CHAPTER 13 - THE PATH OF FRODO AND SAM

Frodo, Sam, and Gollum continued on their road through Ilthilien and came at long last to Minas Morgul.

"What that?" Frodo asked.

"That Minas Morgul. Filled with floodses and bruteses. We no have time to waste. Stairs right here, see?"

Frodo looked up at the stairs, which ascended almost vertically up the rock face before them. Sam and Gollum made their way toward the beginning of the long climb. Frodo however, remained behind, distracted by a low, pulsing, hum emanating from the structure. He turned to look at it.

The air around Minas Morgul was apparently what was making the noise. It pulsed green in time with the humming, growing louder and louder. Frodo could feel the index pulling him nearer to that evil place, but could do nothing to stop it. Sam and Gollum finally noticed him.

"Frodo!"

"No go there!"

They both managed to pull him behind a rock just as the pulsing air was drawn into the center spire of the fortress and shot upward as a beacon to Mordor. A seraph carrying the Nazgul king emerged from the frightening sight and let out a terrifying flood howl. All three grunts covered their ears and cowered behind the rock. The Gates of Minas Morgul opened, and the true meaning of the word "Flood" was displayed. Rank upon rank of Flood and Brutes poured out and began marching on the road to Relic.

"Up we must climb," said Gollum, not wanting to stay in that vulnerable position much longer.

So up they went, going at an extremely slow pace up the cliff. There were a few incidents where one of the grunts at slipped and fallen a few feet, but fortunately no one fell all the way down the nearly five thousand foot cliff. When they had gotten about half way, they stopped to make camp on a small ledge. Convinced they were out of reach of all danger, Frodo and Sam went to sleep. Gollum, however, began thinking to himself.

Sam, the fat grunt, had begun to suspect Gollum's true intentions. He meant to murder them both and take the Index for himself. He couldn't do it himself, though. As being part flood was too weak. Frodo and Sam, however, did not know of the terror that awaited them at the top of the cliff. There was a series of caves there that came to be known as Sheila's Lair. Once, long ago, there had been a squad of soldiers stationed there to keep watch over Mordor and make sure that the flood never escaped. Through an accident, one of them had disabled their tank's friendly fire protocol. In short, the tank (which they had nicknamed Sheila) was now able to target friendly forces using an automatic lock on. Because tanks of "her" kind were preprogrammed to search for targets and eliminate them, she killed every member of the squad once the protocol had been disabled. She still roamed about, killing all who dared to come near to her territory. It was here that Gollum would lead Frodo, then take the index once he was dead.

Sam stood in his way, however, and had to be eliminated. All Gollum had to do was turn Frodo against Sam, and he would leave.

It worked very well. Gollum took their last piece of food, some Italian garlic bread, and sprinkled crumbs all over Sam. He then threw the remaining pieces down the side of the cliff. When both grunts had awoken, they discovered to their horror that the garlic bread was gone. Pointing out the crumbs on his armor, Gollum insisted that Sam had eaten it. That was all it took. Frodo rebuked Sam, who curled up into a ball and started sobbing. Frodo and Gollum then left him alone to whimper on the mountainside.

At length they came to the entrance to Sheila's Lair, and Gollum hurried in at a frightening pace. Soon, he had lost Frodo.

"Gollum? Gollum!"

Frodo, now lost and confused, was frightened to hear the sound of a running engine. He was even more surprised when he heard the following words:

"Target acquired."

He then ran, knowing he was in danger. As he neared the exit of the tunnels, he felt a sharp pain in his arm. He had been stuck by something. He turned to look, and there was a toxic dart stuck in his flesh. The last thing he saw before passing out was a tank sitting right behind him.

Sheila moved up to him. She was unaware, however that a five foot being clad in a methane re-breather had hopped onto her chassis right behind the main turret and was pounding away at a hatch to the interior. Finally broken, he stuck a plasma grenade inside and leapt off the vehicle as it erupted in a ball of flame. Satisfied that Sheila was no longer a threat, Sam ran over to Frodo, who appeared to be dead. He had little time to grieve, however, because flood were approaching from a path leading from a nearby tower. Sam wisely hid himself as the flood came to inspect the body.

"Looks like Sheila's been having a bit of fun. I say we take him to the tower for one of the infection forms to assimilate," said the leader in a gurgling voice.

"It wouldn't do any good," said another, "He looks dead to me."

"Don't you remember what the commander did a few weeks ago? He replaced all of the ammunition in Sheila with toxic darts that knock out their targets. He's not dead. We'll take him back to the tower."

The group left, carrying Frodo to be infected by the flood infection forms. Sam felt like a total fool. He wasn't dead? There was only one thing left to do then. Rescue him.

