The Witch-King of Angmar Dies A Different Way
Summary: The Prophecy that ''No Living Man Shall Slay" the King of Angmar and Morgul can be interpreted multiple different ways. Here is how it didn't happen…..
Chapter 1: Galadriel
The Hobbit: There and Back Again: The White Council faces the Nine
Gandalf the Grey was in haste. He had abandoned the Dwarves of Durin's line and the Hobbit to face the perils of Mirkwood alone. Thorin and Bilbo thankfully trusted him as just being a weird crazy wizard giving them adventures and meddling for his own amusement. He did not deserve their friendship. The world was in grave peril, and he did not have the luxury of honesty. If he took the time to visit every little chieftain and minor lord of the Free Peoples to warn them of the looming Shadow, of the threat of Dol Guldur and the return of the Dark Lord Sauron and the shades of the Nine, he would never get around to doing anything about them. No, best to call the White Council of Wizards and Elves. Maybe he would tell Aragorn some of what he needed to know, but none other. The lad was only 30, a child by the standards of the Dunedain, and still learning the ways of horse and sword and bow. Hopefully the little halfling's discovery in the roots of the Misty Mountain of a Ring of Power would prove to be one of the lost Rings of the Dwarves. Durin's folk was scattered across 5 mountain ranges in the days of old, but in Moria there mingled people from each of the Seven Fathers. Could it be that a visiting dignitary in the days of the last Durin had lost his Ring the day the Balrog Durin's Bane was woken? But that matter would have to wait.
The White Council had met and discussed the rising threat in the south of Mirkwood twice before now. Saruman had at first despised the report of Radagast, accusing him of jumping at shadows and mocking his talk of giant spiders as impossible. The last child of Ungoliant was Shelob, and no news of her had come out of the Mountains of Mordor in quite some time. A monstrous beast as she would surely have been noticed if she had spawned in Mirkwood! Unless the Nazgul had used dark necromancy to cause her to lay eggs, and carried them in secrecy between Cirith Ungol and Dol Guldur? That must have been it. Galadriel believed Gandalf and Radagast wholeheartedly, but the Wisdom of Elrond Half-Elven always lent itself to skepticism, caution, and an unwillingness to risk the little remnant of his people. He was the Host of their Last Homely House and should Rivendell's lord ever fall, the High Elves would be forced to fade or sail away. There was some power in Lorien from the Noldorin blood of Galadriel, but East of the Misty Mountains all elves but she were Silvan, not Noldo.
Gandalf stopped his ruminations on these histories. The others had come.
"Mae Govannen, Mithrandir. Well met, Greyhame!" Elrond greeted. His eyes sparkled like the midnight blue of his secret burden, the Ring of Power Vilya, the Sapphire of Air.
"Are we in accord then?" the deep, assuring tones of Saruman asked the gathered company. Radagast and Galadriel approached.
"Indeed we should have been in accord before now, if you hadn't argued Elrond into dallying!" the Queen of Lothlorien retorted.
"I had to see for myself that what my fellows of the Order of Wizard was as perilous as they told. Before now, rumors in Arnor and Eriador have spoke of the return of the Nine. It is a common wives' tale whenever a fool of a Ranger is lost on the Barrow-Downs. You know the wights have always inspired such falsehoods. I did not think that we should excite ourselves too quickly to assume that any dark spirit could actually be the full return of the Enemy, especially after he has been defeated twice already and must have lost all but the least of his existence. He was an evil voice on the wind, no more or less, the last we checked. For him to gain so much substance would take sorcery only the Nine knew, and they were slain at the battle of Angmar hundreds of years ago. I cannot understand this turn events, but my palantir does not lie. I looked to the Hill of Sorcery and my friend Mithrandir was proven true. I apologize Radagast, for ever doubting you. You must understand how it looked, though. I am not the only one concerned for your health. Ecthelion remarked to me just last year that the Wizards of late had not been very helpful. He was referring to the history of the founding of Rohan. He categorized all of our faults, including our habit of ''smoke-leaves, mushrooms, and elf-wine.'' "
"Well, then, at least it's all behind us in the past! Let us be done with this fell quest." Radagast the Brown was a simple man but no fool. He wanted the business accomplished promptly and had little patience for any of the tower-mumblings or book-rememberings of his friends when he was really needed. He liked to work with his hands and his staff and his forest friends, not getting any ideas bigger than himself.
