It calls

The door was open.

Truthfully it was not a door at all but a massive stone slab, and it was not open so much as shattered down the centre. The two halves of the grey stone stood crookedly against the opening beneath the barrow. Behind lay a void of darkness.

The Three Hunters looked at the broken door for a long moment in silence.

'Well,' said Gimli, at last. 'That doesn't look good.'

'Indeed it does not,' said Aragorn.

Legolas said nothing, but he looked at the door consideringly for a moment, and then turned and gazed behind them. The day was overcast, threatening rain later, but the visibility remained clear, for now. Nothing moved on the green downs behind them but the wind.

'Perhaps the stone cracked under its own weight,' suggested Gimli. He had gone no closer to the barrow and had one hand upon his axe.

'Perhaps,' said Aragorn who had walked up to the portal. He crouched down, inspecting the ground.

'There are tracks here,' called Legolas, who had moved a little way off. 'Several men passed this way, walking towards the mound.'

'Ah,' said Gimli, sounding relieved. 'Then it must have been they who broke the stone. Local farmers searching for rumour of riches.'

'Local farmers indeed,' agreed Aragorn, his hand brushing the grass before the threshold as he examined it. 'I should agree those tracks were left by our missing quarry. Masters Rickon and Holden were here not three days past according to their wives, searching for the tanner's missing child. But as for the damage to the doorway, that we cannot lay at their feet, nor those of the boy.'

Legolas came up to join them. 'How do you know?'

Aragorn stood up. 'Because that stone was broken from the inside.'

They all turned to look at the gateway into the hillside again, grey and forbidding but no longer impassible. The black hollow looked like a gaping mouth. The wind brushed chill through the grass, making man and dwarf shiver. Autumn was passing quickly.

Legolas suddenly cocked his head. 'Did you hear that?'

'Nay,' said Gimli. 'I heard nothing.'

'A voice from below ground,' said the Elf. 'Listen. It calls.'

Gimli heard nothing but the wind through the grass, but after a moment Aragorn nodded.

'I hear it too,' he said, grimly. 'Someone is calling for help. They must be trapped down there. Let us hope they have the missing boy with them.'

'Then we can delay no further,' said Legolas. 'If the villagers we seek are to be yet recovered hale, we must be swift. The night will be cold.'

Aragorn seemed to agree, for he unwrapped the oilskin he had been carrying and drew out six sturdy torches. Meanwhile, Gimli gestured to the doorway. 'Feel free to go first, then,' he said to Legolas, irritably. 'Peer in, and tell us what you see inside.'

Legolas shrugged and went to the stone. As ever he was impassive before the tomb, unaffected by the shades of men, for such things held no terror for the Firstborn. After a moment of listening, Legolas slid in between the broken stones and was gone from sight. Startled, Gimli repressed the impulse to call out to him to be careful. But less than a minute later, Legolas reappeared.

'There is a long and narrow stone chamber beyond, sloping down,' he reported back to Aragorn. 'I could see perhaps twenty yards before the tunnel turned. There were prints of booted feet in the dust. I called to the missing men and a voice answered me, though I could not hear what it said or to which of them it belonged, man or boy. But at least one still lives.'

Aragorn rose and handed the Elf two unlit torches. 'Very well,' he said, and passed two torches also to Gimli. The dwarf tucked one into his belt, close at hand, and held the other firm in his grip. Legolas had pushed both torches beneath the chest strap of his quiver, leaving his hands free.

'I do not know what we might find inside,' Aragorn continued. 'Probably the missing lad ventured too far and took injury in the dark, and his rescuers faired no better. But if we are unlucky the tomb may have become home to a group of bandits who seek to frighten and rob passers-by. Or there may be worse still; a barrow wight or something just as unwholesome. Keep your wits about you!'

Gimli shuddered. 'I find it hard to believe I am willingly following you once more below ground into a tomb of ghosts,' he grumbled to Aragorn. 'Was once not enough?'

'I am sorry, my friend,' said Aragorn, sympathetically.

Legolas leaned down. 'There is no need for Gimli to endure such a trial,' the Elf said earnestly to Aragorn. 'He could wait here, we shall not be long!'

'Oh no, I'm not letting you two go in without me,' Gimli retorted, planting his feet. 'You've not an ounce of stonesense between you. Let us just get it over with!'

