It returns! Enjoy!

- Philip


Galdor and the Doctor abandoned the horses at the edge of the wood, trusting the Elf's innate sense of direction to get them to the TARDIS through the thick trees.

"We will be easily tracked," Galdor called out to the Doctor as he shinned up a tree to get a better line of sight. "They will be less than an hour behind us."

"I know," the Doctor replied, skidding nervously down a mossy incline. "But by the time they get to where we're going, we'll be long gone." Galdor dropped from the tree and fixed the Doctor with another uncertain look.

"You speak in riddles," he said, "constantly." The Doctor clapped him on the shoulder.

"Get used to it."

Minutes passed in silence as Galdor retraced his steps back to the clearing where the Doctor had landed, broken only by the crunch of morning frost beneath their feet. The sun had begun to rise, breaking through the canopy in thin shafts and washing the wood in monochrome. Black earth, brown wood, green leaves, all seemed the same shade of grey in the demi-light, but the deep blue of the TARDIS shone out like a beacon in the distance.

"So your plan," Galdor addressed the Doctor as they entered the clearing, "to escape Brego's soldiers...is to hide in a box?" The Doctor shrugged.

"It's always worked for me before," he muttered as he pulled the key from his pocket and unlocked the door, bundling himself inside. "Come on!" he called back. Galdor took a step back, a deep sense of unease gripping him as he watched the old man disappear into a box no wider than his arm.

"I'll...stand guard, if it's all the same to you," he called inside, his stomach turning uneasily as his voice echoed as though he'd just shouted into a cave.

"No problem," the Doctor replied, again as though from far away. "When they catch up with us, I assume you'll be doing the talking." Galdor cursed under his breath. Everything about this...thing made his skin crawl, as though it were fundamentally wrong. But, gritting his teeth, he took that fateful step over the threshold, and found himself in a corridor.

He looked behind him; the outside world was still there, bright and cold as it had been just a minute ago. Yet the corridor stretched forward for far, far longer than the box; tentatively, he walked to the end of the corridor and was greeted by a sight more wondrous than even the presence of the Valar themselves.

In a mighty circular hall, walkways curled in concentric rings downwards into the centre, where some magical device stood tall and imposing, stretching up to the ceiling. There, metal wheels turned within each other and met the device's central shaft, which rose and fell with beautiful, mingling lights to the sounds of waves, wind, and the turn of the earth itself. Galdor stood, transfixed, until the impossibility of it all overwhelmed him and he dashed back outside, bending double to catch his breath.

"Devilry," he gasped. "Morgoth's trickery!"

"No," the Doctor said calmly, appearing at the doorway like a ghost. Galdor flinched and scurried backwards. "Quite the opposite." The Elf drew his sword. The Doctor's face barely flickered.

"Can I trust you, Doctor?" Galdor said.

"I think we're past that cliché," the Doctor replied, stepping out of the TARDIS to within striking distance. His cold, hard eyes bored deep into Galdor's. "I don't have time to explain it to you, and even if I did, I don't think you'd understand. All you need to know is that I agree with you. This world is in indescribable danger, and I want to help you." Galdor's grip on his sword tightened for a moment, before he dropped his guard. "Attaboy," the Doctor muttered wryly as he turned and re-entered the TARDIS, with Galdor now right behind him.

"What do I…" Galdor mumbled, overawed once more by the might and splendour of the TARDIS' interior. "How can I help?"

"Sit down," the Doctor replied. "Shut up. Get out of my way. For the next few minutes, at least." He inserted the screwdriver into a port on the console which whistled in response, sending lights blinking across its face. "I've half an idea what's going on here," he said, more to himself than Galdor. "Well...more like a quarter. Maybe two-fifths."

Galdor gripped the rail that run around the central console and leant on it heavily. The old man spoke mystical gibberish, and he was in a box the size of a cavern. It was all slightly too much for him.

