(AN: In case you were fearful, let me just say that no, I am not making Elphaba turn evil in the end. Just read, you'll find out what happens. Also, you may have noticed that I said before that Elphaba has blue eyes in my story. However, while I was writing this, and reading "Another World, Another War", I imagined Eden Espinosa as Elphaba, and she has brown eyes. I wrote Elphaba with blue eyes mostly out of habit - after all, a good deal of the Elphaba actresses, Kerry Ellis, Carmen Cusack, Lisa Brescia, Willemijn Verkaik, Roberta Valentini and even Margaret Hamilton [maybe], had blue eyes - and I trust my readers will imagine her with whatever eye-color best befits their tastes. Now enjoy the epic climax of this series!)
The Dark Tower
Somewhere in the Land of Mordor...
Elphaba trudged onward, her face set like a flint towards the flaming, fuming mountain of Orodruin. She was no longer in control, for her desire for the Ring had fully enclosed her higher reasoning. Now she was walking onward, to her death, if only to hold the Ring in her dying claws. Claws they were, for she had walked many miles without food or rest, and was now almost as thin as death. Her green face was dirtied with the black soot and dirt of this land, unwashed and now caked with blackening blood from the battle.
Her boot caught on a stone, and she fell hard upon the rocks, not moving at all with her fall.
Darkness took her, and the dull, gray world of Mordor faded away. She was now alone, in a dark place, clad as she was. On one side, she saw a familiar Goat's shape materialize. He was standing upright, though he was bound hand and foot in fetters of iron. At the other side was a young woman with bright brown hair, dressed in black, kneeling upon the blackness with her hand over her heart.
"What are you doing, Elphaba?" the Goat asked.
"I need to find the Ring," she said. "I need to know it's safe."
"Don't lie to yourself," the friendly old Goat said sadly. "You know why you came after the Ring. You want it for yourself."
"No, no, I'm better than that." Elphaba replied.
"It is not an evil thing to be tempted," Nessarose said. "Only to yield to temptation is there evil."
"Don't preach that nonsense in my ears, Nessa!" Elphaba said harshly.
"She is right," the Goat added. "None can resist the Power of the Ring; you are no different than Aragorn, or Frodo, or even the Lady Galadriel."
"How do you know about those?"
"We're part of your mind, sis." Nessarose added.
"This is stupid."
"You haven't been yourself, Elphaba." the Goat began. "You have argued the temptation over in your mind, until now you think that you have to have it for it to be safe. Power corrupts, Elphaba, but absolute power corrupts absolutely."
She was silent at this.
The Goat raised his hoofs. "Look at what power can do! The power of one."
"Power drove the one I loved to hate me," Nessarose added with tears. "It ruined me! It will ruin you."
The two closed in, speaking more of the same over and over, and then faded into the darkness.
Elphaba awoke from her thoughts, finding herself face-down in the gray earth.
Why was she here?
It all came back to her, everything that had happened after she heard the voice of the Ring after the Battle of Pelennor Fields. She had caved in, given up at all: she turned her back on her friends and walked into Mordor alone, starving herself in an endless search...for the Ring.
Tears came to her dry eyes.
So, she thought, in my quest to do good, I become an instrument for evil.
She bowed her head, lost and alone at last, and wept.
What would they think if they saw her now? Aragorn, who had finally come into his own? Gandalf the White, the mighty Wizard she almost revered? Fiyero, Glinda, Elrond, Galadriel...
The thought of Lorien brought something else into her memory.
A hand reached down to her belt and pulled out the glass phial that had been given her by the Lady Galadriel.
And with it, came her words.
"You choose to walk a path of darkness..."
Had she known what would happen?
As if in answer to her unbidden plea, the glass slowly began to shine with the Light of Earendil.
She suddenly became aware of how exposed she was.
Fiyero and Glinda had come to the edge of a small gully, where they rested. They were both tired. They had not eaten anything for a long time, and any sign that Glinda had bathed back at Emyn Arnen was long gone. All they had to breathe was the cold, poisonous air of Mordor, and the hot ash blown from Orodruin.
Needless to say, they were thoroughly tired.
They sat down beneath a small rock, wrapping themselves in their Elvish cloaks. It offered their only protection from whatever might attack them.
