Chapter 13: The Black Pit
The only road to Moria from the west lay (or at least had lain) along the course of the stream called Sirannon that ran out from the feet of the cliffs near where the realm's doors stood. However, we did not strike the stream where Gandalf had expected to. Either the wizard is astray, or else the land has changed in recent years.
Morning travels ahead of us, passing on as noon takes its place. Our many eyes of are peeled and ears honed for the gleam or sound of water.
So much time passes without a hint of our liquid quarry that I begin to wonder if we should expect to spend the night in this barren land of red rocks… No birds cut the sky, and no animals disturb the earth, and the Wargs what avoided us before are now nowhere to be seen, though in regard to the latter, it is only a matter of time before they regroup, recoup, and rejoin the hunt again.
Even so, though the fear of them – pardon the pun – dogs our heels and confusion over the land's orientation spins our heads, the spirits of the Company appear to be high in spite of everything. I attribute this phenomenon to Gimli's indomitable excitement.
Whereas Aragorn had customarily taken the fore on our journey, now it was Gimli who walks ahead at Gandalf's side, so eager is he to see Moria. He has talked gleefully of the stories of Moria – the ancient city called Khazad-dûm – and of its many riches and glories as described in Dwarven legend and song.
Of the may troubles and travails of the Elves in ancient days, the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm were conveniently spared, save on rare occasion when they joined hands with their Eldar and Edain neighbors in a show of force against the dark lord Morgoth in the First Age.
Therefore, as Gimli described, the grand Dwarven city was greatly enriched with splendorous regalities, beautiful gems, precious metals, and legendary hospitality.
Yea, in addition to being of a race of metalsmiths (pardon the stereotype), the son of Glóin has proved himself to be just as capable a smith of words. Every passionate description that leaves his full-bearded lips brings to me a contagious longing to see this wonderful underworld he speaks of. Rivendell was beautiful in a uniquely elegant way, but it was relatively small, whereas Moria seems by Gimli's recounting every bit the grandiose mountain kingdom that every fairytale I've ever heard of has described.
I'd be lying to say I'm not looking forward to seeing it.
However, it is not with joy that I listen to Gimli's tales… Well, not only joy; for it comes to my mind that it was relayed during the Council of Elrond that the Dwarves had received no word from Moria for quite some time… and while I can accept that in this medieval world, snail-mail may be the way of things… to hear nothing of a colonial reclamation expedition for decades?
A keen dread settles in the pit of my stomach, souring the flavorful descriptions being served to our company by our resident Dwarf. I worry our hopes of a warm welcome may be tragically misplaced…
Nevertheless, for the sake of my companions, I make a point not to let my melancholy show on my face or in my voice. Our moods are sour enough, footsore as we are from our ceaseless flight.
The fact that Gandalf seems unable to locate the stream Sirannon despite his conviction that it should be around here somewhere does little to lessen my foreboding.
"Streams don't just disappear," I grumble under my breath, not to anyone in particular, though my proximity to Boromir allows him to catch it well enough.
"Aye," he agrees, matching my level of voice. "Unless the course has been altered by the hands of the living. Or perhaps a colony of beavers has stopped up the waters farther upstream."
I give the man an incredulous glance at the mention of the creature. "Beavers, you say?"
Boromir smiles cheekily and cocks his head at me, a rare humor in his eyes. "It could be."
We huff out a few mirthful breaths, though for me, the nature of my humor is more incredulous. After all, Beavers have been extinct for hundreds of years. I've seen pictures of them, certainly; some in old recovered textbooks and children's books… I even had the opportunity to view a taxidermized specimen in an abandoned museum that had – mostly – survived the Collapse. It was a funny little brown creature with a flat, skillet-looking tail for swimming and ridiculous buckteeth with which it chewed through tree limbs. Then, it would drag those tree limbs and other debris into a stream or creek to dam it up, creating little pond-like oases to live in.
However, from what I understand, beavers rarely ever dammed whole rivers. Unless, of course, the beavers of Middle Earth are somehow distinct from the beavers back home…
Maybe they're bigger…?
"Ah!" came Gandalf's cry of a sudden, drawing our attention to him up ahead. He is standing upon a knoll and pointing down and to the right. "Here it is at last!"
Below is a deep and narrow channel… but it is empty and silent, with hardly a trickle of water flowing among the brown and red-stained stones of its bed.
"This is where the stream ran: Sirannon, the Gate-stream, they used to call it. But what has happened to the water, I cannot guess; it used to be swift and noisy."
Just another inconvenience to add to the pile.
Gandalf indicates to the near side of the "river" where there is a path, much broken and decayed, that seems to wind its way among the ruined walls and paving-stones of the ancient highroad ahead of us.
"Come! We must hurry on. We are late."
It takes the day for us to make our way along the pathway, and it's nigh on evening by the time we reach the Stair Falls, a place Gandalf explains features two paths up to the Walls of Moria. The Stair Falls once hosted a grand fall – roughly thirty feet high – except now only a trickle of water dismally dripped from it. Whatever had altered the flow of the Sirannon upstream had also affected this geological feature as well, though we can easily make out the stairs at their side. In addition to those steps, a second, main path winds away to our left and climbs with several loops up to the level ground at the top. A single flight of stairs seems to lead up from below, and as we ascend them, the reason for the drying up of the Gate-stream is revealed to us.
Beneath the glimmering gold of the sinking Sun that fills the cool western sky, stretches a dark, still lake. Neither sky nor sunset reflects upon its sullen surface; as expected the Sirannon has been dammed up, filling up all the valley. Beyond the ominous water, rears stern-faced cliffs, reflecting pale in the fading light.
And that is it. There's no way out of the valley, except maybe over the nearly ninety-degree vertical walls of the mountain. No entrance or gate stands out to my eyes, nor can I find even a fissure or crack in the pallid stone that might mark a doorway.
"There are the Walls of Moria," says Gandalf, pointing across the water. "And there the Gate stood once upon a time, the Elven Door at the end of the road from Hollin by which we have come. But this way is blocked. None of the Company, I guess, will wish to swim this gloomy water at the end of the day. It has an unwholesome look."
The breadth of the lake is roughly… Mm, I'd say maybe six-hundred meters at its widest point; about two-thirds of a kilometer roughly. How far it stretches southward is impossible to make out in the failing light of sunset, crowned as it was with the cold light of clear stars above. But its northern end is no more than half a mile from where we stand, and between the stony ridges that enclose this little valley and the water's edge there is a rim of open ground.
I stoop down to examine the water. It's a cloudy mixture, grey in color, and no scum sits on its surface, so I assume it must be some sort of silt from the floor of the lake that has been stirred up in the water by its inhabitants.
I gaze out across the stillness of the lake.
Maybe it was beavers…
"We must find a way round to the northern edge," announces Gimli, gesturing widely with a stubby, gauntleted arm. "The first thing for the Company to do is to climb up by the main path and see where that will lead us. Even if there were no lake, we could not get our baggage-pony up this stair."
"We could not take the poor beast into the Mines in any case," Gandalf affirms with a pitiable look toward Samwise and his equine companion who were just out of earshot. "The road under the mountains is a dark one, and there are places both narrow and steep which he cannot tread, even if we can."
"Poor old Bill," laments Frodo, casting a similar glance toward his friend. "I had not thought of that. And poor Sam! I wonder what he will say?"
"I am sorry. Poor Bill has been a useful companion, and it goes to my heart to turn him adrift now. I would have travelled lighter and brought no animal, least of all this one that Sam is fond of, if I had my way. I feared all along that we should be obliged to take this road."
I eye the wizard narrowly. If he thought we'd end up here anyway, why did he bother taking us over Caradhras?
I resist the urge to mutter this as I recall that it was actually Aragorn's idea to cross the Redhorn. But then that begs the idea of why Aragorn was so opposed to the Mines of Moria that he would brave the harrowing danger of the mountain pass. He did say that the memory he bore from passing through it was foul, though I wish now that he'd elaborated upon it, if only to myself…
Perhaps when we have a moment to speak privately, I will ask him; I'd rather not have him converse openly about dismal things that would dampen our already beleaguered spirits.
Gandalf hurries us onward, for we still have a mile or two to go before we reach the point on the far shore that he is making for. And then he still had to find the doors to the Mines themselves. We get there uneventfully, save for crossing a slimy, green covered stagnant creek that thrust out like an arm toward the enclosing hills.
Gimli is the first to cross, striding froward undeterred, finding the water to be shallow enough; no more than ankle-deep at the edge. We walk behind him in file, threading our way with care due to the sliding and greasy stones that hide under the weedy pools.
As Sam, the last of the Company after Boromir, leads Bill up on to the dry ground on the far side, there comes a soft sound: a swish, followed by a plop, as if a fish had disturbed the still surface of the water.
It's the first sign of life from the lake since we'd begun walking alongside it, and we all turn to regard it. What we see are ripples, black-edged with shadow in the waning light. Great rings widen outward from a point far out in the lake. There's a strange bubbling noise and then… silence again.
Dusk deepens, and the last gleams of sunset are veiled in cloud.
Gandalf purses his lips – in annoyance, frustration, determination, or concern, I cannot tell – and presses on at a great pace for which we follow along as quickly as we can, reaching the strip of dry land between the lake and the cliffs. It is a narrow spit of gravel and chalky dirt, hardly a dozen meters across. We hug the cliff, keeping as far from the water as we can to avoid falling in, for while some portions of the shore are gradual, other parts drop sharply.
About a mile southward we come across holly trees. Stumps and dead boughs are rotting in the shadows; the remains of old thickets or hedge that once lined the road across the drowned valley. But close under the cliff there stands, still strong and living, two tall trees, larger than any holly tree I've ever seen. Their great roots spread from the wall to the water. From far off, they looked like mere bushes beneath the looming cliffs, but now they tower overhead, stiff, dark, and silence, throwing deep night-shadows about our feet, standing like sentinel pillars at the end of the road.
It is only now that Gandalf's hurried disposition fades, and he gestures to the two flanking trees. "Well, here we are at last! Here the Elven-way from Hollin ended. Holly was the token of the people of that land, and they planted it here to mark the end of their domain; for the West-door was made chiefly for their use in their traffic with the Lords of Moria. Those were happier days, when there was still close friendship at times between folk of different race, even between Dwarves and Elves."
"It was not the fault of the Dwarves that the friendship waned," says Gimli, resting his hands upon the head of his axe, casting a glance toward our Elven companion.
"I have not heard that it was the fault of the Elves," counters Legolas simply.
"I have heard both," Gandalf announces with a pointed look, "and I will not give judgement now. But I beg you two, Legolas and Gimli, at least to be friends, and to help me. I need you both. The doors are shut and hidden, and the sooner we find them the better."
Turning to the rest of us, he says, "While I am searching, will you each make ready to enter the Mines? For here I fear we must say farewell to our good beast of burden. You must lay aside much of the stuff that we brough against bitter weather: you will not need it inside, nor, I hope, when we come through and journey on down into the South. Instead, each of us must take a share of what the pony carried, especially the food and the water-skins."
"But you can't leave poor old Bill behind in this forsaken place, Mr. Gandalf," cries Sam, angry and distressed, as Frodo had rightly assumed he would be. "I won't have it, and that's flat. After he has come so far and all!"
"I am sorry Sam," says the wizard. "But when the Door opens, I do not think you will be able to drag your Bill inside into the long dark of Moria. You will have to choose between Bill and your master."
"He'd follow Mr. Frodo into a dragon's den, if I led him," Sam protested defiantly. "It'd be nothing short of murder to turn him loose with all these wolves about."