As Sam approached Cirith Ungol, the tower the flood had taken him to, he heard sounds of gunfire echoing throughout the entire place. As he inched closer and closer, he saw that the air was filled with snowflakes. Apparently there was a major blizzard in progress. The only reason that Sam even knew where the tower was is because he could see its black outline against the orange glow which filled the air. Each snowflake was reflecting the light from the library, but it was so thick that one would not even had known it was the library if they did not know they were in Mordor. Finally, a set of gates appeared out of the practical fog of falling snow.

Inside, Brutes were fighting flood everywhere. Many of them were so preoccupied with their battle that none even saw the five foot tall creature that moved past them toward the upper level of the tower.

In the top level, Frodo awoke to find his armor missing. He felt around his neck for the index, only to panic when he discovered that it was not there. Suddenly, he saw Sam come up through the hole in the floor.

"Sam!" he exclaimed.

Sam climbed up through the hole and stood there.

"It too late Sam. They take index."

"No they didn't."

Sam pulled the index out of his pocket, and held it our.

"Me think you dead, so me take it."

Frodo immediately grabbed the index and put it around his neck on its chain. Sam helped him find his armor, and they then exited the tower. This task was relatively easy because most of the enemies had killed each other. And so they began their long journey to the library.

The only clue they had as to where the library was existed in the form of the light that it was giving off. Onward they journeyed, until their feet were sore, cold, and blistered. They finally reached a gondola that led to the inside. Sam went to the front and pressed the button.

"Well, we made it."

As the gondola began moving forward, the snow fall immediately stopped. Frodo and Sam looked around to find that they were moving along a large passageway that led deeper into the library. After several minutes of forward motion, the gondola stopped and began moving upward. At the top of this new shaft it stopped again and resumed its forward motion. At long last, Frodo and Sam came to their goal. They were at the place where the index had been forged. The one place it could be destroyed. As they stepped off, Frodo was attacked from behind...

...by Gollum.

Sam immediately came to his assistance and began wrestling Gollum. Frodo used this chance to make a break for it. He ran as fast as he could to the inside of the library. Sam finally managed to knock Gollum out and followed Frodo in. Inside, he found Frodo standing above an immense shaft with a bright light at the bottom.

"Destroy it!"

"No. Index mine."

Frodo activated the active camouflage on the index.

"No!" Sam screamed.

Gollum had apparently awoken, because he leapt by as fast as he could and jumped onto Frodo's back. Floating there, he felt for the index and grabbed it. Frodo suddenly reappeared, struck down to the ground, but not destroyed. He lunged at Gollum and tried to wrestle the index from his hand. There they struggled, until Gollum strayed precariously close to the edge of the platform and fell to his doom, very nearly taking Frodo with him. Both grunts heard his final words as he fell hundreds of feet into the mysterious light.

"PRECIOUS!" he wailed, his voice trailing down the shaft.

Little did the grunts know what the light really was. It was a matter creation device located beneath the library. When Gollum and the index entered into it, they were completely obliterated. When the index ceased to exist, it emitted a shock wave that caused the computers within the matter creator to malfunction. They began to endlessly pour molten slag into the pit, which began to fill up.

Frodo and Sam witnessed this and sprinted all the way back to the gondola, immediately pushing the button to exit the library. They could feel the heat rushing toward them. The gondola left the platform just as the slag raced into view, spilling down to the bottom of their corridor. The gondola just barely kept pace with the liquid metal, and began going down the vertical tunnel just as the slag began spilling over the edge. The resulting effect was a waterfall of fire; beautiful but deadly. The two grunts raced to the side of the gondola that was farthest from the dangerous material.

They thought they had finally reached safety when they exited from the library, but the opposite was true. Slag was pouring out of the library from every possible crack. Since the Gondola was floating, that was their only option of staying alive. The heat was becoming unbearable, though.

Sam looked out across Mordor. The immense heat of the library had vaporized all of the falling snow, and he could see Barad Dur clearly. It filled most of the landscape, being a large dome with the diameter of a small moon. They both saw the end of gravemind himself. Without the index, gravemind could not exist either. Since his flood form had grown around and consumed the chair he once used, there was still a slipspace generator inside of him. When the index's shockwave had reached this generator, it began to malfunction. Instead of teleporting him into slipspace, the generator self destructed, destroying gravemind and barad dur.

Frodo and Sam both saw this happen as a great white light consumed the city and faded to nothing. Where barad dur had been, now there was only a smoking crater. Their mission had been accomplished, and now the grunts would die in the product of their victory.

A combination of exhaustion, heat, and the knowledge that they would soon be dead conspired together to cause the grunts to fall into unconsciousness long before the could have seen the approaching Longsword fighters...