There was little indication of when day ended and the night began, for all was in darkness. But they guessed that it was late night, for the dark clouds of Mordor were darker than usual. Fiyero happened to cast his eye into the gully, and saw something that rose his spirits.
There was a pair of filthy black garments and armor, and an Elvish cloak that sat beneath a large pack full of pots and pans.
He smiled. He had been around the Hobbits long enough to know which one always clanked when he ran.
They must have come this way, for only Sam carried the pots and pans with him, and he would not have left Frodo for anything. The filthy garments, he didn't recall them having.
Then a funny thought came to his mind.
Maybe Shagrat and his orcs captured the Hobbits and, in a fit of bravery, Sam fought them all of and rescued Frodo and the Ring, after which they ran down the hill, garbed in the armor of their enemies. It was much more likely that the orcs, as foul and treacherous as the Variags had been, if not worse, fought among themselves, slaying a good deal, after which Sam came along and rescued Frodo. The rest, it seemed, was more or less true.
This made him smile for the first in a very long while.
"Glinda, wake up." he whispered, patting her blond head. The little woman rubbed sleep out of her eyes and drowsily rose up.
"Is it time to move?"
"Not yet," Fiyero said, for he knew the answer. They had been going straight towards Orodruin with only a few stops, and they had seen no sign of Elphaba. He was starting to despair.
"But the Hobbits were here." He gently removed himself from behind her and crawled over to the gully. Climbing down, he pulled up one of the pans.
Glinda managed a weak smile. Fiyero said nothing as well, for he knew the truth.
They were deep in the land of the Enemy, looking for someone they didn't even know was still alive, or whether she was dead or had been captured. It seemed more futile, to them, than the attempt to throw the Ring into the fire. That, at least, was closer at hand and much more attainable.
Glinda then gasped.
"What? What is it?"
"I see a light!" she said.
"It's just the mountain." he replied gloomily.
"No, there, over there!" she had risen as much as she could, leaning heavily on her staff. She was pointing somewhat south of the mountain. "There's a white light flashing."
"So?"
"So, Elphie told me the Lady gave her a light-glass like she gave Frudo!"
Fiyero turned to where she pointed, and he started sobbing.
"Can it be? Is it really her?"
"We won't know unless we go now." she said, walking to the edge of the gully.
Just then, a horn-call broke the air.
"Oh no!" Fiyero hissed. "The orcs!"
"What orcs?"
"Didn't you see those camps we came through on the plain?" he said. "Orcs had been camping there. They're coming our way, I can feel it."
"What do we do?" she asked, fearfully.
Fiyero had nothing else to do but hold up the filthy garments that sat at his feet.
Elphaba slowly regained consciousness.
The last thing she remembered was the Light shining in her hand. Then there were jeers from behind the hill, and she drew her sword. And all faded to blackness.
Waking was no better. She found herself sitting in a cell of black iron, filled with bones. The groanings of the dead and dying filled her ears, and there was no heat in the dark, dank room.
Where was she now?
As if in answer, the door opened. In walked a figure in black robes and black armor.
"You're awake." the figure said. It spoke in the Westron tongue, after the manner of the people of Gondor. It made Elphaba shudder. How could a Gondorian serve the Enemy? "The Dark Lord will see you now."
The man roughly threw her to her feet and drove her onward, a whip in his hand to keep her in line.
She saw little as she walked, but what little she saw was enough. All was dark and blackness, and what torches there were that hung spider-like upon the walls, gave little light and no heat. The iron floors were littered with bones and filth, and the noises of the dying filled her ears. Out of the blackness, she saw pairs of red, yellow and white eyes gazing out from the abyss, and hissing noises and the rattling of chains. But nothing appeared.
She wished they would, to end her torment over what they might be. She also wanted them to remain hidden, for some great fear had seized her.
Being under the black breath of the Nazgul felt like a warm, summer day compared to the utter dread and coldness that filled her to the heart.
At last she was brought into a wide chamber of black, polished iron. Upon the doors was the symbol of the Red Eye of Mordor, and upon a thin pedestal in the center of the room there sat a palantir. At the other end of the room, seated upon a throne carved in the likeness of the same four-faced foul creatures that stood guard over Cirith Ungol, there sat a man clothed in black, with a great and high helmet of black iron. There was no face, but a mouth hung open, revealing foul, black lips that rested unsettlingly over rotting teeth.