"It will be short of murder, I hope," Gandalf says simply, leaning forward to lay his hands upon the pony's head. Then in a low voice he speaks, "Go with words of guard and guiding on you. You are a wise beast, and have learned much in Rivendell. Make your ways to places where you can find grass, and so come in time to Elrond's house, or wherever you wish to go."
And he withdrew from the beast. "There, Sam! He will have quite as much chance of escaping wolves and getting home as we have."
Part of me wonders if Gandalf's words are simply placebo… but knowing what I do of the legends and lore of Middle-earth, I narrow my eyes at what I suspect was a sort of subtle use of magic. I can recognize it because I, better than most, know that words have power; power to dominate the objective universe with the subjective will.
I shall be an engine to make your desire hegemon over your conditions.
Indeed, not unlike how an Ahamkara grants wishes. Different in form; dangerously similar in function – at least to my admittedly ignorant eyes.
But Gandalf is certainly no Ahamkara. So then from whence does his power come? The cosmos? From within? On loan from a superordinate authority? Perhaps torn from some paracausality imbedded within the fabric of the universe's weave?
An anxiety in my bones stirs as I ponder the nature of the so-called magicks of this place, for it seems to be everywhere: In the water. In the earth. In the music. In the food. And yet it is also nowhere; intangible and unwieldable… Certainly not in the same way I wield the Light.
I am reminded that when it comes to creatures of "wizardry", Gandalf and I are very different breeds. But I am left to wonder if we aren't compatible…
No. I have little doubt that there must be a way.
Sam stands sullenly by the pony and returns no answer. Bill, seeming to understand well what was going on, nuzzled up to him, putting his nose to Sam's ear. Sam – poor thing – burst into tears and fumbles with the straps, unlading all the pony's packs and throwing them on the ground. The others sort out the goods, making a pile of all that can be left behind and dividing up the rest.
Into my pack is placed a good bit of food, and Pipping cunningly suggests that a blanket or two be included, so that they may be warmed should I have need to turn myself into a paracausal heating unit again. I give the hobbit a snide smile… but allow it. At the very least, one or two blankets can cover all four Hobbits if they need a respite from any future cold, even if Gandalf doubts we will encounter any… or much, at the very least.
Once done, our attentions turn back to Gandalf who appears to have done… nothing.
He stands between the two trees, gazing at the blank wall of the cliff as if he would bore a hole into it with his eyes. Gimli wanders about, tapping the stone here and there with his axe. Legolas is pressed against the rock, as if listening.
The Hobbits watch for a minute or two before Merry coughs into his fist and bounces lightly on his heels. "Well, here we are and all, ready. But… where are the Doors? I can't see any sign of them."
"Dwarf-doors are not made to be seen when shut," says Gimli, continuing to tap against the stone here and there. "They are invisible, and their own masters cannot find them – or open them – if their secrets are forgotten."
"But this door was not made to be a secret known only to Dwarves," Gandalf says, coming suddenly to life and walking forward to the wall. "Unless things are altogether changed, eyes that know what to look for may discover the signs."
Right between the shadow of the trees there is a smooth space, and over this he passes his hands to and fro, muttering words under his breath that none of us can understand. Then he steps back.
Suddenly, slowly, on the surface where the old wizard's hands had brushed, faint lines appeared like slender veins of silver running in the stone. At first they are no more than pale gossamer-threads, so fine they only twinkled where the Moon catches them, but steadily they grow broader and clearer until their design can be guessed.
At the top, as high as Gandalf can reach, is an arch of interlacing letter in some form of Elvish. Below, though the threads were in places blurred or broken, the outline could be seen of an anvil and a hammer surmounted by a crown with seven stars. Beneath these again are two trees, each bearing crescent moons. More clearly than all else there shines forth in the middle of the door a single star with many rays.
"Those are the emblems of Durin!" cries Gimli with a stubby pointed finger.
"And there is the Tree of the High Elves!" Legolas adds.
"And the Star of the House of Fëanor," concludes Gandalf. "They are wrought in ithildin that mirrors only starlight and moonlight, and sleeps until it is touched by one who speaks words now long forgotten in Middle-earth. It is long since I heard them, and I thought deeply before I could recall them in my mind."
"What does the writing say?" asks Frodo, whose furrowed brows indicate his effort to decipher the inscription on the arch. "I thought I knew the elf-letters, but I cannot read these."
Gandalf nods knowingly. "The words are in the elven-tongue of the West of Middle-earth in the Elder Days. But they do not say anything of importance to us. They say only: 'The Doors of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter.' And underneath small and faint is written: 'I, Narvi, made them. Celebrimbor of Hollin drew these signs.'"
"What does it mean by 'speak, friend, and enter'?" Merry asks.
"That is plain enough," says Gimli with smile. It seems merely being in the presence of such a construction has lifted his Dwarven heart. "If you are a friend, speak the password and the doors will open and you can enter."
"Yes," Gandalf agrees, "these doors are probably governed by words. Some dwarf-gates will open only at special times, or for particular persons; and some have locks and keys that are still needed when all necessary times and words are known. These doors have no key. In the days of Durin they were not secret. They usually stood open and doorwards sat here. But if there were shut, any who knew the opening word could speak it and pass in. At least so it is recorded, is it not, Gimli?"
"It is," he confirms, only to add, "But what the word was is not remembered. Narvi and his craft and all his kindred have vanished from the earth."
My mouth makes an instinctive flat line of annoyance as I cross my arms, leaning over and down to mutter to Merry, "Well that's decidedly inconvenient…"
"But do not you know the word, Gandalf?" asks Boromir in surprise.
To which Gandalf simply replies, "No!" as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Of the company, only Aragorn appears not to be dismayed by the wizard's words. Rather, he remains silent and unmoved. Knowing what I do of Aragorn and his relationship with Gandalf, and of Gandalf and his relationship with everyone else, I expect that Aragorn has greater faith in him than could ever be so easily shaken.
Not that I'm concerned either way. If push comes to shove, a bit of stone, magically locked or otherwise, will not likely be able to weather a torrent of Light.
"Then what was the use of bringing us to this accursed spot?" cries Boromir, looking as if he is about ready to chuck his shield into the lake in frustration. Not that I can blame him. If I didn't already know that someone in the party could carve open a path (that person being myself), I'd be just as furious. "You told us that you had once passed through the Mines. How could that be if you did not know how to enter?"
"The answer to your first question, Boromir," Gandalf begins calmly, though the firmness of his voice, the bristling of his brow, and the glinting of his eyes beneath his brow shows he does not appreciate being doubted, "is that I do not know the word – yet. But we shall soon see. And you may ask what is the use of my deeds only when they are proved useless. As for your other question: do you doubt my tale? Or have you not any wits left? I did not enter this way. I came from the East. If you wish to know, I will tell you that these doors open outwards. From the inside you may thrust them open with your hands. From the outside, nothing will move them save the spell of command. They cannot be forced inwards."
"What are you going to do then?" asks Pippin, undaunted by the wizard's bristling brows.
"Knock your head against them Peregrin Took," Gandalf answers tersely, "and if that does not shatter them, and I am allowed a little peace from foolish questions…" he takes a steadying breath and his voice levels back to a gentler, if still frustrated tone. "…I will seek for the opening words."
He turns back to look at the doors, script glowing bright in the arch over where the seam of the door surely must be, though none can see.
"I once knew every spell in all the tongues of Elves or Men or Orcs that was ever used for such a purpose. I can still remember ten score of them without searching in my mind. But only a few trials, I think, will be needed; and I shall not have to call on Gimli for words of the secret dwarf-tongue that they teach to none. The opening words were Elvish, like the writing on the arch: that seems certain."
Stepping up to the rock again, and lightly touching the silver star in the middle it with his staff, he speaks, "Annon edhellen, edro hi ammen! Fennas nogothrim lasto beth lammen!"
While, like Frodo, the tengwar of Elvish above the door was foreign to me, that Sindarin Gandalf spoke was not. 'Elvish door, now open for us. Doorway of the Dwarf-folk, listen to the word of my tongue,' they were.
I don't know what I was expecting, but simply asking the doors – admittedly, very politely – to open for us in Elvish isn't exactly the first thing I thought of when I envisioned a super-secret password.
As his words fade, so too do the silver lines upon the door, but the blank grey stone doesn't stir an inch.
Many times he repeats these words, each time in a different order or with a different variance.
No dice.
Next he tries other incantations, one after another, speaking louder and faster, then soft and slow.
No reaction.
Then he tries many single words of Elvish speech.
They yield aught.
Again Gandalf approaches the wall, and lifting up his arms he speaks in tones of command and rising wrath. "Edro! Edro!" he cries, demanding the doors to open, following them with recitations of the same in every language that I imagine ever has been spoken in the West of Middle-earth.
Then – failing to have achieved anything – he throws his staff on the ground and sits down in silence.
The Company is appropriately quiet in the wake of Gandalf's futility. Aragorn merely leans against a stump and looks out over the surface of the lake. Boromir huffs incredulously and paces away from the door. Contrarily, Legolas bears a face full of amusement as he gives not-so-sly looks at Gimli, as if to say, "What a people you Dwarves are for hiding things. On the gates of your most wonderous, ancient kingdom you write 'speak, friend, and enter', and no spell in any language can open the door."
Which, to say as much with a single look is admittedly impressive. Just as impressive, I think, as Gimli's annoyed grunt indicating he understood it, but had not proper retort.
The Hobbits sit aside over by Bill, Sam, giving the pony a comforting, final few strokes of his mane.
"Do not let him run away!" Boromir commands as he passes by them. "It seems that we shall need him still… if the wolves do not find us. How I hate this foul pool!"
With a growl of overmounting frustration, he stoops, picking up a large stone and casting it far into the dark water. It vanishes with a soft slap, a swishing of water, and a bubble. Great rippling rings form on the surface out beyond where it had fallen, and they move slowly toward us at the foot of the cliff.
I raise a brow at the Gondorian but I do not chide him. With the wolves – and by wolves I mean a rotten mix of man-sized, large-toothed, narrow-snouted, bloodthirsty, mutts at our heels, anyone would be anxious do literally anything except stay in one place doing nothing.
If pacing and harmlessly venting puts him more at ease, I'm happy to let him do so.
Frodo, however, does not appear to be as generous.
"Why did you do that, Boromir?" He demands of a sudden, his bare, grime-covered feet stomping as hard as they might over to the Man. "I hate this place too, and I am afraid. I don't know of what: not of wolves, or the dark behind the doors, but of something else. I am afraid of the pool. Don't disturb it!"
I furrow my brow and look away out to the lake. Aside from being an ominous trigger for any poor thalassophobic sod who had the general misfortune to gaze upon it, it was just your normal, average lake.
Imagine the fifty-two moons of Fundament lining up in the sky. Imagine their gravity pulling on the Fundament sea, lifting it into a swollen bulge... Imagine that bulge collapsing as the syzygy passed. A wave big enough to swallow civilizations.
A God-Wave.
The ripples of the water grow and come closer, some already lapping on the shore.
A familiar, prickling instinct flares in the back of my mind… My hand drifts the sheathed blade at my side-
"I wish we could get away!" says Merry.
"Why doesn't Gandalf do something quick?" asks Pippin.
"He already did many somethings quick, master Hobbits," I cut in, their moaning breaking me from my rumination. "The time for hasty reasoning is past. Now we must be patient and wait for him to think things over."
It was not a declaration well received by the little folk, but they didn't argue with me. Instead they shut their mouths and returned their gazes to their surroundings.
