Glory: "I am a god."
Spike: "The god of what? Bad home perms?"
Glory: "Shut up! I command you: Shut up!"
Spike: "Yeah, okay. Sorry. But I just had no idea that gods were such prancing lightweights.
Mark my words: the Slayer is going to kick your skanky, lopsided ass back to whatever
place would take a cheap, whorish, fashion-victim, ex-god like you."
(she power-kicks him across the room, through the wall... and out of his chains)
Spike: (spitting up more blood) "Good plan, Spike."
-
Buffy the Vampire Killer, Season 5, Episode 18 "Intervention"

Chapter 44 – Apocalypse not now but shortly

Interlude in the Halls of Waiting

Namo, Lord of Mandos, sat back from the ornate chess table and rested his hands on the carved ebony arms of his chair. He looked thoughtful and perhaps a little sad even.

Chief Knowles stared at the chessboard. His primary player, the orc Thadak, was on the run pursued by the delicately carved white Knight piece which stood for Eonwe and the forces of High King Ereinion Gil-galad. Namo's white Queen represented by Kim Freeman stood at the last point of the board, almost poised for flight back to her own time, but beside her, casting doubt on the success of her flight stood a pawn in the form of Alun Davies, flanked by a black Knight; Sauron. Time and events alone would tell whether the pawn would support the Knight or be absorbed into the forces of good. His actions and words now would choose which he was to be for him, yet he was surrounded by the forces of good in the camp of the Host of the Valar and in the presence of Tulkas Astalde.

Yet crouched at some neutral point and still in the background sat a new, albeit shadowy, set of players on the board. They were not evil by any means, but potentially dangerous for all that. While the forces of Melkor stood for evil and the others stood for good, these stood somewhere in the middle. Namo and the rest of the Valar could clearly see that their intentions were good, but also that their intervention could presage events which, once set in motion, would be well nigh impossible to stop.

Knowles reached out with a trembling hand towards his black Knight. He did not wish to play this piece, because once played, he had a feeling it would launch something that couldn't be prevented. Just as his fingertips touched the piece, he suddenly stopped and looked up into the dark eyes of his opponent and for a split second, he saw a pair of steely blue eyes with beetling grey eyebrows starting back at him. He froze in place. Those eyes were very familiar, in fact he had been on the receiving end of that terrifying stare a few times in his career.

"Dear God in heaven..." Chief said before he could stop himself.

Namo smiled. "Not exactly. But not far off in your world of the military I suspect." His eyes had returned to their normal impenetrable black, but with a twinkle deep within them.

The Chief had gone very pale. "I saw...I could have sworn I saw..." He stopped and looked intently at Namo. "It's time for me to go back isn't it?"

Namo nodded, a little sadly. "Indeed it is my friend. The scientists in your time are very clever. They have been working diligently to discover the nature of the portal which still exists between your timeline and ours. Varda, my sweet wife and Sauron have all unwittingly helped them in this endeavour. Varda and Vaire created a second portal near the first for the purpose of sending Kim and her unborn child back to safety, this you know. You also know that Sauron used the second portal to bring Inspector Davies through as his pawn to persuade Kim and our Herald's child back to Thangorodrim. He knows this will bring Eonwe surging to meet him and it is not the right time. There are still too many enemies at his back and the orc Thadak needs to be stopped before he can reach his goal. For Eonwe to meet Melkor in battle now would mean defeat for the Host and the death of thousands."

"Don't tell me." Chief interrupted him. "The two portals have joined and stabilised, thereby allowing for the possibility that they could send troops through to mount a rescue party while our Scientist bods keep the portal open and stable."

Namo dimpled at him. "Very well, I won't tell you. However it is not exactly a rescue party that will make its way through the portal. They plan to send some of your modern technology through. Something called a UAV if I have the right of it."

The Chief looked suitably taken aback. "A UAV? I'm guessing for reconnaissance purposes?"

"You would think so wouldn't you?" Namo smiled. "However, as I understand it, this particular device has something called a remote sensor on it..."

"For tracking key military personnel behind enemy lines." Chief finished for him. "Yeah, wrote the script, saw the movie, have the chip inserted in my physical body. Blah blah biddy blah... Oh!!!" A disquieting thought occurred to him.

