Here's the next chapter! Thank you to everyone who reviewed this; it means a lot. Don't forget to let me know what you think of this chapter; I'd love feedback on how it's progressing so far. I'd also like to specify that this story is a mix of the book and movie universes. That's why I've made Saruman a kind of mix of both versions- he's more physically violent like the movie version, but he also has a very powerful voice, which, like in the books, he can use to manipulate people, as you'll see in this chapter.

Chapter 4: Highway Robbery

Middle Earth? My whole body ached, and I stayed frozen on the ground for a long moment, coughing desperately until stars danced in front of my eyes.

As though from far away I heard Saruman speaking again, but my pulse was pounding in my ears and drowning out his words. Middle Earth, what's that supposed to mean? Is he completely insane?

I was jolted out of my thoughts when Saruman grabbed my arm and dragged me to my feet. "Were you not listening?" he hissed. "I said stand up!"

"Stay away from me," I gasped. I scrambled back from him, coughing violently again and massaging my throat.

"Come with me, Beatrice Smith," he said. "We have much work to do, and there is no time like the present."

"But it's nighttime," I protested weakly. Saruman didn't answer. I hadn't really expected him to.

I picked up my violin case from the marble floor and slung it over my shoulder. The man swept imperiously from the room and I followed, staring in surprise as he grabbed a lit torch from the wall and carried it in front of him as he went. He'd really taken the whole medieval-wizard thing to heart. Did this place even have electricity? I guessed it didn't: the whole building was ominously dark now that the sun had gone down. The only light in the halls and stairs we passed came from the torch in Saruman's hand and a few other lit torches bracketed here and there along the walls. Shadows leapt off of dark stone corners and arched ceilings, and I shuddered.

Finally we stepped into a vast, empty hall. I paused, gaping at the sight: tall black columns and narrow windows like a cathedral's rising up to a cavernous ceiling…

"What is this place?"

"You are in Orthanc, the great tower at the heart of Isengard," Saruman said.

"Isengard," I repeated sullenly. "Right." Clearly this guy was sticking with his Lord of the Rings delusion through and through. I recognized that name, Isengard, vaguely, from watching the first movie. Much to Nathan's chagrin, I'd fallen asleep through a chunk of the beginning, though. And the entirety of the middle. And most of the ending.

Now I wished that I'd paid more attention; something in that movie might have helped me. Not that I believed for an instant that he'd actually brought me to Middle Earth, of course. The very thought was ridiculous, and it was offensive that he expected me to believe it at all. Still, I was sure he believed it, just like he clearly believed he was a wizard.

I wondered where I really was. This place was enormous—too large to be an ordinary building or house, surely. Maybe a museum? But even a museum would have proper lighting, air conditioning, traces of modern technology of some kind, and I didn't see anything like that here. Honestly, this whole place—the grand hall, the countless stairways, the columns and torch brackets on the walls—looked like a genuinemedieval fortress, or castle.

I couldn't be in a real fortress, could I? Because if I was, then I was much farther away from home than I realized. He couldn't have drugged me and flown me to another country or something, could he?

Fear made my steps uneven as Saruman led me out what looked like the main entrance of the building. I couldn't be that far from home, could I? I hadn't been out for that long, and why would a crazy old man want to transport me out of state or overseas? No—it must be somewhere in Texas still, I reassured myself. Maybe there was some kind of Amish-type commune outside Dallas, where old-fashioned architecture like this was normal. That might explain his crazy facial hair too, I thought.

The cold night air made me gasp as I walked outside. That was another thing that didn't make sense. "Hey," I said nervously, hurrying down the stairs at the entrance to catch up with Saruman. "Why's it so chilly out?"

"What do you mean?" he asked impatiently.

"Well, I mean, it's the dead of summer. It never gets cold in Dallas in the summer, not even at night."

The man turned to glare at me, the torch throwing deep shadows over his skeletal face. "I have told you already, foolish girl, that you are no longer in your homeland, this Dallas. You are in Isengard. It is often cold at night here, when the winds from the Misty Mountains blow down from the north."

I nodded quickly, not wanting to provoke him further. My fists were shaking in anger. Misty Mountains, my ass.