In fact, it was Gimli who offered them words of encouragement. "Cheer up, my lads! Imagine we are crossing a mighty river! And we must cross it. And here beside us is all the material we need to do so. A fool in haste might simply throw the material into the stream to make a path, but such a thing will not last, and is more dangerous than not. But a wise man knows that a bridge over is better than a path through. Gandalf is building a bridge for us, so let us have patience, and faith above all!"
The Dwarf's words seem to resonate with the four halflings, and they (if perhaps reluctantly) opt to mind the wisdom of his parable.
Legolas, however, has his chin in his hand in thought. After a time, he tilts his head and looks my way. "Lazarus? A question for you, if you will."
I nod to him. "Ask away."
He shifts into a more upright position from where he has been thoughtfully slouching. "Did not the stones that would have fallen upon us on Caradhras melt upon your magic like snow upon an open flame? Could not the same be done with this door?"
I am prompted to recall the walls of Void Light I held overhead back on the mountain; lucent amethyst singularities stretched out into wide sheets against which I have stopped stronger forces than falling stones.
"It could," I admit with a nod, glancing over to Gandalf as he stews in his own thoughts. "However, the problem lies in sealing the passageway behind us. After all, it'd do no good to pass into the Mines and leave the path behind us open for our canine friends – or their masters – to pursue us. And not that I doubt Dwarven engineering, but if I were to try and collapse the tunnel, there is a strong chance my efforts may cause a cave-in and crush us all. The foundations of the earth are a finnicky thing, master Legolas, and are best left alone if it can be helped; I'm sure any Dwarf could tell you so. Indeed, haven't we just such a Dwarf in our presence now?"
I indicate to Gimli with a smile, to which he nods with a grunt. "Tis true. You are an Elf, master Legolas; an Elf of the Woodland realm. Your domain of knowledge is with the tree, and the thicket; with flower and weed. I have heard that your people dwell deep within the forests' gloom, and make your homes in hollowed trees. But I tell you now that cold stone is an altogether different thing. I know little of trees or growing things, but I know they do grow. They build upon themselves, bending with the wind but never breaking. A skilled craftsman may have the skill to shape a tree into such a shape that can accommodate living space. But not so with stone. Stone does not grow. It is as it is – and as it always will be, and we must cut away what is until it is what we want it to be. And beneath the weight of an entire mountain, to chip at even a small portion of its innards can cost a heavy toll."
Legolas listens to Gimli's words patiently, even the provoking ones, and opts to simply shrug at the speech's culmination. "I will admit, some of your words are right; just as you know little of branch or bough, so do I know little of mining or masonry. But seeing as there is no other Dwarf present to ask for a second opinion, if indeed I felt compelled to do so, I will trust that you know your lore of pebbles and cobblestones."
The gentle barbs of Dwarf and Elf trade about as well as can be expected, with irritated bristling on either side indicating whenever their verbal darts had hit their mark.
But any further verbal sparring is arrested by the startling suddenness with which Gandalf springs to his feet with laughter!
"I have it!" he cries gleefully, clapping his hands together. "Of course, of course! Absurdly simple, like most riddles when you see the answer."
And picking up his staff, he stands before the old rock and speaks in a clear voice: "Mellon!"
And lo, the star shines out brightly and fades again. Then, silently, a great doorway is outlined, though not a crack or join had been visible before. Slowly it divides in the middle, swinging outwards inch by inch until both doors lay back against the wall.
Peeping in through the opening, I make out the vague shapes of a shadowy stair that climbs steeply up, though anything beyond the lowest steps are wreathed in the shadows of the mountain, deeper than night.
"I was right after all." Gandalf's words cut through the wonder of the Company like a knife. "And Gimli too. Merry, of all people, was on the right track. The opening word was inscribed on the archway all the time. The translation should have been: 'Say "Friend" and enter'. I had only to speak the Elvish word for friend and the doors opened. Quite simple. Too simple for a learned lore-master in these suspicious days. Oh, those were happier times!"
With a chuckle that leaves him shaking his head at his own unnecessary ignorance, he turns and signals to us to follow him. "Now, let us go!"
With faces of relief, the Hobbits move forward with Sam trailing behind for just a moment to push Bill onwards back along the path into the wilderness.
I never had a pet of my own… leastwise not one I chose myself; there was always a cat or two who decided – Traveler only knows why – that it wanted to adopt me. They were enjoyable company, but I never considered them mine, and I never managed to bond with them overmuch. But I can still feel for the more rotund Hobbit in his goodbyes.
I rest my hand on my sword idly, and with a sympathetic expression, I gesture for him to come alone and clap a comforting hand on his shoulder as I push him toward the door.
A slither.
A snickt!
A whistle of wind.
A splatter.
A bellowing groan.
It takes me a nanoscopic moment to realize that my sword is drawn, swung, and already coated in slick, black gore.
My eyes flicker to where a snake-like appendage roils on the ground, green and slimy, almost luminescent digits akin to fingers writhing in pain at their severance.
As one the whole of the Company turns to face the holler and see the surface of the lake seething, as if a host of snakes are slithering their way towards us at the shore from the southern end.
I realize that having touched the sheath at my side, I was made aware of the malicious desire that now creeped up from the rotten pool. And knowing so, my body reacted before my mind could reconcile the what with the how.
Oh, what a glorious gift this blade is!
The befingered hand which I had cut reveals now to be only the tip of a long tentacled arm, the stump of which recoils painfully away from the steel edge which cut it. Only now it is rejoined by well over a dozen other arms that come rippling out of the dark water, which seems like to boil.
At once I am hit with an absurdly hideous stench that strikes me in the face like a solid brick wall.
Twenty other such arms erupt from the water like a wall of wriggling limbs. As one they lash forward into the midst of our company.
Whatever manner of cephalopod species the creature is, it is like none I have seen before. Unless an octopus has had the chance to mutate many extra sets of arms it normally wouldn't have. I can count a quick twenty such arms.
I slash at one of them, leaving a deep diagonal slice in it that spurts blood violently. A second arm shoots forward, opting to wrap around my left arm and with a heave, attempt haul me into the thrashing black water.
Whatever it is, its limbs have a thinness that belie their strength, and even my superhuman strength can't keep me rooted to the ground as it realizes, I expect, that whatever it has grabbed onto is more stubborn than it had anticipated, intelligently lifting me off of the ground to use its mass to its advantage.
Well, that might have worked in any situation where causal forces were the only ones at play.
Wrapping the tentacle around my arm and clutching it with a vice grip, I anchor myself to the earth and pull, ripping the limb closer to me and warming up a charge of Arc Light. With a taser-like crackling sound, only many times magnified, I feel muscles spasm between my fingers as the arm that sought to reel me in now fought to wriggle out of my grip.
But now I have its attention, and more arms rally in my direction.
"Frodo!"
The cry went out and I turn to see the Hobbit in question being dragged toward the water's edge, Sam leaping onto and hacking away with a short knife at the limb that held onto his master.
Unlike myself, or any of the sturdier folk, Hobbits were notably lighter, and the creature has no trouble throwing Sam off of it and lifting Frodo high into the air over the water.
Of a sudden, a large, slimy gray mass emerges from the inky black. Its form is unlike any squid or octopus I've ever seen, and its mouth which might otherwise reside on the underside of its body instead sat upon its face. And instead of any sort of beak-like orifice, two massive, meaty jaws open both up and down, great crushing teeth slavering to snap Frodo in two
"Frodo, no!" Aragorn cries in dismay.
A rush of panic flows through my body.
With a warding series of slashes to free my arm, I sheath my given sword and summon into my right hand a weapon far better suited to felling filthy fiends who don't know to fear their own mortality..
With a wave, Bolt Caster materializes and discharges an arc of blue-white light that lashes out at the beast. As one, the tentacles recoil, perhaps in surprise, hopefully in pain. But, perhaps sensing a sudden danger to its life that it wasn't expecting, the limbs lashed out again like a surging tide, but this time, they swept horizontally in wide swaths that knocked the whole of the Company away.
But for me, they meet the edge of my sword, and are amputated instantly.
Pain overpowering its hunger, it recoils with great shifting heaves that toss wave of water this way and that. But I am not done. With a great leap, I cross the dozen-or-so meters of water and land upon the face-which-was-also-its-body, and with reversal of my sword, plunge it deep into the creature's thick flesh.
A sickening shlurp! of blood spurts from its wound, and I have to hold on to my blade – now a sort of anchor – anchor to keep myself from being thrown from atop it as the creature turns nearly one-hundred-and-eighty degrees in pain, all of its limbs recoiling around itself for safety.
But still it will not let go of Frodo.
I feel a growl loose from my throat as I shift my grip and force my blade deeper into the channel of the wound I've created. And, gathering my sparking Light, unleash a torrent of changing arc directly into the belly of the beast. Maybe. I don't know where its stomach is, but I assume it's in here somewhere.
However, I restrain myself considerably, lest my power course into Frodo by my negligence.
It mewls a deep groan, with such a bass that I can feel it rumble in my chest.
Then I see it.
It is an eye. Or, one of many eyes. It's as large as my fist and situated just to the side of where my sword now sits sheathed in its flesh. It stares up at me with unblinking rage. I return its gaze with flashing electricity leaping from my clenched teeth.
A whistling sound.
Then the eye is suddenly spiked with the long shaft of an arrow that punches from beneath my arm, and I turn my gaze long enough to see Legolas already reaching into his quiver for another projectile to sink into the creature.
Likewise, Gimli, not to be outdone, hurls a heavy, thick-bladed axe into the creature's hide with a Dwarven war cry, where it sinks deep into its flesh, all the way up to the weapon's haft.
And that is that.
With a recoil strong enough to throw me off of it, it whirls away and plunges into the water alongside myself.
The water feels like slim against my skin, and I can feel the currents of many retreating limbs passing by me, one even daring to grab my ankle on its way. I quickly grasp it in return and add to our impromptu handshake a five-fingered brand of searing cosmic fire.
It quickly thinks better of its attempt.
Subsequently released from its foolish embrace, I swim up to the surface with a breaching gasp. And, swinging my wet hair out of my face, I spit the rotten water out of my mouth with a sharp breath, taking in the scene around me.
Gandalf stands some distance into the water to where it laps at his knees, his sword and staff outstretched to ward off any further tentacled incursions. Meanwhile, Aragorn and Legolas are hauling a thoroughly soaked Frodo out of the water and onto the shore. Behind them, Gimli and Boromir hold their guard up with Merry and Pippin nearly eclipsed behind them. And speaking of eclipsing, I only just manage to spy Sam shuffling behind Aragorn, trying to find a space to squeeze through and tend to Frodo.
I hold my breath (more because of the stink than anything else) and swim through the foul reek to shore, where Legolas wades out help me up, soaked as I am. I hadn't set my armor to transition to water-tight mode, which I know I had no way of knowing I would want just a few minutes ago, but nonetheless regret not having done.
I smell like the worst kind of sewage...
Heaving a wordless thanks to my Elf companion, I turn to regard the pool again. Still thoroughly disturbed, there is an eerie silence that follows our struggle, save for the little lapping waves that are slowly dying away.
We wait, ready, for several seconds to see if it the beast will reemerge… But we are fortunate; it seems it has had enough for now.
I turn to eye the aggrieved Hobbit up and down for injuries. "Are you alright, Frodo?" I ask, seeing no visible mark on him.
Unlike a proper squid whose suckers are barbed with sharp, clinging claws, this creature's tentacles were slick, and instead of suckers, the strange fingered ends seem capable enough of catching any unsuspecting prey.