'Very well,' nodded Aragorn. 'Thank you, Gimli, I will make it up to you! Now stay with Legolas and I, and no harm can come to you.'

So one by one they pushed between the broken stones of the portal and into the gloom beyond. The tunnel was formed of huge slabs of grey rock stacked one atop the next to make walls and roof; as Legolas had reported, it sloped down gently down into a deep darkness. Aragorn led them in. Gimli noted that the stone beneath their feet was good and solid, and the air inside the tunnel felt dry. There was no smell of must or decay; indeed the air smelled of nothing in particular.

They went on to the end of the passage and found that the way split, one corridor turning to the left and one to the right. In the dust beneath their feet, a set of footprints went each way. The light behind them filtered weakly past the stones, and it was getting hard to see.

'Master Rickon?' Aragorn called. 'Master Holden? If you hear us, call out, or make some sound!'

They listened hard, and there was nothing for a long time. Then they all heard, soft as a breath of wind, a distant cry.

'Help! Help me! Please!'

'That is a child's voice!' said Legolas.

'Stay where you are, Alfy!' Aragorn called back. 'We will find you.' He knelt to light the torches, pulling from his pack tinder box, flint, and fire-steel.

'We must divide our party here,' Legolas said, 'or we risk missing our quarry in the dark. I shall go this way.' He gestured to the passage nearest to him, which went away to the right and still further down, falling away as stone-cut steps.

'This is a bad idea,' Gimli muttered, not liking the thought of splitting up any more than he had coming into this hole in the first place. 'Why do we not just search one way together, then return and search the other? There cannot be that far to go in either direction.'

'Tombs such as this can slope far underground and be larger than might at first be apparent,' said Aragorn. He struck a spark with the flint but it did not catch.

'All the more reason to stick together,' Gimli pointed out.

'If we stay together, this search will take twice as long,' Legolas argued, softly, as Aragorn struck the flint again. 'And the men have been here three days already, the boy even longer. We must be swift. We shall divide here and be back out in the sun all the sooner. Come Gimli. There is nothing to fear.'

There was a flare of light as the first torch caught aflame. After a moment a second too crackled into life. Aragorn stood again, handing Gimli back his lit torch.

'Go with Legolas and explore the stairs that way,' the man said to him. 'I shall take the left hand passage. If either party finds the villagers we seek, call aloud or whistle. I expect the sound shall carry well, and we will meet back here. Do not get lost!'

Legolas accepted the instructions with a short nod. He seemed, as always, quite unconcerned by the oppressive darkness or the cold chill that crept from the stone. He did not pass his torch to be lit.

'I will keep them in reserve,' he told the others, 'for I see well enough with Gimli's light'.

'Stick together, then,' said Aragorn.

'And you be careful!' Gimli replied. 'Do nothing foolish, Aragorn!'

'Would I do any such thing?' said Aragorn, and then he went to the stone arch leading into the eastern passageway, and the glow of his torch went inside. They heard him call again for the villagers.

'Come, Gimli,' said Legolas from by the stairs. 'You have the torch, my friend. Will you lead the way?'

Gimli took a fortifying breath, squared his shoulders and took the first step down the stairs. At his back, the Elf was naught but a shadow, but not quite a silent one. Legolas was letting his feet fall heavy and his steps be heard so that Gimli could locate him in the darkness. An unspoken kindness, but a welcome one nonetheless.

The stairs turned about themselves twice in a wide spiral before straightening out into another dozen steps in a flight that went straight down. Every few minutes they would call for the boy or for the men they sought but heard no response. There was nothing to see but the glimmer of the torch on the featureless rock, nothing to hear but the sound of Gimli's breath, the tramp of his iron-toed boots and the soft step of Legolas. There were no echoes.

At last the steps came to an end. Another dark doorway loomed ahead, and the torchlit touched pale over something in the room beyond.

'What is that?' Gimli muttered, but only a step or two further and his eyes made sense of what they were seeing. One whole wall was filled with rectangular apertures the height of his forearm and twice as long, stacked one on another like a hundred black gaping mouths, or the hollows in a dead beehive.

'What are they?' Legolas said. He walked up to the wall and peered into one of the voids. He was so fearless!

Gimli kept his distance, but held the torch up high. 'I think they are tombs.'

Legolas glanced back at him. 'Do not be afraid, Gimli. They are all empty.'

'That is not as reassuring as you might think.'