Wherever we really were, this place was huge. I couldn't see much in the darkness, but the building seemed to rise endlessly above us into the night sky, blotting out the stars until I had to crane my neck to guess its height; it was a skyscraper, then. I had more luck making out the open grounds surrounding the tower. Lights were scattered here and there, fires lit in what looked like underground pits and workshops, and figures walking around in the distance, torches in their hands. They looked strange, somehow, their shapes hulking and inhuman in the darkness, but I couldn't get a good glimpse of their faces.

The clanking sounds of metal on metal reached my ears, rising up all around us as we walked. Late-night construction work, maybe?

We continued down a dirt path that wound in a great arc around the tower, until we came to the door of a small building. A surprisingly normal-looking building, too, I thought, with gray stone walls and a low, flat roof.

"These are my private storerooms," Saruman told me as he beckoned me forward. "And you are going to help me identify some of my new possessions."

I walked inside, squinting in the dark. Saruman brandished his staff, and suddenly the torches along the walls of the room were lit, fire springing up and crackling steadily as though they'd been burning for hours.

I faltered. How had he done that? There must have been some kind of automated mechanism in the torches, or something—but if so, why not just use regular electric lights? I was about to ask Saruman about it, when I noticed what was in the room.

The strangest assortment of junk I had ever seen was spread out before me.

"What the—where did you get all this?" I faltered.

My first rather stupid thought was that Saruman had stolen the entire contents of a Radio Shack. Hesitantly I walked past piles of televisions, iPods, alarm clocks, hand-held radios, laptops, and other things I couldn't even identify: countless strange-looking plugs and engines and pieces of random machinery…I kicked tangles of power cords and piles of batteries out of my way as I looked through the mess, and saw Saruman watching me intently.

"Where did these things come from?" I demanded again. Something told me this guy hadn't bought this stuff on Craigslist.

Saruman stood by the entrance still, observing my movements severely. "These are merely some devices I have collected recently."

"So you…stole them?"

He scoffed. "I know not to whom they belonged before; I saw them in my palantír and summoned them here, much as I did with you. These items may hold the key to the fate of Middle Earth."

"Oh," was all I managed to say. It was all so ridiculous, and he looked so damn serious, that I fought the urge to burst into desperate, panicky laughter. A bunch of power cords, TVs and broken wireless routers hold the key to the fate of Middle Earth? Oh boy.

Farther on down the storerooms, books were stacked in enormous piles—everything from textbooks to novels to magazines, and I counted at least five different languages in the pile nearest to me. Now he's robbed a library too?

"I don't see any copies of The Lord of the Rings," I said, before I could stop myself.

"I have been unable to obtain those texts, despite my best efforts," the wizard said, frustration clear in his voice. "A copy of that tale would be more valuable to me than any other object in my collection."

My breath caught in my chest as my thoughts strayed to the book Nathan had lent me, still hidden in my violin case. I clutched the case to my chest, my hands shaking. I couldn't explain it, but I really didn't want this guy to know I had a copy of one of the books he was so desperately looking for. Something told me it was best that he didn't have it…But maybe, I thought, maybe if you give it to him, he'd let you g—

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed, my train of thought derailing completely. On one of the far walls was an enormous collection of weapons.

My blood turned cold at the sight. I looked back in horror at Saruman, who merely smiled and gestured me forward. I hated guns at the best of times—the trigger-happy Texas stereotype didn't hold any weight for me—and now here was a whole wall covered in the damn things. I knew nothing about guns, but I was still baffled by the different kinds he had gathered together—small, sleek handguns, enormous hunting rifles, old-fashioned revolvers, even some that might have been assault rifles.

I stepped back uneasily and nearly tripped over what I strongly suspected was a flamethrower. "Oh my God," I muttered wildly, trying to force my heartbeat back to a normal pace. "Oh my God!"

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Near the display of guns, boxes of ammunition were stacked high, along with wooden crates and sleek, army-green cases. I opened one of them hesitantly and leapt back in shock—they were filled with grenades. Another box contained what could only be pipe bombs, and there was other military equipment I couldn't even begin to name. More explosives, most likely, and what might have been disassembled gears from a military drone.