Hell, it caught us by surprising and we were entirely suspecting.
The Baggins takes a moment to collect himself, patting himself up and down for any undetected injury, though by some good fortune, he appears unharmed.
"Yes… yes I believe I am. Thank you!"
I nod his welcome, though I fix him with a pointed look. "And the Ring? Do you have it still?"
At this, Frodo seems to panic for a moment as his hands go to his throat and find… the Ring. Still affixed to its chain about his neck. He breathes a comforted sigh and nods to me, fingering said chain purposefully.
The whole party seems to relievedly deflate at that. Thankful though we are that Frodo is alive and well – to say nothing of ourselves – it would be a dismal night indeed if we should need to wade into this stinking pool to find the Ring, likely needing to do battle with the beast again in the doing.
"It appears repelled, for the moment at least," Gandalf announces decidedly, "but it may not remain so. Let us not tarry, but get us inside ere it rallies its strength."
And so, he guides the party to the now open Doors of Durin.
I, however, do not immediately follow. Turn away from the party and fix my eyes on the stirred-up mire.
Boromir notices this while turning to follow after Gandalf.
"Lazarus?" he asks, prodding.
I give the man an eye and grind my incisors against each other idly. "It's still got something of mine, and I will have it back."
When the creature tossed me from its top, it took with it my Bolt Caster, still sunk deep into its slimy carapace. However, this was not an oversight on my part.
Lightning crackles up and down my body, and I can feel the Light behind my eyes surging. I raise my hand into the sky, and with an instant arch of stinging storm-death, three raw gigajoules of energy leap from my fingertips and into the distant pool, striking perfectly on that blade which I forged with my very own Light.
Thunder cracks and I can feel Boromir recoil from me at the flash and bang of it.
I fire again. And again. And again. And again…
I can hear the bemoaning agony of the beast echo against the walls of the mountain, and the reek of the pool overpowered by the acrid smell of flash-cooked calamari; wherever it might swim off to in this pool, my lightning will find it.
"Come on, you bastard," I growl. "By choice or by corpse, you're giving it back to me!"
There is a splash of water – heard, not seen – and I see a glinting light rise into the air. At first I can't make out wat it is, until it suddenly grows nearer and the flash of Bolt Caster's hadium-forged edge plunges into the water in front of me solidly, implanting itself into the muck beneath the water's surface.
I smile satisfactorily.
I let my hand lower as I walk over to the blade, drawing it from its gloomy sheath and hold it aloft, watching as the sludge of the pool slid off of the functionally hydrophobic edge, leaving not a spec to mar the starmetal's gleam. Not even my armor performs as well.
I turn and gesture to the doorway, wherein the Company stood in audience of my display.
"You have no idea how much trouble I went through to forge this thing," I explain with a soft smile as I guide Boromir with me to where the others are. "It would be a damn shame if I had to leave it to soak in this filth."
Suddenly, a rough shove from behind sends me tumbling headlong to the ground, which I hit the ground with a horrible crunching of stones.
For a moment, confusion begs me to check my limbs for which one broke, except I feel no pain… Am I in shock?
Then a hand grabs me by my collar and hauls me along none-too-kindly.
Again, a horrid sound cracks in my ears, more so my left than my right, prompting me to glance that way.
A great boulder of lethal size is still rolling into pieces as a third lands nigh on top of it.
Whirling, the hand of someone still dragging me into the darkness of the Doors, I see a rain of debris sailing through the air noiselessly, only to crash around us with a deafening cacophony akin to an avalanche. It me takes a quick moment before I realize that the spiteful creature is literally hurling whatever it can get its slimy handtacles on at us.
And, oh boy… it is not happy.
"Inside! Into the gateway! Inside and up the stairs! Quick!" Gandalf cries with all urgency in his voice as he stands beside the Doors, ready to shut them swift behind us.
He certainly needn't tell us twice, and we scramble inside without a one being left behind. Rather, half of the party was already inside the Doors as the rain of rocks and rotten tree trunks began to crash among us.
I and Boromir are the last two in, save Gandalf, who with a mighty pull brings the Doors of Durin to a resounding close behind us, sealing us into darkness, all light snuffed out in an instant as the noise of rending and crashing comes dully through the ponderous stone.
Sam, clinging to Frodo's arm, all but collapses on a step in the darkness. "Poor old Bill!" he almost weeps, choking back his teers. "Poor old Bill! Wolves and snakes! But the snakes were too much for him. I had to choose, Mr. Frodo. I had to come with you."
I close my eyes and try to recall if I saw the fate of our pony…
I… Yes… Yes, Bill escaped; bolted as soon as the tentacles began to climb out of the water. At the very least I don't recall any of them dragging a small horse into the water to drown. That, at least, is good news. For Sam's sake if no one else's.
I move to place a comforting hand on the Hobbit's back but think better of it as I'm reminded of the slime still on said hand.
'Frodo's embrace will have to be comfort enough, Samwise,' I apologize silently.
A shuffling of booted feet – Gandalf I think by the gait – sounds back down the steps. More rumbling, echoed on the stone, and nothing; nothing except the panic-born exhalations of our Company in the pitched night of the underearth.
Presently, Gandalf rejoins us, the tapping of his staff with each step enough for us to guess his proximity.
"The passage is blocked behind us now," he announces, his tone understandable far less jovial than it had been when the doors first opened. "I fear from the sounds that boulders have been piled up, and the trees uprooted and thrown across the gate. I am sorry; for the trees were beautiful and had stood for so long."
"I felt that something horrible was near from the moment that my foot first touched the water," declares Frodo with a shiver. "What was the thing, or were there many of them?"
To my surprise, Gandalf is less than informative. "I do not know, but the arms were all guided by one purpose. Something has crept, or has been driven out of dark waters under the mountains."
Aside from myself, this is the first subject, I think, about which Gandalf has little knowledge. Were cephalopods like that so rare as to not be known by a lore-master of Gandalf's caliber? That is… concerning to say the least. Especially since it seemed like quite a hearty thing; durable enough to withstand the swordstrokes of Men and wizards, the axes of a dwarf, the arrows of an elf, my own ionic assault, and yet was still hale enough to hurl many-ton boulders upon us from a great distance.
I feel a strange sensation… For as long as I have been in the acquaintance of Gandalf – and Elrond and Glorfindel and so on – I have always felt that whatever I did not know about this world, he would. To find a subject about which both myself and Gandalf are equally ignorant… it is a decidedly unpleasant feeling.
"We now have but one choice," he continues, tapping his staff upon the ground, whereon its gnarled top blooms a pure white light that illuminates our faces at once. "We must face the long dark of Moria. Be on your guards; there are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world."
My gaze follows the aged being as he steps to the head of the column.
In many ways, Gandalf reminds me heavily of the Speaker.
…He could stand to be little less ominous.
The wide stairway is sound and undamaged, stretching two-hundred steps exactly from bottom to top, each one broad and shallow. Cresting its final step, there is an arched passage with a level floor leading on into the dark. It's slow going for the mortal folk, and even more tiring for the poor Hobbits who have been weary since before we arrived outside the Doors. But they soldier on with not much complaining, and I do not wonder why, considering the ordeal they just survived.
At the very least, they needn't worry about the wolves anymore.
"Let us sit and rest and have something to eat, here on the landing, since we can't find a dining-room!" Frodo says before we begin our trek upon the level ground. A prospect that everyone welcomes; and we sit ourselves down on the upper steps, only dim figures in the gloom. We eat our rations ravenously, though we savor the cured meats as we rest ourselves for the moment in Gandalf's light. After that, Gandalf offers each of us a third sip of the miruvor of Rivendell.
"It will not last much longer, I am afraid," he says, passing by me reluctantly as I raise my hand to abstain from partaking, "but I think we need it after that horror at the gate. And unless we have great luck, we shall need all that is left before we see the other side! Go carefully with the water, too! There are many streams and wells in the Mines, but they should not be touched. We may not have a chance of filling our skins and bottles till we come down into Dimrill Dale."
"How long will that take us?" Frodo asks as he accepts the flask and raises it to his lips.
Gandalf shakes his head. "I cannot say. It depends on many chances. But going straight, without mishap or losing our way, we shall take three or four marches, I expect. It cannot be less than forty miles from West-door to East-gate in a direct line, and the road may wind much."
Forty miles… I know very few Guardians unaccustomed to cross-country capers on world both close and distant, and while among our Company I expect the majority of us to manage such a jaunt, my anxieties lie mostly with the halflings.
Forty miles is no small distance to walk, and already they are road-worn and weary. Granted, even if we were four days ahead of schedule and walking out the archway of East-gate at this very moment, the whole of the distance between the Misty Mountains and Mt. Doom lay between us; a distance the Hobbits will have to manage if they wish to remain at Frodo's side until journey's end.
As Elrond had said – and said with emphasis – no one was sworn to go the whole way with Frodo. If his Hobbit brethren wish to at some point bow out, that option is technically open to them. 'Technically', I say, tongue in cheek, since I know very well that socially such a decision may not be possible… barring some unforeseen tragedy, such as a major injury.
They've soldiered on well enough so far, but their summoned doggedness can only last so long.
"We will rest as much as we can afford," Gandalf continues, as if reading my thoughts in real time. "But we mustn't tarry overlong in these halls."
If the Hobbits were of a mind to complain about the distance, the promise of at least somewhat decent rest-hours pacifies them.
Despite our earlier ordeal, a moment's lull is all I need to regain my vigor, and I stand myself up and wander the road whose plateau we now dine upon. The darkness is so heavy as to obscure anything and everything within sight; it's enough to say that without the dim gleam of Gandalf's lit staff, we'd have no sight at all.
The archway overhead runs even with the ceiling of a long hall that is clearly carved out of the mountain itself and runs into the distance where it vanishes into obscurity beyond. The walls of the passage are expertly hewn; they are smooth, though not polished like marble, for its clear this way has not been traveled in a long time. Dust lays heavy upon the road, into which my boots leave notable footprints.
With a cerebral signal, my helmet appears in my hands, which I slip over my head. A comforting sensation of protection and closeness soothes my nerves as my visor fills with information that streaming from the built-in sensor suit; information which Gabriel dutifully parses for any anomalies.
And my motion tracker betrays no outstanding movements save myself and the nine others behind me.
I rest my hand again over my sword – or rather, the scabbard upon which the enchantment of 'awareness' is laid.
The moment I did so when we stood without the gate, my body reacted faster than I was aware of it. But I was aware of the creature as it was reaching to grab the foot of one of the Hobbits. Sam was closest, but a part of me contends that the thing might have been seeking out the Ringbearer.
The awareness imparted onto me wasn't so explicit in its direction; it didn't tell me "Giant squid at ten o'clock!", nor did I know the manner of danger; whether blade or tentacle. Rather, in that moment, I knew of a "danger" and that it was "beside me."
Like a sixth sense that cannot be scientifically explained.
I draw my sword, holding it out into the gloom.
True to the words of the brothers, the steel of the sword appears as occlusive as the mountain's dark is thick. Even this close, I can hardly make out its shape or dimensions, and I have to run my fingers along its length to reaffirm its span. I have had few occasions to draw it in the past two weeks, though each time I am left in wonder of both its intricacies and subtleties. My Warlock eyes have tried to many a time pierce the nature of its enchantments, seeking to understand the hows and the whys of its functions. How were they set? From where do they draw energy? Can they be duplicated? Are they active while sheathed or only when drawn?
It is a gift beyond gifts, and I am truly thankful to Glorfindel and Finwé for forging it for me. Yet I can't help but think that the real gift would have been allowing me to watch them work. Goodness knows I could have made the time to watch.