Carefully, Gimli came over towards the wall. The dark cavities in it were like empty eye sockets, and he shivered as he looked at them, though no bone or coffin was to be seen within the blank spaces.

As he stepped away his boot clinked against something. He bent to look and saw it was naught but a rough iron cloak brooch in the shape of a ring and pin. A fragment of green cloth was speared by the pin, as if it had been torn away from a garment. Still, it was a sign that others had been this way before. The farmers they sought?

'Gimli, look.'

Gimli glanced up to see Legolas had turned away from the tombs, and now was standing by a doorway set into the opposite wall, the only other exit apart from the stairs down which they had come. Truly, the doorway was rather unremarkable. It was quite unadorned, and no larger or grander than the door of a cottage. The door which sealed it was similarly plain, made of rough-hewed wood banded with iron, on solid, workmanlike hinges. It lacked any notable features, and yet there was still something about it that was wrong, that made Gimli's skin crawl.

Legolas was examining the door, head tilted in curiosity. He reached one long hand as if he meant to press his fingers to the texture of the wood, and as he brushed against the door, it suddenly moved, swinging inwards quick and utterly silent. Gimli jumped.

Beyond was darkness. Not just shadows formed where light was blocked, but utter complete darkness. There was no glimmer on textures or floor, or even a vague shape far off. There was nothing beyond the door. Gimli raised his torch carefully, but the blackness was absolute. He shifted his feet, uneasy.

'Legolas, take care.'

Legolas seemed not to have heard. 'Master Holden?' he called into the dark. 'Alfy?'

He took a few steps through the doorway and stood just, one hand still outstretched. His voice fell away and there was no reply.

'I can't see anything,' Gimli said in no more than a whisper. 'What lies beyond?'

Legolas said, 'I...' His soft voice fell away. 'I see nothing.'

Gimli glanced back the way they had come. There was no sign of Aragorn.

Then Legolas said, 'Gimli,' and there was something in the tone that made the dwarf look back towards him, alarmed. But nothing new was to be seen. Legolas had not turned around; he seemed to be staring at something unseen in the darkness.

'What's wrong?' Gimli asked, urgently, moving up to the door. 'What do you see?'

'No. Go back, Gimli,' said the Elf, though still he did not turn. 'You must leave,'

Gimli halted. 'What?'

'Run, Gimli. You must run,' said Legolas, in a tight, flat tone, and if the words themselves were not strange enough, there was something in the Elf's tone that Gimli had heard there but once before, in Moria. It was terror.

Then Legolas whispered, 'I cannot move.'

'What?'

There was sound behind Gimli, the clatter of a stone kicked up by a footfall. He spun around, suddenly sure some unnamed horror stood right at his back. But the tombs were dark and still, and the stone steps they had come down were empty of everything but flicking shadows. Then came two more sounds in quick succession: a soft sigh of air like a breath, as if Legolas had softly gasped, and then there was a quiet click.

Gimli turned back. The door before him was shut. It had closed, quiet as a whisper. Legolas was still on the other side.

'Legolas?' Gimli called out, alarmed. He went to the door and pushed on it. But unlike when Legolas had touched it, the door did not move an inch.

Then Gimli noticed what it was that was wrong with the door. It had no handle.

The empty tombs behind him felt like a hundred eyes. Gimli hammered on the featureless planks with his fist. 'Legolas!'

There was no reply. Gimli slammed his fist on the wood again.

'Legolas! Answer me!'

The echo of the sound died away. There was just silence, thick and heavy. Gimli felt himself begin to panic. He dropped the torch and began beating at the immovable wooden door with his hands and feet and yelling at the top of his lungs.

'Legolas, answer me! Aragorn! Aragorn, help!'

He did not know how long he shouted and raged in his fear, eventually snatching up his axe and heaving the blade straight into the wood, but it seemed a sudden shock of sound and light when Aragorn came barreling down the stone steps behind and burst into the chamber, torch in one hand and drawn sword in the other.

'Gimli! Gimli, what's happened?'

Gimli collapsed back from the door, suddenly aware of the stinging in his shoulders where he had been wielding blow after blow on the door.

'Legolas went through,' he tried to explain, breathless. 'And I cannot open the door. Now he does not respond!'

To his relief, Aragorn wasted no time questioning his story, nor duplicating the actions Gimli had already undertaken. Instead he jammed his own torch into a hollow in the stonework to free his hands and looked all around.

