Some of these thoughts he now wove into his music, and straightway discord arose about him, and many that sang nigh him grew despondent, and their thought was disturbed and their music faltered; but some began to attune their music to his rather than to the thought which they had at first. Then the discord of Melkor spread ever wider, and the melodies which had been heard at first foundered in a sea of turbulent sound. But Ilúvatar sat and hearkened until it seemed that about his throne there was a raging storm, as of dark waters that made war one upon the other in an endless wrath that would not be assuaged.

- Excerpt from Tolkien's Morgoth's Ring, the tenth instalment of The History of Middle-Earth. A piece from the Ainulindalë, the Great Song, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.

Chapter 6: A king under a mountain

With Solana

White-hot burning rage shot through her as she shot through the small hole the goblins had come out of; How dare they take her photo album like that! She knew, somewhere deep inside her mind, that it was safe – it was warded to hell and back, after all.

Luckily for Solana, the ward scheme included a permanent tracking charm. She would have gotten lost otherwise, because it was deep and dark, such as only goblins that have taken to living in the heart of the mountains would be able to see through. The passages there were crossed and tangled in all directions, but Solana, with the use of the tracking charm, knew where to go and the way went down and down, and it was horribly stuffy and disgusting, and multiple times she almost tripped over bones and skulls of various origins.

It took a long while, about ten minutes, but eventually there came a glimmer of a red light before her, and she broke into a full-out sprint.

After a second, she stumbled into a big cavern. It was lit by a great red fire in the middle, and by torches along the walls, and it was full of goblins. They all looked up astonished when Solana came running in. And all was silent for a few seconds, giving Solana time to assess the situation. The ponies were already there huddled in a corner, and all the baggage and packages was lying broken open, and being rummaged by goblins, and smelt by goblins, and fingered by goblins, and quarrelled over by goblins. Including her photo album. It wasn't being opened, but the cover was brought up to their noses, and their fat little greasy fingers got all over it;

That was when Solana snapped, and the goblins became the first in seven years, and the last for another sixty, to see the Sixth Istari's full power.

Now, normal wizards need wands; this is no news. Wizards of Middle-Earth, Istari, need staffs because of their huge magical reserves; these magicks, the magicks of Arda, are always more brute than the refined magic of Earth. There was another magic, one that was only used by Solana; wandless magic.

It should be known that wandless magic was not something one could throw around easily, no matter who you are and how much magic you have in your reserves. Only when extreme emotions are involved it can be used; and even then, one will get extremely tired afterwards, because of near-empty magical reserves.

Solana, in this case, was angry beyond words. Her only reminder of her old world, her parents, Hogwarts, her friends, her godsons, and her goddaughter was being dirtied by filthy goblin hands! This induced white-hot rage in her and, completely forgetting about her wand, she raised her hand, even as the goblins picked up their weapons and charged.

Had anyone watched this happening, they wouldn't have seen Solana; they would have seen the Sixth Istari of Middle Earth, Erinqua. Had the hypothetical spectators had any doubts that she were an Istari beforehand, they would've immediately been erased. But there were none, and Erinqua stood alone against more than a hundred charging goblins.

And then, Erinqua clenched her hand tightly. "Die."

This single word wasn´t screamed, it wasn´t yelled; it wasn't even spoken. It was whispered, and still, it reverberated within each of the goblin's heads, through their charging screams, as if it were yelled in a silent room.

It would be the last thing any of them ever heard.

With Gandalf, Thorin, Ori, Nori, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Bombur, Bofur, and Bifur

Gandalf wasn't a worrier.

When his friends, Alatar and Pallando, left to seek help in the east and he didn't get a message for years, he didn't worry. When Thranduil said he wouldn't help in the war effort, he didn't worry. When Radagast started to live like a hermit instead of convincing the Ents, his special rabbits, or any other animal to help fight Sauron, even then he didn't worry.