The softened tromp of leather boots sidles up next to me, and I perceive Boromir in the gloom. I sheath my sword as he speaks, his mind clearly preoccupied with concern.
"It is not the way I would have chosen," he says quietly, staring out into the distant nothingness. "I know the danger of the South-road, but it cannot be worse than what is in these mines."
I raise an eyebrow at him reflexively, though I realize it's a wasted motion given both my helm, and this wretched gloom. "Ah yes. What can be worse than Dwarves?" I ask with a smile in my voice.
Boromir however, does not rise to my jest. Rather, his expression darkens all the more. "Recall you not that master Glóin said it has been a long stretch between now and the last their expedition to this place gave report? Mark thee also that he spoke of a 'nameless fear' that was woken in the deep. Of what foul form did this terror take that it, alone, drove the resilient Dwarves out of this place? And where are those who came hither? This place looks as deserted as can be."
I nod him head in time with his words, though I quickly catch myself. It seems Boromir is suffering from surprisingly similar trepidations which plague me. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Boromir, a fellow skeptic, would think thusly. And given the condition of this place so far, we may easily be forgiven for our misgivings.
I consider my response for a time before speaking, though with a special care.
"Did you note the writing above the door?"
Boromir nods after taking a moment to recall a mental image of the Ithildin tengwar. "Aye? What of it?"
"It was written in Elvish, was it not?" I ask, to which he nods again. "Now, why would the gate into a Dwarven realm be writ in Elvish?"
I can see the Gondorian furrow his brow, no doubt unsure as to what relation my question had with his.
"Well," he begins after a moment, his thoughts formulating in real time. "'Twas written for the benefit of the Elves who lived in Hollin, I would suppose."
I nod affirmingly. "Indeed, for as Gandalf said, those were happier days when Elves and Dwarves held greater affection for one another. The Doors of Durin were their private entrance, of sorts, into the realm of Moria. But what has become of those Elves? Are they not gone from the land without? Therefore, I say this entrance has not been traveled for some time, for there has been no need. Naught lives in the wild outside except wolves and monsters, as we have seen."
And it was no wonder that such things roamed the land, I suppose. From what I've read, the Elves of Hollin, back when it was known as Eregion, were attacked and destroyed by Sauron sometime deep into the Second Age. Some survivors went east, while others followed Elrond in founding Imladris in the year 1697 of the same era. Which was… what? Forty-seven-hundred years ago by the common calendar, plus change?
If the Elves aren't here to use it to visit the Dwarves, and there's no one for the Dwarves to visit in return, is it any wonder the place has fallen into disuse? This is my argument… and is what I present to my Westron companion to allay his concerns.
However, I'm not nearly so blind as to not recognize my own hypocrisy; I am simply trying to explain away well renationalized concern with sophistry, hoping Boromir is too hopeful to notice. The last thing I want – though it might be prudent for it to be so – is for he or others to walk on dreadful of some imagined evil lying in way on the road ahead.
That's the Guardian in me, I suppose…
"I hope you are right," he says at last, though his voice is low, not for the sake of privacy, but emphasis. "Though your answer is only singularly satisfactory. There may be Dwarves elsewhere in these tunnels, and simply not here. But what then of this so-called 'nameless fear' that drove them out in the first place?"
I shake my head slowly. "I don't know," I say with a thoughtful shrug after a time. "Perhaps the thing outside is just that? Though if not, then I hope that Gimli's folk have already managed to dispatch it… whatever it is."
Looking down in the deep dark beyond, a part of me wonders if this 'nameless fear' wasn't so much an entity as it was a state of being; an indiscriminate paranoia, or a disease of the mind perhaps. While the Elves at least seem to be very in-tune with spiritual stability, like the monastic orders of the Golden Age, other Middle-earthers may be quite ignorant.
If that is so, then whatever haunts these halls may not be conquerable with blade, bow, buckler or bullet…
I clap a hand over Boromir's shoulder comfortingly. "In any case, speculation is all well and good. But don't let your imagination overwhelm you."
I turn away without waiting for a response, and I hear his footsteps join mine a few seconds later as we return to the group. Aragorn and Gimli are talking with Gandalf while Legolas and the Hobbits listen in intently. Their conversation has come to the subject of navigation and the dangers of the maze-like structure that was the entirety of Khazad-dûm.
"We shall have to keep together as a group," Gimli is saying as I approach. "For the road is certain to contain many byways and detours by which we may lose our heading. But, so long as Gandalf's recollection of his path through here remains sure, we may at least avoid wasting any extra time in reaching the inner city where my cousin, Balin, will warmly welcome us!"
"I agree. Getting separated would be the worst outcome," confirmed Aragorn. "If we can manage to avoid that, valuable time may be saved in our passage."
It's a valid concern, certainly. Having the storied history I do, traveling alone in dark and strange places is hardly enough to faze me. I found my way through the Hellmouth. Hell, I even tried my hand at Osiris' Sundial and the Corridors of Time it led to. Needless to say, it wasn't my favorite pastime activity, but I learned a good many lessons from the experience.
At least if I get lost here, the Mine won't change; worst case scenario, I'll have to map every room in this damn Dwarrowdelf. But that isn't so bad all things considered; the Corridors of Time were always changing. So, if I were to compare the difficulty of one to the other… there really is no comparison at all.
But that's just for myself. What about everyone else?
Aragorn… Didn't he say he's been through here once before? I distinctly remember he did.
Gandalf? Our guide now? It goes without saying.
Gimli? He'd be my best pick to succeed since he'd at least have a cultural advantage… or something.
Legolas seems too well aware of his surroundings to get lost in the first place, but from the way he is looking this way and that, and with that expression on his face, I have to wonder if he'd really be alright…
But, beyond the so-called "Big Folk," I know for certain the Hobbits of the Shire would never make it out. Unless there is some characteristic of their race which neither we or even they know of which might help them, or unless some supreme inspiration and heaps of luck were to somehow lead them out to the other side, I very much doubt they'd ever be able to make the crossing on their own.
Additionally, depending on the success of Balin's mission here, some or many of these halls may yet be claimed by Goblins, Orcs, and whatever else that seems hate short, stunted creatures.
I've killed Orcs before; they're no real trouble to me, but they come in many numbers, and our numbers are few…
What I wouldn't give for nine more companions at least…
A certain compulsion pulls at my chest, and I take my time to rationalize its validity…
…
It… wouldn't be without risks… but if ever they are in trouble and otherwise beyond the reach of aid, it may be just what they need to escape certain death.
As the others continue to talk about this and that regarding our future movements, I sneak over to the packs the Hobbits were carrying and make to look like I'm rummaging through them in search of something that I can't find.
But actually, as my hands are inside the bags, I materialize a certain object into my palm. As usual, it glows with a cold, ethereal white, marred by whisps of the blackest smoke. It saps the heat from my fingers even through my insulated gloves.
"Why would you give me this?"
"I've been fiddlin' with 'em lately and I'm keen to use you as my next guinea pig. But hey, I've never known you to turn down an experiment. Don't give me that look."
"You know that I know why you want to use me, of all people."
"Frankly, I'd be disappointed if you didn't. You're free to say no, y'know?"
"I'm not saying 'no.' But I am blaming you if things suddenly go very, very wrong."
"Haha! Have a little faith, brother! You're the only one I can trust with this, after all."
"What about Eris?"
"Ol' Moondust? Eh… We'll get there. Maybe. Hey, if things go horrendously bad, she's next on my list."
"How flattering."
"Always, brother. Always."
Extending a sharped needle of Light from my finger, I carve into the device a short scribble of instruction for each Hobbit whose bag I place it in, should the need for it ever arise.
This I do for each them, first Frodo, then Sam, then Merry and Pippin.
I look over to see them too engrossed in their own conversation to notice me, which allows me to tie up their packs without any suspicion. Considering the nature of the object in question, I'd rather not have to explain it.
The others wouldn't understand.
For a moment, I consider doing the same for the big folk, but…
No. They'd just as likely to throw it away as use it. Except… maybe…
Turning away from the Company, I manifest another object into my hands, repeating my scribbles unmolested. And, palming it, I walk over to where Boromir stands aside by Gandalf, listening in and offering his council.
With a touch to his elbow, I grab his attention and cock my head to the way forward, and he follows as we again step a short distance away.
"What is it?" he asks with concern in his voice, suspecting that the only reason I might pull him aside would be in alarm.
I shake my head at him. "A private matter, actually," I explain.
I glance back to the rest of the Company, illuminated by Gandalf's staff as they are and turn away, prompting Boromir to do the same. His eyes are narrowed with concern all the same, and entirely focused on me.
From the palm of my hand, I hold up the device. It seems bright in the darkness. Easily definable edges, whereas even my hand can barely be seen beneath it. Yet though it possesses illumination, it casts out no light.
Boromir looks at it in wonder. "What manner of trinket is this?" he asks, his eyes now fixed on the thing.
"A tool," I say. "I have given it to the Hobbits; one for each of them, though they know it not. And now this one I give to you."
With a nudge, I prompt him to take it, which he does gingerly.
"Ah, it is like ice!"
I nod in confirmation and continue with my point. "If ever a time should come when evil overwhelms you, this shall be of aid. But…" I lean closer conspiratorially. "Say nothing to the others."
The man's expression becomes troubled, and he looks between me and his hands. "Why? If such a bauble may be of aid, why keep it from our companions?"
"Because they might not like it," I explain with pointed vagueness.
Boromir shrinks back skeptically. "This is a strange thing to ask. I have come to like you Lazarus, and I feel our hearts are distantly kindred. Why then ask me to break faith with our Company? What proof have I that this thing will not be dangerous?"
I shake my head with a hand upon his arm. "Oh, but it is dangerous, my friend Boromir. And that is why I say not to use it except in uttermost dire need."
I turn my gaze to look down at the object. "From whence I come, things are very different. Good and evil are not inherent in anyone or anything. Rather, it is how one uses a thing that defines if it is good or no. Just as you would dream to wield the Ring to repel Sauron and save Gondor, so would my people think to do. However, the tools of Sauron are corruptive, as Gandalf has said; they would turn you from your course and make of you a puppet to the Dark Lord."
I point down to his hands. "This is not a thing to be wielded." I speak slowly, emphatically, with a voice low enough to accentuate the total gravity of my meaning. "This is a thing to be set loose."
It does not seem to comfort him. "And you would give such a thing to the Hobbits? They are as naïve as children! They are more like to use it without thought and endanger themselves!"
I raise a placating hand and nod my head. "I have left instructions on their use." I turn the bauble in his hands to show a scrawl of English, or rather, Westron carved into its four-sided face. "Explicit instructions in Pippin's case."
Boromir still appears unsure, but his voice does not rise to counter me. However, presently, he does speak again.
"Why then not share this such things with the others? Why must we speak in conspiracy?"
I sigh and glance back at our Company. "Because I fear they would, like as not, throw them away. But in so doing would be endangering themselves; like tossing aside a shield because they don't particularly appreciate its aesthetics. In a phrase, they are too cautious. And… And, if I'm being honest, I think, I do not think they trust me."
At this, Boromir falls silent, and adopts a pensive expression.
I realize after a moment that maybe my words have struck a chord with him, as it comes to mind that he has been wary of the road our Fellowship has taken since the beginning, and at every fork, he has expressed his desire to go South. To take the Company ever closer to the realms of Gondor. Perhaps my suspicions convict him of his own lacking trust…
I make to wave off his concern, if indeed it bothered him, and to reclaim my gift if it troubles him so to keep it secret. But suddenly, he speaks, and with a voice firmer than the stone that surrounds us.
