Warm Thoughts, Chapter 2: Pirscha's Realm

By Bethlauria

**

Author's note: There are occasional snippets of dialogue directly from the book in both this chapter and the first - very small snippets. I envision this story starting as a different point of view on the Fellowship's journey - at least up until the point the story diverges into an alternate reality.

I want to thank those people who took the time to give me a review. I'm in the process of changing my e-mail address, but I will respond individually when I can. In the meantime, I just want you to know how much I appreciate it. Reviews are the thing that makes posting worthwhile. Without them, there's no way to know you're reaching anyone, and your story might as well stay on your laptop!

If you take the time to continue on with the story, I hope you'll take the time to let me if you liked it and/or how it can be improved. Thanks!

**

At the news that their path was completely covered by snow and ice, Aragorn turned to look at Boromir and Gandalf in turn. They couldn't stay where they were, that much was certain.

"Well, where heads are at a loss, bodies must serve," Boromir sighed, his tone resigned as he rose to his knees - the low roof of the shelter making it impossible for him to stand. "The strongest of us must seek a way - force a path if we must."

Amused by the man's immodest description, Legolas asked, "And if the path you force goes straight off a cliff?"

Boromir turned to eye the elf. "I don't plan on acting as a toboggan, I assure you," he said dryly, but added with a small smile, "unless it proves a short cut." Turning to dislodge his sword from their makeshift roof, he said, "My sword can act as my staff."

Aragorn helped him to dislodge his shield as well, pulling and yanking it until the frozen snow released it. As he held it out to the man of Gondor, he asked, "And would this be your sled - assuming it meant for a quicker journey?"

After being teased by the elf, Boromir looked at his future king dubiously, not sure in what manner he meant the comment. With crumpled brow, he finally considered the shield himself, realizing it really could serve as a sled for hobbit or dwarf. "Perhaps," he finally answered.

Aragorn smiled at the earnest man. "Then let us force a path thither, you and I!" he determined, giving Boromir a hardy clap to the back as he rose to his full height and dislodged that bit of Legolas' cloak that still clung to the snow walls.

Boromir brow jumped at the man's enthusiasm, but he rose as well, turning to the small opening of the makeshift shelter.

Unfortunately, the men's effort to escape their shelter crumbled a good part of the snow wall and the rest of the roof. The shelter now resembled a snowy pit, making it easy for Gandalf to mark the men's progress simply by standing to his full height from within it. Gimli and the hobbits, however, were left to jump and hop to get a peak.

After one slightly undignified hop, Gimli snorted and turned to follow the hopelessly optimistic men. "Men have not the only bodies that can serve," he muttered under his breath.

"No, but you'd be better suited to burrow a hole under the snow. The drifts are easily over your head at points," Legolas called, still standing on the snowdrift above the small company.

Gimli turned to glower at the elf and his comment. "I may not be able to forge the path, but I can reinforce it. And what of you, elf? Is there no use you can make of yourself?"

Legolas smirked back, walking effortlessly on what was left of the snow wall. "I need not the strong men's path," he said. "But I can help direct their efforts." With that and a nod he was gone, presumably flying over the slopes.

"Where's he off to?" could be plainly heard from the men burrowing not 10 feet away.

**

"The elf has strayed away again," Boromir sighed, turning back to Aragorn and Gimli, who were working at staggered measures behind him to widen the way.

"He grows bored with our slow progress," Aragorn grunted as he labored to force an arm's breadth of snow away from their path. Once accomplished, he turned to Boromir and dusted off his snow-encrusted gloves and gauntlets. "Would that we could glide across the snow's surface like he."

Gimli just snorted at the absurd notion that he do anything like an elf, but he used the momentary pause provided by the men's conversation to wipe his brow and rest against the snow wall beside him.

Boromir scanned the landscape surrounding them. They'd burrowed back to the channel that cut through the mountain, but none of the three could say in what direction the path might weave as it made its way downward. "Thus far, we've hugged the stone cliff northward. While the landscape widens hereafter, it seems the prudent course to continue," he argued.