No, Gandalf worried over far greater things. He worried when Sauron stood up from his throne and decided to lead an army into battle. He worried when Sauron convinced a Balrog to help him. He worried whenever Elrond was out of a certain kind of round, yellow candy that he couldn't remember the name of.

And now, he worried over the Sixth Istari, because she had run off and decided to take on the entire Goblin city on her own.

It wasn't hard to track Solana down; she didn't hide her footprints, after all. It took a little more than ten minutes in the end, and they were just turning another corner when a red light came visible at the end of the hallway, and a voice came through their minds.

"Die."

To Gandalf and the dwarves, it was obvious that it wasn't spoken to them, because a sickly green light came from the red light – or so it seemed – and there was the sound that reminded them of a rain of blood; they had all seen a decapitation once, and it was the same sound as when blood spurt from the wound and hit the floor. They quickly hurried over, Gandalf in front, when it was followed by a THUD of someone hitting the floor.

When they could finally see what was going on, Fili, Kili, and Ori puked, and the rest grimaced and pinched their noses closed.

All over the place lay intestines – goblin ones – and blood was splattered onto the walls, and in some places up unto the ceiling. Right in front of them lay Solana, chest slowly rising and falling as if she were asleep. On the far end, the ponies were tethered to a wall, and all their stuff lay around them, mostly broken. The instruments were fine, surprisingly enough. They glanced at each other in amazement, before picking Solana up, and throwing her over the back of her horse. Then they sought out all their items, even the broken ones, put them back in satchels on the ponies, and prepared to walk back out.

Not a word was spoken as they walked through the cave-system back the way they came. They knew that, by now, the gate they came through was closed, and they had to find another way. As per unspoken agreement, Gandalf lead the way, and the others trusted him to lead them the right way.

After a good fifteen minutes, they came upon what seemed to be the main road; it was large, wide, had hundreds of footprints on it, and led both up and down. They went upwards, of course, and came upon the same large hole as earlier; only much, much, much higher. And right in front of them, behind a small army of goblins, was a large, fat, ugly(-er than normal) goblin with a crown on its head.

"Who are these miserable persons!" The apparent goblin king thundered. "Dwarves and humans! What are you doing here? Up to no good, I'll warrant! Spying on the private business of my people, I guess! Thieves, I shouldn't be surprised to learn! Murderers and friends of Elves, not unlikely! Come! What have you got to say?"

The dwarves glanced at each other, and then at Gandalf, who nodded. They drew their weapons. "CHAAAARGE!"

To anyone sitting on their couch, watching it on their television, the battle would have looked amazing. Thirteen dwarves came rushing in from one side, hacking, slashing, and dicing up goblins left and right. Gandalf stayed back, shooting bolts of magic at any goblin who got close to hurting him, Solana, or the ponies. Orcrist flashed at the front of the company, and it quickly made its way to the goblin King in the hands of Thorin. The goblins were no match for battle-hardened dwarves, and soon all there was left was mincemeat and their king.

"What have you done?!" He roared. "I am the King under the Mountain! You cannot defeat me!"

From the back of the group, a groan sounded, followed by a female voice. "Oh shaddap, ya big lump." A thrown rock accentuated this statement, hitting the King of Mincemeat in the short and curlies.

With a groan and clutching his privates in pain, the King fell forwards –

Straight through the wooden platform, into the abyss below.

There was a stunned silence for a few seconds, as all dwarves and Gandalf were staring open-mouthed at Solana, that was broken by Gandalf.

"Follow me."

Solana had fallen asleep again while they were moving through dim passageways, and the only sound for a long while was the calm clopping of the ponies and Shadowfax, until a bit of light shone at the end of the tunnel, and the clopping sped up for everyone wanted to get into the light. However, due to the faster walking, Solana had slid off the back of her horse and fallen into a small crack in the wall.

Nobody would notice until much later.

Oo0oO

With Solana

When Solana opened her eyes, she wondered if she had, for it was just as dark as with them shut. No one was anywhere near her, she could hear nothing, see nothing, and could feel nothing except the cold stone of the floor.

