Author's Note: Can you guess the answer to Dawn's riddles before Gollum?

Chapter 5: Riddles in the Dark

When Dawn opened her eyes, she realized she could see albeit faintly. As she stood she wondered how that could be as there was no source of light to be seen. She debated calling for the dwarves and Gandalf but decided it best not to. She was not sure if the goblins might hear her. "Buffy," she whispered as she made her way along slowly down the tunnel, hoping she was going in the right direction.

As she walked her eyesight improved and she realized so did her hearing, even though there was nothing to hear. She noticed a glint of something on the ground and bent down to pick it up. It was a ring. She put the ring for now in her pocket.

She sat down for a moment as she thought about home and more particularly of Buffy. How she half expected to be trapped in these tunnels for the rest of her life and how she would never see her sister again.

She decided it was best not to sit there and mope about what might or might not be. She had to find her way out and back to Gandalf and the dwarves so that she could return home. She then remembered how her sword glowed in the goblin's presence and drew it out. It was dim before her eyes. She was glad that the goblins were not very close by.

Dawn walked on steadily going down the tunnel, passing by side passages. On and on she went, and down and down; and still she heard no sound of anything except the occasional whirr of a bat.

Suddenly without any warning Dawn came to the brink of a subterranean lake.

Dawn saw a creature come across the lake in a boat.

"Bless us and splash us, my precioussss! I guess it's a choice feast; at least a tasty morsel it'd make us, gollum!"

Dawn noticed that the creature, she thought it might be called Gollum since that was what it called itself, was looking straight at her.

"What iss she, my preciouss?" whispered Gollum.

"I am Dawn Summers. I am lost can you help me to find my way out?" Dawn asked.

"What's she got in her handses?" said Gollum, looking at the sword, which he did not quite like.

"It is a sword," Dawn said.

"Sssss" said Gollum, and became quite polite. "Praps ye sits here and chats with it a bitsy, my preciousss. It likes riddles, praps it does, does it?"

"I'll make you a deal," Dawn said. "I will sit here, chat with you. But you have to show me the way out." Gollum nodded. "You ask first."

So Gollum hissed. "What has roots as nobody sees, Is taller than trees, Up, up it goes, And yet never grows?"

"Easy!" said Dawn who had always enjoyed riddles growing up, or that was at least what her memories told her. "Mountain."

"Does it guess easy? It must have a competition with us, my preciouss! If precious asks, and it doesn't answer, we eats it, my preciousss. If it asks us, and we doesn't answer, then we does what it wants, eh? We shows it the way out, yes!"

"You already agreed to show me the way out if I sat and chatted," Dawn said. "You can't make your own demands, now." Gollum hissed and moved menacingly towards her. "All right! Who makes it, has no need of it. Who buys it, has no use for it. Who uses it can neither see nor feel it. What is it?"

"A coffin, a coffing," he hissed. Then he asked his second. "Voiceless it cries, Wingless flutters, Toothless bites, Mouthless mutters."

"Wind, " Dawn said with a smile. "A lemon that sits in the sky up so high. Lights up the sky for all time. We are fine as long as it is there. What is it? "

"Ss, ss, ss," said Gollum. "Sss, sss, my preciouss. Sun it means, it does. It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, cannot be heard, cannot be smelt. It lies behind stars and under hills, and empty holes it fills. It comes first and follows after, ends life, kills laughter."

"Dark!" Dawn said. "Leaping the steps of an intricate dance. Robes swirling in yellow and blue. Leaping the steps above orange floors. Scattered with black and grey stars whose molting was long overdue." After some time Dawn grew impatient when Gollum did not answer. "Well, what is it?"

"Give us a chance; let it give us a chance, my preciouss—ss—ss."

"Well," said Dawn after giving him a long chance, "what about your guess?"

"Fire!" Gollum suddenly hissed. "Fire it is! Alive without breath, as cold as death; never thirsty, ever drinking, all in mail never clinking."

Dawn sat there thinking, this riddle was not as easy as the others. After a while Gollum began to hiss with pleasure to himself: "Is it nice, my preciousss? Is it juicy? Is it scrumptiously crunchable?" He began to peer at Dawn out of the darkness.

"Half a moment," Dawn said. "I gave you a good long chance just now."

"It must make haste, haste!" said Gollum, beginning to climb out of his boat on to the shore to get at Dawn.

Dawn smiled as a fish leapt out of the water at her feet. "Fish!"

Gollum was dreadfully disappointed.

"No-legs lay on one-leg, two-legs sat near on three-legs, four-legs got some," Dawn said.

