The Annals of Darkness: Light's Growth

by Shire Folk

Part III. The pieces position themselves for what will be the greatest conflict since the Keyblade war. Darkness troubles hearts of many, including Sora's. None will be able to escape the conflict against Maleficent. Light prepares, and Darkness gathers.

21. A Great Council

So I'm not quite sure how this is going to go, because I don't know if it is just going to be the Council of Elrond, or if it is going to include getting everyone else up to the same date as well. So, we're just going to have to run with it and see how it goes. As it turns out, it's just the Council of Elrond, but there are more than enough bits and pieces of non-Middle-earth things occurring in it to make reading through all of it worthwhile, and entertaining.

Remember, Urahara, Tessai, Yoruichi, Yen Sid, two Keyblade Wielders from Destiny Islands, a talking cricket, and two digimon are present. It's gonna be interesting.

But before I begin, there is something that I was given as optional reading for my ENGL 111-60 class this week that I think you may find interesting (if you aren't a writer like I know a few of us are), or completely true and funny if you are. It's from the book Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1995) by Anne Lamott.

"Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it. Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled. They do not type a few stiff warm-up sentences and then find themselves bounding along like huskies across the snow. One writer I know tells me that he sits down every morning and says to himself nicely, "It's not that you don't have a choice, because you do—you can either type or kill yourself." We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid. The right words and sentences just do not come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time. Now, Muriel Spark is said to have felt like she was taking dictation from God every morning—sitting there, one supposes, plugged into a Dictaphone, typing away, humming. But this is a very hostile and aggressive position. One might hope for bad things to rain down on a person like this."

I hope you writers and non-writers alike got a kick out of that, and if you want more, check out the book.

Also, I have a fan-art section up on my profile page. So far I only have one submission from Hold on hero with Anti-Form. He doesn't look evil, he actually looks kinda cute, but hero says that it's fan-art for the story and that's what matters.

If any of you have any favourite scenes or images from The Annals of Darkness that you would like to draw as fan-art for the story, please do not hesitate to do so and tell me! Krystal Lily Potter, I already know how much you're clamouring for a drawing of that scene between Sora and Nala in the Pride Lands back in the last volume, and the Keyblade 'Remembrance' has gained a good amount of feedback. If something sparks your interest, don't hesitate to go ahead and draw it.

Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own: Disney, Square-Enix, Kingdom Hearts, Digimon, Bleach, Final Fantasy, or The Lord of the Rings. There are many, many citations from 'The Council of Elrond', Chapter II of Book II of "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien.

-A-D-

Light's Growth

Chapter XXI: A Great Council

0700hrs, Sunday, October 26th, 2003 (D.I.R.)
October 25th, 1418 (S.R.)
Middle-earth
Sora

When Sora woke it was with a smile on his face as his eyes found first the face of Kairi, dreaming peacefully next to him, clad in a golden-white nightgown that they had found inside of the room when they had returned from the Hall of Fire just as he was in a simple white shirt and pants. They had laid their digimon partners and Jiminy Cricket in the King-sized bed first, and the two of them had stayed awake that night for maybe another half-hour, just looking at the night sky out of the windows of their room before finally going to bed as well.

Sora's fingers strayed over Kairi's cheek before tucking a lock of hair that was in front of her nose behind her ear. Then he was touching her hair and running through the clean and smooth auburn tresses while her soft breathing left the girl's mouth. Sora had longed to run his hand through her hair the previous day, and now that he could do so without knots he took advantage of it. Only a minute or two passed with his fingers lingering in the girl's hair before they left the delicate strands to run along her shoulder and side.

Sora smiled a little bit wider as a thought came into his mind. He could remember now just what had happened to them in the darkness before their memories had returned in a sudden wave. He remembered the lion urging him to remember things, grasping at the memories and finding them slipping away, but more clearly than that he remembered Kairi, and meeting her for the first time again in the darkness and the song she had sung and the things that they had talked about. Burning in the forefront of his memory was his own declaration that he didn't find himself all that handsome, and here, sleeping so serenely in front of him, was the most precious and beautiful princess he'd ever known (he still graded her above the beauty of Arwen Undómiel, for which he would likely be reprimanded), a true gem.

And she loved him, and had called him the most handsome person she'd ever known.

"You're beautiful, you know that?" Sora whispered to the sleeping girl as his hand left the cheek it was now gently rubbing against. His face came in and he left a butterfly kiss on her lips, which he wasn't quite surprised to find being faintly returned by the young woman in her tranquil slumber. "I love you," he whispered.

Sora quietly got out of bed and went about getting dressed in the same clothes he had travelled to Rivendell from Bree in, having also found when they returned from the Hall of Fire that those garments had been cleaned as well.

A minute or two into this as he was doing up his belt Kairi moaned from the bed and she spoke groggily. "Sora?"

He turned around and looked at her as one of her hands was rubbing her eyes. "Right here Kairi."

"Were you touching me in my sleep?" Kairi asked, removing her hand and looking up at him.

Sora smiled and nodded. "Caressing Iri," he corrected her quietly. "I was caressing my little red-headed dove."

She smiled and she slumped slightly, though her eyes showed that she was fully awake. "Well you can 'caress' your dove a little more often. She might start to coo if she likes it enough."

"Now I just have to figure out which I would prefer, cooing or purring."

Kairi got out of bed and came towards him. "You could have both," she cooed before saying his name with a cat's purr and cupping his face in her hands to gently kiss him. Sora enjoyed it, and gave her a kiss in return, and then she pressed her lips to his again in a soft and tender motion.

He didn't know why, but maybe Rivendell and mornings and waking up to the girl he was completely in love with was turning them into a pair of cute lovebirds. If it was, then he liked the change of pace. If he could expect every morning to be like this, then nothing that could happen during the day would be able to break him like before.

Kairi was in his arms with her hands on his shoulders, her head bent down slightly as she rested it on him. The sound of birds twittering outside drifted in along with the constant distant rush of a waterfall, and the morning's serene peace just seemed to Sora to make the start of this day to be completely perfect.

-A-D-

Kairi had gotten changed into the same garments that she had travelled to Rivendell from Bree in, them having been mended as well as cleaned, and their digimon partners and the Royal Chronicler had been roused when there came a clear knock on the door. Sora looked at the portal for a moment before going to the door and opening it slightly with a questioning, "Yes?"

Master Yen Sid was standing outside. "It is nearly time for the council," he said as Sora opened the door wider. Kairi and the digimon and Jiminy came up behind Sora and nodded. Master Yen Sid's eyes swept over them and he gained a tiny smile. "I believe that you both blend in quite well," he said, making small smiles of satisfaction and pride show up on both teenagers' faces, "however, I do believe that today, it would be wise for you to stand out."

The sorcerer waved his hand and both youths glowed with golden light for a moment before they ceased. Sora looked down at himself. He was back in the same outfit that he had worn just before leaving Star Command for what had then been an unknown world. It was in the style of his black adventuring outfit that the three good fairies had made for him the previous year, except that the arms of his black vest had become a thin long-sleeved jacket and his black fingerless gloves were now full black gloves. Sora's lower legs were bared to a within-comfort-level cool atmosphere as the fabric from his black multi-pocketed shorts ended. He glanced at Kairi with the girl in her white blouse and salmon-pink dress, her black purse with its lilac coloured ribbons hanging off of it strapped to her hip, a pair of pink boots upon her feet and a black hood attached to the back of her halter-top.

"Are you sure Master Yen Sid?" Kairi asked as Menelmon landed on her shoulder.

He smiled and spread his arms out wide. "I already stand out, do I not? As do Kisuke, Tessai, and Yoruichi. It would be better for us if your presence was made known, if just for this council even, than for you to try to blend in with Middle-earth's inhabitants."

Suddenly a single clear bell rang out. Master Yen Sid's heard turned quickly in the direction it rang from. "That is the warning bell for the Council of Elrond," he said sharply, his words cutting right into them with their importance. "Hurry now, we are wanted."

Both humans, remembering suddenly their first day back at school when the warning bell went for their English class with them still far away from the room, nodded hastily and quickly followed the wizened old sorcerer down the halls, stairs, and corridors towards the porch where he had led them the previous night. Jiminy Cricket held onto Sora's hood from within, while the two bird digimon flew just behind their shoulders.

The light of the clear autumn morning was glowing in the valley, and the sounds that they had heard within their room had accompanied them down to the porch. With the peaceful feeling that the morning had securely rooted itself into their hearts the thought of evil, darkness, and even Maleficent seemed far from troubling; but the faces that greeted them as they entered were grave and a tiny chill broke through.

Elrond was there, and several others were seated in silence about him. Sora saw Glorfindel and the dwarf that had been sitting next to Frodo at the feast; and in a corner alone Strider was sitting, clad in his old travel-worn clothes. Tessai Tsukabishi was there, as was the cat Yoruichi Shihōin, sitting on the lap of—of…

Sora scratched his head for a second as he looked at the man with the bucket hat, robes, cane, and clogs. He was sure he'd be able to remember the man's name eventually, but for now the name escaped him.

They silently walked into the council, every member looking at them with interested, surprised, and (in some cases) highly disapproving looks. Sora quickly noticed that Kairi was the one receiving a good number of those and frowned, falling back a step and placing a comforting hand on her shoulder until they sat down side-by-side on a pair of chairs, Master Yen Sid on Sora's left-hand side with the sorcerer next to Mr. Hat 'n Clogs (as Sora quickly decided to dub him), and three empty seats to Kairi's right.

"Why is a woman present?" a voice asked.

Sora turned to look at the speaker. It was a man, one of the very few present. He was tall, and his face was fair and noble. Dark hair sprouted from his head and proud grey eyes gazed out at them, specifically at Kairi, and his look was stern.

Sora was about to retort when another voice, this one more familiar spoke up from behind their chairs and to the right. "Because she must, and her company is needed in this gathering." Sora looked, and walking towards the circle of chairs was Gandalf with Frodo and Bilbo, Samwise tottering apparently forgotten behind them.

Elrond rose from his chair as they entered and beckoned Frodo to him as Gandalf and Bilbo took empty seats near to Elrond, with Gandalf seated to Kairi's right. "Here my friends, is the hobbit, Frodo son of Drogo. Few have ever come hither through greater peril or on an errand more urgent."

Frodo then sat down, and Elrond began to introduce to him those that Frodo did not know. Sora found just a little annoying that the Elf-lord was acting as if he and Kairi did not exist, but he dismissed it. Frodo was the important one here; not him. There was a younger dwarf at the side of the one Frodo had sat next to the previous evening, the older dwarf called Glóin and the younger his son Gimli. Beside Glorfindel there were several other counsellors of Elrond's household, of whom Erestor was the chief; and with him was Galdor, an Elf from the Grey Havens who had come on an errand from Círdan the Shipwright. There was also a strange Elf clad in green and brown, Legolas, a messenger from his father, Thranduil, the King of the Elves of Northern Mirkwood. He introduced Frodo to Master Yen Sid, Tessai, Yoruichi, and Hat 'n Clogs (whose name Sora was reminded was Kisuke Urahara), drawing a few confused looks from the others at the Council. Then there was the man that had questioned Kairi's presence in the Council.

He was cloaked and booted as if for a journey accomplished by riding; and indeed though his garments were rich, and his cloak was lined with fur, they were stained with long travel. He had a collar of silver in which a single white stone was set; his locks were shorn about his shoulders. On a baldric he wore a great horn tipped wit silver that now was laid upon his knees. His eyes had shifted from disapproval at Kairi's presence and now gazed at Frodo and Bilbo with wonder.

"Here," said Elrond, turning to gaze at Gandalf, "is Boromir, a man from the South. He arrived in the grey morning, and seeks for counsel. I have bidden him to be present, for here his questions will be answered."

-A-D-

Many things were spoken of at the Council, and Sora and Kairi listened attentively as best as they could, though their minds wandered occasionally as the news of some deed or event away South or east of the mountains they were up against seemed trivial and boring, and their stomachs silently reminded them both that they had not eaten breakfast that morning, as their digimon were also painfully making them aware of in quiet moans and pleading looks.

Sora looked with pity at Aiwemon after his fourth nudge on the side of the Keyblade Master's head and smiled slightly. "You don't have to be here," he whispered. "Kai and I are the ones who have to sit through this. Go, hunt, check out the woods and waterfalls, whatever, just go!"

Aiwemon looked at him with infinite gratitude before wrapping a wing around his head for half a second. Then the bird digimon's wing was gone and Aiwemon was taking off through the sky with Menelmon following, the eyes of the Council of Elrond suddenly upon both strange birds and the two teenagers, the youths sharing pleased smiles at having given their partners something they greatly needed and deserved. Then they realized that there were a number of questioning and somewhat stern glances on them and they looked down ashamedly. "Sorry," Sora mumbled.

Only Strider, Master Yen Sid, and Gandalf were giving them small knowing smiles. The dwarf Glóin had been about to speak, and Sora directed his attention towards him, determined that he'd be able to keep his attention focused on what was being said now that he'd also been reprimanded.

"It is now many years ago," said the dwarf, "that a shadow of disquiet fell upon our people. Whence it came we did not at first perceive. Words began to be whispered in secret: it was said that we were hemmed in a narrow place, and that greater wealth and splendour would be found in a wider world. Some spoke of Moria: the mighty works of our fathers that are called in our own tongue Khazad-dûm; and they declared that now at last we had the power and numbers to return."

Sora straightened a little bit as Glóin sighed. Just that word or name, 'Khazad-dûm' was like a sudden trigger in his mind. It was a rough word with a meaning behind the way the dwarf said it that implied both great power and great sadness. "Moria! Moria!" he cried. "Wonder of the Northern world! Too long we delved there, and woke the nameless fear. Long have its vast mansions lain empty since the children of Durin fled. But now we spoke of it again with longing, and yet with dread; for no dwarf has dared to pass the doors of Khazad-dûm for many lives of kings, save Thrór only, and he perished. At last, however, Balin listened to the whispers, and resolved to go; and though Dáin did not give leave willingly, he took with him Ori and Óin and many of our folk, and they went away south.

"That was nigh on thirty years ago. For a while we had news and it seemed good: messages reported that Moria had been entered and a great work begun there. Then there was silence, and no word has ever come from Moria since.

"Then about a year ago a messenger came to Dáin, but not from Moria — from Mordor: a horseman in the night, who called Dáin to his gate. The Lord Sauron the Great, so he said, wished for our friendship. Rings he would give for it, such as he gave of old. And he asked urgently concerning hobbits, of what kind they were, and where they dwelt. 'For Sauron knows,' said he, 'that one of these was known to you on a time.'

"At this we were greatly troubled, and we gave no answer. And then his fell voice was lowered, and he would have sweetened it if he could. 'As a small token only of your friendship Sauron asks this,' he said: 'that you should find this thief,' such was his word, 'and get from him, willing or no, a little ring, the least of rings, that once he stole. It is but a trifle that Sauron fancies, and an earnest of your good will. Find it, and three rings that the Dwarf-sires possessed of old shall be returned to you, and the realm of Moria shall be yours forever. Find only news of the thief, whether he still lives and where, and you shall have great reward and lasting friendship from the Lord. Refuse, and things will not seem so well. Do you refuse?'