"Which body is currently occupied by one of our Maiar." Continued Namo smoothly. "Hence why you have to go back. Pulling Olorin from this Age back from your body through from an age which will not happen for millions of years could prove rather problematic. Besides which, we may have need of him for another very important task in the fairly near future." Name got up and poured two glasses of wine, one of which he handed to the Chief.

Chief Knowles slumped back in his seat. "How soon do I go back?"

"Soon, but not so soon that we cannot finish our game and have all the pieces in their correct positions before the crucial moment, including you!" Namo chuckled.

"I'll be sorry to leave." Chief said sadly. "I've really enjoyed my time here."

Namo's expression softened. "As I have enjoyed having you here; more than I thought I would. You have been one of the least troublesome of my guests here for certain. When you finally return here at the end of your time, I may just keep you here instead of allowing you to pass beyond the Circles of Arda."

"Are you allowed to do that?" Chief grinned at him. "Won't Eru object to having one of his souls hijacked for the pleasure of a Valar?"

"Perhaps I know a little something that no one else other than Eru Iluvator knows?" Namo hinted mysteriously. "And no, I am not going to enlighten you." He laughed before Chief could ask the questions that were written all over his face.

ooOoo

The Residence of the General Officer Commanding, Aldershot, 4am present day

He woke up gasping for air and thrashing around. The quilt had somehow wound itself around his waist and lower legs, so his efforts at jumping out of bed were a little hampered. He fell heavily to his knees and groaned as the pain from landing jarred right up into his hip joints. "Bloody Nora." He fumed.

A light switched on and he heard the bedsprings creak softly as his wife got out of the other side of the bed. Her anxious face hovered above his. "What is it darling? Did you have one of your bad dreams again?" Her tone was soothing, but not so soothing as to be irritating. She held out her hand and he managed to stand using her and the chair beside the bed as leverage.

He shook his head and grimaced as he took his weight on his sore knees. "Not the usual my dear. Totally different sort of dream. Not even sure it was one." He sat down heavily in the chair and his wife poured him a drink of water from the carafe on the bedside table. He drank thirstily and sat back with a ragged sigh.

"All this business with those four young people disappearing and now another one is just getting to me." The General tried for a reassuring smile at his worried wife, who looked rather sceptical and not at all reassured.

She sat down in the other chair. "Would it help if you talked about your dream? I know that talking about that business with the disappearances is not allowed, with it being classified and all."

"I was in the Forest of Dean near where Inspector Davies lives. I think I was there to tell his family something really important, but I can't quite recall what it was. In the dream I kept knocking at all the wrong doors even though I kept walking up the right path." He said quietly. There was a crease between his massive eyebrows, as if remembering was far too difficult. "Then I was wandering in some dark place, but not alone. There seemed to be this...this creature in black robes walking with me or keeping pace with me, not sure which. We walked down what seemed like never-ending passages all with closed doors either side and I could hear things behind me, but something kept telling me not to look back."

"Other human beings?" Asked his wife quietly. "Or creatures like the one walking with you?"

He shook his head again. "Neither. I'm not sure. I don't think so. It was as if someone was trying to show me something, but that someone else was trying to stop them from doing so. I think I was being driven somewhere; told not to open doors which might lead somewhere else. The passage we were walking down seemed to stretch longer the more steps I took. I know whatever was walking with me did not want me to reach the end."

"What was at the end? Do you remember?" Privately his wife was a little appalled that he remembered such a threatening dream with such clarity. Usually very bad dreams that weren't related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder became fuzzy in the cold light of wakefulness.

"A door." He said quietly. "There was a large carved door at the end. Just before I reached it..." He stopped dead and sat upright. "Telephone." He said.

His wife looked puzzled. "I can't hear anything."

"No..no...Ineed the telephone." He looked around wildly as if he expected the telephone to materialise in front of him by wishing alone. His wife sighed and went around to her side of the bed where the cordless telephone lived. She handed it to him and sat down.