It was at that moment that an Elf-Lord came riding hard to meet the company. Cirdan the Ship-Wright. Nobody assembled knew what was more shocking: that the last member of the Council had finally decided to show up to a summons, or that he was riding a horse. No one had ever seen him travel by any means but ship or eagle in all the many thousands of years of his time on Middle-Earth. Only Galadriel and Gandalf knew that his reason for absence from Council meetings was that he no longer bore the Ruby of Fire, Narya, on his finger, but had bequeathed it to Gandalf. Saruman, who did not bear a Ring of Power himself, only concluded indirectly that Rivendell and Lorien each kept one safe as the Rings kept safe those lands in return, but he had never seen either of them, and could not see Gandalf's Ring either.
"I have word for the White Council from myself and from Glorfindel." He spoke. "We come to warn you that you are walking into a trap! We wondered, as have Elrond's Court and your esteemed selves also, how the Enemy could have returned. We thought as you did that all of his servants capable of black magic were destroyed. But Glorfindel reminded me of an old prophecy! "Not by the hand of living man shall he fall!" It is the Witch-King of Angmar, bearer of the greatest of the Nine Rings, that must have survived the destruction of his old kingdom in spectral form, even as Sauron escaped from the ruin of Numenor! He must have learned the trick from his old master! It is he who has conjured the wraiths of the Dark Lord and his Brothers in the Shadow!"
"Oh woe on us for our folly! How could we not foresee that Sauron's plans would be so clever and subtle, and even one so craving of power as he would not have risked everything on the One Ring unless he had prepared a way to return should anything happen?" Gandalf cried the lament on everyone's minds.
"So you are saying that if we journey to the castle of the Necromancer, we must be prepared to face a fight that Mandos has Fated cannot be won?" Galadriel inquired.
"Indeed. That is why the least I could do was bring myself here. I can help, being almost the oldest living Lord in all the lands. Fangorn and Bombadil pass me, but I was old when Galadriel was young. I have watched all of our ships sail to and from the Havens these many an age. It is time for me to fight." Cirdan's countenance was heavy-set with determination.
"Shouldn't we reconsider our plan of attack at all, instead of taking the path of madness and starting a hopeless battle risking all the great powers left in the world at once?" Elrond insisted.
"Indeed. I for one plan to immediately return to Isengard and prepare a defense for Rohan against the Shadow, but I will not enjoin combat with a specter the Valar themselves have decreed indestructible." Saruman stubbornly accused.
"There is another way." Galadriel muttered.
"What might that be, lady?" Radagast asked.
"Come. Follow me all who may. We are the greatest powers in the world. We do not have the time to waken the Ents. Even Fangorn himself is asleep now, and finding one Ent in that forest is the most impossible waste of time we could begin. But…."
"Yes? Pray tell, what can the Wisest Queen in Middle-Earth share to enlighten the Wisest King in Middle-Earth?" snarked the Half-Elven.
"You will all think me a fool, and it can't be helped that Saruman thinks me a fool anyway. Do not pretend any of you against what we all know: That we know he thinks he is the only one that can be trusted to know anything because of that Palantir of his. But I have a plan, a thought. Only the bearers themselves know who we are, but all gathered here guess enough that the Three Great Rings of Old are in this very clearing with us. Their power is only equal to the Nine together, not greater than it, but without the One, we have indeed a chance. And I am listening to the voice of the Valar from our Rings, and they whisper to me a secret hope. Come, we must set out for Dol Guldur at once and attack it with our full might. It has taken this long and this much bickering to distract us from our own stewardships, and never again will this much power be assembled against Sauron, not even should we fail but survive in flight. Elrond will have to stay in Rivendell as a permanent fixture to be the last Safehouse. Gandalf and Saruman will have to protect the World of Men. I will have to send envoys to the Dwarves, after they dispatch the dragon Smaug, because we do not trust the King of Mirkwood to let him join our Council, and Radagast will have to tend to all the green things and living creatures that none else care as much for as he. If we together haven't the strength to strike a blow, here and now, against the Enemy, the weakness of the Men of the Third Age will doom us all. Elrond has seen it. Saruman has seen it. Even I have seen it, Gandalf. Your hope in Aragorn is to be commended but it takes more than reforging a Sword to remake a lost kingdom."