"I never saw the Trees," he said out loud, transfixed by the soft, mingling lights of the console's column. "Those of us who did always described first the beauty of their light; how they waxed and waned, gold and silver in their turn, by day and night. My mother said," he continued, clearing his throat, "that in the hour when Telperion and Laurelin's lights mixed perfectly, it was as if...perfection itself became more perfect. That for a short while every day, we all forgot what little troubles we had and bathed in the glow of...pure bliss." He stood watching the lights for a few more seconds before noticing the Doctor watching him from the corner of his eye.

"You realise what you're doing?" The Doctor asked softly. Galdor shook his head. "Not helping!" The Doctor pushed past him brusquely to fiddle with a few of the innumerable knobs and buttons that covered the console. "Look at you - you don't even realise it, you lot! You're still using swords and bows and arrows, but the level of technology in this world, it's...it's off the scale," he thundered, clattering his way back around the console. "I can't get a full reading from down here, we need to go up."

"Up?" Galdor repeated, unconsciously holding onto the rail once more as the Doctor threw open a switch and took hold of a large, wooden lever.

"Up!"

The floor lurched away from Galdor's feet as the Doctor threw the lever, sending the room spinning. The TARDIS rose with a roar, through clouds and ice and lightning, buffeting and juddering almost out of control.

"What are you doing?" Galdor shouted over the chaos. "What's happening?" The Doctor laughed maniacally as they rose higher and higher, touching the very edge of space.

"I love a thunderstorm!" He called out, grinning like a child at Christmas. "I really should do this more often, it's terribly bracing! Oh...speaking of, hold on!" The Doctor looped his arm around the rail, prompting Galdor to do the same. An explosion rocked the hall, sending sparks flying and the TARDIS spinning like a top. Galdor stretched his legs out to try and find some purchase on anything solid.

"Is this going to be over soon?" The Elf shouted as the Doctor battled to his feet to try and stabilise the TARDIS.

"Any second...now!" The Doctor called out, and all at once the shaking ceased. Galdor got gingerly back to his feet in a foul mood.

"That's it," he raged, making his way back to the door. "I'll take my chances outside."

"I wouldn't," the Doctor replied casually, staring intently at a screen.

"Why not?" Galdor scoffed, opening the door. "At least there the ground doesn't disappear from under your fe-" A choked scream echoed throughout the TARDIS.

"Told you," the Doctor replied. Galdor stood with one leg wrapped around the unopened door, clinging on for dear life as all of Arda stretched out beneath him, with the endless expanse of the stars framing the pearlescent world. Black clouds obscured the Northern wastes where Morgoth's fortress lay, hidden beneath the smoking triple peaks of the mountain Thangorodrim. Slowly peeling himself away from the door, Galdor went toppling backwards as his legs gave out.

"H-h-h…" he whimpered, scrambling backwards. "H-h-how?" He groaned, managing to stretch his question out over several seconds.

"We're approximately a hundred miles above the surface of your world," the Doctor explained as he tapped furiously at the screen. "I had to get into orbit to take a really detailed scan of the place."

"That," Galdor replied, unable to tear his eyes from the sight of his planet turning serenely beneath him, "is not what I asked! That's 'where' and 'why'! I asked, 'HOW'!"

The Doctor straightened up and turned to face Galdor. "It flies," he said casually, gesturing around, before returning to his work without another word. Galdor nodded dumbly.

"Of course it does," he whimpered, letting the madness wash over him. It was easier to just go with the flow than to expect anything even slightly normal from this point.

"Come on," the Doctor grumbled, using the sonic screwdriver to flick through settings on the viewscreen. "Stop being stubborn. You eat stuff like this for breakfast."

"How does this help us get to Lord Eärendil?" Galdor asked, back to his feet and striding purposefully back to the console.

"Hm? Oh, it doesn't," the Doctor replied dismissively. "This is just for my own curiosity. Patience." Galdor let out a loud sigh and sat on the railing.

"The Edain believe the Gods to be mad, you know," he told the Doctor. "It's how they explain their unwillingness to intercede in this slaughter."

"People need their coping mechanisms," the Doctor replied, distracted. "People need to think that, no matter how awful the situation, it was 'written'. Religion and prophecy are the most powerful forces in the universe. What makes you say that, anyway?"

