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Chapter Seven.
The Fellowhip trudged along the motorway. The air was thick and heavy with pollution, clouds of dust rose from the roads; and for the first time since their arrival, this new world was distinctly unnatractive. Before, it had been strange and bewildering, but it had been exciting and exotic as well. Now, Sam thought wistfully of the fresh grass and healthy flowers of the Shire, and the tidy gardens of Hobbiton. Here, the grass was withered and brown, and what few weed-like plants there were on the road-side, drooped sadly forward, as though smothered by the choking petrol fumes.
Merry coughed, and swatted at the tiny flies that skittered to and fro in the air. "How much further have we to go, Gandalf? We've been walking for days, now."
"And I'm hungry, and thirsty..." Pippin muttered.
"There!" Gandalf pointed to a road sign ahead of them. On the bright, flat, blue surface was stamped in white letters: Oxford (10). "Only ten more miles to go."
"Only ten more miles on this barren road-way," Gimli growled. "with air not fit to breathe, and surrounded by things that threaten to run us over without the slightest provocation. On to Oxford!"
Those words had been repeated often during the last few days, and everyone was heartily sick of hearing them. No one replied to Gimli's comment.
- - - - -
Oxford was clean, and relatively uncrowded compared to London. The Fellowship worked its way up through the streets, and Gandalf waylaid a passer-by: "Do you know where Northmoor Road is?"
The passer-by pointed. "Down there. First right, third left, then fourth left again."
They followed the man's instructions, and were soon at Northmoor Road. They started down it. Gandalf said, looking at the houses they passed, "We need Number 20. Look out for it."
However, as they passed Number 15, Number 17, Number 19, and Number 21, he started to feel puzzled, and not a little worried. When they passed Number 25, Gandalf stopped in despair. "We are getting nowhere! The numbers are all wrong!"
"It's all the odd numbers," Aragorn said. "All the houses are numbered with the odd numbers, and we need the even."
"See!" Legolas pointed to the other side of the road. "The houses on that side have the even numbers! We are on the wrong side of the road."
"I wonder what the purpose of this custom is," Boromir mused. "Mayhap the people here have superstitions concerning the odd and even numbers."
They hurried to the other side, and soon found Number 20. It had a blue plaque on the front wall, above its windows. "Here we are!" Gandalf exclaimed. "And now, we must find the Iant-Tri-Amar."
"Oh, no," whispered a low voice by Frodo's ear. He whirled around, and saw Saruman. The wizard was dirty, his long white clothes and hair were mussed, and he glared malevolently at them from underneath a lump the size of a chicken's egg on his forehead. He bared his teeth in what could just - by a lot of imagination - pass for a smile. He held his staff, chipped and scratched in his hand, and Pippin thought: He must have picked it up at the wreck. Why didn't we think to throw it away?
Gandalf brought his own staff around so it was pointing at Saruman. Out of the corner of his mouth, he murmured, "Aragorn, si bado, no círar a tiro an Iant-Tri-Amar. Avo acheno." Saruman whipped his staff up, and Gandalf parried in a blur of movement.
"Come on!" Aragorn yelled, and ran up the path to the house, the others following. Aragorn hammered on the door, and as soon as it opened, stuck his foot against it and shoved; the one who had opened it, staggered backwards in suprise, and they pushed their way in, knocking the man against the wall, where he leaned, gulping in suprise.
"Aragorn! Man sad Iant-Tri-Amar?" Legolas called, running up the stairs.
"I do not know!"
Merry, Pippin, Sam and Frodo burst into a room at the top of the house. "Now think!" Merry commanded. "Where would you hide a thing like this device?"
"In a study," Frodo said, thinking of Bilbo. "Among papers, or in a place where it wouldn't get noticed..."
Suddenly, the window exploded outwards, and glass flew in all dircetions. All four hobbits ducked; as a chunk of glass embeddded itself in the wall above Sam's head, there were two thuds. One was Gandalf shooting through the empty window and landing on the floor, and the other was Saruman following suit. Before any of the hobbits could move, Saruman thrust his staff forward and a flash of orange light errupted from its end. It hit the wall, and crumbled it. The hobbits were covered in a mess of rubble, plaster, wood and dust, but were otherwise unharmed. As they crawled out, the door to the room flew open, banged back on its hinges, and the other members of the Fellowship stood in the door way. Saruman's eyes darted from one face to another with the frantic defiance of a trapped animal, and as Frodo came out, coughing and spluttering, he took a quick step to the window, fully intending to throw himself out and escape.
At that moment, though, a large chunk of plaster fell from the wrecked ceiling and smashed open in the middle of the floor. Among the rough, white flakes lay a sphere of dark blue, as wide across as Aragorn's hand. It was engraved all over with strange lines and curves, and a long string of Elvish runes were cut into its surface, circling it all the way around. For a split-second, everyone froze in mid-action, simply taking in the simple fact that this was the Iant-Tri-Amar, that this was what they had searched to find, and now...
Saruman dived for the device, Gimli tripped him up, Frodo reached out and took the device in his hands, struggling to decipher the Elvish as Saruman fought with the others to get to him. With a last final effort, Saruman threw Boromir off, whacked Legolas with his staff, and clutched for the device, just as Frodo raised it in the air. Clasping it with his two hands, he cried, "Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima! Lasto beth daer, lasto beth lammen! Bado na Ennorath! "
As Frodo spoke, the room was filled with a brilliant silver light, like star-light and moon-light mingled together; it shot out of the Iant-Tri-Amar in a brilliant shockwave, passing through everyone in the room, and returning again to the silver fire at the device's centre. The room began to shake, and little silver waves began to ripple over the device's surface, snaking over it and onto Frodo's hands like tendrils, or feelers of a plant.
The light grew in its intensity, blotting out everything, leaving no room for thought, no room for consideration. Out of the depths of his heart, Aragorn gasped, almost weeping with the power of what he was seeing: "Eärendil! Undómiel! Linnon am meleth vîn! "
There was a high, sweet sound, as of singing, far, far away carried on the breeze; then that faded, to be replaced by the howling of the wind. Frodo opened his eyes. They were back in the snows of Caradhras, with the blizzard stinging their faces, and hunger gnawing at the stomachs. Bill the pony snorted, looked at them mournfully, and slapped his tail against his legs in an effort to brush away the snow that was rising above his hocks.
"We're back," Boromir said, and his words were caught by the wind, and thrown up to the snow-clad tops of the mountains.
"Yes," Gandalf said. "We are back. Come, I can see a path off of this precipice."
They started off down the path that Gandalf showed them, Sam with his hands buried deep in Bill's mane. Pippin stuck his hands in his pockets, and encountered something small and round. He drew it out. It was the donut that he had been saving for an emergency. Pippin sighed, and following the others, slowly nibbled away at the now dry pastry.
Translations:
Aragorn, si bado, no cirar a tiro an Iant-Tri-Amar. Avo acheno. - Aragorn, go now, before it is too late and look for the Iant-Tri-Amar. Don't look back.
Man sad Iant-Tri-Amar? - Where is the Iant-Tri-Amar?
Aiya Earendil Elenion Ancalima! Lasto beth daer, lasto beth lammen! Bado na Ennorath! - Hail Earendil brightest of the stars! Listen to the great word, listen to the words of my tongue! Go to Middle-Earth!
Earendil! Undomiel! Linnon am meleth vin! - Earendil! Evenstar! I sing for our love!