The White Council had, in fact, already made its decision, even though the debate stormed between them. They had turned their horses East from the Gladden Fields to venture into Mirkwood from beneath and behind. It caused Gandalf and Radagast some inconvenience to travel in this direction but Galadriel and Saruman, who were most needed, insisted on meeting with Elrond this way. But as is the way with the Wise and the Old, each had to prove a point to the other, to show that they were right in the end. Such politics, Gandalf thought, it was good that Bilbo not see. Even Radagast was not immune to the arrogance that comes with a little power. Thorin would have been able to follow, but his contributions would be…..to put it the least, less than helpful, considering his negative opinion of Elves and Wizards would hardly be improved. He probably would have sided with Elrond and Saruman in cynicism. No, really, this bickering was just how people with Rings of Power, Wizard Staffs, and Palantiri passed their time while awaiting a very unpleasant approaching doom. Gandalf preferred the raucous japery of Dwarves and Hobbits. It was thinking of chipped glasses and cracked plates that made it all worth it, in the end. That was what we are fighting for, he had to remind himself.
The towered but crumbling fortress of Dol Guldur could be seen by peeking through the mists of the forest now. A few enchantments and a general aura of greatness had made it easy to move through Mirkwood without attracting attention from lesser evils. Spiders may think prey armed only with swords and leather jerkins to be easy enough pickings, but most things in the world are smart enough to know when they are looking at a group of very old, very powerful, very tired coots that frankly, aren't in the mood to be fucked with today. No, they would pass unscathed until they were in the very lair of the jabberwocky, as old Bilbo would put it. But much worse than fanciful myths of jabberwockies awaited them.
There was a rustling of leaves and the howls of wolves were occasionally heard. The moon here was different, the first indication to a watchful eye that bedevilment and sorcery were at work. It turned quickly, in the span of hours phasing from waxing to waning, New Moon to Full, so that different back magics could be conducted under different lights. The moon over Dol Guldur was a false one, for the Maia that rode the skies in the Moon carriage could never be swayed by a mere undead man, even one with a cursed Ring of Power. The Council dismounted their horses before they could shriek and bolt in terror and lose the element of surprise. They did not want the enemy to have all alarms and defenses raised. But neither was this a mission of spying or an occasion for subtlety. This would be a storming.
Cirdan took the lead and lifted his sword, and the others raised their hands, pointing Staffs and hidden Rings at the gates and forward battlements of Dol Guldur. "We are the Servants of the Secret Fire! Wielders of the Flame of Anor! The Shadows will not prevail! Go back to the abyss!" And they assembled their power and unleashed in a burst of light and fire and lightning and earthquake, and the fortress crumbled and was rent asunder before their terrible fury. Saruman passed small devices of iron, bronze, black powder, and wizards' fire collected from his palantir to Elrond and Radagast, and they lobbed them at the high walls. Explosions ripped the air. Orcs were scrambling from their hidden warrens to meet the attackers, but they fell like sheaves of wheat to a sickle against the weight of Glamdring and Cirdan's sword. Basically it was pretty fucking badass.
"Let the Nine come forth! We know you are here!" Galadriel cried as she tore the heads from the orc-captains guarding the stairs to the second level with a powerful quake. Her voice was terrible and throaty like the bellows of the earth itself, and she shimmered. Amid the Blue armor of Elrond and the White, Grey and Brown cloaks of the Wizards, there was a color of Middle-Earth that was not yet represented. Galadriel's Green Magic was very seldom unleashed, but in the fullness of her wrath she shone like moonlight and like a sea storm and none could look upon her but quail.
"Let the Witch-King of Angmar face ME!"