Galdor smiled. "Having met you, I think I'm starting to think they're right," he replied. They just don't understand," he continued. "They did not know the Gods as we did. They never stood in their presence as we did...never walked with them through the gardens of Taniquetil, nor shared words under the light of the Trees. This alone was my peoples' gift...and we spurned it," he finished bitterly.

"Spurned it how?"

"When Morgoth stole the Silmarils from Feanor and slew his father, the Gods forbade him to make war on Morgoth, as he was one of their own. Feanor disobeyed the Gods, and a curse was put upon his house - they are doomed to rack and ruin, and with them, so are we. These are the last days of my race," he muttered.

"When you say you stood in their presence," the Doctor asked, never taking his eyes from the screen, "I assume you don't mean that literally?" Galdor's brows furrowed in confusion.

"Of course I do," he replied. "Manwë, High Lord of the Valar, would walk upon earthly feet amongst us regularly, as would many of his brethren - Nienna, Lady of Sorrow, was most often our guest. And blessed Elbereth, his wife…" Galdor paused. "We miss her most of all." Galdor looked up to find the Doctor's wild eyes locked with his own.

"If there's one thing I know about gods," the Doctor said, "it's that real ones never show up. It's all augury and secret whispers - file under Mysterious Ways, Moves In. But a god who shows his face?" The Doctor broke into a mad grin. "Not buying it. And neither should you," he continued, swinging the screen around to Galdor. "Look at it. Absolutely packed to the gills with technology - the entire planet is surrounded in a time field. Something's taken you out of your rightful time and place - possibly even a parallel universe - and has stuck you here, at a point in time where the universe is barely out of nappies. I'll wager those 'gods' of yours have something to do with it." Galdor's wide-eyed stare shifted the smile from the Doctor's face. "But that can wait, I suppose. Let's have a word with the boss."


My Lord, you must come with us!

Sir, please!

No! Not my sons! NOT MY BOYS!

Eärendil woke, as he so often did, to the sound of children's screams. With every day that had passed since his loss, the wound felt deeper and keener, like a stone in a shoe that burrows its way into the flesh. He was momentarily disorientated by the near-total darkness of his chamber, his tired eyes seeking the thin sliver of moonlight that bled through the shutters. Pushing himself up on his headrest, he buried his face in his hands and began to sob silently.

"Now, if you're anything like me, the nightmares won't have started until about the third day," came a voice in the darkness. "And that's only because that's the first time you were able to actually sleep."

"Who's there?" Eärendil called out, tremulous with fear. "Show yourself!"

"Why is it," the voice continued, "that men like you are brave alone in bed at night, but let sycophants and tyrants run roughshod over them by day? They say character is what we are in the dark. What does that make you?"

The sharp sound of a knife being pulled from its sheath cut the air. "It makes me the Lord of Mouths of Sirion," Eärendil replied, "and it makes you very close to dying unless you show yourself immediately."

The Doctor's cragged face slowly emerged into the shaft of moonlight that bathed the bed. "Been there," he replied. "Done that."

Eärendil's snarl slowly melted, replaced by a look of confusion. "You...you came before me in the courtroom today," he said, his grip on his knife faltering slightly. "Galdor thought you were one of the Maiar."

"I did, Lord," Galdor replied, stepping forward to appear behind the Doctor in the moonlight. "I do," he corrected himself, before taking a knee. "Apologies for our intrusion, but I believe the Doctor represents our best hope of turning the tide against Morgoth."

"How did you get in here?" Eärendil asked angrily, regaining some of his confidence. "The door is guarded by four soldiers! If you've harmed any of them-"

"Oh, relax," the Doctor said, striding around to the other side of the bed. "They don't even know we're here - well, as long as you keep your voice down, which I think would be a good idea." A strange trill filled the air before a candle at the side of the burst into life, flooding the room with deep golden light. In the far corner of the bare-walled chamber, the TARDIS stood, imposingly large against the rest of the meagre possessions in it - for a Lord, the Doctor thought, he seemed remarkably resilient to the temptation of luxury.

