old man capable of, he drove his sword almost to the hilts into the Balrog's throat.
The monster gurgled a great belching roar of flame that missed Arancarme by only a hand's-breadth. The wizard yanked the blade fluidly from its neck and it pitched forward, knocking the wizard and the Elf backwards. They fell hard, scraping knee and elbow, their garments smoldering from the contact with the monster. Arancarme's sword clanged to the floor, slipping from his grasp as he sprawled. The wizard leapt to his feet and stood to face the Balrog, but it was clear that it could fight no more. Flame was pouring from its neck and it's mouth and the wounds in its side. A low rumbling could be felt as its life ebbed from it.
The wizard moved forward cautiously. Arancarme retrieved his sword from the ground. His legs felt soft, like dough before it has been baked into bread. He moved to the wizard's side unsteadily, his sword held in front. The Balrog stirred. It's great fiery eye turned to regard the two that had defeated it. It fixed its malevolent glare on the wizard.
"You have slain me. I am dying." it said, boiling black blood from it maw.
"It need not have been so" the wizard replied, and there was almost pity in his voice.
"It could have been no other way."
"Perhaps not" he said.
"My time has ended. Now is your time" it gurgled.
"My time is at an end as well. I have a few matters to tend to, then I will leave too."
"So I, Burzum, who slew a hundred Elves in Gondolin...was a.. small matter to ...you Olorin?" it slobbered.
"No, it was a great matter. I wished to end it otherwise, but maybe you are correct. It was fated to end this way. There was no return." The wizard said.
The Balrog did not answer. It guttered flame from its nostrils and its fires went out. It slumped like a pile of black pitch, it's skin slimed with foul blotches of ash and gore. Arancarme watched the eye grow dim, as it's life fled, a smoke rising from its body and filling the roof of the cavern like pipe-smoke under a wine glass. It was almost black in the cavern as the Balrog's fires went out, and with a wave of his staff, the wizard swept away the smokes and kindled the end again with welcomed blue light.
Arancarme stood up fully and stretched his battered body, feeling his wounds. He looked around the chamber. There was no more to be seen except the stone columns and the great heap of the fallen Balrog. The wizard looked at him and smiled wearily. "Well, that was not too bad" he said, looking very tired.
"What would have been bad? An army of Balrogs with Gothmog at the head or maybe Ancalagon come again?" He exclaimed with a flourish of his sword. He was aware that the wizard was smiling, but the excitement and fear had drained him, and he was not inclined to laugh right now. Later he would sit with the wizard and Legolas and they would retell the tale and he might laugh. He did not feel like laughing now.
But he had faced a Balrog, he had struck it. He had done what he came to do; to protect the old wizard and perhaps strike a blow for his people, for his father. He had done it. He had not slain it, but he had met it and lived. In his memory, his father smiled at him. The way he had by the sea so long ago. His father had told him of the Gods then. Of Manwe and Orome the Hunter. Of Ulmo whom the Elves love.
"There is one question I have. Why did my blade not cut it? I saw that it hurt the beast, but no wound was visible" he asked the wizard.
"Your blade is new. It was not forged in Gondolin, but in Rivendell. By Elves yes, but Elves much diminished from the might and skill of that age" he answered. "You dealt it a worthy blow and injured it, but did not cut through its skin, which is tougher than even Glaurung's armor was. Besides, I am a wizard, and a blade in my hand is not the same as a blade in the hand of the Eldar, though it be forged by them."
"Then I owe you my life Mithrandir" Arancarme said. "I would have been slain but for you".
"And I if not for you. Come! We are even, Master Elf. Let us leave this place."
As they walked the long tunnel up to the lower chambers of Moria, thoughts of his father ran through Arancarmë's mind. Would he be able to see him in the Undying Lands? To tell him of his deeds today? Or perhaps he would not need to. To see him there would be enough. Besides, no matter how good the battle made him feel about himself, he knew he would not recount it in that land. His father would have no need to hear it besides.
"Mithrandir..." he began.
"Call me Gandalf, I always liked that name."
"Gandalf, then. Why did you only take me with you? Wouldn't it have been easier with a contingent of Men and Elves?"
"I did not know how large the chamber would be and many men and Elves would crowd each other in a tight place. More would have died. I also knew the Balrog was weakened by it's master's fall." He replied. "And I hoped that seeing just two of us, and one an Istari, it might have repented."
"Could it have done so?" Arancarmë asked.
"I do not think so" he paused, "but I had hoped".
They walked on into the darkness. It was still all around them as before, but it held no fear for him. Was it the death of the Balrog, the death of the fear that went before it, that was gone now? Or was it simply the joy of the victory that drove all fear away?
"One more question"
"You remind me of a certain Knight of Gondor!" Gandalf laughed.
"Master Pippin can task one's patience", he said with a smile, "Just one, I beg of you."
"Ask all that you will".
"Why did you choose me?" The Elf asked. He had wanted to ask him that the day he was chosen to go. He had not excelled in the sword practice. He could fight well, but he was not the best. He was a good shot with a bow, but Gandalf had told him to leave it behind.
"Why me of all the Elves you could have asked? Any would have come at your call. Glorfindel himself pleaded for you to reconsider. To take him. Why not an Elf-lord. Why me?" his eyes searched the wizard's face, and he saw lines of care and fatigue smooth away as a smile lit his face. He thought he could see the Light in it.
"Because I knew your father."