It was still dark when I woke up again. I rolled over to look at my
clock: it was always nice to be able to complain at work about the unholy
hour of the morning that I had spontaneously woken up. Strangely enough,
all of my walls had turned into trees, and my clock had disappeared and I
saw no clear path to the bathroom, which seemed to have disappeared when I
most wanted it. I decided I was still asleep, but Fadrornion, Englas and
Mirwold had other plans.
"So you have finally arisen," said Mirwold cheerfully. "We have been waiting for you for some time. Feel free to have breakfast with us."
"Uh -" I said hesitantly, "if you would just excuse me for a moment. . ." It was that morning that I decided the song that goes, "you don't know what you've got til it's gone," was written specifically with toilet paper in mind.
Breakfast, according to Mirwold, was an inedible old slab of dried meat and a hunk of the blandest, chewiest bread I've ever tried to keep down. I asked if there was anything to drink. He pointed to a dirty leather water bottle. For some reason, I had always pictured Middle Earth water bottles as being kind of like our own hot water bottles, basically clean and hygienic if you don't put your feet on them. Now I wondered why. The water inside smelled funny. "Do you know where that water in there came from?" I asked suspiciously.
"Fadrinian got it from some stream, I think," said Mirwold.
"Do you know all the diseases you can get drinking water from just anywhere? There's probably all kinds of bacteria in that. You should at least boil it, you know." The only response I got an exasperated sigh. I would seem that rolling your eyes was not a strictly Modern Earth phenomenon. "No, really. It's true. For at least five minutes. And I don't think I'm very hungry, actually. You can have the rest of this stale bread stuff if you want."
Mirwold snorted. "I'm not carrying you after you pass out on the path from hunger. Stop complaining. You're almost as bad as that balding guy who came complete with this big book he kept referring to to inform of us everything we were doing 'inaccurately'. So don't go telling me that there aren't any water sources in Mirkwood or anything."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded.
"Oh, of course," said Mirwold. "My story. Yes, where are my manners? You need the epic backstory. Well, what you found yesterday was the long lost 21st Ring, very long lost indeed. There are few indeed who remember its making, in a forgotten time and age. It was a kind of trial-run ring for the One Ring, because if Sauron was going to pour all his cruelty and malice and will to dominate all life into a ring, he wanted it to be a really good ring, not some cheap knock-off. So instead, he poured into *this* ring the cruelty and malice and will to dominate all life of his cousin Bob the Bad. But Bob wasn't a very competent evil creature at the best of times, so he promptly went off and lost it. It took him ages to find it again, and when he finally recovered it he got Sauron to make a few modifications. So now, instead of possessing the will to dominate all life, it possesses the will to track and return itself to Bob. Always remember that. The ring wants to get back to the hand of its master. It wants to be found. Fortunately, just as Bob had a bad memory, so does his ring. And so, it keeps coming back to this spot here, where for some reason it thinks he is. But if some very strong person can bend it to his or her will, they can trick it into thinking Bob is some place else. Say, into the future. And then, when in the possession of someone who isn't that strong, it will draw them back to this spot, along with all of their priceless otherwise uninvented thingamajigs, which we then acquire from them and make a huge profit from."
"So what you're saying is that you use this ring to lure unsuspecting inhabitants of my world back to Middle Earth with all of their stuff, which you can then sell for inflated prices?"
"More or less," agreed Mirwold.
"But what happens to the people?" I asked.
"People? I don't know. We just leave them to do their own thing. We learned our English from them over time, in case you were wondering where that came from. It was a gradual kind of thing, really. There was one teacher guy who taught us formal English to use on newcomers - for some reason they like it better than what you and I are talking right now. He was in the middle of teaching us what he called Middle English (for some reason, he found this hilariously funny) when he unfortunately disappeared. Still, that was the exception. Usually, we play along with them for a few days, but then most of them get tired of Middle Earth after a little while, so we steal their stuff and tell them to walk in that direction over there chanting 'there's no place like home' and then we take off with the loot for Esgaroth."
"That's so mean! Are you telling me this because you're about to abandon me in the middle of nowhere so I can starve to death?"
"Not if you finish breakfast," said Mirwold. "I must say, for a prospective traveller from a different point in time, you certainly didn't pack a lot. I mean, it's not as if you didn't have any warning. What were you thinking?"
"Maybe it was the power of the ring," I answered sulkily.
"Maybe," said Mirwold. "But didn't you even listen to the instructions that the guy gave you when he sold you the ring?"
"I didn't - I mean, ah -" I hesitated. Somehow, I didn't think these people would take it very well if they found out that I had committed a, well, slight deception to get the ring without paying for it. Or even worse, they would think that it was so hilariously funny that they would laugh at me for the rest of my life. Either way, I would never be able to live it down. "How come you aren't affected by the power of Bob's ring?" I asked suddenly, by means of changing the subject. It was only afterwards that I realized it was a halfways reasonable thing to wonder.
"Ha?" Mirwold raised his eyebrows and waited for a more complete explanation.
"Remember last night? You said the ring did strange things to people. Doesn't it have that effect on you too?"
"That's only if you're wearing it," corrected Mirwold. "It's virtually harmless when it's merely nearby you or in your possession. I'm not wearing it. Any other questions before you answer mine?"
"Sure," I said. "How can Sauron have a cousin if he's a spirit thing who doesn't have any parents?"
"How do you know he doesn't have any parents?"
"I guess I -"
"You just assumed that because he was a giant red eyeball, he didn't have parents. Typical."
"Well, not exactly -"
"He wasn't always a giant red eyeball, you know."
"I know that!"
"How?"
"I read the other book thing."
"Other... book... thing..."
"About the elves and stuff and these pretty rocks."
