After a few more hours of rousing songs and stories, the party was winding down and ready for a much-needed full night's sleep in comfortable beds, but not before Gandalf reminded them of their host's last words. "It is time for us to sleep," he said,"—for us, but not I think for Beorn. In this hall we can rest sound and safe, but I warn you all not to forget what Beorn said before he left us: you must not stray outside until the sun is up, on your peril."
A few dwarves and Bilbo included looked to have their interest in Beorn's warning renewed, if only until they scuffled to their low bunks along the outside walls of the hall to go to sleep. By the time they had all taken their boots off and curled up beneath the thick grey woolen blankets the dogs had laid out for them, Gandalf and Morine were able to slip away into an opposite corner without being much minded at all.
"To what do I owe the honor of your presence?" Gandalf asked her pleasantly as if he were the true host.
Morine looked sternly at him through the darkness that the light from a single candle could not penetrate. "Necessity," she answered point blankly.
The man chuckled as he pulled out his pipe, knowing it would be a long discussion. Ignoring her bluntness, he proceeded to try small talk. "How many centuries has it been, Morinehtar? Or should I say ages?" He stared off thoughtfully as if to consider the answer as he puffed away.
She crossed her arms and said nothing, making him chuckle lightly again. She found his gayety annoying, and he was amused by how morose she was. It was a party, after all, and who could not be light of heart after such a filling meal?
"Too long, it seems," he decided, eyeing at the recluse. "Have you been faring well?"
The question was confusingly open-ended for her, but none-the-less, she said "fine" all too gruffly. "You?"
Her short stabs at conversation reminded him of their host, and his eyes danced mischievously. "I have been well, thank you," Gandalf replied succinctly, as if to set a precedent about polite conversation. She was wondering if he was stalling until they could be sure their company was fully asleep. "Any word from our dearest cousin Radagast?"
"No. We have not crossed paths for many years." This fact was not unexpected from them both, for if anyone was more reclusive than Morine, it would be Radagast. "Though," she added, "I do know that he is often in the south of Mirkwood, not far from where I live myself."
Gandalf quirked an eyebrow through the cloud of floating smoke. Thoughtfully, he noted, "Ah. You are settled then? I heard as much, but it did not seem quite like you."
Her bright green eyes softened as she said, "Yes, it is true. Mirkwood is now a place I can call my home."
"And what of the Necromancer?" he poised curiously, growing more serious as the sound of dwarven snoring drifted through the hollow hall.
"If by the bane of my existence and propagator of all foul things now festering in the forest, then he is troublesome," she stated, clenching her fists under the small table that stood between them. "A thorn in my side," she reiterated. "His doings have barred me from the southwestern area of the forest, an area which is ceaselessly increasing in size."
"Hmmm," the wizard managed through taut lips, thinking deeply as he stroked his white beard of a less than practical length.
"Mmmmm," Morine copied as the two mulled it over.
Taking a few more puffs from his pipe, Gandalf said, "As it would happen, I would not be here with thirteen dwarves and a hobbit if not for the Necromancer."
"How is that so?" she asked, showing more than faint interest for once as she leaned an arm, elbow propped on the rugged table. Unfortunately for her, she had forgotten how much the old man liked to tell stories.
"Yes, for you see, it was just a few short years ago that I was last in the area. There is a place near the southwestern part of Mirkwood called Amon Lanc," he began explaining as Morine nodded her head. "Or, as some people now call it, Dol Guldur."
"Dol Guldur?" she repeated the strange words. From the small amount of elvish that she knew, she could decipher its meaning: hill of dark sorcery.
Gandalf continued. "Unbeknownst to myself, the Necromancer now operates from this hill, though I did not know it at the time."
She nodded soberly. Though the information was new, it made sense. For many months now she had noticed that the insurgence of evil in the forest was coming from a decidedly southwestern direction. "At what time?" she asked the cryptic man.
Blowing a smoke ring that danced around her head, he said, "At the time I met Thorin's father, though I did not know that either." Morine was growing impatient with his riddles. "I was exploring southern Mirkwood one day," he began again, as if traveling to the dark forest were a perfectly mundane and acceptable thing to do on any given day, "when I saw—"
"Why were you in Mirkwood?" Morine interjected grumpily. She felt rebuffed that her cousin Gandalf had visited her home, and this was the first that she was hearing about it.
"Oh, curiosity, I suppose," he ventured. "I was hoping I would run into Radagast or learn of his where-abouts, but when I stumbled across the fortress—"
"What fortress?" she interrupted again.
Now it was Gandalf who was getting irritated at her ignorance. "There is a fortress atop Amon Lanc, the Necromancer's dark abode," he explained. "It's an intimidating feature, no doubt. Towers, gates, a huge staircase, guards…" He quit listing as Morine glared at him. Clearing his throat, he continued. "Naturally, I was curious as to how this place came to be and when it was constructed, and so on and so forth."