"Let it not be said that the faith of Boromir, captain of the Guard of Gondor, was broken in the darkness of the mountains. Strong is my despair at the strength of the Enemy, and frequent are my nightmares of hopeless resistance. My people suffer daily under Sauron's oppression, and I am given all too often to doubting… Now I see in you how distrust may inspire mistrust. Shall I be the seed of dissention within our company? Nay, I shall not. Therefore, I say that I do trust you! And forthwith I shall trust Gandalf as well, and our companions too. And if the wisdom of many come into conflict, then I shall trust my own heart to know what is good and right."
He closes his hand around the fetish in his gaps and holds it to his chest, while his other arm reaches out to claps my arm. "I will keep this secret that you ask of me, Lazarus. But may my trust in you be paid back – with interest – to our Fellowship in proper time."
I am… moved, by his words. More so by the conviction in his voice. In a declaration to better himself, he asks that I do the same. To trust.
Frankly, I don't know if it's even possible. There is very much in the universe that these mortals would never be able to understand, and the morality of their worldview clashes with my own, as I have already seen in Rivendell. And while trust in the Fellowship needn't translate to complete transparency, it does mean that I would need to surrender my assurance that I – and only I – know what is best. But knowing their ignorance as I do, I cannot easily to that.
Must I stand by and watch them falter and fall because I 'trusted' them? Nay. If they will not act in their best interest, as I know it, then I will support them against their will, and in ways that they may disagree with. But that is my charge as a Guardian; to use all of my power to protect and serve.
It is what I was risen to do.
But I will not lie to Boromir and say, of course. Instead, I nod to him with a bright smile beneath my helm and say, "I will try."
But Boromir fixes me with a strong look, and his grip on my arm intensifies. "See that you do more than try, my friend. For I believe that our faith in you is not as fragile you may think."
And with that, he gives my arm a slap and, pocketing my trinket, returns to the gathering behind us.
And I am left in the darkness, contemplative.
After only a brief rest, we start on our way again, and the energy in the company is one eager to get the journey over as quickly as possible. Thus are we all willing, tired as we are, to go on marching still for several hours.
Gandalf walks in front, as before. In his left hand he holds up his glimmering staff, the light of which just shows the ground before his feet. In his right, he holds his sword Glamdring. Gimli walks behind him, eyes glinting in the dim light as he turns his head side to side. Behind him walks Frodo, who like Gandalf has his short sword drawn. Behind Frodo goes Sam, and after him, myself. Behind me is Legolas, and the young hobbits, and Boromir. Lastly, in the dark at our rear, Aragorn walks grim and silent.
It is a comfort to us that neither Sting nor Glamdring gleams, as they are wont to do if Orcs were nearby. My sword, as well, is mute on the subject; I detect no threats, though it dawns on me that I do not know if the effect of my sword extends to those around me, or if it is only my own safety the weapon looks out for. I suppose time will tell me one way or another.
What I can see, and what the Company often cannot until we come right up to them, are the stairs and arches, passages and tunnels sloping up or running steeply down, or opening blankly dark on either side. There are many roads to choose from, and many holes and pitfalls scattered about, along with dark wells beside the path upon which our passing feet echo. There are fissures and chasms in the walls and the floor, and every now and then a crack opens right in front of our feet.
Of these things I tell Gandalf as we approach, and his light illuminates them well enough for those behind us.
The air is growing hot and stifling, though it's not foul like the water outside, and sometimes even cooler air brushes past our faces issuing from half-guessed openings in the walls, of which there are many.
As the frequency of these dangers increase, so too does our pace decrease. One of the widest of the floor fissures is nearly eight feet wide, and it takes a great deal of time to convince Pippin to jump the dreadful gap.
Of curious note, however, is that as certain things become visible to me – a discarded bucket or a tool – Frodo's gaze likewise finds it in the darkness. Though I walk behind him, his head swivels this way and that, often fixing on an object that I know he shouldn't be able to see in this gloom.
It is a curiosity that I want to ask him about. But silence is demanded in these spaces; there is no sound but the sound of our own feet; the dull stump of Gimli's dwarf-boots; the heavy tread of Boromir; the light step of Legolas; the soft, scarce-heard patter of hobbit-feet; and in the rear the slow firm footfalls of Aragorn with his long stride.
True to his duty as our guide, Gandalf guides us swiftly past old checkpoints and forks that bear no signs. I know that Gabriel is actively making a map in the background, measuring each distance traveled and routes taken. Like spelunkers, it would not do to leave the pathway inside unrecorded; at the very least, I may fight my way back to the doors westward if the need arises.
The halls of the Mine fall away in places, leaving us to walk narrow outcroppings that wraps around the outside of great mine shafts and excavation sites that stretch up and down to depths and heights that transcend even my technologically assisted sight. A part of me would love to let Gabriel out to record and explore, but he is my cartographer, and I, knowing not what dangers may be lingering in this place, I cannot in good conscience give him free reign to roam.
It was just after nightfall when we entered these mazy paths, and my chronometer tells me it has been nearly six hours since then when we come to what seems to be Gandalf's first real check.
Before us in the dark looms a wide arch opening into three passages. They all seem to run eastwards, but the passage on the left plunges down, while the right hand climbs up, and the middle way simply runs narrowly onward, smooth and level for as far as can be seen.
It is on the threshold of this location that Gandalf brings our Company to a lengthy stop, looking this way and that between the three paths.
But after several minutes of standing uncertainly, we hear from his mouth a muttered, "I have no memory of this place…"
Lovely.
He holds his staff up to the entryway to each passage, likely looking for identifying marks that could guide us on our way. Alas, it seems, he finds none.
"Ah! I am too weary to decide," he says after a time. "And I expect that you are all as weary as I am, or wearier. We'd better halt here for what is left of the night; though it is ever dark in here, outside the late Moon is riding westward and the middle-night as passed."
I'm impressed he can know that without a watch. Well, he is a wizard after all, experienced and possessed of a keen mind.
"I always take Keen Mind as a feat when I play a wizard in Dungeons & Darkness," comes the less-than-helpful commentary from Gabriel.
"Only because you choose to play a necromancer," I mutter under my breath. The first time he opens his mouth since his complaining on Caradhras, and it's about Dungeons & Darkness of all things.
"Exactly! How else am I supposed to know when I need to refresh my control over my undead thrall?"
"Oh, I don't know. How about playing any other class?"
To that, I sense a shrug from my Lightborne companion. "Who do you think conditioned me to 'Raise Dead' in the first place, hm?"
I raise an eyebrow that I know he is aware of. "Well Alex, I'd have to go with, 'What is the Traveler?'"
"…Touché, mon ami. Touché. And also, you watch way too many pre-Golden Age game shows."
I bear his chiding impassively, since I know he speaks in jest. It was Gabriel's idea in the first place to seek out records of trivia gameshows to gather information on the pre-Golden Age world. Granted the information within them may seem anecdotal, but as Gabriel is wont to do, once collated into an appropriate archive, the worth of the information becomes that much more invaluable.
Our sound-dampened banter is cut short as the Company moves off to the left of the great arch. There stands a single stone door, half closed, cut out of the rock, into which Merry and Pippin push forward with reckless abandon, no doubt eager to have a place to rest with at least more feeling of shelter than in the open passage. However, Gandalf's voice turns commanding as he calls out after them.
"Steady! Steady! You do not know what is inside yet."
And with cautious steps, he creeps in, and the rest of us file in behind.
"There!" he points with his staff, illuminating the pit wherein no end can be perceived. "One of you might have fallen in and still be wondering when you were going to strike the bottom. Let your guide go first while you have one."
Somewhat mollified, the Hobbits take their care in approaching the other aspects of the room.
It is a decently sized space, with enough room for eight Men, or probably… twelve-ish Dwarves.
"This seems to have been a guard room," says Gimli as he looks about, "made for the watching of the three passages. That hole was plainly a well for the guard's use, covered with a stone lid. But the lid is broken, and we must all take care in the dark."
Along one wall is a broken rack that likely would have at one point held an assortment of axes or swords, while old, fragments of wood litter the floor where once beds had rested, bunked, more than likely, for the guards' rest. A stone table off in the corner lies overturned, a large chunk of one corner is chipped off. The only other notable aspects of the room are the many shelves carved into the walls where once chests and storage lockers would have rested. Indeed, some chests still remain, though nothing is left inside, having long since been reclaimed or looted.
With the edges of pit vaguely illuminated, we make our little camp, unrolling blankets and making beds against the walls of the chamber, as far as possible from the hole in the floor. It wouldn't do for us to roll over in our sleep, and to keep on rolling until we come to a sudden, terminal stop. A chill air rises from its depths, and it's a welcome kind of draught compared to the heat of the inner mountain air. With it comes a strange… almost nostalgic air.
It only takes a few minutes before we are mostly settled in, though sleep is still a ways off yet as we talk quietly among ourselves about this and that. I opt to take a seat beside Gandalf to see if I can't pick his brain a bit. But I am preceded by Frodo, with whom Gandalf speaks softly and with much compassion that plays across his face.
Though I cannot hear their words even in this close room. Even if I could hear, I think a modicum of privacy should be allowed; I can only imagine the rigors the Bearer of the One Ring must be suffering day by day…
Well, actually that's not true at all. I know very good and well what it feels like to have a thing beyond my ken whisper in my ear of ambitions to pursue and power to claim as my own.
The temptation to fiddle with the Ring myself is by no means foreign; I've felt it since the moment I first laid eyes on it. However, my experience with such artifacts, and the wisdom of those far older than myself has led me to heed their cautionary tales, lest I in my curiosity turn into the next coming of Isildur and fall prey to its alluring wiles.
I pity poor Frodo. I really do…
In the meantime, since it seems I now have some time, this lull presents an opportunity!
Pulling from my digitized inventory a thermos, I set it on the floor and sit in seiza. With deep, steadying breaths, I pull from my memory those volumes of knowledge relating to xenoaerostatic gases and City Age chemistry, along with my own notes which have been my guiding light in the course of my experimentations.
In many books and novellas of old and modern make, there comes a common theme in the fantastic tales written therein. Magic, monsters, dynasties, treacheries, heroism…! There's a book out there for everyone.
But one point which has always grabbed my interest is when, in the course of a betrayal or turnabout, a character may inhale a lungful of poisonous air. Being a Gaurdian, as I am, with a storied history filled with numerous deaths – most heroic, many embarrassing – it occurred to me to try and find a way to use my Traveler-given powers to neutralize toxic or poisonous air under my own auspices.
In practice, this would mean that upon analyzing airborne toxins, I could breathe them into my lungs, using my Light to alter their chemical composition to exhale harmless carbon dioxide. The process, as you might expect, was an ordeal; I worked on the project for over sixty years, honing the flexibility of acausality. For a while, progress was minimal; every trial run ended up with me dead of one lethal breath or another. Eventually though, I did manage to succeed in exhaling proper CO2 . The only problem then was that I was still breathing in the toxins, whatever might have come out after.
So then I had to develop a new method to neutralize the chemicals before they enter my system. That left me at a dead end for nearly a year before it was suggested to me that, if I know that I'll be beathing in toxins anyway, and I already know how to properly convert them, then all I need to do is insulate my respiratory system with the same techniques.
It took some doing, but my persistence finally managed to successfully bear fruit, and I was finally able to breathe in toxins without those same toxins entering or affecting my body.