"Fish on a little table, man at table sitting on a stool, the cat has the bones," Gollum said. "This thing all things devours: Birds, beasts, trees, flowers; Gnaws iron, bites steel ;Grinds hard stones to meal; Slays king, ruins town, and beats high mountain down."

Gollum began to get out of his boat again after Dawn hesitated a moment. She smiled. "Time!" she said.

Gollum was disappointed once more; and now he was getting angry, and also tired of the game. This time he did not go back to the boat. He sat down in the dark by Dawn.

"It's got to ask uss a quesstion, my preciouss, yes, yess, yesss. Jusst one more question to guess, yes, yess," said Gollum.

Dawn thought for a moment but no question came to mind. Then her hand slipped into her pocket and she smiled. She could win easily for the Gollum could not guess what she had in her pocket. "What have I got in my pocket?"

"Not fair! not fair!" he hissed. "It isn't fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it's got in its nassty little pocketses?"

"What have I got in my pocket?" Dawn asked again with a smirk.

"S-s-s-s-s," hissed Gollum. "It must give us three guesseses, my preciouss, three guesseses."

"Very well! Guess away!" said Dawn.

"Handses!" said Gollum.

"Wrong," said Dawn. "Guess again!"

"S-s-s-s-s," said Gollum more upset than ever. "Knife!"

"Wrong!" said Dawn. "Last guess!"

Now Gollum was in a much worse state than when Dawn had asked him the egg-question. He hissed and spluttered and rocked himself backwards and forwards, and slapped his feet on the floor, and wriggled and squirmed; but still he did not dare to waste his last guess.

"Come on!" said Dawn. "I am waiting!" After a moment she smiled. "Time's up!"

"String, or nothing!" shrieked Gollum.

"Both wrong," cried Dawn as she jumped to her feet and put the sword between herself and Gollum.

Gollum did not at once attack her. He could see the sword in Dawn's hand. He sat still, shivering and whispering.

"Well?" Dawn said. "What about your promise? I want to go. You must show me the way."

"Did we say so, precious? Show the nassty little Summers the way out, yes, yes. But what has it got in its pocketses, eh? Not string, precious, but not nothing. Oh no! gollum!"

"Never you mind," said Dawn. "A promise is a promise."

"Cross it is, impatient, precious," hissed Gollum. "But it must wait, yes it must. We can't go up the tunnels so hasty. We must go and get some things first, yes, things to help us."

"Well, hurry up!" said Dawn.

Gollum got back into his boat and paddled out to a little island that Dawn could barely make out. She waited for what seemed like hours for Gollum to come back.

"Where iss it? Where iss it?" Dawn heard him crying. "Losst it is, my precious, lost, lost! Curse us and crush us, my precious is lost!"

"What's the matter?" Dawn called. "What have you lost?"

"It mustn't ask us," shrieked Gollum. "Not its business, no, gollum! It's losst, gollum, gollum, gollum."

"Well, so am I," cried Dawn as she began to felt the despair of being trapped down here with Gollum for the rest of her life, "and I want to get unlost. I want to find my way home, to my sister." She realized something just then. All the arguments. All the fights she had with Buffy. Were kin to a child seeking the attention of his parents. And she realized that Elrond had been right. Buffy was her mother. "Come on, you promised! Come and lead me out, and then go on back to searching for whatever you've lost!"

"No, not yet, precious!" Gollum answered. "We must search for it, it's lost, gollum."

"But you never guessed my last question, and you promised," said Dawn getting more frantic by the second.

"Never guessed!" said Gollum. Then suddenly out of the gloom came a sharp hiss. "What has it got in its pocketses? Tell us that. It must tell first."

"No," Dawn said. She wasn't sure why she said no. But something told her she must keep the ring a secret from Gollum. "You lost, let's go."

"But it wasn't a fair question," said Gollum. "Not a riddle, precious, no. What has it got in its pocketses?"

Dawn watched as the Gollum came back to its boat. And she frowned as she watched it with her improved eyesight paddle back across the lake.

"What has it got in its pocketses?" Gollum hissed as he leapt from his boat. "What have I, I wonder?"

Dawn put her left hand in her pocket. The ring felt very cold as it quietly slipped on to her groping forefinger.

The hiss was close behind her. She turned and saw Gollum's eyes like small green lamps coming up the slope. She readied the sword and then she puzzled in confusion as Gollum passed her by, taking no notice of her, cursing and whispering as he ran.

"Curse it! curse it! curse it!" hissed Gollum. "Curse the Summers! It's gone! What has it got in its pocketses? Oh we guess, we guess, my precious. She's found it, yes she must have. My birthday-present."

Dawn followed Gollum as she realized what it was it had lost, the ring she now wore. The very ring that had caused Gollum to not see her as it passed her by.