He paused to smoke his pipe, and the hall was still with quiet. In fact, it was louder outside as the noise of summertime bugs crescendoed. The amount and noise of life outside of Mirkwood was something Morine could not get used to.
"I crept inside the stronghold to investigate." Morine's green eyes met Gandalf's grey ones in an intense stare, causing him to chuckle. "You need to lighten up my dear," he told her. "You are always so serious.
"And is this not serious?" she asked, sitting back and crossing her arms. "You went inside…"
"Yes, yes. I went inside to investigate and wandered my way down into the dungeons, as I was sure there was more security in the higher levels. Though, as my presence went unnoticed, I now believe that the abomination was not in at the time," he said. "I had nearly gotten myself lost and given up when I heard a rustling coming from one of the corners. Closer and closer I tread, carefully of course, until in a small beam of light I saw a pale little arm reach out for me." Morine was so entranced that she had nearly given up breathing. "'Hello?' I said to whatever poor creature it was that I could not see. The raspiest voice I ever heard answered, 'Please. Help me.' Naturally, I wanted to help the poor fellow any way I could. 'How can I help?' I asked."
Gandalf stopped yet again to smoke a bit more, thoroughly enjoying how impatient Morine was becoming, but since she said nothing more, he knew he had her hooked and could take his time. "When he stretched out his hand again, a large gold key was laid in his palm. 'Take it,' he urged me. 'Find my son, and give it to him.'"
Morine asked, "Why could he not do it himself? And what was he doing down in the Necromancer's dungeons?"
"How he came to be down there I do not know, but he was enchained, you see." She grumbled at this lapse in his explanation. "The Necromancer had imprisoned him for some reason, though I am certain that no reason would be necessary for the tyrant to do as he pleases." Morine nodded her head in agreement. "I took the key and kept it safe on my person. Who was I to dissent? We did not have much time, for we both feared the arrival of the Necromancer at any moment. He also handed me an old map of the Lonely Mountain. 'Who is your son?' I asked. He had not given me his own name, and he refused to give me his son's name. Before I could find out any more about my mission, he died."
The woman's mouth had slowly gaped its way open in disbelief. She closed it when she realized her façade was shattered. "How unfortunate," she intimated.
"Indeed," Gandalf said. "He was very old for a dwarf though, and I suppose that he had clung to life in the hopes that one day something would happen as it did—that someone would find him there in his misery and fulfill his dying wish. After I escaped Dol Guldur, I had no clue where to begin my hunt. All I had to go on was that the key would belong to a dwarf. It was a nice key of the purest gold, and so no ordinary dwarf would do. A few years later, I happened to meet the acquaintance of a wandering dwarf who had lost both his father and grandfather—a proud dwarf who was gathering a company to fight Smaug off the Lonely Mountain and regain the treasure that had been stolen from his people. 'How noble!' I thought as he told me his sad story." Gandalf was visibly impressed. "He introduced himself as Thorin Oakenshield, the son of Thrain and grandson of Thror, one of the greatest dwarves who ever lived."
She looked over into the darkness where Thorin and his company slept soundly. "Incredible," she said softly.
Gandalf nodded somberly. "Yes, and it was immensely fortunate of me to have run into him when I did. He was of noble descent and on a brave mission. If his father, Thrain, was the prisoner in the dungeon, then the key and map could most certainly belong to him, and the Necromancer would have had some incentive to imprison Thrain, though I can only wonder what he was after."
They surmised the possibility together. "What is the key for?" Morine asked him after some time.
He shook his head. "I do not know, and I am not sure that Thorin knows either. However, it is of great importance, to be sure," he concluded. "If I had not an important appointment to keep, I would accompany them further on their quest. As it is, I must lead them to the edge of Mirkwood and leave at once, for it would not do to be late."
Morine shrugged her shoulders at her flaky friend, feeling that he was as mysterious as ever. It was just like him to throw people into a quest and then abandon them at the worse moment. They would need his help and more to get through the forest safely. She was unfamiliar with the northern path that Beorn had told them to take, though she knew he was correct that the southern path she was familiar with and had even taken that very morning was too dangerous and overgrown for them to attempt the crossing. While she had her own concerns, Gandalf's carefree dilly-dallying was sapping her resolve to ask for his assistance.
"I assume you have some great reason for showing up here uninvited?" he intuitively noted.
He watched her sigh and uncross her arms. Cautiously, she said, "Yes. I need your help."
This admission did not faze him, though he knew how it must bother her to have to ask. She was as prideful as ever, just as he remembered. "How did you know I was here?" he asked her curiously.