Aragorn shrugged. "If you're wrong, we'll be wasting our strength." Somewhat apologetically, he said, "I think we need wait on our errant guide."

"Arrogant guide," Boromir muttered as he leaned back heavily against a granite boulder. Although he could not fault Aragorn's logic, he was reluctant to let exhaustion gain a stronghold by stopping.

He no sooner relaxed when the boulder beneath him started to slide backward. His eyes went wide as he fought for footing, but the boulder's movement forced his weight back away from the path. The boulder gained momentum, rolling down a pitched shelf that plunged downward beneath the rock wall, the opening hitherto masked by snow. As the boulder rolled away, no longer supporting the big man's weight, Boromir landed hard on his backside; but the incline would not let his momentum stop there. Instead, he continued to roll backward until his back and shoulders took all his weight and he slid down the incline himself among chunks of ice and snow. The last they saw of him, he maneuvered his spin so that his feet were before him, tobogganing down the incline with no way to stop until he hit bottom.

Both Gimli and Aragorn tried to stop his fall, but neither reached him in time. In the aftermath of Boromir's long shout into the bowels of Caradhras, they were left in silence, elf and man both on their hands and knees as they looked into the void.

Aragorn looked carefully above them, scanning the set of snow that might come down on their heads for what he was about to do. He grimaced up at the sheer wall, but he was not able to tell if some hidden accumulation lay precariously at its top. Making a decision, he finally shouted into the hole. "Boromir!"

He and Gimli listened intently, but heard nothing returned.

"Man of Gondor!" Gimli shouted. "You were warned about this type of amusement."

Nothing.

But then after a moment, they heard an "ugh" echoed from below, allowing them to imagine a sore and abused Lord regaining his footing.

"It's a cavern," he yelled to them. "It's wide and seems well traveled."

"Well traveled!" Gimli exclaimed. Frowning to himself, he muttered, "But by what?"

"Do you see any way back up?" Aragorn asked.

They didn't hear any answer right away; Boromir was apparently exploring his surroundings. "No. Only down, but it would seem to lead off the mountain."

Aragorn looked to Gimli at the news. "We may have no choice but to follow him. Our strong man was the plow."

Gimli's mouth screwed up at their predicament. "As much as it pains me to say this, the elf could give us much guidance. He could scout an exit from below." At that, he turned back to get Boromir's shield, which he had been using as a large snow scoop in their digging. "But I'll leave you to seek his council. For myself, I'll choose the path I can forge alone."

His decision made, he sat down cross-legged in the middle of the shield. Clearing his throat he asked, "Could you give me a shove?"

Aragorn frowned at the dwarf, surprised at his plan. "If our forged path is the better course, I'll need your strength," he reminded him.

While Gimli did not wish to add to the man's labors, he was determined to follow Boromir. "The hobbits have strength untested. Their homes are burrows after all." When Aragorn didn't seem convinced, he said, "I'll not leave our friend to travel alone. I am better suited to the rocky caverns than he - strong man or no."

Aragorn swallowed hard as he considered Gimli's argument. Then he nodded once and moved behind him to place a hand at his back and on the edge of the makeshift sled. "Steer well, my friend." And then louder to Boromir, he yelled, "Look out below. The dwarf travels to join you."

**

"What is this place?" Gimli's deep voice boomed, echoing off the curved walls of smooth ice.

"If the little ones were here, I might say that this was part of Pirscha's realm," Boromir said as his eyes scanned the smooth walls on either side.

Gimli stopped mid-stride to look up at the man. "And since they're not?"

Boromir stopped in turn to consider the dwarf. After a moment, his eyes moved to dart about the ice tunnel as if checking for spies. When his gaze returned to the dwarf, he said in a hushed voice, "I'd speculate much the same, but I'd warn of that part of Pirscha's legend that cast him as an evil plotter to rival Sauron."