"My birthday-present! Curse it! How did we lose it, my precious? Yes, that's it. When we came this way last, when we twisted that nassty young squeaker. That's it. Curse it! It slipped from us, after all these ages and ages! It's gone, gollum."

Suddenly Gollum sat down and began to weep. Dawn halted and flattened herself against the tunnel-wall. After a while Gollum stopped weeping and began to talk. He seemed to be having an argument with himself.

"It's no good going back there to search, no. We doesn't remember all the places we've visited. And it's no use. The Summers has got it in its pocketses; the nassty noser has found it, we says."

"We guesses, precious, only guesses. We can't know till we find the nassty creature and squeezes it. But it doesn't know what the present can do, does it? It'll just keep it in its pocketses. It doesn't know, and it can't go far. It's lost itself, the nassty nosey thing. It doesn't know the way out. It said so."

"It said so, yes; but it's tricksy. It doesn't say what it means. It won't say what it's got in its pocketses. It knows. It knows a way in, it must know a way out, yes. It's off to the back-door. To the back-door, that's it."

"The goblinses will catch it then. It can't get out that way, precious."

"Ssss, sss, gollum! Goblinses! Yes, but if it's got the present, our precious present, then goblinses will get it, gollum! They'll find it, they'll find out what it does. We shan't ever be safe again, never, gollum! One of the goblinses will put it on, and then no one will see him. He'll be there but not seen. Not even our clever eyeses will notice him; and he'll come creepsy and tricksy and catch us, gollum, gollum!"

"Then let's stop talking, precious, and make haste. If the Summers has gone that way, we must go quick and see. Go! Not far now. Make haste!"

With a spring Gollum got up and started shambling off at a great pace. Dawn hurried after him.

On they went, Gollum flip-flapping ahead, hissing and cursing; Dawn behind going as softly as she could. When they reached the side passages, Gollum began to count them.

"One left, yes. One right, yes. Two right, yes, yes. Two left, yes, yes." And so on and on. At last he stopped by a low opening, on their left as they went up.

"Seven right, yes. Six left, yes!" he whispered. "This is it. This is the way to the back-door, yes. Here's the passage!"

He peered in, and shrank back. "But we dursn't go in, precious, no we dursn't. Goblinses down there. Lots of goblinses. We smells them. Ssss!"

"What shall we do? Curse them and crush them! We must wait here, precious, wait a bit and see."

So they came to a dead stop. Dawn debated what to do as Gollum sat in the opening. She smiled the opening was just large enough that she could dive through the opening just above Gollum's head.

Dawn ran as quick as she could and leapt over Gollum's head.

Gollum threw himself backwards, and grabbed as Dawn flew over him, but too late: his hands snapped on thin air, and Dawn sped off down the new tunnel.

As she ran behind her, Gollum cursed her. "Thief, thief, thief! Summers! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!"

Dawn was sure if there were goblins about that they would have heard Gollum and came to check out what was going on. She had to be careful.

Soon the passage that had been sloping down began to go up again, and after a while it climbed steeply. But at last the slope stopped, the passage turned a corner and dipped down again, and there, at the bottom of a short incline, Dawn saw, filtering round another corner—a glimpse of light. Dawn smiled as she thought to herself. 'Now if luck is with me, I will find the dwarves and Gandalf and then Gandalf will help me to return home to mom.'

Dawn came to an abrupt half when she spied the doorway ahead and the goblins, in full armor with drawn swords sitting just inside the door, and watching it with wide eyes, and watching the passage that led to it. They were aroused, alert, ready for anything.

Dawn smiled as a plan formed. A way to get the goblins away from the door. She slipped the ring off her finger. "Hey boys, looking for me."

The goblins yelled with delight and rushed Dawn as she slipped the ring back on her finger.

The goblins stopped short. They could not see a sign of her. She had vanished. They yelled twice as loud as before, but not so delightedly.

"Where is it?" they cried.

"Go back up the passage!" some shouted.

"This way!" some yelled. "That way!" others yelled. "Look out for the door," bellowed the captain.

Dawn had snuck by them in their confusion and was now edging through the door and outside. And then she took off running again. Knowing that the goblins would open the door and give chase. But they didn't. She had escaped them.

Author's Note: I'm sure some of you are probably thinking. He's not changing much is he. That's true in this story. This is mostly just a setup for Middle Earth 2: Return to Middle Earth, which takes place in the Lord of the Rings trilogy with Dawn as the Ringbearer, and Middle Earth: Interlude, which takes place during seasons six and seven of Buffy and between Middle Earth and Middle Earth 2.