Author's Note:

Hi , it's us again.... We don't mean to intrude upon your torturous journey through the twisted products of our combined ideas, but we felt that it was necessary to put in this note before we set you adrift again. All the elvish dialogue in the ensuing chapters is shown in double quotation marks. This means that if you come across a sentence that goes something like this: ""Aye". blah blah..." it does not mean that we've made a typo. The first word of the sentence is written in elvish, and the rest of it is in english. Many thank for your patience with our on-going computer illiteracy

The Nightrunners

Too Late

Soundtrack: The Prophecy (Cate Blanchett)

The Seer speaks...

Yénillor morne

tulinte I quettar

tercáno nuruva

Hlasta! Qyetes

Hfirimain:

The Ringspell...

(The Seer speaks...

Out of the Black Years

come the words

the Herald of Death

Listen- it speaks to

those who were not born to die

The Ringspell...)

Shit. That was all that occurred to me. Shit shit shit.

I leaned forward and rested my head in my hands. "No." I said, my voice somewhat muffled. "Please tell me this is all a joke that you decided to play on Legolas and all his nasty Mirkwood relations because they never write, call, or visit."

Galadriel shook her head, her beautiful face troubled. "Would that it were, my dear princeling. Unfortunately, we have too much proof. Observe."

Picking up a small remote, she pressed a button. Wooden panels on the wall slid aside, revealing a large datascreen. She clicked another button, and the lights dimmed.

I watched as images began to flash across the screen, news shots of crime scenes, for the most parts. I counted nine in all, each one marked in the same way: a ring of blood. Each was followed by a shot of a smiling woman.

"What the papers have dubbed "the Subway Kidnappings". Nine women, seemingly unrelated, all vanishing within the last two months, each crime scene marked with a ring of blood."

The screen paused on one particular woman, this one posing with a little girl barely more than eight, a blond-haired, blue-eyed scrap of a kid. The mother and daughter were flashing smiles, and laughing at some unseen photographer.

Elrond nodded at the screen. "This is Marlene Law and her daughter, Trisha. They both vanished from the Bronx one week ago. No leads. However-" he paused for a moment, "There was a deviation from the pattern. Two victims, one blood ring."

"What's the significance?" I asked. "It's New York. People vanish and are murdered every day. How do you know it's not just some new cult?"

Galadriel bowed her head. "Because we saw what the cops missed. We understood what they could not." She hit another button on the remote. "Freeze image, magnify two hundred percent."

One corner of the crime scene grew to fill the entire screen.

"Again."

The ground expanded, details sharpening. Inside the ring, blood spatters were thrown into sharp relief. Blood spatters?

"Oh gods." I felt my mouth go dry. ""Minya ". One."

The next image focused inside the ring. Meaningless spatters had resolved into Elvish characters. ""Atta". Two."

"He's leaving messages, don't you see?"

Once more. ""Nelde" Three."

""Kanta". Four."

""Lempe". Five."

""Enque". Six."

""Otso". Seven."

""Tolto". Eight."

And lastly, the crime scene for the missing woman and her little girl. A bloodstain to anyone else, a jumble of Elvish words to anyone who understood them. A horrifying message.

""Nerte. Na telwa"."

"Nine." I whispered, turning away from the gruesome message that filled the screen.

"Too late." it read.

"Too late."

"The nine have risen." Galadriel's voice was soft, but somehow seemed to fill the entire room.

"The Dark Lord has returned, and has gathered new followers. He has found the Nazgul once more. He will twist those women to his will, and they are doomed to darkness forever." Elrond's voice was filled with the most profound sadness.

"There must be something we can do!" I cried, desperate.

Galadriel looked at me once more, and for the first time, a hint of a smile crossed her face. "There is something we can do."

Her last words filled me with a deep feeling of gratitude (but also a vague feeling of dread):

"The Company has remained true, Legolas Greenleaf."