"At that his breath came like the hiss of snakes, and all who stood by shuddered, but Dáin said: 'I say neither yea nor nay. I must consider this message and what it means under its fair cloak.'

"'Consider well, but not too long,' said he.

"'The time of my thought is my own to spend,' answered Dáin.

"'For the present,' said he, and rode into the darkness.

"Heavy have the hearts of our chieftains been since that night. We needed not the fell voice of the messenger to warn us that his words held both menace and deceit; for we knew already that the power that was re-entered Mordor has not changed, and ever it betrayed us of old. Twice the messenger has returned, and has gone unanswered. The third and last time, so he says, is soon to come, before the ending of the year.

"And so I have been sent at last by Dáin to warn Bilbo that he is sought by the Enemy, and to learn, if my be, why he desires this ring, this least of rings. Also we crave the advice of Elrond. For the Shadow grows and draws nearer. We discover that messengers have come also to King Brand in Dale, and that he is afraid. We fear that he may yield. Already war is gathering on his eastern borders. If we make no answer, the Enemy may move Men of his rule to assail King Brand, and Dáin also."

Sora turned his gaze towards Elrond as the Elf-lord answered Glóin. Now he was really interested. "You have done well to come," said Elrond. "You will hear today all that you need in order to understand the purposes of the Enemy. There is naught that you can do, other than to resist, with hope or without it. But you do not stand alone. You will learn that your trouble is but part of the trouble of all the western world. The Ring! What shall we do with the Ring, the least of rings, the trifle that Sauron fancies? That is the doom that we must deem.

"That is the purpose for which you are called hither. Called, I say, though I have not called you to me, strangers from distant lands and other worlds. You have come and are here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. Yet it is not so. Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of this world.

"Now, therefore, things shall be openly spoken that have been hidden from all but a few until this day. And first, so that all may understand what is the peril, the Tale of the Ring shall be told from the beginning even to this present. And I will begin that tale, though others shall end it."

-A-D-

Sora and all of them listened while Elrond in his clear voice spoke of Sauron and the Rings of Power, and their forging in the Second Age of the world long ago. A part of his tale was known to some, but to Sora and Kairi it was wholly new, and their eyes were turned to Elrond in fear and wonder as he told of the Elven-smiths of Eregion and their friendship with Moria, and their eagerness for knowledge, by which Sauron ensnared them. For in that time he was not yet evil to behold and they received his aid and grew mighty in craft, whereas he learned all their secrets, and betrayed them, and forged secretly in the Mountain of Fire the One Ring to be their master. But Celebrimbor was aware of him, and hid the Three which he had made; and there was war, and the land was laid waste, and the gate of Moria was shut.

Then through all the years that followed he traced the Ring, and as he continued to tell the tale the sun rode up in the sky, the morning passing ere he ceased. He spoke of Númenor, of its glory and its fall, and the return of the Kings of Men to Middle-earth out of the depths of the Sea, borne upon the wings of storm. Then Elendil the Tall and his mighty sons, Isildur and Anárion, became great lords; and the North-realm they made in Arnor, and the South-realm in Gondor above the mouths of the Anduin. But Sauron of Mordor assailed them, and they made the Last Alliance of Elves and Men and the hosts of Gil-galad and Elendil were mustered in Arnor.

Thereupon Elrond paused a while and sighed. "I remember well the splendour of their banners," he said. "It recalled to me the glory of the Elder Days and the hosts of Beleriand, so many great princes and captains were assembled. And yet not so many, nor so fair, as when Thangorodrim was broken, and the Elves deemed that evil was ended forever, and it was not so."

"You remember?" Frodo asked before Sora could, the Keyblade Master exchanging an astonished look with Kairi. The hobbit began to stammer as Elrond turned towards him. "But I thought, I thought that the fall of Gil-galad was a long age ago."

"So it was indeed," Elrond answered gravely. "But my memory reaches back even to the Elder Days. Eärendil was my sire, who was born in Gondolin before its fall; and my mother was Elwing, daughter of Dior, son of Lúthien of Doriath. I have seen three ages in the West of the world, and many defeats, and many fruitless victories."

Sora ran disbelieving hands through his spiked hair. "Holy Hera," he murmured to himself. Lord Elrond had to be thousands of years old. Likely he was far older than Master Yen Sid, and possibly far more powerful than the sorcerer as well. Sora felt as small as a tiny ant on his chair, and was humbled to be in this person's presence. Now the name of Eärendil came back to him from the song that Bilbo had sung the night before, and he recognized the name of Lúthien from the lay that Strider had sung on Weathertop, and Sora realized the magnitude of Elrond of Rivendell's lineage.

"I was the herald of Gil-galad and marched with his host," Elrond continued. "I was at the Battle of Dagorlad before the Black Gate of Mordor, where we had the mastery: for the Spear of Gil-galad and the Sword of Elendil, Aiglos and Narsil, none could withstand. I beheld the last combat on the slopes of Orodruin, where Gil-galad died, and Elendil fell, and Narsil broke beneath him; but Sauron himself was overthrown, and Isildur cut the Ring from his hand with the hilt-shard of his father's sword, and took it for his own."

At this Boromir broke in. "So that is what became of the Ring!" he cried. "If ever such a tale was told in the South, it has long been forgotten. I have heard of the Great Ring of him that we do not name; but we believed that it perished from the world in the ruin of his first realm. Isildur took it! That is tidings indeed."

"Alas! yes," Elrond said. "Isildur took it, as should not have been. It should have been cast then into Orodruin's fire nigh at hand where it was made. But few marked what Isildur did. He alone stood by his father in that last mortal contest; and by Gil-galad only Círdan stood, and I. But Isildur would not listen to our counsel.

"'This I will have as weregild for my father, and my brother,' he said; and therefore whether we would or no, he took it to treasure it. But soon he was betrayed by it to his death; and so it is named in the North Isildur's Bane. Yet death maybe was better than what else might have befallen him."

"What does 'weregild' mean?" Sora whispered to Kairi. She shrugged and shushed him.

"Only to the North did these tidings come, and only to a few," continued Elrond, not pausing in the slightest. "Small wonder it is that you have not heard them, Boromir. From the ruin of the Gladden Fields, where Isildur perished, three men only came ever back over the mountains after long wandering. One of these was Ohtar, the esquire of Isildur, who bore the shards of the sword of Elendil; and he brought them to Valandil, the heir of Isildur, who being but a child had remained here in Rivendell. But Narsil was broken and its light extinguished, and it has not yet been forged again.

"Fruitless did I call the victory of the Last Alliance? Not wholly so, yet it did not achieve its end. Sauron was diminished, but not destroyed. His Ring was lost but not unmade. The Dark Tower was broken, but its foundations were not removed; for they were made with the power of the Ring, and while it remains they will endure. Many Elves and many mighty Men, and many of their friends, had perished in the war. Anárion was slain, and Isildur was slain; and Gil-galad and Elendil were no more. Never again shall there be any such league of Elves and Men; for Men multiply and the Firstborn decrease, and the two kindreds are estranged. And ever since that day the race of Númenor has decayed, and the span of their years has lessened.

"In the North after the war and the slaughter of the Gladden Fields the Men of Westernesse were diminished, and their city of Annúmonas beside Lake Evendim fell into ruin; and the heirs of Valandil removed and dwelt in Fornost on the high North Downs, and that no too is desolate. Men call it Deadmen's Dike, and they fear to tread there. For the folk of Arnor dwindled, and their foes devoured them, and their lordship passed, leaving only green mounds in the grassy hills.

"In the South the realm of Gondor long endured; and for a while its splendour grew, recalling somewhat of the might of Númenor, ere it fell. High towers that people built, and strong places, and havens of many ships; and the winged crown of the Kings of Men was held in awe by folk of many tongues. Their chief city was Osgiliath, Citadel of the Stars, through the midst of which the River flowed. And Minas Anor they made, Tower of the Setting Sun. There in the courts of the King grew a white tree, from the seed of that tree which Isildur brought over the deep waters, and the seed of that tree before came from Eressëa, and before that out of the Uttermost West in the Day before days when the world was young.

"But in the wearing of the swift years of Middle-earth the line of Meneldil son of Anárion failed, and the Tree withered, and the blood of the Númenoreans became mingled with that of lesser men. Then the watch upon the walls of Mordor slept, and dark things crept back into Gorgoroth. And on a time evil things came forth, and they took Minas Ithil and abode in it, and they made it into a place of dread; and it is called Minas Morgul, the Tower of Sorcery. Then Minas Anor was named anew Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard; and these two cities were ever at war, but Osgiliath which lay between was deserted and in its ruins shadows walked.

"So it has been for many lives of men. But the Lords of Minas Tirith still fight on, defying out enemies, keeping the passage of the River from Argonath to the Sea. And now that part of the tale that I shall tell is drawn to its close. For in the days of Isildur the Ruling Ring passed out of all knowledge, and the Three were released from its dominion. But now in this latter day they are in peril once more, for to our sorrow the One has been found. Others shall speak of its finding, for in that I played small part."

Elrond ceased speaking, but Sora's eyes quickly fell onto Boromir as the man from the South rose from his seat, standing tall and proud before the Council. "Give me leave, Master Elrond," he said, "first to say more of Gondor, for verily from the land of Gondor I am come. And it would be well for all to know what passes there. For few, I deem, know of our deeds, and therefore guess little of their peril, if we should fail at last.

"Believe not that in the land of Gondor the blood of Númenor is spent, nor all its pride and dignity forgotten. By our valour the wild folk of the East are still restrained, and the terror of Morgul kept at bay; and thus alone are peace and freedom maintained in the lands behind us, bulwark of the West. But if the passages of the River should be won, what then?

"Yet that hour, maybe, is not now far away. The Nameless Enemy has arisen again. Smoke rises once more from Orodruin that we call Mount Doom. The power of the Black Land grows and we are hard beset. When the Enemy returned our folk were driven from Ithilien, our fair domain east of the River, though we kept a foothold there and strength of arms. But this very year, in the days of June, sudden war came upon us out of Mordor, and we were swept away. We were outnumbered, for Mordor has allied itself with the Easterlings and the cruel Haradrim; but it was not by numbers that we were defeated. A power was there that we have not felt before.

"Some said that it could be seen, like a great black horseman, a dark shadow under the moon. Wherever he came a madness filled out foes, but fear fell on our boldest, so that horse and man gave way and fled. Only a remnant of our eastern force came back, destroying the last bridge that still stood amid the ruins of Osgiliath.

"I was in the company that held the bridge, until it was cast down behind us. Four only were saved by swimming: my brother, myself, and two others. But we still fight on, holding all the west shores of the Anduin; and those who shelter behind us give praise, if ever they hear our name: much praise but little help. Only from Rohan now will any men ride to us when we call.

"In this evil hour I have come on an errand over many dangerous leagues to Elrond: a hundred and ten days I have journeyed all alone. But I do not seek allies in war. The might of Elrond is in wisdom not in weapons, it is said. I come to ask for counsel and the unravelling of hard words. For on the eve of the sudden assault a dream came to my brother in a troubled sleep; and afterwards a like dream came oft to him again, and once to me.

"In that dream I thought the eastern sky grew dark and there was a growing thunder, but in the West a pale light lingered, and out of it I heard a voice, remote but clear, crying:

Seek for the Sword that was broken:
In Imladris it dwells;
There shall be counsels taken
Stronger than Morgul-spells.
There shall be shown a token
That Doom is near at hand,
For Isildur's Bane shall waken,
And the Halfling forth shall stand.

Of these words we could understand little, and we spoke to our father, Denethor, Lord of Minas Tirith, wise in the lore of Gondor. This only he would say, that Imladris was of old the name among the Elves of a far northern dale, where Elrond the Halfelven dwelt, greatest of lore-masters. Therefore my brother, seeing how desperate was our need, was eager to heed the dream and seek for Imladris; but since the way was full of doubt and danger, I took the journey upon myself. Loth was my father to give me leave, and long have I wandered by roads forgotten, seeking the house of Elrond, of which many had heard, but few knew where it lay."

Sora looked at Boromir with a margin of pity and surprise. It was clear to him that they were in what he figured to be a pretty tight spot away south in Gondor, and could definitely use help. He wondered and was surprised that Boromir had made no mention of the Heartless, but then remembered that he had said that he had been journeying for a hundred and ten days, which told Sora that Boromir had left Minas Tirith for Rivendell before he had even defeated Xemnas.

That made his eyes widen with just how big this world was compared to the others he had been to. Even the five islands combined were not so vast, and he had no reference to gauge the size of the continent on Destiny Islands that he'd never been to.

Strider stood, drawing Sora's eyes to the Ranger. "And here in the house of Elrond more shall be made clear to you," he said. He cast his sword upon the table that stood before Elrond, and the blade was broken into two pieces. "Here is the Sword that was Broken!" he cried.

"And who are you, and what have you to do with Minas Tirith?" asked Boromir, looking at the lean face of the Ranger and his weather-stained cloak in wonder.

"He is Aragorn, son of Arathorn," said Elrond; "and he is descended through many fathers from Isildur Elendil's son of Minas Ithil. He is the Chief of the Dúnedain in the North, and few are now left of that folk."

"Wait what!" Sora asked loudly, leaning forward in his chair in amazement so far that he almost fell off of it.

Kairi nearly jumped off of hers next to him. "You mean that you're the heir to a whole Kingdom?" she asked. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Strider looked at the pair of them but could not speak as Frodo leapt off of his seat. "Then it belongs to you, and not to me at all!" he cried in amazement.

"It does not belong to either of us," said Aragorn; "but it has been ordained that you should hold it for a while. And neither did you inform us when first we met that you were a princess, Kairi," he added, looking to them again.

"Bring out the Ring, Frodo!" Gandalf said solemnly, louder than the outbursts that clamoured for an immediate explanation to Kairi's presence. "The time has come. Hold it up, and then Boromir will understand the remainder of his riddle."

All hushed and turned their eyes on Frodo, eyes that occasionally and briefly strayed to Sora and Kairi and those who sat next to them in their outlandish garb. The hobbits held aloft in a trembling hand a small and unadorned ring of gold, the Ring of which they had spoken for so long. It gleamed and flickered in the light, but Sora felt something off-putting about it.

"Behold Isildur's Bane!" said Elrond as Frodo placed it on the table.

Boromir's eyes glinted as he gazed at the golden thing. "The Halfling!" he muttered. "Is then the doom of Minas Tirith come at last? But why then should we seek a broken sword?"

"The words were not the doom of Minas Tirith," said Aragorn. "But doom and great deeds are indeed at hand. For the Sword that was Broken is the Sword of Elendil that broke beneath him when he fell. It has been treasured by his heirs when all other heirlooms were lost; for it was spoken of old among us that it should be made again when the Ring, Isildur's Bane, was found. Now you have seen the sword that you have sought, what would you ask? Do you wish for the House of Elendil to return to the Land of Gondor?"