The General thought for a moment, then he punched a number into the phone and fidgeted impatiently while the telephone on the other side rang. After a few minutes someone answered in a very sleepy tone of voice.

The General came straight to the point. "Commander Strickland? Sorry to disturb you sir, this is Lieutenant General Sheldon from 4 Division in Aldershot. Yes I do realise what time it is but this is directly related to the safety of Inspector Davies' family. Yes. I have reason to believe that they may be in imminent danger."

The General's wife could hear the voice on the other end of the phone raised slightly in question.

"Commander Strickland, we can stand here all night discussing the whys and wherefores, in the meantime, how are you going to feel if the Inspector's wife and children disappear the same way he did? Without explanation? I know I am asking you to take a lot on faith and if I am wrong I will be the first to be relieved, believe me. In the meantime are you going to send some police around to his house or shall I send an instruction to the SAS at Hereford?" The General sounded exasperated to say the least. "Thank you Commander, I sincerely hope I am mistaken as well and Commander... one last thing. Make sure that the team that goes in are armed."

ooOoo

The Residence of the General Officer Commanding, Aldershot, 11 am, present day

Commander Strickland was a rather pleasant looking man in his early forties. He sat down in the chair that the General offered him and accepted Mrs General's offer of a nice cup of tea gratefully. Once she had left the room to see to the tea, he leaned forward and his expression was grim.

"How did you know?" He asked.

"I take it they are all safe and well." The General raised an eyebrow.

Strickland nodded. "Safe and well, but if we had delayed, the situation may have been rather different. When our team got there, Mrs Davies and her children were already being taken out of the house. None too gently it has to be said."

"By whom?"

"I would have thought you could have told me that." Strickland said dryly. "By things...things the like of which I have never seen before, however the officer in charge of the Special Forces team who you were kind enough to send as backup for us didn't seem to be terribly surprised to see them."

A vision flashed up in front of the General of the one body they had managed to recover from the bottom of a deep ravine which had opened up when the earthquake had happened and which was currently in deep freeze down at Port down. He nodded. "No, I don't imagine they were."

"Anything you want to tell me? After all this involves my police force as much as it involves the military." Strickland sounded annoyed.

"Yes it does. Obviously some things which were of strategic military importance had been kept from you because they were considered to be 'Need to know', but in the light of subsequent events, little can be gained from not disclosing everything to the police. I obtained clearance for you to know all the details as soon as I put the phone down on you earlier this morning." He handed Strickland a slim buff folder which held some reports and some autopsy photographs.

Strickland took them from him and started to peruse the file. General Sheldon watched the expression on his face change from annoyed, through disbelieving and then to astonishment. He finally looked up at the General. "Dear god. This is all for real?"

"Not only for real, but I can arrange for you to see the original body if you wish. It's being held for medical investigation by the assigned HM Coroner for Southampton and the New Forest, after which it will be turned over to our people at Porton Down for further tests, probably including dissection. However I'm guessing from the expression on your face that there are more bodies for that purpose from last night's little sortie."

Strickland nodded with a grimace. "There were six of them. Armed with primitive, but very effective weapons. More than capable of overcoming and kidnapping one woman and two teenagers, although the young lad, Davies' young son, gave more than a good account of himself trying to protect his mother and sister. The dog also had a go a well, but took a nasty slash from one of those swords they were carrying. We found him under the bushes in the garden."

"Dead?" The General hated the idea of animals being hurt. He stroked Mugger who was curled in his lap and the little dog sighed blissfully at the unexpected caress.

"Not far off it, nearly bled to death from the wound, but we found him in time and took him to the nearest vet. He should recover."

"How about the lad?"

Strickland smiled at Mrs General as she came in and handed them both a mug of hot sweet tea. "Bless you Mrs General, that's just the ticket after the night I've just had."

As soon as she had left the room again, Strickland bent forward. "The lad is fine, took a nasty knock on the head, but no wounds. Mrs Davies was roughed up and the girl was terrified. There were distinct signs that those...things had tried to interfere with her. " Disgust filled his voice. "That was apparently when the lad broke free and fought back. Silly of him really, it could have meant the death of them all."