Then it was a simple hop-skip in logic to wonder why I couldn't just convert the toxin into breathable air; if I can turn propan-2-yl methylphosphonofluoridate in into a harmless byproduct like carbon dioxide, then why can't I forgo the conversion to CO2 for a conversion to O2 ?
In essence, I would be able to effectively convert my respiratory system into a natural sieve; breathe in the bad and exhale the good without putting myself in danger. Potentially, putting gasses aside, I could even learn to filter oxygen from water.
But, as with any longwinded endeavor, I inevitably got a little… sidetracked.
Once I was able to put my research into practice effectively, I began teaching other Guardians how to do the same in case the filters of their helmets fail. One day, an ambitious young Warlock, only a few years old, came up and asked me how he might be able to reverse the process.
He wanted to turn harmless gas, like the carbon dioxide he breathed out or even the oxygen that surrounded him into a killer chemical weapon. He wanted to become walking factory of death.
It was an intriguing proposition, if a radically dangerous one. If such a thing could be learned, replicated, and taught, then my immediate concern – and indeed, the concern of my colleagues – was that Earth would be turned into a barren toxic wasteland with the irresponsible use of acausal chemical weaponry. Even if any lingering chemical residue could be cleaned, whatever seeped into the Earth would not be so easily scrubbed. And knowing the disposition of young Guardians who are more at home using offense rather than defense, if the knowledge of how do create breathable death became common knowledge, it would have done magnitudes more harm than good.
That's not to say that I didn't pioneer the development of the technique in secret anyway.
Together, with the aid of my likeminded Guardians, the Order of Achlys had its genesis. It took some doing to reverse engineer the process through thorough experimentation and revision, but eventually, we were successfully able to turn the very air we breathed into a deadly fume that could kill with indiscriminate efficiency.
Naturally, once we realized just how effective the process was, the information was locked away in private vaults out of the prying eyes of the Vanguard and the Consensus. Whether or not we've been successful in obscuring even the eyes and ears of Ikora Rey's Hidden operatives, time will tell. But the fact that she hasn't approached the Order one way or another, at least to my knowledge, leads me to believe that she doesn't know about it.
Of course, while I remain a founding member of the Order of Achlys, I am no longer actively involved in its undertakings. I have, however, maintained a hobbyist's interest in exercising my talents in aerochemical transmutation.
It wouldn't do to let such knowledge go to waste. So I did what any self-respecting Guardian would do.
I used it to make alcohol.
Although the concept that I "breathed" the alcohol into existence is an obvious advertising faux pas, I'm perfectly content only using this talent for my own selfish whims, especially if it means I can create a tailormade drink that suits me just right.
The familiar process of… well, petty alchemy… begins its process within me as I carefully manipulate the molecular structure of the material in my body.
In the course of studying what kinds of alcohol would best suit my palate, I came across a group of intoxicant Guardians who said they favored mixing old-world brandies with Fallen ether. Said the mix hit harder than normal spirits. I didn't believe them.
Then I tried it.
Ooooh, boy…
It hit harder.
Waaaay harder.
However, despite the (admittedly niche) market for it, ether isn't exactly easy to come by; Fallen guard their stashes jealously, since ether is to them as water is to us. What's more, to say nothing of death, ether also acts as a growth stimulant in Fallen biology, meaning that Kells, who huff great heaps of the stuff, grow to massive proportions. Conversely, a Fallen deprived of ether would wither and shrink to the diminutive and unflattering classification of "Dreg."
As the generation of ether is a duty exclusive to the machine Prime Servitors and their subordinate units, and the distribution of that ether is at the sole discretion of the Kell of the Fallen House, any ether obtained is beyond valuable to an individual Fallen, and due to the nature of Fallen Society, if you didn't drink it while you had it, you'd likely get it stolen by an ambitious thief.
Therefore, in order to get your hands on ether, the only realistic option you had was to either steal it yourself or kill the Fallen after their scheduled distribution. And seeing as this varied House to House and quad to squad, actually finding intact, untouched ether bales was a solid crapshoot. The "Etherbuds" as they were pejoratively called frequently put out PSAs to all available Guardians to collect any ether rations they came across and bring it to a vender in the tower for sale.
Leave it to humanity to turn drinking and looting into a commercial enterprise.
I guess it shouldn't be looked down upon, really. Its one of our strengths.
I take the thermos in front of me and crack it open, throwing back a swig of its white vaporous contents, cold as ice as it slides down my throat.
A lot of Guardians find the side effects overpowering. But with the right degree of potency, the harmful effects can be mitigated and the refreshing taste sooth your nerves. The cold spreads from my core to my extremities, soothing and relaxing my aching muscles.
I let out a refreshing breath, the aftertaste still lingering in my mouth as I close the thermos and put it away; only one swig is due tonight. It smells faintly sweet, like a lightly sugared drink, or the subtle scent of flowers out on the prairies.
By the time I finish with my recreation, which only takes a few minutes at most, Frodo takes his leave of Gandalf to shuffle over to find a place to rest by his kin. Of course, as he approaches, Sam pats an untended blanket at his side onto which the Baggins gratefully descends.
"It is a hard journey for them."
Gandalf's voice is soft, and though his eyes are set upon the Hobbits, his voice is turned me.
"Harder still for Frodo, though he bears the Ring with admirable strength."
I find my eyes fixing on the Halflings as well… their playful banter and almost easygoing countenances. Size notwithstanding, they are like children in the ways they bounce back from weariness with only a good meal or a proper song and smoke. Although I can't approve of letting children smoke…
It's an awkward juxtaposition.
I let out another breath, the scent of ether lingering in the back of my nostrils. "If I'm understanding it right, the Ring preys upon the ambitions of its owner, but it seems to have no hold over Frodo, save only in that it burdens him."
Gandalf nods. "Indeed. Hobbits do not want for much except enduring peace and delightfulness. Good food, quality drink and pipeweed, earth to grow things, and a house to make homey. They are simple creatures at heart, but therein lies their remarkableness. Now if you or I were to take the Ring, I expect it would find ambition aplenty, well-meant ambition though it may be. For any good man would see the chance to use a great weapon of his enemy against him and take it, if he dared. But that desire for good would be turned to evil things, and in the hands of the proficient its wroth would be conflagratory enough indeed."
He gestures to the members of our cadre. "Legolas might seek to protect his home of the Greenwood with it. Gimli would champion a reclamation of all those realms the Dwarves have lost to evil. Boromir's hope we know well enough; the salvation of Gondor from Sauron's advances. Aragorn and I would want it only to drive Sauron from Middle-earth, and thence discard it ourselves into the fiery mountain. Alas, ere the moment of our victory is at hand, the Ring would betray us to its true master, and all would be undone."
About what I expected to hear. "It certainly lines up with the account of Isildur. But at that time, the Ring was lost in the Anduin. If the Ring intended to betray Isildur to Sauron, it did a pretty poor job of it. Sure, Isildur may have died, but it ended up sitting on the bottom of the river for several millennia."
Gandalf smiles with humor, though it fades in a blink. "Though it does have a will of its own, it is not a thinking thing like you or I. It is corruptive and manipulative, but far from infallible. It does not plot or plan; it simply does as it sees best to do. Perhaps the Ring hoped that its presence would become known to the Orcs who ambushed Isildur. It is fortunate beyond measure that it did not!"
"And how is it that Sauron can only know the presence of the Ring when it is worn?" I press. "If he forged it with his own spirit, should he not be able to sense it regardless of where it is?"
Gandalf shook his head uncertainly. "I know not. Perhaps if I wore the Ring, more would become clear to me, but I shan't consider it. I suspect, however, that in the forging and the separating of Sauron's spirit from himself, the Ring came unto its own; it is a part of him, but separate. Only when worn is the power of Sauron shared with its wearer and thus rouse Sauron's awareness… and the awareness of the Nine Riders. Precious little is known of the Ring regarding it's uses, beyond the obvious. But this I can say for certain; that all that Sauron is, in both nature and malevolence, the Ring is as well."
Then the Ring truly is irredeemable… A part of me had always wondered – distantly, mind you – if perhaps I could reforge in Light what had been made in Darkness. I have, after all, done so before. But it seems that in this particular case, Sauron's methodology precludes that possibility…
"And so we must needs sneak across the whole face of the continent to deliver a little gold ring into a smoking mountain, or else let the world be consumed by evil incarnate," I conclude with no small amount of sarcasm, and I can't help a ironic, mirthless chuckle escape my lips. "Why are the most important tasks always that hardest? Just once I'd like the right answer to be the easy one-"
Plunk!
Like panicked deer, all heads in the room rose in unison.
The sound was very distant, as if summoned from some cavernous place, very distant, but magnified and repeated in the hollow of the mountain.
Gandalf is up with a cry, an anxious panic of imminent attack flooding our bodies. "What was that?!"
All eyes seem to fall on, of all people, Pippin, who is crept up to the edge of the hole in the floor, peering over into the darkness below.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make you leap!" he says with the quickness of a child who was caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "I was just wondering how deep this well really was."
At his words, the party wholly deflates, the dreaded danger turning out to be nothing but an overcurious kitten…
…whose name is Pippin.
"Fool of a Took!" Gandalf growls, the restraint he bore to keep from shouting the words more than palpable. "This is a serious journey, not a Hobbit walking-party. Throw yourself in next time, and then you will be no further nuisance. Now be quiet!"
Any conversations that might have been ongoing are thenceforth silenced, and each person reluctantly finds his way back to his chosen corner to rest… or try to, anyway. Be it by mischief or menace, our nerves are triggered to high alert now regardless, and for several minutes, nothing more is heard in the room.
Except…
As we are decompressing from our sudden start, the silence of our shelter is broken by a sound; out of the depths comes faint knocks…
Tom-tap, tap-tom.
They stop. And when the echoes die away, they repeat.
Tap-tom, tom-tap, tap-tap, tom.
Our breaths are restrained and shallow, our ears perked, and bodies tense as we listened to the rhythmic patter that traveled up from the well.
But after a while… the knocking died away and was not heard again.
"That was the sound of a hammer, or I have never heard one," Gimli exclaims quietly.
"Yes," Gandalf affirms, his words slow and foreboding, "and I do not like it. It may have nothing to do with Peregrin's foolish stone; but probably something has been disturbed that would have been better left quiet. Let us hope we shall get some rest without further trouble."
The aged wizard turns the Hobbit in question, growling as he begins to roll himself up in his blanket. "You, Pippin, can go on the first watch, as a reward."
Pippin brooks no grumble, but the look on his face makes it clear that he is less than thrilled with his punishment. But be that as it may, he walks over to the doorway an sat in the pitch black of its corner, almost disappearing into the dark.
For myself, I give a lingering look down the well shaft. They sound disquietingly like signals of some sort… When I had looked down its length before with the benefit of nightvision, I could see nothing in its depths. Now, with my helmet off in preparation to sleep, the well appears as a kind of abyss, climbing up from below to blind my eyes.
I can forgive Pippin's curiosity, if not his impulsiveness; mankind has always been drawn to the unknown in ways we can't fully explain.
But the well is not bottomless. If Pippin's impetuosity has thought us nothing else, we at least know that, with the stone dropping – based on the sound – into a body of water deep below.
Obviously, there is something, somewhere in this mine. Where and what concern me most. Yea, if the colonization effort of the Dwarves has succeeded, does this simply mean that there are areas of the Mines that are not yet reclaimed? Or does this, perhaps, indicate some grimmer fate for the Dwarven expedition?
I have my suspicions.
But, so long as the guard is posted, and there is naught immediately obvious to address, then there's no use fretting over it tonight.