"I was not sent to beg any boon, but to seek only the meaning of a riddle," answered Boromir proudly. "Yet we are hard pressed, and the Sword of Elendil would be a help beyond our hope – if such a thing could indeed return out of the shadows of the past." He looked again at Aragorn, and Sora saw that he was doubting the Ranger of the untamed wilds. Sora frowned at the man from Gondor. This was twice now he had doubted people sitting here in this ring. The first had been Kairi, and now it was Strider, who had proven more than once to Sora that he was a good and strong man.

The voice of Frodo's uncle Bilbo Baggins suddenly burst out to his right in irritation, saying:

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

"Not very good perhaps, but to the point – if you need more beyond the word of Elrond. If that was worth a journey of a hundred and ten days to hear, you had best listen to it." He sat back down with a snort.

Sora's face burst with a smile and he was unable to restrain a sudden laugh as Aragorn smiled at the hobbit before turning to Boromir again. "For my part I forgive your doubt," he said. "Little do I resemble the figures of Elendil and Isildur as they stand carven in their majesty in the halls of Denethor. I am but the heir of Isildur, not Isildur himself. I have had a hard life and a long; and the leagues that lie between here and Gondor are a small part in the count of my journeys. I have crossed many mountains and many rivers, and trodden many plains, even into the far countries of Rhûn and Harad where the stars are strange.

"But my home, such as I have, is in the North. For here the heirs of Valandil have ever dwelt in long line unbroken from father unto son for many generations. Our days have darkened, and we have dwindled; but ever the Sword has passed to a new keeper. And this I will say to you Boromir, ere I end. Lonely men are we, Rangers of the wild, hunters – but hunters ever of the servants of the Enemy; for they are found in many places, not in Mordor only.

"If Gondor, Boromir, has been a stalwart tower, we have played another part. Many evil things there are that your strong walls and bright swords do not stay. You know little of the lands beyond your bounds. Peace and freedom, do you say? The North would have known them little but for us. Fear would have destroyed them. But when dark things come from the houseless hills, or creep from sunless woods, they fly from us. What roads would any dare to tread, what safety would there be in quiet lands, or in the homes of simple men at night, if the Dúnedain were asleep, or were all gone into the grave?

"And yet less thanks have we than you. Travellers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names. 'Strider' I am to one fat man who lives within a day's march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly. Yet we would not have it otherwise. If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, and we must be secret to keep them so. That has been the task of my kindred, while the years have lengthened and the grass has grown.

"But now the world is changing once again. A new hour comes. Isildur's Bane is found. Battle is at hand. The Sword shall be reforged. I will come to Minas Tirith."

"Isildur's Bane is found, you say," said Boromir. "I have seen a bright ring in the Halfling's hand; but Isildur perished ere this age of the world began, they say. How do the Wise know that this ring is his? And how has it passed down the years, until it is brought hither by so strange a messenger?"

"It is the Ring," a voice spoke. All eyes turned in surprise, for the voice belonged to the only female seated at the Council. "From what I have understood," Kairi said, "the Ring is a very powerful relic of evil and darkness, and I felt something very dark and very powerful emerge when in Bree."

"And who are we to trust the word of a wench girl?" Boromir asked.

Sora felt as if he'd just been punched in the gut while Kairi looked like she'd been slapped in the face.

"Excuse me?" she asked, staring at Boromir in disbelief.

Sora was shaking his head and glared fiercely at the Gondorian. "You're gonna take that back pal!" he growled. "Or I'm going to break you if Kairi doesn't first."

"Wench girl?" Kairi asked, fierce anger rising through her shock. "You just called me a filthy whore!"

Hat 'n Clogs glanced at her with a smile on his face, leaning on his cane's handle slightly. "I think he called you a slut," he said, playing it up.

"Kisuke, you are not helping things," Master Yen Sid muttered.

"Just trying to make things a little more interesting," he explained.

Boromir stayed silent, an amused expression on his face as he watched the fuming two. Erestor of Elrond's household came to the man's aid. "I agree with Boromir," he spoke. "A human girl has no place at a Council such as this, and the word of one dressed in such attire should not be trusted."

"The Wise say that she must have place here," Gandalf spoke. "Appearances can be deceiving Erestor."

"How rude of you," said Bilbo. "You might as well turn away hobbits with that attitude."

Boromir looked at the wizard. "Maybe," he huffed. "However—"

The man from the South stopped suddenly as Kairi got off of her seat, glaring daggers at the man. "However what?" she snapped. "Do you think that I am the sort of woman who whores herself out to any man I can find? That I sell my body for riches and pleasure? Do you assume so much just because of the way I dress? Let me tell you something Boromir of Gondor. Even though the air here is cool right now, where I live, used to live, I should say, we may not have as great a history as yours or quite so many proud men and deeds of great valour, but we do have a hot climate, where it is not uncommon for almost every girl around my age to be wearing clothing as or even more revealing than my own just to keep cool in the heat.

"Not only that," Kairi continued, "but I wear clothes like this because I know what my body looks like. I know that boys find me attractive; I know that I am attractive, and I feel good just knowing that and going out every day. And even as I speak I know that your eyes are trying to stray up the hem of my dress."

Kairi smiled smugly at the expression she saw on Boromir's face and the faces of a few others that she could see. Sora relaxed, knowing that Kairi had the situation well in hand, and he started to laugh silently into his hand, and he saw Aragorn doing the very same thing.

"But know this, Boromir," Kairi added evenly. "There is a practical purpose for this too besides trying to keep cool in the summer's heat." Her eyes were drawing back towards Sora with a strangely playful look in them as she spoke. "I'm able to move in it, in case I'm ever forced into a fight!"

Kairi suddenly sprang towards the Keyblade Master, and Sora knew instantly that Kairi wanted to vent the steam that had built up in both of them, but that words were not enough and it wouldn't be fair to Boromir if they took it out on him; it would be best if they released their anger to one another. And it would give anyone else at the Council an idea not to insult them.

Sora had understood her feelings the second before she said her final word, and was already ready for it to begin. As Kairi sprang towards him his feet were already on the chair and he leapt high into the air, performing a slow backwards flip as he travelled back behind the Council.

Kairi was standing with one foot on his chair as he was in the air, slowly reaching the zenith of his jump around twenty-five feet above her head. The Princess of Heart pointed her hand towards him and out from her palm raged a brilliant tongue of fire, licking at the air as it roared and raced towards Sora. His right hand flashed with white light and the Remembrance appeared in his hand.

Sora raised the blade above his head and brought it slashing down against the oncoming flames with a yell of, "Blizzaga!" The fire parted into a shell around him as an iced blue ball struck the fire head on and broke right through. Kairi leapt back at the last instant as the ball struck against the chair that Sora had been sitting on, freezing it instantly and causing large crystals of ice the size of an average adult male to grow on the ground next to it.

The Princess of Heart flipped backwards away from the ice and landed on the ground just in front of Gimli and Glóin. At the same time, Sora's feet touched the stone floor the porch was paved in. He saw where Kairi was and leapt over his frozen-over chair, his Keyblade bared at the ready in front of him. The girl's right hand flashed with white light and a Keyblade that he had not seen before appeared in her grasp. The sword part of the Keyblade was a simple white with an even whiter thin line running down the centre until it reached the key portion that became the Keyblade's tip. Forming the key the line became a hollow heart, and stamped across it in brightest crimson was the three pointed crown. Around the round edges of the heart summit were the solid image of white flames, licking away at the air in front of them. The hilt was made of golden-red wings that formed a crescent around the white grip, and the wings folded in and embraced the pale white blade along its shaft. Leading down from the pommel was the keychain, a white crown pendant.

Sora came on regardless of the new blade in his girlfriend's hand and moved to slash towards her left side. Kairi's white blade blocked predictably and they held their positions, Sora pressing down, Kairi trying to hold up.

"Bakudou #1, Sai!"

Their arms suddenly snapped behind their backs, restrained and bound by some invisible force. Their Keyblades vanished from their hands in shimmering sparkles of white light. With the sudden lack of pressure against either side, and the abrupt change of position of their arms, both Sora and Kairi were helpless to do anything but wobble for a second before toppling to the ground. Sora was flat on his face, and Kairi dropping down onto her back (which hurt even more as she was landing on her arms).

Sora glanced towards Hat 'n Clogs, Yoruichi, Tessai, and Master Yen Sid. Tessai had his hands together and had a satisfied smile on his face, while Hat 'n Clogs was getting to his feet with a silly grin directed towards them.

"Now now you two," he said, coming towards both of them as they struggled to get back onto their feet, a hand fan snapping out from his wrist and expanding, "if you can't take being insulted in public like a gentlemen or a lady should then we might have to discipline you."

"What?" Kairi asked, incensed. "But he called me a slut!"

"I thought you said that he called you a whore," Hat 'n Clogs answered.

"That's not the point!" Sora argued, still trying to get onto his feet, and failing.

The fan snapped closed. "Do you need a time-out?"

"WHAT!" they asked. "Come on! We're not in kindergarten anymore!"

Hat 'n Clogs came up to both of them and picked each up by their hoods, holding them aloft with seemingly little effort while they still struggled to move their arms and position their legs in a way to get them to stand up. "I think you do need a time-out. But first…" he looked at Tessai, and the large man nodded. The pressure binding their arms together was suddenly released and Hat 'n Clogs dropped them onto the ground. "Both of you are going to thaw-out Sora's chair and apologize for the interruption."

"You've got to be kidding me," Sora said, shaking his head in disbelief. He hadn't had a time-out in years, not since he and Riku had gotten into a fight with a kid a year older than Riku back when Sora was about six and a half. The two boys had been playing on the swings at school while Kairi and some of the girls had been in the sandbox, making sandcastles. This bully in fourth grade came over and stomped on Kairi's sandcastle for no reason at all. Sora saw it happen first and tried to first talk to the bully and make him apologize, and received a black eye for his trouble. Riku saw that first punch fly and instantly leapt off the swing and rushed to Sora's aid, and the pair of them gave the fourth-grade terror two black eyes, and numerous loose or lost teeth, while Sora left with a black eye, bruised cheek, and cut lip and Riku sported a cut to his forehead and a loose tooth.

Mr. Hat 'n Clogs said nothing, instead pointing towards the chair frozen in a prison of ice with an irresolute look on his face that expected complete compliance to his order. Both teenagers groaned and walked the few paces towards Sora's ice-covered chair, ignoring the looks that they were being given from nearly everyone else present at the Council.

"This is so embarrassing," Kairi mumbled as she stopped before the ice on the chair's left side.

Sora passed stopped next to her and just in front of the six-foot-high-one-foot-thick ice-crystal-covered-chair. "You said it Kairi; fire." Flames laced his palms as he held them out towards the frozen water and they rushed out towards the layer of ice. Kairi's burst into life next to him as the fire struck against the ice and parted on its surface, the heat of the flames beginning to melt away the barrier.

Water started to pool around their feet as the massive pieces of ice above where they were melting started to break off and drop to the ground, splashing the freezing melt-water up onto their legs and chilling them to the bone. Within a couple of minutes enough of the ice had melted and the chair had defrosted and cleared of water to such an extent that it would be comfortable to sit on again.

Hat 'n Clogs came up to the chair and yanked it free of the last fingers of ice that still clutched onto its white legs while Sora rubbed his own fiercely with his gloved hands, hoping to bring some heat back into them. He picked up Kairi's seat in his other hand and carried them a few paces further away from the Council than they had been and set them down again, with their backs to the circle. "Sit," he said.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Kairi moaned, grudgingly moving through the tiny iceberg filled pond to take her seat again. Sora plopped down next to her and folded his arms.

"This is stupid," he grumbled under his breath. "A time-out, come on! We're being treated like five-year-olds."

"If Boromir says the word 'wench' one more time I'm going to use him as a scratching post!" Kairi huffed indignantly.

Sora looked at her. "A scratching post? Who are you and what have you done with Kairi?"

Kairi looked at him with a tiny blush. "Well," she whispered, "you said earlier this morning that you couldn't tell whether you wanted me to coo like a dove or purr like a kitten more when we were alone."

"So you're a cat now?" Sora asked, smiling at her.

"You already told me that I made a cute lioness," Kairi purred, leaning in towards him.

Sora suddenly heard a whirring noise an instant before there was a sudden sharp pain against the back of his head, causing that particular body part to careen forward unnecessarily fast and strike Kairi's forehead with his own.

"No talking and no smooching during your time-out," Mr. Hat 'n Clogs said, having thrown his fan at Sora. Both teens glared at him from their seats and turned back around, pouting.

They could still hear the words being spoken by those sitting at the Council, and the voice of Galdor of the Havens rose towards them. "Who, or what, are they?" he asked.

"They are warriors," Master Yen Sid said, "Warriors from other worlds who come here to Middle-earth on an errand of their own. Children they may be, but they are strong, and have fought against creatures more evil than orcs, creatures that would strike terror into the hearts of even the bravest of men. For their foes prey upon the hearts of those living, especially those whose hearts are strong."

"They are smitten," the dwarf, Gimli, observed gruffly.

Aragorn chuckled slightly. "Yes, yes they are."

"Their presence here shall be made clearer later," said Elrond. "You asked of the Ring Boromir, and how the Wise know that this ring is indeed his Ring? That shall be told."

"But not yet, I beg, Master!" said Bilbo. "Already the Sun is climbing to noon, and I feel the need of something to strengthen me."

"I had not named you," said Elrond. "But I do so now. Come! Tell us your tale. And if you have not yet cast your story into verse, you may tell it in plain words. The briefer, the sooner shall you be refreshed."

"Very well," Bilbo's voice drifted over to them. "I will do as you bid. But I will now tell the true story, and if some here have heard me tell it otherwise I ask them to forget it and forgive me. I only wished to claim the treasure as my very own in those days, and to be rid of the name of thief that was put on me. But perhaps I understand things a little better now. Anyway, this is what happened."

Sora and Kairi found it a bit more difficult to listen to the hobbit, even though his tale with a creature called Gollum, and how he had found the Ring in the tunnels of the mountains and riddled with Gollum to save his life, was completely new and interesting to them. But they had heard a lot of tales already this morning, and it was becoming a little overwhelming. In addition, they were unable to actually look at the speaker and direct to him their full attention, and their minds wandered a little.

"I've got a song stuck in my head," Sora mumbled while Bilbo was telling a riddle he'd heard before (and one he particularly did not like: It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, cannot be heard, cannot be smelt. It lies behind stars and under hills, and empty holes it fills. It comes first and follows after, ends life, kills laughter.), only loudly enough for Kairi to hear him.

"Well don't start singing it aloud," Kairi whispered hurriedly back, listening to the riddles in the dark. "I'll end up getting it stuck in my head and I want to try and figure this one out. I got the last one about daisies."

"The answer is the dark," Sora told her in a low voice. Kairi gave him an irritated look. She folded her arms and slumped back in her chair, muttering under her breath.