'What lies beyond?' He asked, striding to the door. The blows of Gimli's axe had cut great splinters of wood from the surface, but the thick wood was not yet broken through and the door held as firmly as it ever had.

'I could not see,' Gimli said. 'It was utterly dark. I fear that dratted elf has fallen into some unseen fissure and has knocked himself insensible.' He said nothing of deeper, more sinister terrors. There was no need.

'Had he no torch?' Aragorn said. He ran a hand over the door's surface, noticing the absence of lock or latch.

'He carries two unlit,' Gimli explained, as he snatched up his own from the stone floor. Somehow it still burned. 'I do not know if he has flint and tinder. I have been calling and calling.'

The most rational part of Gimli's mind, the part that was at home in underground places, warned him to ration the light. Now that Aragorn had come, burning both torches at once was wasteful when they did not know how long they would have to be here. Reluctantly, Gimli smothered the flickering flames. The shadows crept closer.

'Keep calling for Legolas,' Aragorn advised. 'There is no need for stealth. If he has been knocked senseless in a fall then perhaps your shouts will rouse him. We must try to force the door.'

So Gimli continued to shout as loudly as he could, while Aragorn took up Gimli's axe and set to, attacking the door. When his arms began to tire, Gimli took the weapon back once more, and wielded it, while Aragorn called for Legolas, over and over. They could not tell how much time passed but every once in a while they paused shouts and blows to listen for an answer. None ever came, and the door did not yield.

At last, as Aragorn's torch was sputtering low, Gimli gave a great yell of frustration and swung two last mighty blows at the wood. Then he slumped back, breathing heavily and close to defeat. But Aragorn suddenly sprang up.

'Did you hear that?'

Gimli froze, listening. The silence beat against his ears like a pulse. 'I hear nothing,' he said, at last.

Aragorn took up the axe and struck it hard against the stone of the wall, twice, like the ringing of a bell. They both strained their ears, their breathing heavy in the dark. Then Gimli too heard a sound, muffled and far off.

Knock. Knock.

'Tell me that was an echo,' said Aragorn.

'It was no echo,' Gimli said. The quality of the sound was wrong. He might have thought it water dripping, but it was too soft to be certain. He remembered the tap-tap of the hammer they had heard in Moria. 'Try again,' he instructed Aragorn.

Aragorn lifted the axe once more and struck three times, the blows ringing loudly in the soundless tomb. The sound died away. Silence returned, full and heavy. And then they heard it again.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Aragorn struck the wall once more, a single blow. Thud.

Knock.

'It is no echo, but repetition,' said Gimli, with dawning realisation. 'He is trying to get our attention!' He leapt to his feet, all weariness forgotten. 'Legolas! We hear you; do not stop! We are coming, my friend! Baruk Khazâd ai-mênu!'

And with renewed fervour, he attacked the door once more, swinging such a mighty blow that at last the axe blade punched straight through the wood. Aragorn leapt up as Gimli wrenched his axe free, pulling a mass of splinters and cracked wood free with it.

'At last!' cried Aragorn. 'Gimli, you are a marvel. Now we shall see what there is to be seen.'

They both stepped close to the door. The wood was dented and chipped but had not weakened but for one crack, perhaps palm-sized, which had splintered all the way through. Aragorn raised the sputtering torch but beyond they could see only darkness.

'Legolas?' Aragorn called through into the space beyond, but this time they heard nothing at all.

'I think,' Gimli said, firmly. 'That I have had quite enough of this.'

'I quite agree,' said Aragorn. He picked up Gimli's half-used torch and without another word set about stripping the wrappings of oiled cloth from around the torch head and stuffing the fabric into the crack in the door. He doused the wood all around with lamp oil from a vial he carried in his pack. Then he lifted the burning torch high, and called aloud, 'Legolas! If you can hear me, cover your mouth and nose, and keep low to the ground. There will be smoke.'

And with that, he touched the burning torch to the cloth packed into the wooden frame of the door. The oil ignited with a roar, setting the cloth and the dry wooden splinters alight moments later. Then, as the oil dripped down the door, the wood too began to smoke.