And then from the shadows crept them forth: in sweeping black robes with skeletal greaves but ghostly of face, the creatures that walked the twilight between day and shadow were seen by all the Ringbearers thusly, who could perceive them as fully as Sauron himself. Saruman and Radagast and Cirdan saw only what looked like greater and more terrible wights than any that had been reported of, they could see the iron crowns and wrinkled wasted visages, and they could see the cloaks of shadow and swords forged in blackness out of blackness, but they could see both forms at once, and they had to concentrate very hard to see them as the remains of the Kings they once were.
The Black Breath issued from all the Nine, and Radagast collapsed gasping. Elrond steeled himself with his Ring but Cirdan and Gandalf wisely carefully waited in the vanguards, out of reach, not particularly wanting to test their strength against these foes, quite yet, offering fortitude to the rest of the Council with the warm power of the Spirit of Fire contained in Narya.
Only Saruman and Galadriel directly defied the Nazgul.
"THOU FOOL." a voice deader than they felt they soon would be belled forth like a cemetery.
"DO YOU NOT KNOW DEATH WHEN YOU SEE IT? HAST THOU NOT HEARD THE PROPHECY? NOT BY LIVING SHALL I BE SLAIN. I HAVE CONJURED THE SLAVES OF THE SHADOW BACK FROM THE LAND OF THE DEAD. NOT EVEN THE VALAR CAN STOP ME NOW. LORD SAURON WILL RISE AGAIN. THERE IS NOTHING IN THE HOPE OF ELVES, MEN, OR WIZARDS THAT CAN CHANGE THIS. THE AGES OF THE WORLD SHALL END. THE DARKNESS WILL COME FOR YOU ALL. MUWAHAHAHA."
Spooky, fast paced piano music began to play and red health bars appeared over the ghosts of the Nazgul. Then the entire screen shook, and debris fell around them, and the health bars turned shimmering black-and-silver.
"What in the actual fuck?" Cirdan asked the Extremely Confused White Council.
"Oh. Yeah. This might be a good time to mention." Saruman started.
"All of this is taking place in a Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time ROM Hack. I got bored and downloaded it onto my palantir."
"Ummm….still not making any sense bro?" Elrond retorted.
"Bruh? BRUH? What means this 'Bruh?!' " Cirdan was still hopelessly lost, and Radagast started wondering if everyone had a point about all those mushrooms.
"No, the Mushrooms are a good thing Radagast. If you see one, eat it for super powers." Saruman said, reading the Very Very Confused Brown Wizard's Mind.
"K, now that you're all having existential crises and junk, this is getting more boring. I'm going to equip Galadriel with the Duel Disk Cheat Code now. Execute Enemy Controller Cheat Code Up Down Left Right A B! Codename: KISARA!"
"Heart of the Cards, guide me!" Galadriel sang, and the background music changed from creepy Luigi's Mansion themes to the Yu-Gi-Oh! "Screw the Rules" theme.
"Not by Living Hand of Man shall ye perish, say you? Well I am an Elf, and a Woman, and holograms are not living, and THIS.
IS.
MY.
DRAGON!
Galadriel pulled the top card off her dueling deck and slammed it into the Disk from her hand.
"AND NOW I SUMMON TWO MORE! BLUE-EYES WHITE DRAGONS! TAKE THIS SHADOW GAME TO THE NEXT LEVEL! WHITE LIGHTNING ATTACK!"
The Nazgul were utterly completely shocked and horrified and complained very loudly and whiningly about how "that is so not cool" and "are you for real?" and "that is not what was supposed to happen!" and all the other amusing things you hear when somebody is about to be completely punked at Duel Monsters by an Utterly Bullshit Cheater.
"AND NOW I ACTIVATE POLYMERIZATION! BLUE-EYES ULTIMATE DRAGON! NEUTRON BLAST ATTACK THE SAURON!"
And that is How The Lord of the Rings Should Have Ended. (cue Hobbit music that kinda sounds like Titanic music)
THE END
"I love this thing" Saruman said to his Palantir after the ending credits finished congratulating his ego for saving the world by discarding all moral restraint for the sake of winning. "Who needs to take over the world when you have ROMs, crack fanfiction, and Blue-Eyes White Dragons?"