"Wh-what is-"

"TARDIS, spaceship, flies, doesn't do walls," the Doctor explained hurriedly. "Not the point. The point is, you never answered my question," he continued, hopping into bed and sitting upright next to Eärendil, who thrust his knife just inches from the Doctor's throat, wild-eyed. "I know you're in trouble. I can help. Do you want it?"

Eärendil stared at the intruder in his room - in his bed - with ragged breaths, every fibre in his body telling him to thrust his hand forward. But the deeper he stared into the Doctor's eyes, he sensed he began to feel something of what had swayed Galdor - ever the most level-headed and loyal of his officers - at work in himself. Stars were born and died within them, years beyond the telling of any Elf lay behind them.

"How?" he whispered through clenched teeth.

"Well, first," the Doctor replied, bounding back up off the bed and straightening his jacket, "you're going to need to put me in contact with these Gods of yours."

Eärendil shook his head, rubbing his eyes. "What?" He asked, incredulous.

"The Doctor seeks audience with the Valar," Galdor explained, sounding almost embarrassed. Eärendil laughed aloud.

"And you say he comes from the Timeless Halls?" He replied. "He knows nothing!"

"Knowing nothing's no crime," the Doctor replied, his voice suddenly harsher. "Avoiding learning, that's the killer. So, teach me. Why is this idea laughable?"

"The Curse of Feanor," Galdor explained. "As I said, after Feanor led his campaign against Morgoth out of Valinor, the Valar forbade any from returning. They will no longer heed the pleas of Middle-Earth."

The Doctor regarded Galdor with a strange smirk. "They'll heed me."

"You don't understand," Galdor replied, frustrated. "Their lands are...lost to us, now. Ships which attempt to reach Aman are drowned in the sea or lost to the Halls of Mandos. We are forbidden from ever seeing our homeland again."

The Doctor raised a bushy eyebrow. "Lost, you say?" He said, pacing up and down the foot of the bed. "What if I told you I could find it again?"

"I'd wonder what you wanted for it," Eärendil replied cynically. The Doctor grinned mischievously.

"You," he said. "I'm not doing all your legwork - I'll get you in, but you're the one who talks to them. Comes a time when a man has to look a god in the eye, and see him for what he really is."

Eärendil bowed his head, muttering darkly. "He speaks blasphemies," he growled.

"He is our only hope," Galdor pleaded with his Lord. A foul silence fell as Eärendil thumbed his blade, eyes swivelling to the door. One shout and his men would come running.

"I had children once, you know," the Doctor said into the still. "A long, long time ago. I lost them," he muttered, running his finger along the smooth wood of the bedpost. "One of many reasons I do what I do. The Finder of Lost Children, I'm called by one civilisation." The Doctor broke into a wide smile, his eyes lined with pain. "Irony. It's universal."

Eärendil's chest swelled as he tapped the knife on the bedsheets nervously. "You give me your word that you can do this?" The Doctor nodded.

"I can get you there," he said. "But the rest is up to you."

Eärendil nodded and slowly returned the knife to its sheath hanging on the bedpost, before rising from his bed. "I'll need my armour," he said, "if I'm to address the Lord of the Valar as an equal."

"Of course, my Lord," Galdor replied, bowing and leaving to fetch Eärendil's armour.

"I'll get the engine started," the Doctor said to no-one in particular, opening the door to the TARDIS.

"Will I see my sons again?" Eärendil asked the Doctor, his bravado stripped with the exit of his officer. He stood half-naked and hunched in the moonlight, painting his body pallid.

"I don't do prophecy," the Doctor replied. "All I can do is help to end this war."

"Why now?" Eärendil said. "This war has raged for five hundred years, with the loss of near a million lives - Man, Elf and Dwarf, all. Why interfere now, when we are so few as to make our victory almost meaningless?"

"No victory," the Doctor said softly, stepping closer, "is ever meaningless. As to why now?" He broke into another mad, toothy grin. "Maybe someone up there likes you."