"My master, the Dark Lord of Mordor, bids thee welcome." the figure said to Elphaba in a deep voice, but similar in accent to that of the soldier who took her from her cell. He waved a black-gloved hand and the resounding noise of iron-shod feet indicated that her guard had left her.
"Where is he?" Elphaba asked defiantly, though her heart failed her even as she spoke. "Where is Sauron?"
The man on the throne suddenly jumped to his feet, crossed the room in little time, and smote her with his mail-gloved hand, sending her to the ground.
"You shall not blaspheme the name of the Dark Lord!" hissed the foul-mouthed servant. Elphaba knew he had hit hard, harder than was possible for mortal man to strike, possibly even strengthened by some dark magic, for she spat blood out of her mouth. A hideous coughing sound of mocking laughter came from that hideous mouth.
"The Dark Lord sensed your presence when he spoke to you, through his Ring." the emissary said, walking menacingly around her. "You know where it is. You will tell us now..."
"Or what, you'll kill me?" she replied.
"Not yet," the Mouth spoke. "You shall first be brought to the Houses of Lamentation, where your body shall be tormented beyond imagination. We shall exercise upon you every torture the Black Tower knows how so skillfully to inflict upon its enemies. Your will shall break, and your heart will be left bare. Your feeble mind shall be left naked, shrivelling under the burning gaze of the Lidless Eye."
She shivered as this fiend spoke with frightening assurance. The voice filling her very bones with terror, and her mind with every image of torture it could imagine.
"You shall beg and scream for death," he continued. "But the Dark Lord shall show no mercy. He will not oblige your pitiful supplications. If ever we deem it right to release you, you shall be returned to your friends, utterly scarred beyond belief: a fitting example that the Dark Lord does not take kindly to treachery.
"There is no hope for you, Elphaba." spat the Mouth at last. "None have escaped the Dark Tower alive, nor shall you."
At last, she rose to her feet. Her sword, she realized, was not on her belt. They must have taken it, along with the Light and...
The Grimmerie.
The Mouth stood afar off, on the other side of the room, standing still, but cowering as if in fear of something so powerful that it unnerved even so haughty a foe as he. But Elphaba could hear nothing.
Then, the room became suddenly cold and lifeless.
"Khamul!" growled the Mouth to one of the doors. It was now open, and in its place there stood one of the Nazgul, black-robed and armed with a sword at its belt. "The Master would speak with this wretch. Take her to the summit!"
Elphaba felt an icy-cold hand of steel grip her shoulder and she blacked out again.
It hadn't been pleasant, but they were still alive.
Fiyero and Glinda, now dressed in orc armor, were being driven to the Black Gate in a great host up from Nurn. The little blond had to leave her staff behind, and they were both well-beaten with the lash by the taskmasters as they fell in line. Now they trudged along with enemies that would devour them if they ever discovered they were not with them.
Not that they wouldn't devour them if they were really orcs.
But they were tiring out. The armor was heavy, they were famished, and the foul weather of Mordor was taking its toll on them.
Just then, the host halted.
A black horse rode towards them, carrying one of the black Uruks behind in chains. The horse's rider, clad in black though no Black Rider - they did not feel fearful and cold as they did under their presence - jumped off the horse and pulled the black Uruk to the ground at his feet.
"You should be killed for failing to keep order in Cirith Ungol." roared the Mouth at the prone figure of the orc. "But the Master sees fit to send you to the front-line of battle. Die well, Shagrat."
The Mouth then mounted his horse and with a command rode off north-westward, the host continuing their long march.
They passed through a great wall of black iron, whose gate was fashioned in the likeness of the mouth of a great dragon (or was it a balrog?). This, Fiyero presumed, was the Isenmouthe. Into the narrow plain of Udun they passed, a narrow plateau where pits of fire and lava boiled and hissed some many feet below on their right and left-hands. Before them was a huge black shadow, with two great towers grinning high upon the mountains that reached together to make a narrow pass.