"They didn't have Bob in there too, did they?" asked Mirwold, somewhat eagerly.
"I don't remember -"
"Typical," sighed Mirwold. "Well, enough talking. We've had enough to last us our entire day's walk."
I didn't like the sound of that.
"So you have finally arisen," said Mirwold cheerfully. "We have been waiting for you for some time. Feel free to have breakfast with us."
"Uh -" I said hesitantly, "if you would just excuse me for a moment. . ." It was that morning that I decided the song that goes, "you don't know what you've got til it's gone," was written specifically with toilet paper in mind.
Breakfast, according to Mirwold, was an inedible old slab of dried meat and a hunk of the blandest, chewiest bread I've ever tried to keep down. I asked if there was anything to drink. He pointed to a dirty leather water bottle. For some reason, I had always pictured Middle Earth water bottles as being kind of like our own hot water bottles, basically clean and hygienic if you don't put your feet on them. Now I wondered why. The water inside smelled funny. "Do you know where that water in there came from?" I asked suspiciously.
"Fadrinian got it from some stream, I think," said Mirwold.
"Do you know all the diseases you can get drinking water from just anywhere? There's probably all kinds of bacteria in that. You should at least boil it, you know." The only response I got an exasperated sigh. I would seem that rolling your eyes was not a strictly Modern Earth phenomenon. "No, really. It's true. For at least five minutes. And I don't think I'm very hungry, actually. You can have the rest of this stale bread stuff if you want."
Mirwold snorted. "I'm not carrying you after you pass out on the path from hunger. Stop complaining. You're almost as bad as that balding guy who came complete with this big book he kept referring to to inform of us everything we were doing 'inaccurately'. So don't go telling me that there aren't any water sources in Mirkwood or anything."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded.
"Oh, of course," said Mirwold. "My story. Yes, where are my manners? You need the epic backstory. Well, what you found yesterday was the long lost 21st Ring, very long lost indeed. There are few indeed who remember its making, in a forgotten time and age. It was a kind of trial-run ring for the One Ring, because if Sauron was going to pour all his cruelty and malice and will to dominate all life into a ring, he wanted it to be a really good ring, not some cheap knock-off. So instead, he poured into *this* ring the cruelty and malice and will to dominate all life of his cousin Bob the Bad. But Bob wasn't a very competent evil creature at the best of times, so he promptly went off and lost it. It took him ages to find it again, and when he finally recovered it he got Sauron to make a few modifications. So now, instead of possessing the will to dominate all life, it possesses the will to track and return itself to Bob. Always remember that. The ring wants to get back to the hand of its master. It wants to be found. Fortunately, just as Bob had a bad memory, so does his ring. And so, it keeps coming back to this spot here, where for some reason it thinks he is. But if some very strong person can bend it to his or her will, they can trick it into thinking Bob is some place else. Say, into the future. And then, when in the possession of someone who isn't that strong, it will draw them back to this spot, along with all of their priceless otherwise uninvented thingamajigs, which we then acquire from them and make a huge profit from."
"So what you're saying is that you use this ring to lure unsuspecting inhabitants of my world back to Middle Earth with all of their stuff, which you can then sell for inflated prices?"
"More or less," agreed Mirwold.
"But what happens to the people?" I asked.
"People? I don't know. We just leave them to do their own thing. We learned our English from them over time, in case you were wondering where that came from. It was a gradual kind of thing, really. There was one teacher guy who taught us formal English to use on newcomers - for some reason they like it better than what you and I are talking right now. He was in the middle of teaching us what he called Middle English (for some reason, he found this hilariously funny) when he unfortunately disappeared. Still, that was the exception. Usually, we play along with them for a few days, but then most of them get tired of Middle Earth after a little while, so we steal their stuff and tell them to walk in that direction over there chanting 'there's no place like home' and then we take off with the loot for Esgaroth."
"That's so mean! Are you telling me this because you're about to abandon me in the middle of nowhere so I can starve to death?"
"Not if you finish breakfast," said Mirwold. "I must say, for a prospective traveller from a different point in time, you certainly didn't pack a lot. I mean, it's not as if you didn't have any warning. What were you thinking?"
"Maybe it was the power of the ring," I answered sulkily.
"Maybe," said Mirwold. "But didn't you even listen to the instructions that the guy gave you when he sold you the ring?"
"I didn't - I mean, ah -" I hesitated. Somehow, I didn't think these people would take it very well if they found out that I had committed a, well, slight deception to get the ring without paying for it. Or even worse, they would think that it was so hilariously funny that they would laugh at me for the rest of my life. Either way, I would never be able to live it down. "How come you aren't affected by the power of Bob's ring?" I asked suddenly, by means of changing the subject. It was only afterwards that I realized it was a halfways reasonable thing to wonder.
"Ha?" Mirwold raised his eyebrows and waited for a more complete explanation.
"Remember last night? You said the ring did strange things to people. Doesn't it have that effect on you too?"
"That's only if you're wearing it," corrected Mirwold. "It's virtually harmless when it's merely nearby you or in your possession. I'm not wearing it. Any other questions before you answer mine?"
"Sure," I said. "How can Sauron have a cousin if he's a spirit thing who doesn't have any parents?"
"How do you know he doesn't have any parents?"
"I guess I -"
"You just assumed that because he was a giant red eyeball, he didn't have parents. Typical."
"Well, not exactly -"
"He wasn't always a giant red eyeball, you know."
"I know that!"
"How?"
"I read the other book thing."
"Other... book... thing..."
"About the elves and stuff and these pretty rocks."
"They didn't have Bob in there too, did they?" asked Mirwold, somewhat eagerly.
"I don't remember -"
"Typical," sighed Mirwold. "Well, enough talking. We've had enough to last us our entire day's walk."
I didn't like the sound of that.