"A box without hinges, key, or lid," Bilbo said, "yet inside golden treasure is hid."

"Ooh, that one's tough," Sora said, thinking.

"It's an egg," Kairi answered, smirking as she looked over at him. This time it was Sora's turn to pout.

Bilbo finished his tale on a note as if he was about to continue, but Elrond's voice came in clearly over his. "Well told, my friend," said the Elf-lord, "but that is enough at this time. For the moment it suffices that the Ring passed to Frodo, your heir. Let him now speak!"

"Will you two promise to behave now?" Mr. Hat 'n Clogs asked.

"Yes," Sora and Kairi droned simultaneously. They got up and grasped their chairs.

"We're sorry about the earlier interruption," Sora apologized, placing his white chair down in the middle of the icy puddle of water, still with its bergs of melting ice sitting in it.

"And forgive me for my insult to you Kairi," Boromir added sincerely, "I did not know."

Kairi was silent for a second before she smiled slightly and nodded. "You're forgiven Boromir." Sora smiled at her and they both turned their attentions to Frodo, who began his tale more reluctantly than his uncle. He told of all of his dealings with the Ring from the day that he had received it when Bilbo left Hobbiton. He told of a being called Tom Bombadil, and of his encounter with a Barrow-wight, the question as to the real definition of which had been lurking in the back of Sora's and Kairi's minds since the Weather Hills. Every step of his journey from that quiet village in the Shire to Rivendell was examined and questioned, and every detail he could recall concerning the Black Riders was brought out of him. The short conflict on Weathertop was gone over in careful detail from the viewpoints of both Frodo and Aragorn, and when the hobbit had finished and sat down again, he seemed quite exhausted by the ordeal.

Bilbo and Frodo began to speak quietly to one another, and Galdor of the Havens must have overheard their conversation because he spoke up. "You speak for me also," he said, and turning to Elrond he said: "The Wise may have good reason to believe that the halfling's trove is indeed the Great Ring of long debate, unlikely though that may seem to those who know less. But may we not hear the proofs? And I would ask this also. What of Saruman? He is learned in the lore of the Rings, yet he is not among us. What is his counsel—if he knows the things that we have heard?"

"The questions that you ask, Galdor, are bound together," said Elrond. "I had not overlooked them, and they shall be answered. But these things it is the part of Gandalf to make clear; and I call upon him last, for it i the place of honour, and in all this matter he has been the chief."

"Some, Galdor," the wizard began, "would think the tidings of Glóin, and the pursuit of Frodo, proof enough that the halfling's trove is a thing of great worth to the Enemy. Yet it is a ring. What then? The Nine the Nazgûl keep. The Seven are taken or destroyed." Glóin stirred at his words, but did not speak. "The Three we know of. What then is this one that he desires so much?

"There is indeed a wide waste of time between the River and the Mountain, between the loss and the finding. But the gap in the knowledge of the Wise has been filled at last. Yet too slowly. For the Enemy has been close behind, closer even than I feared. And well is it that not until this year, this very summer, as it seems, did he learn the full truth.

"Some here will remember that many years ago I myself dared to pass the doors of the Necromancer in Dol Guldur, and secretly explored his ways, and found this that our fears were true: he was none other than Sauron, our Enemy of old, at length taking shape and power again. Some, too, will remember also that Saruman dissuaded us from open deeds against him, and for long we watched him only. Yet at last, as his shadow grew, Saruman yielded, and the Council put forth its strength and drove the evil out of Mirkwood—and that was in the very year of the finding of this Ring: a strange chance, if chance it was.

"But we were too late, as Elrond foresaw. Sauron also had watched us, and had long prepared against our strike, governing Mordor from afar from Minas Morgul, where his Nine servants dwelt, until all was ready. Then he gave was before us, but only feigned to flee, and soon after came to the Dark Tower and openly declared himself. Then for the last time the Council met; for now we learned that he was seeking ever more eagerly for the One. We feared then that he had some news of it that we knew nothing of. But Saruman said nay, and repeated what he had said to us before: that the One would never again be found in Middle-earth.

"'At the worst,' said he, 'our Enemy knows that we have it not, and thinks that it is still lost. But what was lost may yet be found, he thinks. Fear not! His hope will cheat him. Have I not earnestly studied this matter? Into Anduin the Great it fell; and long ago, while Sauron slept, it was rolled down the River to the Sea. There let it lie until the End.'"

Gandalf fell silent, gazing eastward from the porch to the far peaks of the Misty Mountains, the roots of whom the peril of this world had long lain hidden. He sighed.

"There I was at fault," he said. "I was lulled by the words of Saruman the Wise; but I should have sought for the truth sooner, and our peril would now be less."

"We were all at fault," Elrond told him, "and but for your vigilance the Darkness, maybe, would already be upon us. But say on!"

"From the first my heart misgave me, against all reason that I knew," said Gandalf, "and I desired to know how this thing came to Gollum, and how long he had possessed it. So I set a watch for him, guessing that he would ere long come forth from his darkness to seek for his treasure. He came, but he escaped and was not found. And then alas! I let the matter rest, watching and waiting only, as we have too often done.

"Time passed with many cares, until my doubts were awakened again to sudden fear. Whence came the hobbit's ring? What, if my fear was true, should be done with it? Those things I must decide. But I spoke yet of my dread to none, knowing the peril of an untimely whisper, if it went astray. In all the long wars with the Dark Tower treason has ever been our greatest foe.

"That was seventeen years ago," Gandalf said. Sora and Kairi quickly shared looks. They had not even been born at this time, possibly not even conceived yet. The Keyblade Wars across the worlds had only ended two years before, and the traitor Xehanort's guise of Nhaerto still had not yet been stripped away. "Soon," Gandalf continued, "I became aware that spies of many sorts, even beasts and birds, were gathered round the Shire, and my fear grew. I called for the help of the Dúnedain, and their watch was doubled; and I opened my heart to Aragorn, the heir of Isildur."

"And I," Aragorn began, "counselled that we should hunt for Gollum, too late though it may seem. And since it seemed fit that Isildur's heir should labour to repair Isildur's fault, I went with Gandalf on the long and hopeless search."

Gandalf then told them how they had explored the whole length of Wilderland, down even to the Mountains of Shadow and the fences of Mordor. "There we had rumour of him, and we guess that he dwelt there long in the dark hills; but we never found him, and at last I despaired. And then in my despair I thought again of a test that might make the finding of Gollum unneeded. The ring itself might tell if it were the One. The memory of words at the Council came back to me: words of Saruman, half-heeded at the time. I heard them now clearly in my heart.

"'The Nine, the Seven, and the Three,' he said, 'had each their proper gem. Not so the One. It was round and unadorned, as it were one of the lesser rings; but its maker set marks upon it that the skilled, maybe, could still see and read.'

"What those marks were he had not said. Who now would know? The maker. And Saruman? But great though his lore may be, it must have a source. What hand save Sauron's ever held this thing, ere it was lost?"

"Isildur's," Kairi answered. She blushed slightly as Gandalf looked at her. She had been acting like she was back at school, and a teacher had just posed a question to the whole class and she'd just blurted out the answer.

But there was a kind smile in the wizard's eyes and a chuckle in his voice. "Yes Kairi, Isildur's. With that though in mind, I forsook the chase, and passed swiftly to Gondor. In former days the members of my order had been well received there, but Saruman most of all. Often he had been for long the guest of the Lords of the City. Less welcome did the Lord Denethor show me then than of old, and grudgingly he permitted me to search among his hoarded scrolls and books.

"'If indeed you look only, as you say, for records of ancient days, and the beginnings of the City, read on!' he said. 'For to me what was is less dark than what is to come, and that is my care. But unless you have more skill even than Saruman, who has studied here long, you will find naught that is not well known to me, who am master of the lore of this City.'

"So said Denethor. And yet there lie in his hoards many records that few now can read, even of the lore-masters, for their scripts and tongues have become dark to later men. And Boromir, there lies in Minas Tirith still, unread I guess, by any save Saruman and myself since the kings failed, a scroll that Isildur made himself. For Isildur did not march away straight from the was in Mordor, as some have told the tale."

"Some in the North, maybe," Boromir broke in. "All know in Gondor that he went first to Minas Anor and dwelt a while with his nephew Meneldil, instructing him, before he committed to him the rule of the South Kingdom. In that time he planted there the last sapling of the White Tree in memory of his brother."

"But in that time he also made this scroll," said Gandalf, "and that is not remembered in Gondor, it would seem. For this scroll concerns the Ring, and this wrote Isildur therein:

The Great Ring shall go now to be an heirloom of the North Kingdom; but records of it shall be left in Gondor, where also dwell the heirs of Elendil, lest a time come when the memory of these great matters shall grow dim.

"And after these words Isildur described the Ring, such as he found it.

It was hot when I first took it, hot as a glede, and my hand was scorched, so that I doubt if ever again I shall be free of the pain of it. Yet even as I write it is cooled, and it seemeth to shrink, though it loseth neither its beauty nor its shape. Already the writing upon it, which at first was as clear as red flame, fadeth and is now only barely to be read. It is fashioned in an elven-script of Eregion, for they have no letters in Mordor for such subtle work; but the language is unknown to me. I deem it to be a tongue of the Black Land, since it is foul and uncouth. What evil it saith I do not know; but I trace here a copy of it, lest it fade beyond recall. The Ring misseth, maybe, the heat of Sauron's hand, which was black and yet burned like fire, and so Gil-galad was destroyed; and maybe were the gold made hot again, the writing would be refreshed. But for my part I will risk no hurt to this thing: of all the works of Sauron the only fair. It is precious to me, though I buy it with great pain.

"When I read these words, my quest was ended. For the traced writing was indeed as Isildur guessed, in the tongue of Mordor and the servants of the Tower. And what was said therein was already known. For in the day that Sauron first but on the One, Celebrimbor, maker of the Three, was aware of him, and from afar he heard him speak these words, and so his evil purposes were revealed.

"At once I took my leave of Denethor, but even as I went northwards, messages came to me out of Lórien that Aragorn had passed that way, and that he had found the creature called Gollum. Therefore I went first to meet him and hear his tale. Into what deadly perils he had gone alone, I dared not guess."

"There is little need to tell of them," said Aragorn. "If a man must needs walk in sight of the Black Gate, or tread the deadly flowers of Morgul Vale, then perils he will have. I, too, despaired at last, and I began my homeward journey. And then, by fortune, I came suddenly on what I sought: the marks of soft feet beside a muddy pool. But now the trail was fresh and swift, and it led not to Mordor but away. Along the skirts of the Dead Marshes I followed it, and then I had him. Lurking by a stagnant mere, peering in the water as the dark eve fell, I caught him, Gollum. He was covered with green slime. He will never love me, I fear; for he bit me, and I was not gentle. Nothing more did I ever get from his mouth than the marks of his teeth. I deemed it the worst part of all my journey, the road back, watching him day and night, marking him walk before me with a halter on his neck, gagged, until he was tamed by lack of drink and food, driving him ever towards Mirkwood. I brought him there at last and gave him to the Elves, for we had agreed that this should be done; and I was glad to be rid of his company, for he stank. For my part I hope never to look upon him again; but Gandalf came and endured long speech with him."

"Yes," Gandalf sighed, "long and weary, but not without profit. For one thing, the tale he told of his loss agreed with that which Bilbo has now told openly for the first time; but that mattered little, since I had already guessed it. But I learned then first that Gollum's ring came out of the Great River night to the Gladden Fields. And I learned also that he had possessed it long. Many lives of his small kind. The power of the ring had lengthened his years far beyond their span; but that power only the Great Rings wield.

"And if that is not proof enough, Galdor, there is the other test that I spoke of. Upon this very ring which you have here seen held aloft, round and unadorned, the letters that Isildur reported may still be read, if one has the strength of will to set the golden thing in the fire a while. That I have done, and this I have read:

Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul."

The change in Gandalf's voice was terrifying. It became powerful and menacing as soon as he began to speak, harsh as stone. A shadow passed over the high sun, and the porch grew dark. Sora and Kairi each began to tremble horribly, their hands clapped hard over their ears and their eyes squeezed shut tight. All did tremble, and the Elves stopped their ears as well, but none of them had the same reaction as the two Keyblade Wielders, for even as the shadow began to pass and the rest of the company breathed again they could not.

Sora felt extremely cold and terrible all through his body, as if he'd never feel warm and happy again. His skin was exploding in sweat, and his stomach churned and he nearly lost it. Kairi made a strangled hissing noise next to him, like she was withholding a terrible scream. The words Gandalf had spoken were on a level of evil that Sora had never encountered before, except perhaps when he had fought his Anti-Form or SkullGreymon, but their words alone had never frozen his heart.

A flash of white light entered his eyes and he felt something in his hand. At once a pulse of warmth shot from his hand through his arm towards his heart. It only spread from there, and within seconds the feeling had passed and Sora had opened his eyes again, panting heavily and wiping the sweat off of his forehead with his gloved left hand. He looked at his right, and was surprised for a moment to see the Kingdom Key resting there. Beyond it he could see that Kairi's new Keyblade was in her right hand as well, and she appeared to be recovering as well. Sora dismissed his Keyblade and pondered for a moment why they had been so dreadfully affected compared to the others, and then remembered that their hearts were probably the only two among the company that had no darkness, and words so evil, powerful, and dark had to have an adverse effect on them.

"Never before has any voice dared to utter words of that tongue in Imladris, Gandalf the Grey," said Elrond.

"And let us hope that none will ever speak it here again," answered the wizard. "Nonetheless, I do not ask your pardon, Master Elrond. For if that tongue is not soon to be heard in every corner of the West, then let all put doubt aside that this thing is indeed what the Wise have declared: the treasure of the Enemy, fraught with all his malice; and in it lies a great part of his strength of old. Out of the Black Years come the words that the Smiths of Eregion heard, and knew that they had been betrayed:

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them.

"Know also, my friends, that I learned more yet from Gollum. He was loth to speak and his tale was unclear, but it is beyond all doubt that he went to Mordor, and there all that he knew was forced from him. Thus the Enemy knows now that the One is found, that it was long in the Shire; and since his servants have pursued it almost to our door, he soon will know, already he may know, even as I speak, that we have it here."

-A-D-

Gandalf fell silent, and it was quiet for several seconds as the weight of this sank in. Then, suddenly, a noise entered their ears and Sora felt something vibrating in his pocket. His face became furiously red as every eye turned to him and his right hand dove into his clothing to try and grab whatever was making the noise. Finally, his fingers gripped round the handle of the communicator he'd been given at Star Command and he swiftly pulled it out.

"Here I am," the communicator was singing as Sora stared at the small rectangular screen in disbelief, "rock you like a hurricane!"

"You've gotta be kidding me," Kairi moaned into her hand. "That's your ringtone?"

"Apparently that's my ringtone for Yuffie," Sora answered in surprise, pressing the button to answer.