Thus they had come to the Morannon, the Black Gate of Mordor. Fiyero saw that the mountains on either side of the Gate were honey-combed with pits, caves and maggot-holes, all of them buzzing like bee-hives, full of orcs. From some of the grunting conversation he heard between the other orcs (more like arguing in their harsh, foul language), Fiyero guessed that they were going to war.
What were they thinking, he thought. Had Aragorn and Gandalf totally lost their minds to order a march on Mordor's front gate? But then it came to his mind. He remembered what Elrond had said almost a year ago.
"The Ring was made in the Fires of Mount Doom, only there can it be unmade."
Slowly it became clear to Fiyero's mind what had occurred. Helm's Deep, Minas Tirith, Pelennor Fields, it had all been a diversion. They had openly opposed Mordor, but only for the purpose of keeping his strength in one place, keeping his Eye away from the real battle.
Frodo on his way to Mount Doom.
From what he had gathered, that would be the unmaking of the Enemy and all of his devices.
And so his friends attacked the front gate of the Enemy to make their final stand. It was useless, he saw, for the host that was assembling behind the Morannon was huge. At least five times that number were hidden beneath the hills and in the holes and slag-pits. It was a trap.
And his friends had to take the trap, if only to keep the Enemy distracted long enough for Frodo to finish him off.
Suddenly, an iron hand grabbed him by the back of the neck. He was dragged out of the army, up a high hill and thrown violently to the ground.
"Muzgash!" a hideous, growling voice hissed that made Fiyero's hair stand on end. It reminded him fearfully of Gaahl.
Looking up, he saw that it was an orc. It was the very large Black Uruk that the Mouth had disgraced with front-line duty. He held a broad scimitar in his hand and a fierce look was in his eyes.
"You!" he pointed his sword at Fiyero. "That rat Gorbag killed you back at the tower."
Fiyero knew he was caught.
"Lugburz will pardon me," growled Shagrat. "If I bring another spy to his tower!"
Just then, the orc fell over. Behind him, another orc teetered, holding a blunt hammer with two hands.
"Radbug!" Shagrat said to the other orc. "I rang your scrawny little neck! Another spy?"
The orc threw off its beaked helmet, and Glinda's dirty face appeared.
"Get away from my Fifi!" she said.
Shagrat growled a hideous "reee" sound in defiance and pushed her back down the hill. Then, with sword in hand, he lunged at Fiyero.
The Prince had little with which to defend himself. The Variags had taken his sword and shield, and the hideous orc blade he had was no match for Shagrat's strength.
Nonetheless, he fought on.
The only alternative being death.
The icy feeling that once enveloped Elphaba was gone.
Now it was a great inferno of heat. She dared not raise her head to see what it was, for the fire was so great that she dared not approach it. The fear of being burned alive was too great.
Though the icy-cold of the Nazgul was gone, the fear did not subside.
"So," a voice spoke in her mind. "You have come to me, as I knew you would. All evil things come to Mordor."
"I'm not your servant!" she shouted out, though it seemed as though it were at nothing. She did not look up, for fear of the fiery inferno above.
"You heeded my voice," the Lord of the Ring's thought spoke in her mind. "You came to me when I called you. I daresay, well done."
She was not defeated. Even weak and emaciated, having served as a puppet of the enemy made her resolute. Every fiber of her being, every ounce of instinct, every bit of courage she had, told her one thing: resist.
Slowly, as if in answer to her resistance, she dared hope, the fire began to die. The heat faded away, so much that Elphaba dared look up to see what had happened.
She was up on the summit of the tower of Barad-dur itself: the highest level of the Dark Tower. Many spires it had, small, sharp and made of adamantine steel. But above all these rose two great spires, as tall as the statues of the Argonath, they seemed in her eyes. Positioned between those great spires was a whirlwind of a firestorm. In the middle of that storm there hovered the Lidless Red Eye of Mordor: the Eye of Sauron.
But the fire was dying down: or maybe it was being sucked away into that abysmal crack in the world that was the slit-pupil. Into the void...
The Eye disappeared, and the black hole came down to a throne at the top of a great sweeping pyramid that sat at the middle of the two spires. The hole began to contort, and to take on a shape of its own. Tall it was, taller than any man ever had been. It was clad in black armor and black was its cape. The helmet there was not, and the face was burned black as by fire, and cracked and dried up like barren earth. Two fiery eyes, like the one on the Tower, glared lidlessly from its face. In its right hand, it held the Grimmerie.