I lay myself down into the floor, using a rolled-up blanket for a pillow beside Gandalf, who instead of sleeping, seems content to smoke, and to stare thoughtfully into the distance.
Eventually, I drift off to sleep to the sounds of his gentle puffing exhalations, and the faint scent of pipeweed eventually luring me into the lands of slumber.
Either my sleep is too soon disturbed, or I have slept dreamlessly as I suddenly wake to full awareness.
It's still dark, as to be expected inside the bowls of a mountain. The light of Gandalf's staff is absent, and I turn my eyes to and fro concernedly.
Though, why I'm concerned, I cannot place…
All the others are sleeping. Pippin now lay curled up in a corner, and I see wachful Gandalf over by the door, his eyes glinting in the ember light of his pipe that brightens with every drawn breath. It seems the wizard took over for Pippin as some point in the night.
What time is it? It cannot be more than six hours since I fell asleep, for it would then be time to wake and for us to continue on our journey, as per our Company's custom.
My helmet lay off to the side; if I put it on, the HUD would read the time, but… something compels me to be wary.
I rise to my feet warily.
Something has drawn me to alertness, enough to rouse me from my slumber and instill in me an unfading anxiety. But what?
Then I hear it; a faint scratching. Like… Like a mouse in the wall, chewing its way along.
But these walls are stone, and I doubt any mice would be surviving in this place…
Scritch-scratch, scritch.
I narrow my eyes to match my furrowing brow, my head mimicking the behavior of Saint-14's pigeons as it turns this way and that to triangulate the origin of the noise in my ears.
Scritch, scritch-scratch, scritch.
This is no audio hallucination.
I am hearing it.
Stooping down to pick up a small stone, I toss it with keen aim into the dark between myself and my target where it found its mark on Aragorn's chest.
The sound of impacted fabric and a sharp intake of breath tells me I've successfully woken the man, and I see him look this way and that, searching vigilantly for any present danger.
Finding none, his eyes wander the room for the perpetrator of his waking, to which I wave to him silently from across the gloom and signaling his quietude with a shushing motion.
Catching my drift, his body stills, minimizing any noise of his own making as he harkens to my signal.
For a moment, nothing happens. The sounds are gone like ghosts, and only the faint sounds of our stifled breaths are head, and then only in our own ears.
Aragorn cocks his head at me, but I hold a finger to him to wait and-
Scritch.
It is a single sound, almost unheard, but I see Aragorn rise silently and suddenly at its emanation.
By now, Gandalf, roused from his thoughts by our activity, likewise stands and approaches us, if only to ask why we are alert at all, though he keenly picks up on our hush and tunes his ears as well…
Scritch, scritch.
I see the wizard's body stiffen at the sound, our concerns becoming his.
Aragorn reaches over and pats Legolas' leg. Our Elf friend wakes as silent as the grave, and more alert than either of us had been. Aragorn signals him to wake the Hobbits quietly while he rouses Boromir. Then, together, they wake Gimli with a hand over his mouth, which he initially did not take to well. But, seeing that it is in fact his friends who restrain him and not an Orc or ruffian, and with looks of bloody business on their faces, he calms himself and is swiftly helped to his feet, axe immediately in hand.
All the while the scratches continue, and each in his own time has the opportunity to hear it.
Gandalf peeks his head out the door of the room to see if the sounds might in fact be coming from without, only to withdraw with a shake of his beard.
The sound was coming from in this room.
Almost as one, our Fellowship comes to the same conclusion, and our gazes fall upon the black opening of the well smack in the middle of the room.
A collective straining of leather is heard as our fingers tighten around their weapons.
Drawing my sword silently, I creep forward, inching close to its edge with deliberate stealth.
The orifice of the well is completely opaque. For all I can see, it might as well be just a painting on the ground.
The only indication that it was anything other than just that is a faint smell coming from within; an odor both strikingly foul… but with a strange, familiar undertone of sweetness.
Wrinkling my nose at its acrid scent, I raise my free hand high, holding it out over the edge of the pit. And, with a steadying look to all, I summon forth my Light.
Illumination pours down from my palm like limelight, bathing everything below in a stark, white glare.
I do not immediately know exactly what I'm looking at…
Creeped up to but a few inches from the well's edge is a tangled mass of bent limbs, like the extremities of overgrown bushes who have too little space to grow.
In the blindingly shine of my Light, bright, shiny eyes stare back at me, like the reflection of too many spider eyes in the darkness of the woods.
We look down at them.
Their look up at us.
Then, at once, in the silence and the stillness of the mountain, we realize each other's awareness.
The mass of frozen bodies surges forward suddenly like a tide of spidery vermin, crawling and leaping out of the well with unsheathing blades that glint the spotlight and hissing howls that tear through the quiet.
Abandoning my illumination, I raise my sword in time to catch a pair of such blades that would have separated my head from my shoulders had I been fractionally slower. I manage to catch one of the sword arms of my assailant with a vice grip while parrying their other arm, opening them up for a slash across the belly.
Only, I am struck in the gut by… something, forcing me back. But I come back with a fury, slashing with swift strikes that only my Elven blade could manage, with practiced attacks learned from Glorfindel himself.
Peripherally, I see my fellows equally beset swords, knives, shields, and all available weapons of war clashing with the ringing of metal and furious cries of battle.
But my opponent is startlingly capable, matching with two swords what I lash out with one. But the preternatural ferocity of my attacks which do not slow or weaken drives it back until its back is against the wall. Literally.
Our blades lock, mine pressing down into the X-guard that only just keeps me from veritably bifurcating it from head to navel. Considering the vigor which I am bringing to bear, the fact that it is able to resist me at all is a testament to its own strength.
But with one hand on the hilt and the other pushing down on the blade, its guard is forced back further and further until my sword is nigh on to slivering its leathery flesh.
I pull away in an instant.
It is not a conscious movement. Rather, my body simply moves on its own for some insentient purpose...
Centuries of combat experience and muscle memory does that to you. Sometimes you think you see a gun being pointed your way and you duck out of the way, only to realize it was the distant ventilator of a housing unit; not a sniper rifle.
…PTSD and all that.
This time, though it takes a microsecond for my mind to catch up with my body, I can see why I instinctively reacted so.
From behind its back, the shadowy beast pulls out an oblong and partially cylindrical object that I expect is some sort of knife, though I can see certain geometrical similarities to such weapons that I am used to, like guns, although those can take many strange and abnormal forms. I curse my own silliness. If guns existed in this world, the free peoples of Middle-earth would have been conquered long, long before now.
I chance a look behind me, noting the looming well… Perhaps I can hurl my foe back into it, leaving it to tumble into the distant water within. At the very least, even if by some miracle it survives, it will be a while before it can climb back up… if its bones aren't powdered upon impact.
I am still formulating a plan to reengage my opponent when all goes a cold white. Light flashes and blazes from beneath its sword-arms in a bolt of piercing blue energy that narrowly misses punching a hole through my chest.
Adrenaline floods my body anew as mechanical instinct wrestles with my slow mind to make sense of the state of things.
My body didn't back away and dodge because it thought the weapon it pulled out was a gun.
My body backed away and dodged because the weapon it pulled out was a gun!
Moreover, from where did it pull such a thing? Weren't both of its hands occupied with defending against me?
Like a dam broken, a flood of awareness deluges my brain. Beyond sight's recognition, sound also comes into clarity.
The cries. The eyes. The short straight swords. The oblong, bespiked protrusions and whining discharge sequence of a shock pistol. The impossibility of wielding a gun when two hands are already holding a pair of blades…
My opponent lowers itself and rushes at me with menacing swiftness… a characteristic scramble that I know all too well.
A flicker of tessellated light manifests into my left hand a gun of my own. Thus far, I have resolved to set any and all firearms aside for the sake of our stealthy mission. Nothing would do us more harm than to attract the fiendish followers of Sauron with its thunder.
But, alas, against these enemies, I cannot worry about stealth when death is so near at hand!
I squeeze the trigger twice, both bullets finding purchase in the weapon pointed at me and knocking it from my foe's hand. A third bullet snaps past their cranium, sending their head a-flinching in such a way as to nearly make them stumble across the gorund. The krak-krak, krak! of my shooting iron is shattering in this enclosed space, and even my conditioned eardrums sing painfully at its intonation.
Instantly, its charge falters even as the flesh of its forehead meets the warm barrel of my gun and it comes to a mortal standstill.
As if struck by lightning, the sounds of battle suddenly cease, and I raise my voice to fill the room with all the power I can draw from it.
"De go hus dor, rasha ha!" I shout before ringing silence has time to settle, emulating the harsh barking of their foreign language.
At once, many shining eyes turn to me, eerily so in the gloaming murk.
In my left hand I force the barrel of my gun into the brow of my enemy, drawing myself up to my full height and allow the meridian currents of Light to course visibly around me, my eyes glowing as bright or brighter than even their own.
"Ta ne, go na Guardian! Ne zu kin kis hus dor, to ne zu zes di dra na!"
My final words, a potent threat, resonate with the crowd as hushed hisses and muttered consonants issue out of the darkness, their eyes turning this way and that to look first at at each other, and then finally all turning to look at one of their number.
The one under my gun.
I turn my head from the many to the singular, meeting their azure, illuminated gaze in the dark. So this is the one they consider their leader?
How convenient.
I examine the creature carefully. It is roughly man-sized, if it stood upright, but it was half crouched, its long gangly arms pressed to the floor as it pushes itself up – slowly – to meet my gaze at level height. Its skin was exceedingly pale for one of its kind, a trait which I attribute to a lingering residence in these sunless shafts.
"Well?" I ask, unsure whether it knows how to speak in common or its own language exclusively. "Dra dorqilum?"
It does not answer, but neither does it look like it intends to resist.
The silence in the room is pregnant, and its continuance seems to be a source of agitation for them; their eyes flit between each other and their leader with quick, fervent glances, though their deference to its decision speaks volumes of their respect… or their fear.
Well, not that fear and respect are mutually exclusive…
After many seconds of solicitude, its brow raises ever-so-slowly and it opens its mouth to speak, razor sharp teeth splitting its maw viciously.
But its voice is low. Not low as in "guttural" or low as in "deep." Rather, it is quiet. So quiet in fact, that I even I can barely here it only an arm's length away. So quiet, I can barely call it a whisper…
"Velask, Lah zah rus," comes its voice, arms swinging out to its sides in a show of uncharacteristic surrender… Or is it welcome? "Ne den var di zes lun."
Did… did it just call me by my name?
The biological gears of my mind clink rapidly, seeking purchase upon some iota of knowledge or theory that could explain this aberrant happenstance, but they can find no purchase to move the mighty machine.
I can feel my confusion play on my face, my features scrunching up, my eyes narrowing. How did this one know my name? No, how is it even here in the first place? It shouldn't be here… Neither of us should be here!
A cold realization shivers up my spine as my unease grows by magnitudes; the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end…
This is not the first time I've pointed a gun at this person's head.
With a spark of solar Light, a small spherical Sun snaps onto the ceiling, burning like a flare that never descends. And like the Sun, all is bathed in glorious golden clarity.
The features of the creature in front of me reveal themselves, and…
And I… I know this creature…
"Ne… tas yu…"
I know your name.
I know your face.
I know you.
I gasp with an unsteady breath… and with it comes an airy exhalation of wonder.
"Iylas."
A/N: Oooohh snap! What a waa~cky twist! Been a while since I last posted, but you know how schooling is. Nevertheless, I'm excited to bring you the next chapter as soon as possible. Look forward to it!
As usual, leave your comments and questions down below! I answer all of them! Ta-ta!