The screen flicked to life and the eighteen-year-old kunoichi's cheery face popped onto the screen. Her voice carried loudly onto the porch as she began to speak. "Hey there Sora, how're ya doing?"

"Fine," Sora answered pointedly, his elation at seeing a face he (for the most part) had not seen or spoken to for about a month dimmed by her awkward timing, "can you call back later? This is kinda a bad time right now."

"Oh a bad time huh?" Yuffie asked, grinning and giving him a little wink. "I wouldn't happen to be interrupting any steamy action between you and Kairi now would I?"

"What?" Sora asked. "No! We aren't doing anything like that, go away!"

"Well then what are you doing?" Yuffie asked curiously. "If you and Kairi aren't tongue wrestling or fighting off Heartless, you can't be so busy that you can't talk to me for five minutes, unless you don't like me anymore? That's it isn't it! RIKU! YOUR BEST FRIEND IS AN ASS AND DOESN'T LOVE ME ANYMORE SO NOW HE WON'T EVEN TALK TO ME!"

"What!" Sora nearly yelled, his face burning a shade of crimson that would have shamed a thousand roses. Yuffie was pouting angrily and had her face turned away from his. "No I—Yuffie what are you—what!"

The communicator was snatched out of his hand by Kairi and she held the screen towards her. Yuffie's voice came back on, sounding pleasant now. "Oh hi Kairi, how're you doing? You're boyfriend's a jerk by the way."

"I'm fine," Kairi answered snippily, ignoring Yuffie's comment about the thoroughly confused Sora. "But right now we're in the middle of a big discussion about a Ring, the Dark Lord Sauron, and whether or not we're all going to be killed in the near future. It's kind of important and we need to pay attention, because there's a lot of in-depth detail to this whole thing that's been going on longer than any of us have been alive."

"Ooh, sounds like fun. Can I join?"

"No," Kairi told her, pressing her thumb down hard on the 'END' button. She tossed it back to Sora, who caught it by the handle, and he turned the thing off. Barely a second had passed when noise started to come from Kairi's purse and she irately opened the black bag and pulled out the communicator that she had been given and glared at it.

"There were drums in the air as she started to dance,
Every soul in the room keepin' time with their hands.

And we sang ay-oh-ay-oh-ay-oh-ay,
And the voices rang like the angels sing.
And singin' ay-oh-ay-oh-ay-oh-ay,
And we danced on into the night."

"Go away," Kairi muttered darkly as she quickly pressed the 'TALK' button.

"That was mean Kai—"

Yuffie's voice died abruptly as Kairi jammed the 'END' key hard, and held it down to turn it off. Once the device was shut down it hung limply in Kairi's left hand as both she and Sora let out exhausted sighs and slumped back in their chairs.

"In the name of Poseidon," Sora muttered, running a hand through his spiked hair, "why now of all times? And what got into Yuffie there? And what in the name of the sea-gods were you doing with our communicators while we were unconscious Jiminy!"

"I was just personalizing your caller ring and text tones," the cricket answered unashamedly, popping out of Sora's hood and onto his left shoulder. "I didn't know that it would upset you."

"It doesn't upset us Jiminy," Kairi groaned. "It's just that we did not expect it, and we really weren't expecting it to happen now, in front of all these people that are making me feel as small as a seven-year-old with how young we are and how little we actually know."

Gimli's voice brought them back to those of the company. "What were those… sounds?" he asked curiously, inclining his head towards the communicators that lay limply in the grasp of each teen.

"Not the music of the Elves, I'll tell you that," Sora said, giving him a smile.

"That was music?" Erestor asked. "Your jest is not amusing."

He received sceptical looks from Sora and Kairi. "Live in our culture for sixteen years and then come back to us about whether it's music or not," Kairi told him. "Shouldn't be too hard for you; you're immortal."

Boromir waved his hand around a couple of times, drawing the attention towards him. "Returning to the object at hand," he began before looking at Gandalf. "He is a small thing, you say, this Gollum? Small, but great in mischief. What became of him? To what doom did you put him?"

"He is in prison, but no worse," Aragorn explained. "He had suffered much. There is no doubt that he was tormented, and the fear of Sauron lies black on his heart. Still, I for one am glad that he is safely kept by the watchful Elves of Mirkwood. His malice is great and gives him a strength hardly to be believed by one so lean and withered. He could work much mischief still, if he were free. And I do not doubt that he was allowed to leave Mordor on some evil errand."

"Alas! alas!" Legolas broke in, his fair elvish face distressed as he cried. "The tidings that I was sent to bring must now be told. They are not good, but only here have I learned how evil they may seem to this company. Sméagol, who is now called Gollum, has escaped."

"Escaped?" Aragorn cried. "That is ill news indeed. We shall all rue it bitterly, I fear. How came the folk of Thranduil to fail in their trust?"

"Not through lack of watchfulness," Legolas answered; "but perhaps through over-kindliness. And we fear that the prisoner had aid from others, and that more is known of our doings than we could wish. We guarded this creature day and night, at Gandalf's bidding, much though we wearied of the task. But Gandalf bade us hope still for his cure, and we had not the heart to keep him ever in dungeons under the earth, where he would fall back into his old black thoughts."

"You were less tender to me," said Glóin, his eyes flashing at the Elf of Mirkwood as old memories of his imprisonment in the deep places of Thranduil's halls were stirred.

"Now come!" Gandalf reprimanded him. "Pray do not interrupt, my good Glóin. That was a regrettable misunderstanding, long set right. If all the grievances that stand between Elves and Dwarves are to be brought up here, we may as well abandon this Council."

Sora looked at Gandalf. "Why?" he asked.

The wizard sighed. "It is a very long and complicated tale; too long for the telling."

Sora nodded. Glóin rose and bowed, and Legolas continued. "In the days of fair weather we led Gollum through the woods; and there was a high tree standing alone far from the others which he liked to climb. Often we let him mount up to the highest branches, until he felt the free wind; but we set a guard at the tree's foot. One day he refused to come down, and the guards had no mind to climb after him: he had learned the trick of clinging to boughs with his feet as well as with his hands; so they sat by the tree far into the night.

"It was that very night of summer, yet moonless and starless, that Orcs came on unawares. We drove them off after some time; they were many and fierce, but they came from over the mountains, and were unused to the woods. When the battle was over, we found that Gollum was gone, and his guards were slain or taken. It then seemed plain to us that the attack had been made for his rescue, and that he knew of it beforehand. How that was contrived we cannot guess; but Gollum is cunning, and the spies of the Enemy are many. The dark things that were driven out in the year of the Dragon's fall have returned in greater numbers, and Mirkwood is again an evil place, save where our realm is maintained.

"We have failed to recapture Gollum. We came on his trail among those of many Orcs, and it plunged deep into the Forest, going south. But ere long it escaped our skill, and we dared not continue in the hunt; for we were drawing nigh to Dol Guldur, and that is still a very evil place; we do not go that way."

"Well, well, he is gone," Gandalf said. "We have no time to seek for him again. He must do what he will. But he may play a part yet that neither he nor Sauron have foreseen.

"And now I will answer Galdor's other questions. What of Saruman? What are his counsels to us in this need? This tale I must tell in full, for only Elrond has heard it yet, and that in brief; but it will bear on all that we must resolve. It is the last chapter in the Tale of the Ring, so far as it has yet gone."

And Gandalf started to tell his tale once again. "At the end of June I was in the Shire, but a cloud of anxiety was on my mind, and I rode o the southern borders of the little land; for I had a foreboding of some danger, still hidden from me but drawing near. There messages reached me telling of war and defeat in Gondor, and when I heard of the Black Shadow a chill smote my heart. But I found nothing save a few fugitives from the South; yet it seemed to me that on them sat a fear of which they would not speak. I turned east and north and journeyed along the Greenway; and not far from Bree I came upon a traveller sitting on a bank beside the road with his grazing horse beside him. It was Radagast the Brown, who at one time dwelt at Rhosgobel, near the borders of Mirkwood. He is one of my order, but I had not seen him for many a year.

"'Gandalf!' he cried. 'I was seeking you. But I am a stranger in these parts. All I knew was that you might be found in a wild region with the uncouth name of Shire.'"

"'Your information was correct,' I said. 'But do not put it that way, if you meet any of the inhabitants. You are near the borders of the Shire now. And what do you want with me? It must be pressing. You were never a traveller, unless driven by great need.'"

"'I have an urgent errand,' he said. 'My news is evil.' Then he looked about him, as if the hedges might have ears. 'Nazgûl,' he whispered. 'The Nine are abroad again. They have crossed the River secretly and are moving westward. They have taken the guise of riders in black.'

"I knew then what I had dreaded without even knowing it.

"'The Enemy must have some great need or purpose,' said Radagast; 'but what it is that makes him look to these distant and desolate parts, I cannot guess.'

"'What do you mean?' said I.

"'I have been told that wherever they go the Riders ask for news of a land called Shire.'

"'The Shire,' I said; but my heart sank. For even the Wise might fear to withstand the Nine, when they are gathered together under their fell chieftain. A great king and sorcerer he was of old, and now he wields a deadly fear. 'Who told you, and who sent you?' I asked.

"'Saruman the White,' answered Radagast. 'And he told me to say that if you felt the need, he will help; but you must seek his aid at once, or it will be too late.'

"And that message brought me new hope. For Saruman the White is the greatest of my order. Radagast is, of course, a worth Wizard, a master of shapes and changes of hue; and he has much lore of herbs and beasts, and birds are especially his friends. But Saruman has long studied the arts of the Enemy himself, and thus we have often been able to forestall him. It was by the devices of Saruman that we drove him from Dol Guldur. It might be that he had found some weapons that would drive back the Nine.

"'I will go to Saruman,' I said.

"'Then you must go now,' said Radagast; 'for I have wasted time in looking for you, and the days are running short. I was told to find you before Midsummer, and that is now here. Even if you set out from this spot, you will hardly reach him before the Nine discover the land that they seek. I myself shall turn back at once.' And with that he mounted his horse and would have ridden straight off.

"'Stay a moment!' I said. 'We shall need your help, and the help of all things that will give it. Send out messages to all the beasts and birds that are your friends. Tell them to bring news of anything that bears on this matter to Saruman and Gandalf. Let messages be sent to Orthanc.'

"'I will do that,' he said, and rode off as if the Nine were after him.

"I could not follow him from then and there. I had ridden very far already that day, and I was as weary as my horse; and I needed to consider matters. I stayed the night in Bree, and decided that I had no time to return to the Shire. Never did I make a greater mistake.

"However, I wrote a message to Frodo, and trusted to my friend the innkeeper to send it to him. I rode away at dawn; and I came at long last to the dwelling of Saruman. That is far south in Isengard, in the end of the Misty Mountains, not far from the Gap of Rohan. And Boromir will tell you that that is a great open vale that lies between the Misty Mountains and the northmost foothills of Ered Nimrais, the White Mountains of his home. But Isengard is a circle of sheer rocks that enclose a valley as with a wall, and in the midst of that valley is a tower of stone called Orthanc. It was not made by Saruman, but by the Men of Númenor long ago; and it is very tall and has many secrets; yet it looks not to be a work of craft. It cannot be reached save by passing the circle of Isengard; and in that circle there is only one gate.

"Late one evening I came to the gate, like a great arch in the wall of rock; and it was strongly guarded. But the keepers of the gate were on watch for me and told me that Saruman awaited me. I rode under the arch, and the gate closed silently behind me, and suddenly I was afraid, though I knew not the reason for it.

"But I rode to the foot of Orthanc, and came to the stair of Saruman; and there he met me and led me up to his high chamber. He wore a ring on his finger.

"'So you have come, Gandalf,' he said to me gravely; but in his eyes there seemed to be a white light, as if a cold laughter was in his heart.

"'Yes, I have come,' I said. 'I have come for your aid, Saruman the White.' And that title seemed to anger him.

"'Have you indeed, Gandalf the Grey!' he scoffed. 'For aid? It has seldom been heard of that Gandalf the Grey sought for aid, one so cunning and so wise, wandering about the lands, and concerning himself in every business, whether it belongs to him or not.'

"I looked at him and wondered. 'But if I am not deceived,' said I, 'things are now moving which will require the union of all our strength.'

"'That may be so,' he said, 'but the thought is late in coming to you. How long, I wonder, have you concealed from me, the head of the Council, a matter of greatest import? What brings you now from your lurking-place in the Shire?'

"'The Nine have come forth again,' I answered. 'They have crossed the River. So Radagast said to me.'

"'Radagast the Brown!" laughed Saruman, and he no longer concealed his scorn. 'Radagast the Bird-tamer! Radagast the Simple! Radagast the Fool! Yet he had just the wit to play the part that I set him. For you have come, and that was all the purpose of my message. And here you will stay, Gandalf the Grey, and rest from journeys. For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!'

"I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eyes was bewildered.

"'I liked white better,' I said.

"'White!' he sneered. 'It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.'

"'In which case it is no longer white,' said I. 'And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.

"'You need not speak to me as to one of the fools that you take for friends,' said he. 'I have not brought you hither to be instructed by you, but to give you a choice.'

"He drew himself up then and began to declaim, as if he were making a speech long rehearsed. 'The Elder Days are gone. The Middle Days are passing. The Younger Days are beginning. The time of the Elves is over, but our time is at hand: the world of Men, which we must rule. But we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see.

"'And listen, Gandalf, my old friend and helper!' he said, coming near and speaking in a softer voice. 'I said we, for we it may be, if you will join with me. A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all. There is no hope left in Elves or dying Númenor. This then is one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.'"

As Sora and Kairi listened to the words Gandalf was relaying to the Council they were shaking their heads in revulsion. That this Saruman would forsake his friends because they were weak and align himself with Sauron to further his own ends was appalling. It was more than appalling, it was traitorous!

Yet they glanced anxiously at one another. There had still been no mention of Maleficent. Pete's presence and the Heartless were one thing, but could Star Command's intelligence that Maleficent was actually on this world and building her fortress in Mordor be inaccurate?

Gandalf continued. "'Saruman,' I said, 'I have heard speeches of this kind before, but only in the mouths of emissaries sent from Mordor to deceive the ignorant. I cannot think that you brought me so far only to wear my ears.'

"He looked at me sidelong, and paused a while considering. 'Well, I see that this wise course does not commend itself to you,' he said. 'Not yet? Not if some better way can be contrived?'

"He came and laid his long hand on my arm. 'And why not Gandalf?' he whispered. 'Why not? The Ruling Ring? If we could command that, then the Power would pass to us. That is in truth why I brought you here. For I have many eyes in my service, and I believe that you know where this precious thing now lies. Is it not so? Or why do the Nine ask for the Shire, and what is your business there?' As he said this a lust which he could not conceal shone suddenly in his eyes.

"'Saruman,' I said, standing away from him, 'only one hand at a time can wield the One, and you know that well, so do not trouble to say we! But I would not give it, nay, I would not give even news of it to you, now that I learn your mind. You were head of the Council, but you have unmasked yourself at last. Well, the choices are, it seems, to submit to Sauron, or to yourself. I will take neither. Have you others to offer?'