It was then that Elphaba noticed that there were only four fingers on the right hand. The one Isildur took would never grow back.
"You know not what you possess," Sauron spoke, looking at the Grimmerie. "All the knowledge of sorcery and ring-lore of the smiths of Eregion, brought in secret to Mordor, stolen by the Blue Wizards in their voyage to the East. They shall pay." The face then turned to her, and she could feel those eyes penetrating almost into her very soul.
If she believed she had one.
"You are my servant, Elphaba." he said again. "Every battle you survived, every obstacle you've overcome in your whole life: don't think that it was out of any skill of your own. My hand brought you through, so that you would return, at last, to me."
"Why?" she responded.
"Power I have," he said. "But greater power I shall have once I have the Ring. You know where it is. Return it to me, and I shall make you my trusted servant, my right hand, greater than the Lord of the Nazgul ever was!"
Now was the moment of truth. The evil that had once guided her through Mordor now screamed for her to say so. She had gathered as much, seeing the signs: Cirith Ungol, the discarded orc gear and pans. It was plain and simple, just tell the truth.
She exhaled and then spoke at last.
"I would rather die."
"So be it." Sauron returned. He held out a gloved hand and Elphaba saw a flash of green light, and her sword appear upon the throne. She ran to grab it, but saw that now Sauron had a great mace in his hand, which he swung at her. She barely missed it, feeling the force of a cyclone pass over her head as it missed her by no more than a hair's breath.
She ran for the throne, jumping just in time to avoid a heavy mace-hit that shattered a small spire of the tower. The sword closed around her fingers. Another whoosh was heard, and Elphaba rolled aside to barely miss a mace-slam that took out the throne. However, she found that something was digging persistently into her side.
Feeling, she discovered that her glass-phial was still stowed away beneath her clothing. It had not been taken from her.
Another blow came for her, and she lept out of the way, still clutching onto the phial. It was now out of her dress, held firmly in her green hand, and was shining brighter than the sun.
As his master before him, Sauron could barely look upon the Light of the Silmaril that Earendil took with him into the west, and was blinded. At this, Elphaba attacked with her sword. The Elvish blade shattered in a dozen burning shards upon striking the black, burning body of the Dark Lord.
She barely had time to push herself back to avoid being struck by the huge mace.
Glinda looked up at the top of the hill, and saw Fiyero doing battle with the large orc. She had to help him...somehow.
But the wound in her side was taking its toll on her. It took everything she got to keep moving on, and for a minute she wavered. What reason was there to keep going? Even if she made the top, what would it matter? Elphaba was lost, no way to find her or know where she meant. And here they were, caught on a hill overlooking a pit of boiling lava on one side and a host of orcs on the other.
Even worse, she heard the screeches of the Nazgul in the air. All hope abandoned her.
Above, Fiyero's guard slackened for a split second while the screeches of the Nazgul rent the air.
It was enough.
With a roar, Shagrat thrust his blade into Fiyero's stomach. The poisoned orc-blade cut through the steel-rings, through the cloth, and tore through flesh.
A groan of pain escaped Fiyero's lips, but Glinda shrieked in shock.
How could it be? Fiyero had let his guard down and now he was wounded? Impossible.
With the blade still in his foe's stomach, Shagrat growled mockingly in the human's face.
Summoning every last ounce of her strength, she ran up the rest of the way up the hill. Shagrat turned a mocking grin at the newcomer, but saw no fear in her eyes, only rage. She gave the orc a strong push, considering it was much larger than she was, and the orc tripped on a loose rock at the edge of the hill and tumbled down into the pit below. A hideous, acrid stench of burning orc-flesh rose up from the pit.
As though fate or something was smiling upon Glinda, giving her some semblance of hope, the icy-cold fear brought on by the Nazgul subsided. There were now other cries echoing from above.
Daring to look up she saw, just beneath the reek of clouds, over the other side of the Morannon, the flying Nazgul fighting giant eagles. The enemy were losing as well, for the eagles were no foul corruption of Sauron's, but true creatures of the world, allies with the army that fought the Enemy as she stood there.