Man and dwarf retreated to the rear of the chamber by the stairs and crouched low to wait. It did not take long for the dry wood to catch ablaze and soon the door was covered with a sheet of bright flame. Dark smoke filled the air, thick against the ceiling and then flowing up the stone steps, drawn upwards by the cooler air above. It felt like hours but it could not have been more than a few minutes when the crackling of the flames on the door suddenly became a roar and the wood folded under its own weight. The door cracked on its hinges as the metal bands heated, and with a crash and clang that felt deafening, the burning wood tore free and collapsed back onto the stone floor of the chamber in a burst of sparks and embers, throwing lumps of burning wood out on all sides.

Aragorn rose and went over, kicking chunks of burning wood and iron aside. He stepped up to the now empty doorway.

'Careful, careful!' Gimli quickly hurried over, ready to haul the man back. But Aragorn did not try to cross the threshold. He paused just before the doorframe, looking beyond.

Somehow, impossibly, the space beyond was still black as night, even with the burning door as a great beacon behind them. A faint shimmer of light at Aragorn's feet betrayed that there was at least a floor to the room, flat stone disappearing into the darkness. Nothing else was to be seen.

'Legolas!' Aragorn called out, raising the torch high for all the good it did. 'Legolas?'

There was silence for a long time. Then, muffled, as if from the depths of the earth, they heard a voice.

'Gimli.'

'Legolas!' Gimli cried, all but overwhelmed with relief, while Aragorn muttered something in Elvish, either a swear word or a prayer of thanks. Gimli knew how he felt either way.

'Mahal's beard, elf,' Gimli called into the chamber. 'You scared Aragorn something terrible.'

But if Gimli had been expecting an amused response or playful insult, he was disappointed. Worry churned in his gut when Legolas said nothing again but 'Gimli,' his voice sounding vague and distant.

'We cannot see you,' Aragorn called out, still peering into the blackness. 'Where are you?'

'I…' Legolas called back, and then, 'I see nothing.'

And as grateful as Gimli was to hear Legolas' voice, there was something wrong, too. Legolas sounded strange, his voice distorted: tight with pain or tension. Or perhaps fear.

'Elf, you had better not be hurt,' Gimli threatened into the dark.

'I cannot move,' Legolas replied. 'Gimli...'

Gimli met Aragorn's glance, and knew they had both had the same terrible thought - Legolas falling in the darkness, striking a stone floor, damage to neck, to spine...These constant long silences, the odd way he was speaking. Concussion, bouts of unconsciousness. There were many possible answers and none of them good.

'Do not try to move,' Aragorn called back. 'Stay where you are; we shall come for you.'

'No, go back,' Legolas said, from out of that impenetrable darkness. 'Go back. You must leave.'

'Don't be a fool,' Aragorn snapped. 'We're not leaving you, so do not even suggest it. Now, keep talking so we can find you in this accursed darkness. Legolas?'

Now there was nothing but silence. This time, Gimli knew the word Aragorn said was definitely a swear.

'We have to go in there,' Aragorn said. 'Or rather, I have to go in-'

'Do not,' Gimli said, firmly. 'You know the agreement, Aragorn. When there is danger we face it together, or not at all.'

Aragorn nodded, and did not argue. Gimli cut a length of rope from his pack and they knotted two loops five foot apart and slid them onto a wrist each, lashing the pair of them together. Then Aragorn picked up the longest piece of burning wood he could kick free and, carefully picking it up, threw it through the doorway into the darkness beyond. The wood spun a few times, like falling star, trailing sparks and hot oil, and at last hit the ground, sliding along a short way before coming to a stop. And there it lay, a tiny speck burning in the darkness. The room beyond was real, and they would not be frightened away.

'I'll go first,' said Gimli, planting his feet. 'Then if something happens to me, you can haul me back.'

Aragorn nodded, grimly, and did not answer. His torch had been burning a long time and now was little more than embers, so he took his spare, lit it, and handed it on to Gimli. 'Remember,' Aragorn said, 'until we find Legolas, we now have but one torch left in reserve.'

'Believe me, I'll not be forgetting that,' muttered Gimli. He patted the spare torch in his belt for reassurance, and stepped to the door. 'Well, let's get on with it then,' he said.

Aragorn nodded. He stepped back into the centre of the chamber, passed the rope connecting them round his waist and braced his feet, as if readying himself to haul the Dwarf back at a moment's notice.

Gimli looked out through the doorway. All seemed silent and utterly dark, except for the burning plank Aragorn had thrown which was the only light to be seen. A solitary star in the deepest black. The Dwarf breathed deep, suppressing all fear, and stepped out into the darkness.

tbc