"I have my ways," she simply said. He did not know that she communed with the plant life of the forest, much as Radagast did with animals. "And I would not be here if it were not important."
Gandalf nodded, stroking his beard. "Mm-hm," he said.
Taking a deep breath, Morine stated her case. "This Necromancer, as you call him, must be the source of the problem. While the forest known as Mirkwood has slowly grown darker over the natural course of years, the last few decades have changed its character completely." Gandalf noticed that she spoke of it as if it were an entity all its own. "I have been fighting off the orcs, spiders, and other evils as well as I can, but their numbers are expanding beyond my control. I had already determined that they are concentrated towards the southwestern part of the forest, though I now suspect from your long-winded tale that they must be coming from Dol Guldur, or are else attracted to their evil brethren." It sounded like a military report. "They have already begun infiltrating deeper into the forest, and even coming here was no easy task. I must find some way to stop this evil from spreading to all corners of the forest. Even the elves have tucked their tails between their legs and retreated to the north," she spat bitterly. "It won't be long before I can no longer escape and all life in Mirkwood will be threatened. It must be stopped," she urged him, resisting the urge to slam her fist on the small table.
The candle was over halfway melted, and even the bugs had drifted to sleep. The sound of scratching outside the main door caught their attention simultaneously as they jerked their heads to the door. Morine's heart began racing at the threat, and she felt ready to pounce. Gandalf assured her they were perfectly safe. "We are fine as long as we stay inside the confines of the hall," he said, noticing her discomfort. "Ahem. I agree that something must be done about the Necromancer, but what that something is or if it would work is beyond me." Morine looked dreadfully disappointed, and so he added, "But I will see what can be done. Have you tried contacting Radagast?"
She sullenly shook her head. "No," she admitted. "Though I could try to track him down."
Gandalf shook his head. "That will not be necessary. I will see if he and Saruman have any ideas when the White Council meets again. Meanwhile, stay out of the way," he suggested, the order making her temper flare.
Fed up with the man, she left him in favor of finding the nearest available cot. After Morine had fallen into a heavy sleep, Gandalf spent the remaining evening hours deep in thought. The candle that was lit hours ago now was but an inch of molten wax on the table, though the sky was slowly lightening into a pale yellow in the east. The birds were beginning to chirp their good mornings, but the wizard hardly felt tired at all. His beard had been thoroughly combed by his fingers at this point, and just as the sun peeked over the forest and stained the sky pink, Beorn stomped into the hall.
"Good morning," Gandalf greeted him pleasantly, blowing out what was left of the candle.
Beorn grumpily mumbled something in return while he dug through the adjacent kitchen for biscuits, milk, and honey. He offered the old man some, though he politely refused. While the sun was quickly rising higher in the sky, the hall was as silent as the wee hours. The company was exhausted from the long journey over the mountains with rarely any decent sleep.
When Beorn finally finished his hasty breakfast and gulped down the last of his milk, he wiped his thick beard with his arm and glared at Gandalf when he said, "I need a word with you."
"Oh?" Gandalf raised his bushy eyebrows. Beorn was not one for idle chit-chat.
"Outside," the host growled as he stood up and stomped back over to the door, the wizard following him without a word.
Where he led them had clearly been used recently as a meeting place. Gandalf keenly recognized the many paw prints on the ground as bear tracks, and they were loosely configured into a circle. He wondered if the animals were the cause of the strange sounds heard overnight, such as scratching and growling, but he thought better of asking the temperamental host about it.
He was settling himself onto a log when Beorn suddenly said, "I don't like her."
"Morinehtar?" Gandalf chuckled. "She is perfectly harmless," he said, knowing it was not quite true.
Beorn grumbled something about her being a woman before he said clearly, "I know that you didn't invite her."
"True, she is not a member of the company, but as I said, she is my friend," Gandalf reinforced.
Looking none too happy, Beorn said, "Fourteen friends were plenty enough. I'd like to know how she thinks she can show up at my house uninvited and at such a late hour."
Gandalf tried not to laugh. He knew that Beorn cared little for etiquette. It was the principle of the matter that was angering him. The man was practically a recluse and was not one for having many guests. "I understand," he said to his kind host, pondering if there was something more about her that was getting to him. "It will not happen again. We will leave tomorrow morning, and she will leave as well."
"Good," Beorn said, leaving a pensive Gandalf to go tend to his bees.
The image of Morine burned in Beorn's mind. She looked strange and untrustworthy, though he never trusted any women. From his limited experience, they were fickle in nature and quick to turn on you. No, he did not like them at all, especially the queer one that had forced her way into his home. Remembering her silhouette in the doorway made his blood boil. Who did this lass think she was? He growled as he checked the honeycombs in a few hives before going to check on his horses. He shook his head as he found solace in grooming the horses' hair. No, he did not care for her one bit.