Hope did not betray: instead, luck played her hand again.
Glinda, musing on what this could be, turned her head idly towards the east, and saw in the distance the tower of Barad-dur, the fortress of Mordor. A flash of white light shone from its summit.
Like the light of a star.
Glinda's heart leaped with joy as she saw that sign. Against all odds, she could now dare to hope the impossible.
Elphaba may yet be alive.
Turning back to the northwest, she called out for the eagles, waving her hands wildly. But who was she kidding? She was a small speck, almost invisible by the black rocks behind her. She noticed she was still wearing the filthy orc armor. If the eagles saw her, they'd take her for an orc and it would be too late once they noticed their fault. With disgust she shed the armor, now clad in only her blue robe and Elvish cloak.
Still, she was secluded on this small hill. She had to get to higher ground.
They had to get to higher ground.
She ran over to Fiyero, he was now lying on the ground, Shagrat's blade still sticking out of his stomach.
"Come on!" she shouted, picking up Fiyero's arm and throwing it around her shoulders. "We've got to get higher up!"
Fiyero said nothing, but he was so heavy that he could not move.
Desperation filled the little blond's body with a fire she had never felt before. She seized the flimsy orc armor and ripped it apart, thereby lightening Fiyero's weight a little. Then she stood up, his arm around her shoulder, and she started making a slow trudge towards the top.
Fiyero's body felt like dead weight. He was not even moving.
"We've got to keep moving!" she begged, trying hard to keep pulling him while the way got steeper.
"I...I can't!" he sighed wearily.
"Don't say that!" she cried, hot tears welling up in her eyes. "You've got to make it, Fiyero! Elphie needs our help!"
"Tell Elphaba..." he sighed again, sounding distant in his voice. "I'm sorry."
"Now you listen to me, Fiyero Tiggular!" she shouted, her voice breaking with anger and with the strain of carrying someone heavier than she. "You are not dying on me! We're getting to the top of this hill and we're going to call down those eagles. And then we're going to rescue Elphie, and we are going to survive this war. Now move your ass!"
She struggled, now on her hands and knees, with Fiyero almost lying on top of her. Blood was dripping down her back from his wound, and the strain had reopened the wound of her own. They were both now bleeding. Her eyes became blurry, she could barely see the top.
Elphaba was getting tired. Sauron, a being of immense power, hadn't even broken a sweat: if he could sweat. She was starting to think that, maybe, this was what it was like for Gandalf to fight that Balrog in Moria.
She feared that she might have to die as well in order to kill it.
But it could not die, at least not yet.
That filled her aching heart with even greater dread.
She ran over to the book, snatching it up.
"Kill me!" she shouted. "I'm done running. Kill me, get it over with."
The Dark Lord walked menacingly towards her, fiery eyes gazing hatefully down at her. She felt suddenly small, like a child coming face-to-face with a Tiger.
"We could have ruled the worlds." he said ruefully.
An iron-clad fist rose to strike her down.
Then suddenly, the mace fell to the floor of the tower. The very foundations of Barad-dur were shaking.
"What trickery is this?" Sauron said, his voice rising in fear.
Daring to open her eyes, Elphaba saw lines of fire tracing themselves across Sauron's face and body, and through the cracks in his armor.
"The fools!" he shouted defiantly. "To throw away such... power!"
There was a deafening explosion.
Elphaba was pushed backwards.
Off the tower.
Sauron may not have dealt the killing blow.
But he had killed her in the end.
Elphaba closed her eyes and smiled, imagining that she was defying gravity once again.
Only now she knew that she wasn't.
There would be a fall in the end.
It would kill her.
She felt like she was flying.
It seemed to take forever for her to fall.
(AN: Horay for epic cliff-hangers! Does Elphaba die? Will Glinda and Fiyero survive their wounds? Will they save their friend in time? Get ready for the big finale!)
(And, since LGF had the Grimmerie be an Elvish book, I expounded upon that. It is written in the script of Eregion, the Ring-smith Elves who forged the Three Elvish rings. Sauron steals the knowledge of ring-lore and other sorcery and puts it into the book, which he then uses to forge the Dwarven, Human and the One Ring. How it gets to Oz, however, is another story for another time)