The General shook his head. "No. Whoever it was that ordered this needed them all to be alive. Was there anyone else with the creatures?"

Strickland looked at him strangely. "Well that's the odd thing. There was something or someone else. When the police surrounded the house one of the officers saw what he described as a tall figure in long black robes inside. We're not sure if it was male or female, but we assume that it was male. He seemed to be directing the kidnapping. The officer was well out of sight, but he swears that the creature looked straight at him and that he had glowing red eyes. He said that he felt nauseous and dizzy when the robed man looked at him and described it as like being under some kind of spell. It was at that point that your Special Forces lot joined in. I would put faith in our special weapons and tactics guys any day of the week, but on their own they would have been hard put to manage without the soldiers, so thank you for that. Now what I want to know is, how did you know about the kidnapping attempt and how did you know about the robed figure?"

The General smiled thinly. "I will tell you, but first, tell me whether you managed to capture the man in black robes?"

ooOoo

Sauron's audience chamber in Thangorodrim, North Beleriand

"Report."

The tall robed Maia felt a frisson of fear. His report was not going to be a successful one and Sauron was not known for his sweetness and light when thwarted. He bowed. "We were unsuccessful my Lord." He said softly. "We had the three mortals but others, with weapons, were waiting for us outside. They killed the orcs, but their weapons were not effective against me once I had un-fleshed myself."

Sauron's calmness was unnerving. "I see." He immediately dismissed the Maia who left the chamber with alacrity, relief filling his entire being at his escape from the wrath of Gorthaur the Cruel.

However, in spite of his outwardly calm demeanour Sauron was seething inside. All of his careful plans were beginning to unravel. His instincts had indeed been to lash out at the unfortunate Maia, but all that would have done would have been to alert Morgoth of his actions and that would not have been a good idea at all.

Sauron went to the window of his chambers and looked out over the silent, dark land. Just south of Thangorodrim and Angband in the realm of Dor Daedeloth stood the plain of Anfauglith, once a green plain with rich grass reaching from Hithlum and the Ered Wethrin in the west to the Ered Luin in the east, and rising into highlands of Dorthonion in the south. But the plain was laid waste by rivers of flame and poisonous gases that issued forth from Angband and renamed Anfauglith which means "Gasping Dust". Sauron knew that it was on this plain that Eonwe, Captain of the Host would bring war to their very doorstep.

Morgoth's army was great it was true. Large parties of orcs with Balrog Captains issued from secret entrances to Angband every day with the order to harry the Host as much as possible in order to delay their arrival and deplete their resources and manpower. However it was Sauron as first Lieutenant of Morgoth who heard the reports which spies and the Captains brought back to Angband and he knew that far from losing, Eonwe and his army gained in strength. It was from this knowledge that Sauron made his plans to bring Eonwe and the Host of the Valar to him while Morgoth's armies were at full strength.

Granted there were things inside Angband, fearsome things which had not yet seen light of day and would perhaps drive the final battle in their favour, but Sauron did not like to rely on such odds. If he had been successful at drawing Eonwe out earlier, then his Host could have been caught in a pincer between orc troops behind him and the fearsome dragons in front of him. Defeat would have been sweet and inevitable. He lusted at the mere thought of having Eonwe, Herald of Manwe chained and helpless before him. Now, the possibility of having the delight of torturing his fellow Maia was receding rapidly into the distance.

He pursed his lips and tapped his teeth with his index finger. Yet all was not lost. There was no way for the mortal Davies to know that they did not have his family, although he was perturbed to think that the mortals were so well informed that they knew about the small force he had sent to kidnap the Davies family. Sauron knew that his orcs would have no chance of escape if the mortals used their weaponry, but he had not expected that the mortals would be watching the Davies home so diligently. Apparently mortals in future timelines were much better at strategy and organisation than they were in the current Age, something to be remembered for the future.

He went to the large carved table and began to scratch out some orders on a parchment. Once it was done, he sealed it with his ring and sent for a courier. Not an orc this time, but one of the many men of the East who served in Angband and who could pass as an innocent mortal were he to be captured. The courier left within the hour bound for the camp of the Maia who waited just out of range of the camp of Eonwe.

ooOoo