My limbs felt cold and rubbery; I felt a clammy sweat on my forehead. Kidnapping seemed like the least of this man's crimes now: was he planning some kind of mass murder? Had I been kidnapped by a terrorist?

Suddenly Saruman's hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. I nearly jumped out of my skin in shock, scrabbling to put some distance between us. This guy was seriously, dangerously insane.

"What do you think?" he asked me, a cruel smile on his face. The orange light from the torches threw an eerie glow on the weapons surrounding us.

"I…um…" I swallowed thickly and tried again, my voice breaking helplessly. "I don't know what to say."

"Come. There is more to see outside."

More? He led me outside the storerooms again and around to an open area behind the building, holding a torch aloft. "I have stored some of the larger pieces in my collection out here, as you see. What do you make of them?"

A row of military vehicles stood before me in the dark. I gaped at them for a long moment before Saruman shoved me forward.

Hesitantly I walked towards the nearest one—an enormous tank. I got out my phone and used the flashlight app to get a better look, and I saw a Russian flag stamped above the worn treads. What the…? Next to the tank were two American Humvees covered in desert camo and splattered with dirt, and beside that rested what I could only guess was a military drone, with a small British flag on one of the narrow, five-foot long wings.

Conscious once again of Saruman's eyes following my movements, I continued. Behind the row of tanks were a few ordinary-looking cars: a Volkswagen convertible, a red Prius, a beat-up station wagon…each one with foreign license plates. Next to these stood a helicopter, small and sleek and, from what I could tell, non-military.

"Well?" His voice startled me out of my thoughts.

I swallowed with difficulty. "Well what?"

"What, among these objects, do you recognize?" he asked me, his tone abruptly businesslike.

"I…I don't understand."

"Surely you must have encountered some of these things in your homeland," Saruman said impatiently. "Explain to me their uses, the magic that makes them function!" A fevered madness was in his black eyes, manic obsession clear on his face, and I stepped back from him.

"I…okay. Okay," I stammered, trying and failing to articulate the depths of my panic. "Just…just…what are you doing with all this stuff? You—you know you could be arrested for stealing military equipment! You—you could be, I don't know, fueling international conflict, stealing from the all these countries, I mean, what are you thinking? Do you want to get blown up? Because that's what'll happen when the authorities find all this! Are you some kind of war criminal? How did you get all this anyway?"

The man towered over me, looking furious. "You will answer my questions," he snapped. "I do not have time to coddle you like an infant, nor must I explain my methods to you—"

"Please," I interrupted desperately, feeling my knees buckling. I clutched the hood of one of the Humvees for support as panic threatened to overwhelm me. "Please, I don't understand what's going on! And I'm not comfortable being around all this stuff when I don't know what you're going to do with it!"

Saruman breathed sharply through his nose. "I have acquired this collection using the same spells with which I brought you here yesterday. It is quite simple," he said, his voice dripping with disdain. "Through my palantír, I have witnessed glimpses of your world. Fire and lightning combined to undo stone…metal and wheels and flashes of light, and other, stranger inventions for which I have no name…Your world surpasses Mordor itself in its raw capacity for destruction."

His voice began to shake with a strange intensity, with fervor, with absolute obsession. I stepped back from him slowly, more afraid than I had been all night.

But he continued to speak, and I felt a fuzzy sort of numbness seep into my mind. I blinked slowly up at him, my eyelids growing heavy.

"Ah, Beatrice Smith, I have learned so much from my glimpses of your people," Saruman said. "I have seen with my own eyes the ways in which your kind has refined the art of war. Yet many things still elude me…I cannot create such devices myself. And I cannot determine the function of many of the objects I have collected from your homeland."

I was surprised to find myself nodding placidly at his words. How reasonable his anger suddenly seemed, his impatience…Even his talk of magic and waging war no longer frightened me.

"You see," he continued, "I can catch only the briefest of glimpses into your world and its strange creations, and I cannot control exactly what I bring back. That is why I have not managed to obtain the text of The Lord of the Rings itself. And it is why you are here, rather than a true expert in mechanics and explosive weaponry. But you will be of some use; it is too difficult, too time-consuming, to bring another human from your world here now. Such an opportunity as this could change the course of our impending war."