Gimli rolled his eyes at the inevitable description. "Of course he was," he snorted. "And what was this evil wizard's power?"

The big man leaned down closer to Gimli, his voice even more hushed as he said, "It was said he could freeze men in their tracks, much like the fabled goddess of Frabeaur with stone."

His tale told, he waited on some sign of the dwarf's astonishment, but the only reaction from the dwarf came when he raised his extensive brow.

After a moment, Gimli turned back to the path. "Lovely."

When Boromir fell into step beside to him, he muttered under his breath, "And this was the path preferred to Moria."

The round sparkling tunnel gave way to a huge sparkling chamber with large icicles hanging from the ceiling like might be found made of limestone in the lower realms. Light bounced about in reflection throughout the large space, but no clear window to the outside could be seen.

"You were saying.about Moria," Boromir said as he gaze slid slowly across the vast space.

Gimli's mouth just screwed up in disgust, sure now that their detour would prove its own adventure. Sighing, he asked, "What do you say, Man of Gondor? Explore it now, or turn back and report?"

Boromir continued to scan the wide expanse, awed by its size and potential paths, "Report back. Perhaps Legolas had some news on which we can place our hopes."

The two, man and dwarf, took one last look at the glittering hall before turning back along the path that brought them. As the sound of their footfalls diminished, the sheen of ice coating the wall by where'd they been standing shimmered and ran. For but a second, an outline of a face could be seen. The translucent shape melted to slide down the wall into a puddle, which rolled and glided along the passageway into the cavern.

**

"I won't leave Bill," Sam said firmly, crossing his arms to punctuate the point.

Frodo turned to his faithful servant, imploring him to understand. "None of us wants to leave him, Sam, but we may have no choice."

"We can forge a path like Mr. Boromir," Sam argued, taking a step closer to Frodo in his earnestness. "He gave us a good head start."

Frodo let out a deep sigh. If it came to sacrificing the animal or themselves, the choice seemed clear; but Sam either couldn't or wouldn't be convinced. Turning to Aragorn, Frodo asked tiredly, "Do you think we could carry on with out him?"

Aragorn was sorting provisions in Bill's pack, but stopped and turned back to the hobbits at the question. He considered the question carefully before responding. "I have strength in me yet," he acknowledged, but his answer lacked the confident bravado of his predecessor. Putting a hand on Sam's shoulder, he leaned down slightly to better gain both hobbits' eye, saying solemnly, "But the answer depends upon what Legolas finds of the landscape below."

Both hobbits nodded, accepting the need for more information before making a decision, but Sam continued to cast about a wary eye at his comrades as they waited for the elf's return.

When a lithe form finally came to stand on the snowy cliff above them -- to his comrades' taste, a good deal too amused by his own abilities - the hobbits gathered around him eagerly. Aragorn moved silently up behind them, awaiting the report.

"The snow stops like a curtain parting just beyond the line of trees."

Aragorn frowned up at the elf. "It stops, not fades?"

"As if a hand directed a shaker of salt."

Aragorn turned from the news, the frown etched deeper on his features. While the news meant they had a path to follow, it also bespoke of a power beyond that of nature.

"Saruman grows strong," Gandalf whispered as he moved to stand next to him, his voice for Aragorn alone.

"And so is this path laid out for us by design?" Aragorn asked back.

"It is possible," Gandalf admitted, his extensive brow bunching as he considered this new threat. "But our options are few. I know you think we'd change his plot if we go by way of the mountain's hidden rooms; but in truth, they may not lead where we wish to go. We could find ourselves back in Rivendell, or worse yet, forever trapped."

Hearing the wizard's concern, Aragorn turned abruptly back to Legolas. His tone urgent with worry, he asked, "Did you see any exit for Gimli and Boromir?"

"Aye," Legolas answered, hopping down beside them. "A river, clogged with thick ice flows through the upper reaches of Caradhras."

**

End of Chapter 2