"He was cold now and perilous. 'Yes,' he said. 'I did not expect you to show wisdom, even in your own behalf; but I gave you the chance of aiding me willingly, and so saving yourself much trouble and pain. The third choice is to stay here, until the end.'

"'Until what end?'

"'Until you reveal to me where the One may be found. I may find means to persuade you. Or until it is found in your despite, and the Ruler has time to turn to lighter matters: to devise, say, a fitting reward for the hindrance and insolence of Gandalf the Grey.'

"'That may not prove to be one of the lighter matters,' said I. He laughed at me, for my words were empty, and he knew it.

"They took me and they set me alone on the pinnacle of Orthanc, in the place where Saruman was accustomed to watch the stars. There is no descent save by a narrow stair of many thousand steps, and the valley below seems far away. I looked on it and saw that, whereas it had once been green and fair, it was now filled with pits and forges. Wolves and orcs were housed in Isengard, for Saruman was mustering a great force on his own account, in rivalry of Sauron and not in his service yet. Over all his works a dark smoke hung and wrapped itself about the sides of Orthanc. I stood alone on an island in the clouds; and I had no chance of escape, and my days were bitter. I was pierced with cold, and I had but little room to which to pace to and fro, brooding on the coming of the Riders to the North.

"That the Nine had indeed arisen I felt assured, apart from the words of Saruman which might be lies. Long ere I came to Isengard I had heard tidings by the way that could not be mistaken. Fear was ever in my heart for my friends in the Shire; but still I had some hope. I hoped that Frodo had set forth at once, as my letter had urged, and that he had reached Rivendell before the deadly pursuit began. And both my fear and my hope proved ill-founded. For my hope was founded on a fat man in Bree; and my fear was founded on the cunning of Sauron. But fat men who sell ale have many calls to answer; and the power of Sauron is still less than fear makes it. But in the circle of Isengard, trapped and alone, it was not easy to think that the hunters before whom all have fled or fallen would falter in the Shire far away."

"I saw you!" cried Frodo. "You were walking backwards and forwards. The moon shone in your hair."

More eyes than Gandalf's turned to look at the hobbit in astonishment. "It was only a dream," said Frodo, "but it suddenly came back to me. I had quite forgotten it. It came some time ago; after I left the Shire, I think."

"Then it was late in coming," Gandalf told him, "as you will see. I was in an evil plight. And those who know me will agree that I have seldom been in such need, and do not bear such misfortune well. Gandalf the Grey caught like a fly in a spider's treacherous web! Yet even the most subtle spiders may leave a weak thread.

"At first I feared, as Saruman no doubt intended, that Radagast had also fallen. Yet I had caught no hint of anything wrong in his voice or in his eye at our meeting. If I had, I should never have gone to Isengard, or gone more warily. So Saruman guessed, and he had concealed his mind and deceived his messenger. It would have been useless in any case to try and win over the honest Radagast to treachery. He sought me in good faith, and so persuaded me.

"That was the undoing of Saruman's plot. For Radagast knew no reason why he should not do as I asked; and he rode away towards Mirkwood where he had many friends of old. And the Eagles of the Mountains went far and wide, and they saw many things: the gathering of wolves and the mustering of Orcs; and the Nine Riders going hither and thither in the lands; and they heard news of the escape of Gollum. And they sent a messenger to bring these tidings to me.

"So it was that when summer waned, there came a night of moon, and Gwaihir the Windlord, swiftest of the Great Eagles, came unlooked-for to Orthanc; and he found me standing on the pinnacle. Then I spoke to him and he bore me away, before Saruman was aware. I was far from Isengard, ere the wolves and orcs issued from the gate to pursue me.

"'How far can you bear me?' I said to Gwaihir.

"'Many leagues,' said he, 'but not to the ends of the earth. I was sent to bear tidings not burdens.'

"'Then I must have a steed on land,' I said, 'and a steed surpassingly swift, for I have never had such need of haste before.'

"'Then I will bear you to Edoras, where the Lord of Rohan sits in his halls,' he said; 'for that is not very far off.' And I was glad, for in the Riddermark of Rohan the Rohirrim, the Horse-lords, dwell, and there are no horses like those that are bred in that great vale between the Misty Mountains and the White.

"'Are the Men of Rohan still to be trusted, do you think?' I said to Gwaihir, for the treason of Saruman had shaken my faith.

"'They pay a tribute of horses,' he answered, and send many yearly to Mordor, or so it is said; but they are not yet under the yoke. But if Saruman has become evil, as you say, then their doom cannot be long delayed.'

"He set me down in the land of Rohan ere dawn; and now I have lengthened my tale over long. The rest must be more brief. In Rohan I found evil already at work: the lies of Saruman; and the king of the land would not listen to my warnings. He bade me take a horse and be gone; and I chose one much to my liking, but little to his. I took the best horse in his land, and I have never seen the like of him."

"Then he must be a noble beast indeed," Aragorn said; "and it grieves me more than many tidings that might seem worse to learn that Sauron levies such tribute. It was not so when last I was in that land."

"Nor is it now, I will swear," said Boromir. "It is a lie that comes from the Enemy. I know the Men of Rohan, true and valiant, our allies, dwelling still in the lands that we gave them long ago."

"The shadow of Mordor lies on distant lands," Aragorn answered. "Saruman has fallen under it. Rohan is beset. Who knows what you will find there, if ever you return?"

"Not this at least," Boromir countered, "that they will buy their lives with horses. They love their horses next to their kin. And not without reason, for the horses of the Riddermark come from the fields of the North, far from the Shadow, and their race, as that of their masters, is descended from the free days of old."

"True indeed!" said Gandalf. "And there is one among them that might have been foaled in the morning of the world. The horses of the Nine cannot vie with him; tireless, swift as the flowing wind. Shadowfax they called him. By day his coat glistens like silver; and by night it is like a shade, and he passes unseen. Light is his footfall! Never before had any man mounted him, but I took him and tamed him, and so speedily he bore me that I reached the Shire when Frodo was on the Barrow-downs, though I set out from Rohan only when he set out from Hobbiton.

"But fear grew in me as I rode. Ever as I came north I hard tidings of the Riders, and though I gained on them day by day, they were ever before me. They had divided their forces, I learned: some remained on the eastern borders, not far from the Greenway, and some invaded the Shire from the south. I came to Hobbiton and Frodo had gone; but I had words with old Gamgee. Many words and few to the point. He had much to say about the shortcomings of the new owners of Bag End.

"'I can't abide changes,' said he, 'not at my time of life, and least of all changes for the worst.' 'Changes for the worst,' he repeated many times.

"'Worst is a bad word,' I said to him, 'and I hope you do not live to see it.' But amidst his talk I gathered at last that Frodo had left Hobbiton less than a week before, and that a black horseman had come to the Hill the same evening. Then I rode on in fear. I came to Buckland and found it in uproar, as busy as a hive of ants that has been stirred with a stick. I came to the house at Crickhollow, and it was broken open and empty; but on the threshold there lay a cloak that had been Frodo's. Then for a while hope left me, and I did not wait to gather news, or I might have been comforted; but I rode on the trail of the Riders. It was hard to follow, for it went many ways, and I was at a loss. But it seemed to me that one or two had ridden towards Bree; and that way I went, for I thought of words that might be said to the innkeeper.

"'Butterbur they call him,' thought I. 'If this delay was his fault, I will melt all the butter in him. I will roast the old fool over a slow fire.' He expected no less, and when he saw my face he fell down flat and began to melt on the spot."

"What did you do to him?" Frodo cried in alarm. "He was really very kind to us and did all that he could."

"I'd be terrified too if I made a slip-up as big as this," Sora said. "You didn't do anything horribly bad to him though, did you? He was pretty nice, especially compared to that Southerner."

"Or Bill Ferny," Kairi added.

"He even paid for the pony even though I said that I would," Sora remembered.

Gandalf laughed. "Do not be afraid!" he said. "I did not bite, and I barked very little. So overjoyed was I by the news that I got out of him, when he stopped quaking, that I embraced the old fellow. How it happened I could not then guess, but I learned that you had been in Bree the night before, and had gone off that morning with Strider.

"'Strider!' I cried, shouting for joy.

"'Yes, sir, I am afraid so, sir,' said Butterbur, mistaking me. 'And two others, though I doubt that they mean any harm. He got at them, in spite of all that I could do, and they took up with him. They behaved very queer all the time they were here: wilful, you might say.'

"'Ass! Fool! Thrice worthy and beloved Barliman!' said I. "It's the best news I have had since midsummer: it's worth a gold piece at the least. May your beer be laid under an enchantment of surpassing excellence for seven years!' said I. 'Now I can take a night's rest, the first since I have forgotten when.'

"So I stayed there that night, wondering much of the two others Barliman had mentioned Frodo had taken up with, though he believed they were no danger, and what had become of the Riders; for only of two had there yet been any news in Bree, it seemed. But we heard more. Five at least came from the west, and they threw down the gates and passed through Bree like a howling wind; and the Bree-folk are still shivering and expecting the end of the world. I got up before dawn and went after them.

"I do not know, but it seems clear to me that this is what happened. Their Captain remained in secret away south of the village, and four more invaded the Shire. But when these were foiled in Bree and at Crickhollow, they returned to their Captain with tidings, and so left the Road unguarded for a while, except by their spies. The Captain then sent some eastward straight across country, and he himself with the rest rode along the Road in great wrath.

"I abandoned all thought of the others Frodo had left with, convinced that if they meant any harm that they would be dealt with by Aragorn, and galloped to Weathertop like a gale, and I reached it before sundown on my second day from Bree – and they were there before me. They drew away from me, for they felt the coming of my anger and they dared not face it while the Sun was in the sky. But they closed round at night, and I was besieged on the hill-top, in the old ring of Amon Sûl. I was hard put to it indeed: such light and flame cannot have been seen on Weathertop since the war-beacons of old.

"I knew it!" Sora declared, clapping his gloved hands together. "I knew that that was you the night of the fourth."

"We have already established that that night was the third, Sora," Aragorn said.

"It was the fourth," the brunette grumbled under his breath. He knew that he was right.

Gandalf continued. "At sunrise I escaped and fled towards the north. I could not hope to do more. It was impossible to find you, Frodo, in the wilderness, and it would have been folly to try with all the Nine at my heels. So I had to trust to Aragorn. But I hoped to draw some of them off, and yet reach Rivendell ahead of you and send out help. Four Riders did indeed follow me, but they turned back after a while and made for the Ford it seems. That helped a little, for there were only five, not nine, when your camp was attacked. Though that proved to matter little, for I had not foreseen that you would have powerful allies with you." He nodded at Sora and Kairi, and each of them blushed shyly and looked away, a little embarrassed and ashamed of their earlier actions.

"I reached here at last by a long hard road, up the Hoarwell and through the Ettenmoors, and down from the north. It took me nearly fourteen days from Weathertop, for I could not ride among the rocks of the troll-fells, and Shadowfax departed. I sent him back to his master; but a great friendship has grown between us, and if I have need he will come ay my call. But so it was that I came to Rivendell only three days before the Ring, and news of its peril had already been brought here – which proved well indeed.

"And that, Frodo, is the end of my account. May Elrond and the others forgive the length of it. But such a thing has never happened before, that Gandalf broke tryst and did not come when he promised. An account to the Ring-bearer of so strange an event was required, I think.

"Well, the Tale is now told, from first to last. Here we all are, and here is the Ring. But we have not yet come any nearer to our purpose. What shall we do with it? But before that, there are still matters to be discussed: the presence of our friends here, who seem so strange in their garb, devices, and ways."

-A-D-

The eyes of the Council all turned towards Sora and Kairi, and towards Master Yen Sid, Kisuke Urahara, and Tessai Tsukabishi, with Yoruichi sitting on Kisuke's lap, and at Jiminy Cricket, as he sat upon Sora's right shoulder with his journal and pencil in hand, having been making notes throughout the entirety of discussion and tales.

A rush of wind blew through Sora's hair and the beating of wings alerted him to Aiwemon landing on his left shoulder once more, Menelmon following suit onto Kairi's shoulder. Both teenagers drew into their chairs, trying to make themselves as small and unnoticeable as possible under the scrutiny of the eyes of the Elves, Hobbits, Men, and Wizard.

"You're still here?" Aiwemon asked Sora, surprising many of the Council. "I thought you were hungry."

"Don't remind me Aiwemon," Sora replied, his stomach giving a sudden, loud, growl as he thought about his lack of nourishment that day. Something clicked in his mind and he glanced at Aiwemon before switching to Menelmon. "Hang on," he said. "If I remember correctly, I've heard a bunch of names today that included the words 'Ohtar', 'Menel', 'Anar', and 'Isil'. What do they mean?"

The Elves glanced at one another in surprise, and Gandalf laughed. "The words you have spoken are of a form of Elvish Sora," he explained. "And they mean, respectively, 'Warrior', 'Sky', 'The Sun,' and 'The Moon'. And your bird friend upon your shoulder's name is 'Aiwemon' correct? The root of his name, 'Aiwë', is 'bird'."

Kairi glanced at Sora in confusion. "Our digimon have root names in Elvish?" she asked. Quickly her gaze eagerly went to Gandalf. "What about 'Ninqë', 'Luin', or 'Soron'?"

"White, blue, and eagle," Aragorn answered her with a smile.

"That's amazing!" Sora said, running a hand through his hair before rubbing Aiwemon's head affectionately. "They pretty much fit you two perfectly buddy."

"Since these two do not seem to keen to explain themselves," Master Yen Sid began, giving them both looks that made sheepish smiles appear on their faces, "I believe I shall be the one to answer you Mithrandir.

"We are not from Middle-earth," the sorcerer said. "We are not from the Blessed Realm beyond the seas either, nor are we even from this world in its entirety. There are many worlds beyond Middle-earth, and you can only see them when you look into the skies at night. Those stars are the other worlds, and it is possible to travel between them if you have the strength or means to do so."

"Actually Yen Sid," Mr. Hat 'n Clogs broke in, "if you don't mind, I'd like to give a try at explaining things, now that you've introduced the concept that there are other worlds." The sorcerer looked a little taken aback for a moment, but then nodded his head.

Urahara looked at Tessai. "Ready Tessai?" he asked. The large man nodded and held up a large stack of white pieces of paper with drawings on them, drawings that poorly resembled bunny rabbits.

"Here we go," Hat 'n Clogs started. "Every living creature has three parts to it: a heart, a body, and a soul. And there are two forces in this universe that are constantly at odds with one another: light and darkness. Each of them holds a measure of strength on the heart, and when the darkness is able to consume the heart, a creature called a Heartless is formed out of that darkness. Any questions so far?"

"Yeah," Kairi said, looking at Tessai. "How come the drawings suck?"

Hat 'n Clogs vanished and reappeared an instant later in front of Kairi before suddenly being back at his seat, closing the cap of a black marker. "No comments from the peanut gallery. Rukia worked very hard on these."