The wizard's voice resonated deep within my mind, and I found myself nodding in agreement, the fuzzy feeling in my mind growing stronger. Saruman's voice had become pleasant, familiar, trustworthy. He just wanted my help. What was so bad about that? The cold, clammy fear that had consumed me ever since I'd seen Saruman's storerooms began to ebb away.

It was a relief, really, this sudden numb acceptance, the absence of confusion or fear…and yet, something prickled at the back of my mind.

I hesitated.

"Now, tell me what you know," Saruman commanded. "Share your information with me, girl, and I may be able to send you home."

Home. In my groggy, placid state, that was all I needed to hear.

"What do you want to know first?" I asked obediently.

"That's better," the man said, offering one of his menacing smiles. I smiled back stupidly, feeling my jaw go slack. "Now," he said, pointing his staff at the row of cars, "we will start with these vehicles."

And so the interrogation began.

Saruman directed me from one vehicle to another, and I told him everything I knew, without hesitation. Occasionally he would take out a scroll, quill and ink, and take notes or draw diagrams by the torchlight. I don't remember the details of what he asked or what I said; my brain had gone numb and foggy, as though I'd had one too many beers at The Fiddler's Elbow.

I didn't know a lot, of course. I'd told him before that I wasn't an engineer, or an expert in weapons, and that was the truth. But now I found myself desperately wishing that I knew more: I winced at the impatience building in Saruman's voice every time I failed to answer his questions sufficiently. I wanted to be able to answer his questions properly, to help his plans succeed, whatever they were.

The hours ticked by in the darkness, until a pale gray light appeared on the horizon, and still Saruman peppered me with questions. I was tired; I'd been tired for hours, of course, but somehow it no longer seemed important enough to mention. What did it matter, really? My voice was hoarse, my body ached from where Saruman had attacked me; I didn't even notice until I nearly collapsed while examining the worn-out treads of the giant Russian tank, Saruman making notes on his parchment next to me. He looked down at me carelessly.

"Perhaps that is enough for now," the old man said, and I gasped with relief. "You will return to the tower, and we will continue our work in due time."

I took a ragged breath and shook my head, my mind clearing suddenly as though a spell had been lifted.

"You have given me much to dwell on, Beatrice Smith. The use of these strange materials…such refined metals we might create, but these chemical plastics, synthetic rubber filled with air, and of course the use of gasoline—these resources present a much greater problem…" Saruman continued to speak, but I wasn't listening.

The sun had started to rise; in the weary, trance-like state I'd been in before, I hadn't noticed. But now…

Now I could see where I was.

I stared at the landscape surrounding me, feeling my jaw drop in horror. I wasn't in Dallas. I wasn't in Texas at all.

I simply couldn't be.

Mountains rose up on the horizon in front of me, jagged, snow-capped, and very real, silhouetted dramatically against the sunrise. A dark, wild-looking forest bordered them, spreading over miles of steep hills in all directions. I looked around me in panic, blinking uncomprehendingly at the view around me. What was going on?

I whirled around, my heartbeat roaring in my ears; then I saw the building—Orthanc—in the pale dawn light. A skyscraper, I'd thought at first—I was wrong.

It was an obelisk, ancient andobsidian-black, rising impossibly high into the sky, so high that I had to crane my neck to see the very top. Time seemed to stand still as I gazed up at it, uncomprehendingly.

This was all too much to bear.

"Where am I?" I shrieked, my voice escaping my throat in a wild, gasping breath. I staggered backward, shaking hands flying to my mouth. I had to be seeing things, or losing my mind, I just had to be—but how could this not be real? "Where am I?"

A hand caught me by the shoulder, bringing me abruptly back to earth. "I do not have time for this nonsense," Saruman snapped. "I have explained to you time and again exactly where you are. Now control yourself, and we will go back to the tower."

Numbly I shook my head, still reeling backward—this wasn't right—there had to be some kind of mistake—how could I be so far from home?

My head spun violently, and I felt my legs give out underneath me. My vision went dark.

And for the first time in my life, I passed out.