Solana flipped out her wand and lit up the tunnel with a silent Lumos. The walls were rough, and she knew that if she pulled her had along the wall, it would open wounds. With no way back, sideways, down, or up, Solana chose to go forwards, and started to walk until she saw a glint on the floor, right next to where she had woken up.

When she bent down to look at it, she found a small, golden ring; it was small, and could barely fit her pinky finger. On both the outside and the inside were words written in a language she had learned to read from Gandalf since they had left Rivendell; the Black Language of Mordor. She mumbled the words softly to herself as she read them by the light of her wand.

"Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul."

Solana shrugged, not recognizing the words, and put the ring in an inner pocket of the red robes, before standing up. The little ring doesn't seem too important, after all –

That thought pulled her up short and she suddenly remembered the Horcrux Diary; that didn't seem too important as well. And now that she thought about it, it isn't logical at all for a small, golden ring – almost like a wedding band – with the Black Fucking Language of Motherfuckin' Mordor inscribed on it to be lying around in a goblin tunnel!

Then Solana realized that it wasn't smart to stand around loitering in a goblin tunnel, and she set off at a brisk pace.

The tunnel seemed to have no end. All she knew was that it was still going down pretty steadily and keeping in the same direction in spite of a twist and a turn or two. There were passages leading off to the side every now and then, as seen by the soft light her wand provided. Of these she took no notice, except to hurry past for fear of goblins or half-imagined dark things coming out of them en masse. On and on she went, and down and down; and still, all was silent except for the rustling of her robes and the occasional whirr of a bat by her ears, which startled her into shrieking and firing off a cutting curse at first, until it became too frequent to bother about.

Solana didn't know how long she kept on like this, hating to go on, not daring to stop in fear of an army of goblins, until she was tired enough that she felt like she could sleep through a whole day. After an indeterminate amount of time, the ceiling became higher and she transfigured a piece of rock into a skateboard; with the use of smoothing charms on the floor in front of her, Solana made a lot more ground than she otherwise would've.

Skateboarding was something she had learned back when she stayed with the Dursleys; one of her 'secret friends', which were friends the Dursleys didn't know about due to lack of interacting at school, had taught her when the friend had brought her own skateboard to a park on the other side of Little Whining. After a few afternoons filled with falling, Solana had gotten it down and learned to transfigure her own skateboard as soon as she got to Hogwarts.

The tunnel seemed like it led all the way to tomorrow and over it to the days beyond. Suddenly and without any warning, the front of the skateboard dipped down and Solana fell face-first into icy cold water with an "Eep!".

It shocked her, that there was water there. She did not know whether it was just a pool in the path, or the edge of an underground stream that crossed the passage, or the brink of a deep dark subterranean lake. After she stood up, she stopped and she could hear, when she held her breath, small water drops drip-drip-dripping from an unseen roof into the water below; but there seemed no other sort of sound. So it was a lake.

Suddenly, a hiss sounded from behind her. "Bless us and splash us, my precioussss! I guess it's a choice feast; at least –"

But that was as far as the hiss got because Solana "Eep!"–ed again when she heard his plan and fired off a blasting curse over her shoulder.

The last Gollum ever saw was a bright light before his head exploded – rather spectacularly, if you asked some of the fish that were watching.

Review Replies!

Anime Princess: Of course they did. They took all of their stuff, remember?

Noxy the Proxy: I would've thought it that it would be easier to follow, but whatever floats your goat man.

SpikeySugarBomb: It isn't that I find the idea of a dragon with multi-coloured scales weird, it's weird on Smaug. If it had fit my storyline, I could've easily fabricated a new dragon and made his scales multi-coloured.

As for the goblins, they came out of a thin passageway, and Solana was extremely angry because they took her photo album – the only reminder of her old world, her parents, her friends, and her godson and –daughters – and that put more power behind her spells.

Skendo: Exactly! And thank you for your compliment.

The rest of the reviewers get a Thank You, as always.