Sora looked at Kairi, and was unable to keep himself from laughing. On Kairi's face was drawn a curled French moustache.

Kairi's fist collided with Sora's nose, the force of the strength behind it sending the poor Keyblade Master flying out of his chair. His back struck squarely against the trunk of a tree and he fell to the ground, groaning.

"It's not funny," Kairi told him as Sora (to the amazement of several people) got up and went back to his chair, only rubbing his back slightly in annoyance and checking his nose for blood, which there was. Sora's fingers and nose glowed with green light and the bleeding stopped, though that didn't stop him from looking as if he'd just run face-first into a wall.

"As I was saying," Urahara continued. "When the heart is consumed by darkness it becomes a Heartless. The body and soul that are left behind form another type of being, called a Nobody. A Heartless seeks for nothing more than to capture more hearts and turn them into more Heartless, while a Nobody is driven only by the desire to have a heart and become whole again. There is a third type of being called a Hollow. When someone dies, their heart and soul leave the body. If the soul should lose its heart it becomes a Hollow. Hollows only seek to fill the emptiness inside by devouring more souls.

"While Hollows have been something that we haven't had the need to be too concerned about, darkness is threatening all of the worlds in the Realm of Light, including yours. Worlds have hearts too, and when their hearts fall into darkness the world is destroyed."

"Destroyed?" Boromir asked sceptically.

"It has happened before and it is happening now," Master Yen Sid told him. "Whenever you look at the night sky, and you see a star set in that blanket vanish into an empty space that is the sign that that world has just fallen into darkness and has been lost. However, it can be prevented, by sealing the pathway to the heart of a world off with a special weapon called a Keyblade."

Sora's and Kairi's hands flashed with white light as they summoned their silver and white weapons into their grasp, drawing the attention of the Council to them momentarily before Master Yen Sid began to speak again. "The Keyblades grant their wielders the ability to use the strength that lies dormant within their hearts and have chosen masters for twelve thousand years, their wielders travelling among the stars and protecting them from agents and creatures of darkness that have tried to destroy them or seek unspeakable power. Yet as recently as ten years ago, the strength and number of Keyblade Wielders has been reduced due to unimaginable treachery and war. There are now only eight who wield the weapon, and a great part of their history and traditions has been lost. The two young people that you see before you are of this small and closely-knit group, bound and tied together by friendship and love, and of the others there are only two wielders that have any significant difference in age from them. Sora is the Chosen Master of the Keyblade, and will, in time, become the leader of the Keyblade Wielders as his predecessors were, and Kairi is a Princess of Heart, a maiden who from birth has had no darkness within her heart, which will make her a powerful warrior against the darkness when she has fully mastered control of her light, and a Princess of Radiant Garden, the world of her birth, in which she is the last of the Royal Line and, if she should want it, heir to the throne in three years time upon her nineteenth birthday."

"What do you mean I'm going to become our leader?" Sora asked incredulously. "I thought that King Mickey was our leader?"

"You are the Chosen Master of the Kingdom Key," Master Yen Sid answered him. "It is in your destiny to lead the Wielders of the Keyblade. The King leads you now, but only because of his greater knowledge, strength, and experience."

"What if I want to just settle down after all this is over?" Sora asked quietly. "Go to school, learn how to cook new dishes, get some kind of business degree and open up an inn, and maybe in a few years time go down on one knee, open a tiny velvet box and ask a girl to marry me?" He blushingly glanced at Kairi and she returned it.

"You may still do so," Master Yen Sid answered with a smile. "Being the Grand Master of the Keyblade, should you choose to take that title or create a new one, would be your second job.

"Six of the Wielders of the Keyblade are under the age of twenty! And Sora and Kairi here have both been through great trials and hardship since their world was once destroyed last year and the Keyblade appeared in Sora's grasp. In a year, Sora has saved the worlds from darkness twice and restored them, and has had to deal with all of the pains of growing up simultaneously. Their parents were killed this very August, and their home on Destiny Islands destroyed. An old enemy of Sora's who he had defeated returned to power this summer soon after Sora had defeated Xemnas, a powerful Nobody who was bent on attaining phenomenal dark powers, and has achieved what she and he had both failed to do in the past. Her name is Maleficent, a cruel and powerful witch, and she has made an alliance with Sauron and is dwelling in Mordor, building herself a dark fortress likely in imitation of his Dark Tower of Bara-dûr. It is likely that she will grant him use of the Heartless, and maybe other allies that we do not know of, in his search for the Ring. Indeed, she already has. As early as Frodo's telling of the encounter on Weathertop Maleficent's dark servants were aiding the Nine, and they were beset by the Heartless even to the Ford of Bruinen, where Kairi was nearly taken or slain before she was able to send their pursuer back to Maleficent."

"If it hadn't been for Crowning Flame accepting me as his Wielder I think that that's exactly what would have happened," Kairi sighed, shaking her head and looking at her Keyblade.

Sora raised an eyebrow. "So that's the name of your Keyblade?" he asked. "Crowning Flame?"

Kairi's head swayed back and forth. "Well, yeah, kinda. You see, the Keyblades actually have their own souls and their own names. Crowning Flame is the name my heart gives this, but that's not his real name."

"Your Keyblades are like a Soul Reaper's zanpaku-tô?" Yoruichi asked, surprising many by the cat's ability to speak. "That is certainly interesting," he said.

Sora nodded his head and raised his hand to show that he wanted to speak. "Can I briefly sum-up things here so that I don't make a fool of myself later?" he asked.

Elrond nodded. "Proceed."

Sora sighed and started ticking off on his fingers. "One: Sauron is an enemy of yours from a long time ago and recently has come back to power. Two: Sauron taught the Elves of… was it Eregion, yeah Eregion how to make Rings of Power. Three: He betrayed them and made the One Ring in Orodruin, and wiped them out. Four: There was an alliance between the Men of Númenor and the Elves to defeat Sauron. Five: The main leaders of the Last Alliance were Elendil and his sons Anárion and Isildur, and Gil-galad. Six: The Last Alliance was finally able to beat him on the slopes of Mount Doom (Orodruin), and the Ring went to Isildur. Seven: Isildur was the only survivor between him, his brother, his father, and Gil-galad. Eight: Isildur kept the Ring instead of destroying it, and after spending some time in Gondor, went north to Arnor. Nine: Isildur was ambushed at the Gladden Fields, the Ring was lost, and the shards of his father's sword Narsil made it here to his son Valandil by way of his esquire Ohtar. Ten: A long time later, Gollum found the Ring and took it with him into the Misty Mountains. Eleven: Seventy-seven years ago Bilbo left the Shire with a party of dwarves including Thorin Oakenshield and Glóin to go kill the dragon Smaug that had overtaken the dwarves' home of Erebor, and found the Ring. In the same year, Sauron was driven from Dol-Guldur and went back to Mordor, where he openly declared himself later. Twelve: Frodo got the Ring about eighteen years ago. Thirteen: Through a series of related events, we were able to discover that Frodo's Ring is the One Ring that Sauron's been hunting. Fourteen: The Nazgûl left Minas Morgul searching for the Ring. Fifteen: Saruman's betrayed us. Sixteen: Our enemy Maleficent has allied herself with Sauron and has given him more power than what he already has, and may do the same with Saruman. Seventeen: We met Frodo and Aragorn in Bree. Eighteen: The Nazgûl and Pete found us on Weathertop and chased us all the way here. Nineteen: Sauron now likely knows that the Ring is here. Twenty: Maleficent specifically wants me and Kairi dead and also probably knows that we're here in Rivendell too. Twenty-one: What do we do now?"

He sat back in his chair, looking expectantly at the faces of those on the Council to tell him that he'd messed up. Jiminy spoke from his shoulder, quickly flipping through and reviewing his notes. "That's about right Sora," he said.

Sora was surprised. He guessed that he understood the basics better than he had thought, and smiled at that notion.

Elrond looked from Sora to Gandalf. "This is grievous news concerning Saruman," he said; "for we trusted him and he is deep in all our counsels. It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill. But such falls and betrayals, alas, have happened before. Of the tales that we have heard this day the tale of Frodo was most strange to me, for I have known of other worlds, the Keyblades, and their Wielders for some time. I have known few hobbits, save Bilbo here; and it seems to me that he is perhaps not so alone and singular as I had thought him. The world has changed much since I last was on the westward roads.

"The Barrow-wights we know by many names; and of the Old Forest many tales have been told: all that now remains is but an outlier of its northern march. Time was when a squirrel could go from tree to tree from what is now the Shire to Dunland west of Isengard. In those lands I journeyed once, and many things wild and strange I knew. But I had forgotten Bombadil, if indeed this is still the same that walked the woods and hills long ago, and even then was older than the old. That was not then his name. Iarwain Ben-adar we called him, oldest and fatherless. But many another name he has since been given by other folk: Forn by the Dwarves, Orald by Northern Men, and other names besides. He is a strange creature, but maybe I should have summoned him to our Council."

"He would not have come," Gandalf said.

"Could we not still send messages to him and obtain his help?" asked Erestor. "It seems that he has a power even over the Ring."

"No, I should not put it so," said Gandalf. "Say rather that the Ring has no power over him. He is his own master. But he cannot alter the Ring itself, nor break its power over others. And now he is withdrawn into a little land, within bounds that he has set, though none can see them, waiting perhaps for a change of days, and he will not step beyond them."

"But within those bounds nothing seems to dismay him," Erestor continued. "Would he not take the Ring and keep it there, forever harmless?"

"No," Gandalf answered, "not willingly. He might do so, if all the free folk of the world begged him, but he would not understand the need. And if he were given the Ring, he would soon forget it, or most likely throw it away. Such things have no hold on his mind. He would be a most unsafe guardian; and that alone is answer enough."

"But in any case," Glorfindel said, "to send the Ring to him would only postpone the day of evil. He is far away. We could not now take it back to him, unguessed, unmarked by any spy. And even if we could, soon or late the Lord of the Rings would learn of its hiding place and would bend all his power towards it. Could that power be defied by Bombadil alone? I think not. I think that in the end, if all else is conquered, Bombadil will fall, Last as he was First; and then Night will come."

"I know little of Iarwain save the name," said Galdor; "but Glorfindel, I think, is right. Power to defy our Enemy is not in him, unless such power is in the earth itself. And yet we see that Sauron can torture and destroy the very hills. What power still remains lies with us, here in Imladris, or with Círdan at the Havens, or in Lórien. But have they the strength, have we here the strength to withstand the Enemy, the coming of Sauron at the last, when all else is overthrown?"

"I have not the strength," Elrond admitted; "neither have they."

"Then if the Ring cannot be kept from him forever by strength," said Glorfindel, "three things only remain for us to attempt: to send it over the Sea, to send it with those from other worlds so that Sauron shall never find it, or to destroy it."

"But Gandalf has revealed to us that we cannot destroy it by any craft that we here possess," said Elrond. "And they who dwell beyond the Sea would not receive it."

"Sending it to another world wouldn't help either," Sora said. "Sauron has allies that aren't from this world too, and he will be able to send his servants and orcs out into other worlds to search for the Ring. If it does leave Middle-earth and goes somewhere else, like, Radiant Garden for instance, once the Ring is found there, we won't be able to hold him back."

"For good or ill it belongs to Middle-earth," Gandalf said, "and it is for us who still dwell here to deal with it."

"Then," Glorfindel proposed, "let us cast it into the deeps, and so make the lies of Saruman come true. For it is clear now that even at the Council his feet were already on a crooked path. He knew that the Ring was not lost forever, but wished us to think so; for he began to lust for it for himself. Yet oft in lies truth is hidden: in the Sea it would be safe."

"Not safe forever," Gandalf warned. "There are many things in the deep waters; and seas and lands may change. And it is not our part here to take thought only for a season, or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age of the world. We should seek a final end of this menace, even if we do not hope to make one."

"And that we shall not find on the roads to the Sea," said Galdor. "If the return to Iarwain be thought too dangerous, then flight to the Sea is now fraught with gravest peril. My heart tells me that Sauron will expect us to take the western way, when he learns what has befallen. He soon will. The Nine have been unhorsed indeed but that is but a respite, ere they find new steeds and swifter. Only the waning might of Gondor stands now between him and a march in power along the coasts into the North; and if he comes, assailing the White Towers and the Havens, hereafter the Elves may have no escape from the lengthening shadows of Middle-earth."

"Long yet will that march be delayed," Boromir answered him. "Gondor wanes, you say. But Gondor stands, and even the end of its strength is still very strong."

"And yet its vigilance can no longer keep back the Nine," said Galdor. "And other roads he may find that Gondor does not guard."

"And Gondor can't guard against corridors of darkness," Kairi added. When she saw the startled and confused look on Boromir's face she started to explain. "If one is skilled in manipulating the powers of darkness, they can use the darkness to create a corridor, linking one place to another, and then travel through that darkness to their destination. It could be a distance as small as from one side of a locked door to the other, compared to say, from Rivendell to Bree, or from one world to another."

"Our only saving grace is that we're pretty confident that unless you know the place of the exit portal either from experience or within your heart, you can't make a portal to get there," Mr. Hat 'n Clogs said. "So, unless you know exactly where you want to go, you still have to get there the long way, on your own two feet. But," his voice lowered, "it may be different for Maleficent. And if Sauron learns how to create portals, it won't be good for anyone of this world."

"How powerful is this witch, Maleficent?" asked Glorfindel.

Eyes turned towards Sora and Kairi, who looked grimly at the ground. "She's very strong," Sora said. "She's more than strong enough to bring tragedy and devastation to people."

"A simple thief can bring tragedy and devastation to a land and a people," Boromir remarked.

"But thieves can't make people completely obliterate the limbs of those they love," Kairi whispered, though in the quiet that followed her voice was still heard. She turned her watery eyes towards Sora, who held her gaze.

"You know that I don't like bringing it out in front of people Kai," he said solemnly, turning his eyes away. "The only people I'm comfortable with are—"

"I know," Kairi said tenderly, "but don't you think that they need to know?"

Sora sighed. Reluctantly, consciously aware of the eyes on him, he took off the glove on his left hand. Following that, he shrugged his black jacket off of his shoulders. The pink skin of his right arm was an incomprehensible contrast to the shining silver metal of his automail left arm, the device making tiny clicking noises as Sora moved it. For ten seconds he let it gleam in the sunlight before putting the arm through his jacket and placing his brown glove back over the metal hand. He wasn't comfortable having it out in the open in front of people that weren't there when he'd gotten it. And even among them, the only ones he truly was comfortable with were Kairi, Riku, Roxas, Naminé, and their digimon partners.

"She is strong," Master Yen Sid concluded. "And she will help him find his Ring."

"Then," said Erestor, "there are but two courses, as Glorfindel already has declared: to hide the Ring forever; or to unmake it. But both are beyond our power. Who will read this riddle for us?"

"None here can do so," Elrond said gravely. "At least none can foretell what will come to pass, if we take this road or that. But it seems to me now clear which is the road that we must take. The westward road seems easiest. Therefore it must be shunned. It will be watched. Too often the Elves have fled that way. Now at this last we must take a hard road, a road unforeseen. There lies our hope, if hope it be. To walk into peril – to Mordor. We must send the Ring to the Fire."

Kairi stirred next to Sora. "I know that my voice may not mean much to some here," she said, giving Boromir in particular a glance, "but, I agree with Elrond. I can only think that the best thing to do is to destroy the Ring. If we can't hide it or keep it from Sauron indefinitely then we should destroy it."

"Then let's get rid of it," Aiwemon said quickly, swooping onto the ground at Sora's feet. He suddenly started to glow with golden light, and all of the Council looked at him with sudden surprise. "Aiwemon digivolve to, Ohtarmon!"

If Sora and Kairi hadn't been more concerned about why Aiwemon had just digivolved, they would have found the looks on the faces of the Elves, Dwarves and Boromir as they gazed upon the six-foot-six humanoid warrior digimon with his massive feathered mace, yellow beak, and body encased in grey armour more than priceless.

"What are you doing?" Sora asked swiftly. Ohtarmon did not answer him, but placed his second hand on his mace, and it began to glow with white light as he heaved it into the air to bring it down on the Ring as it sat upon the table in front of them.

"Deciding Swing!"

The entire area was suddenly engulfed in light and a roaring wind blew all around the council. Ohtarmon gave a sudden yell of pain and surprise and Sora felt something large and heavy fly past his left side, but he couldn't get a look at it as his eyes were still closed from the light and the force of the wind and energy that pressed against his body. Suddenly that pressure was gone and the shining light had vanished, and first they looked to the Ring to see it unmarked and unblemished, and then to where Ohtarmon had been flung back, only there was a small round creature with white skin sitting on the ground with an ashamed look on its face.

Sora rose and sighed sympathetically. "Oh, Ninquemon."

"I'm sorry," the In-Training digimon said in its higher-pitched voice as Sora picked him up. "I thought that as Ohtarmon I could end everything."

"I do not understand all this," a voice began. They turned, for Boromir was speaking. "Saruman is a traitor, but did he not have a glimpse of wisdom? Why do you speak ever of hiding and destroying? Why should we not think that the Great Ring has come into our hands to serve us in the very hour of need? Wielding it the Free Lords of the Free may surely defeat the Enemy. That is what he most fears, I deem.

"The Men of Gondor are valiant, and they will never submit; but they can be beaten down. Valour needs first strength, and then a weapon. Let the Ring be your weapon, if it has such power as you say. Take it and go forth to victory!"

"Alas no," said Elrond. "We cannot use the Ruling Ring. That we now know all too well. It belongs to Sauron and was made by him alone, and is altogether evil. Its strength, Boromir, is too great for anyone to wield at will, save only those who have already a great power of their own. But for them it holds an eve deadlier peril. The very desire of it corrupts the heart. Consider Saruman. If any of the Wise should with this Ring overthrow the Lord of Mordor, using his own arts, he would then set himself on Sauron's throne, and yet another Dark Lord would appear. And that is another reason why the Ring should be destroyed: as long as it is in the world it will be a danger even to the Wise. For nothing is evil in the beginning. Even Sauron was not so. I fear to take the Ring to hide it. I will not take the Ring to wield it."

"Nor I," said Gandalf.

Boromir's look was doubtful, but he bowed his head in respect to their counsel. "So be it," he declared. "Then in Gondor we must trust to such weapons as we have. And at the least, while the Wise ones guard this Ring, we will fight on. Mayhap the Sword-that-was-Broken may still stem the tide – if the hand that wields it has inherited not an heirloom only, but the sinews of the Kings of Men."

"Who can tell?" said Aragorn. "But we will put it to the test one day."

"And it will not be alone," Sora said quickly, looking up. "As far as we know, Maleficent's in Mordor. There will be Heartless, and the valiant Men of Gondor will need help dealing with them. We will go with you to Gondor, Aragorn, when the time comes."

"Sora you can't just deci—" Kairi began irately, but suddenly stopped herself and nodded. "Never mind, you're right."

"May the day not be too long delayed," said Boromir. "For though I do not ask for aid, we need it. It would comfort us to know that others fought also with all the means that they have."

"Then be comforted," said Elrond. "For there are other powers and realms that you know not, and they are hidden from you. Anduin the Great flows past many shores, ere it comes to Argonath and the Gates of Gondor."

"Still it might be well for all," said Glóin the Dwarf, "if all these strengths were joined, and the powers of each were used in league. Other rings there may be, less treacherous, that might be used in our need. The Seven are lost to us – if Balin has not found the ring of Thrór, which was the last; naught has been heard of it since Thrór perished in Moria. Indeed I may now reveal that it was partly in hope to find that ring that Balin went away."

"Balin will find no ring in Moria," Gandalf told him. "Thrór gave it to Thráin his son, but not from Thráin to Thorin. It was taken with torment from Thráin in the dungeons of Dol Guldur. I came too late."

"Ah, alas!" cried Glóin. "When will the day come of our revenge? But still there are the Three. What of the Three Rings of the Elves? Very mighty Rings, it is said. Do not the Elf-lords keep them? Yet they too were made by the Dark Lord long ago. Are they idle? I see Elf-lords here. Will they not say?"

The Elves were silent. "Did you not hear me, Glóin?" asked Elrond. "The Three were not made by Sauron, nor did he ever touch them. But of them it is not permitted to speak. So much only in this hour of doubt I may now say. They are not idle. But they were not made as weapons of war or conquest: that is not their power. Those who made them did not desire strength or domination or hoarded wealth, but understanding, making, and healing, to preserve all things unstained. These things the Elves of Middle-earth have in some measure gained, though with sorrow. But all that has been wrought by those who wield the Three will turn to their undoing, and their minds and hearts will become revealed to Sauron, if he regains the One. It would be better if the Three had never been. That is his purpose."

"And if the One is destroyed," Kairi asked, "what will happen to the Three?"

"We know not for certain," Elrond said sadly. "Some hope that the Three Rings, which Sauron has never touched, would then become free, and their rulers might heal the hurts of the world that he has wrought. But maybe when the One has gone, the Three will fail, and many fair things will fade and be forgotten. That is my belief."

"Yet all the Elves are willing to endure this chance," said Glorfindel, "if by it the power of Sauron may be broken, and the fear of his dominion be taken away forever."

"So now we're back at destroying the Ring," Sora stated, "and still we haven't really decided anything. How do we destroy it again, since it seems we can't just smash it?"

"It must be thrown into the Fire from which it was made," said Erestor. "What strength have we for the finding of it though? That is the path of despair. Of folly I would say, if the long wisdom of Elrond did not forbid me."

"Despair, or folly?" said Gandalf. "It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope. Well let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy! For he is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of his reckoning."

"At least for a while," said Elrond. "The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere."

"Oh wait!" Sora blurted out, smiling. "I know this story, it's the same as mine!" Kairi gave him an amused look, and Sora laughed at her, pointing at her upper lip where the moustache was still drawn on. She lunged at him again, but this time Sora deflected her fist with his right arm, forcing her knuckle to only barely graze his right cheek. She scowled as she returned her arms to their proper places.

A voice suddenly broke out to their right. "Very well, very well, Master Elrond!" said Bilbo. "Say no more! It is plain enough what you are pointing at. Bilbo the silly hobbit started this affair, and Bilbo had better finish it, or himself. I was very comfortable here, and getting on with my book. If you want to know, I am just writing an ending for it. I had thought of putting: and he lived happily ever afterwards to the end of his days. It is a good ending, and none the worse for having been used before. Now I shall have to alter that: it does not look like coming true; and anyway there will evidently have to be several more chapters, if I live to write them. It is a frightful nuisance. When ought I to start?"

Boromir looked in surprise at Bilbo, but the laughter died on his lips when he saw that all the others including Sora and Kairi were regarding the old hobbit with grave respect. Only Glóin smiled, but his smile came from old memories.

"Of course my dear Bilbo," said Gandalf. "If you had really started this affair, you might be expected to finish it. But you know well enough now that starting is too great a claim for any, and that only a small part is played in great deeds by any hero. You need not bow! Though the word was meant, and we do not doubt that under jest you are making a valiant offer. But one beyond your strength, Bilbo. You cannot take this thing back. It has passed on. If you need my advice any longer, I should say that your part is ended, unless as a recorder. Finish your book, and leave the ending unaltered! There is still hope for it. But get ready to write a sequel, when they come back."

Bilbo laughed. "I have never known you give me pleasant advice before," he said. "As all your unpleasant advice has been good, I wonder if this is not bad. Still, I don't suppose I have the strength or luck left to deal with the Ring. It has grown, and I have not. But tell me: what do you mean by they?"

"The messengers who are to be sent with the Ring."

"Exactly! And who are they to be? That seems to me what this Council has to decide, and all that is has to decide. Elves may thrive on speech alone, and Dwarves endure great weariness; but I am only an old hobbit, and I miss my meal at noon. Can't you think of some names now? Or put it off till after dinner?"

Sora raised his hand for a moment, shifting as he held Ninquemon in his lap. "I agree with Bilbo. I missed breakfast and I'm hungry. I've been hungry through the last few of hours of discussion and I haven't said anything because I was trying not to be ruder than I've already been, I suppose. But since Bilbo's gone and said it, can we break for lunch?"

No one answered him, to Sora's, Kairi's, Ninquemon's, and Menelmon's disappointment. The noon-bell rang. Still no one spoke. The eyes of everyone at the Council were downcast, as if in great thought. The Keyblade Wielders and their digimon partners knew at once that they would not be the ones to carry the Ring, and they were certain that if it was going to be anyone, it would probably be the one who'd brought it this far to Rivendell. So they waited for someone to speak, holding on to stomachs that were rumbling, devoid of sustenance.

Sora glanced at Kairi. She'd been a lot more irritable today already than she normally would have been. He was pretty sure that it wasn't just because of the Princess' lack of food, but he wasn't sure what else could have been causing it. Yes, she'd been insulted a few times. Yes, they'd been given a ridiculous time-out. Yes, she'd had a French moustache drawn on her face by Mr. Hat 'n Clogs in a black marker, but there had to be something else…

A small voice broke him from his musings.

"I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way."

Sora looked. It was Frodo.

Elrond raised his eyes and looked at the hobbit, who shifted slightly. "If I understand aright all that I have heard," he said, "I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will. This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great. Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck?

"But it is a heavy burden. So heavy that none could lay it on another. I do not lay it on you. But if you take it freely, I will say that your choice is right; and though all the mighty elf-friends of old, Hador, and Húrin, and Túrinm and Beren himself were assembled together, your seat should be among them."

"But you won't send him off alone surely, Master?" cried Sam, unable to contain himself any longer, and jumping up from the corner where he had been quietly sitting on the floor.

Sora and Kairi looked at him in surprise. "You're here!" the girl asked incredulously.

"No indeed!" said Elrond, turning towards him with a smile. "You at least shall go with him. It is hardly possible to separate you from him, even when he is summoned to a secret council and you are not."

Sam sat down, blushing and muttering. "A nice pickle we have landed ourselves in, Mr. Frodo!" he said, shaking his head.

Ninquemon looked up from Sora's lap. "So does this mean that we can have lunch now?"

-A-D-

Maleficent sat at the head of a long black table in a room carved out the black rock underneath the Ash Mountains on the borders of Mordor. A passageway led up behind her, and one led up in front of her, with two leading down, one on either side. At the table a few seats away from her were seven individuals. The one nearest to her, at her right hand, was the silver-haired and yellow-eyed Nobody Nixion, her Second in Command and Supreme Commander of the Nobody arm of her forces. Dressed in the robes of the former Organization XIII, he had only recently returned from searches across the worlds for powerful Nobodies that had formed, and had only returned because he had been summoned. There were still worlds for him to search, and he believed that he could possibly find at least two more Nobodies to be placed under his command.

Beside him sat or stood six Nobodies that he had found. One was a male lion with dark reddish-brown fur and a black mane and a vertical scar running over the skin above and below the lion's left eye. Next to him was a man a bit under average height that Nixion had found in the burning ruins of a village. He had a pointed head and slanted eyes, his forehead completely bald and a pair of predatory orange eyes gleefully leering out from behind dark skin. There was a large amount of muscle hidden underneath clothes of black and grey. A thin coal-black moustache bordered his mouth on three sides, and the same black hair left the back of his head to drape around his shoulders, nearly concealing the hilt of a wave-bladed sword strapped to his back.

The third was a short woman of five-foot-three with hair the colour of copper. It was short, and only long enough to pass her ears. Her tanned face was rosy and attractive, and eyes of topaz looked out of them. Flat silver earrings in the shape of flames dangled from her earlobes, and she wore a bright red top that had diamonds cut out of the fabric in-line from just beneath the neck to the waist, revealing a little of the flesh and curves of her moderately sized breasts. Around her slender waist were two black belts hitching up on either side, a pair of slim black jeans were on her legs and black heels were fitted to her feet.

The fourth was a female as well, though she was of average height. Her long, ivory hair dropped down to her waist, her pale skin was covered by a jacket of silver and long white pants, a black shirt underneath her unzipped coat.

The fifth was a tall, slim, and lanky male. Curls of black hair and bright, intelligent sapphire eyes were partially hidden underneath a black and purple fedora with a pink feather in it. A brown trench coat covered most of his body.

The final person was male as well, and he towered above the rest. Standing at six and a half feet tall, the man's peachy skin and short brown hair did little to detract from the fact that the black muscle shirt and shorts he wore threatened to burst apart from the sheer amount of muscle mass that bulged underneath his rippling skin. Indifferent black eyes gazed directly at the sorceress at the head of the table, the Nobody's breathing slow and powerful.

"Nixion," Maleficent began. "There is a task that I wish for you to perform."

"A task?" he asked.

"Yes," Maleficent continued. "A task to prove to me that your time has not been wasted looking for these Nobodies behind you, bringing them to me, and having me give each of them control of the darkness."

"What would you like, my Mistress?" the Nobody in the fedora asked.

"Nothing of you, unless your Commander gives you the duty," the sorceress told him. She turned her head to the centre of the table, speaking to all of them.

"Tomorrow, there is to be a festival on Destiny Islands. One of you will be going there to… send them a message."

-A-D-

And now I laugh at you. You just went through a whole lot of dry Lord of the Rings drabble with moments of Kingdom Hearts thrown in only to get to the end and find something heavy coming up.

And remember, if you have fan-art or fan-art ideas, bring them up with me!

Unfortunately, I must take my leave for the time being. I have a re-write to go through, and shall explain when I have completed it and post the next chapter of The War what all I have done for the re-write and why I have done it. I will still be hanging around, reading and reviewing, but please have patience, and await my return in hopefully a month's time. It shouldn't take too much longer than that. At most, it may take me two months to return. But I promise you that you will have a new chapter up for The War by the end of November.

So please leave a review, and until next time,

May the Grace of the Valar Protect You

Shire Folk