Over Hill and Under Hill
There were many paths that led up into the Misty Mountains, and many passes over them. But most of the paths were cheats and deceptions and led nowhere or to bad ends; and most of the passes were infested by evil things and dreadful dangers. The company of dwarves and one lone hobbit, helped by the wise advice of Elrond and the knowledge and memory of Gandalf, took the right road to the right pass.
Not that they much feared going down the wrong way save for the time it would lose them, as there was no creature or being in their surroundings that could contest the might of the God-King Hyperion, who rode at the end of their column.
The foulest and mightiest of beings that dwelled within and underneath that great mountain range slept deep underneath the earth and the company would be quite lost indeed if they were to stumble upon them and wake them from their dreadful slumber.
With the warmth of Rivendell still lingering in their spirit and giving strength to their bodies, the company tackled the great mountains with a good cheer and the mood was high. As such, Bilbo rode alongside Michael, enjoying the stunning vistas that awaited them whenever they crested another twist in the narrow mountain path to see the sprawling Wild laid out before them, stretching from horizon to horizon.
"Hey Michael?"
"Yes, Bilbo?"
"Before we left, I heard Lord Elrond thank you for your gift? If I may ask, what did you gift him?"
Bilbo's curiosity wasn't born of greed or envy, but genuine interest, for he found it difficult to imagine what a great Lord such as Elrond of Rivendell could possibly have a want for. Then again, Michael had been King to a thousand people spread over a thousand worlds, so who knew what treasures he saw fit to bestow upon the master of the Last Homely House?
Michael smiled at Bilbo's question, glancing down at the small Hobbit besides him.
"Tell me Bilbo, what do you remember of the tale of Eärendil?"
During their two-week stay in Rivendell, Bilbo, who had always had a great interest in the legends of Middle-Earth, had often asked of Michael about the history of their enigmatic host and had carefully listened as Hyperion spun one glorious tale after the other.
"Oh, the father of Lord Elrond, yes? He sailed to the home of the gods with one of the Silmarils, to repent for the sins of that dreadfully impolite Fëanor and ask for their help."
"Indeed. For his valour and in recognition of his great deed, the gods of this world took the Silmaril and placed it in the sky and they named this new light the Star of Eärendil. It is among the Elves' most beloved star, even more so, of course, for Elrond. As you know, my own domains are those of Heavenly Light and Celestial Knowledge: the Sun, Moon and Dawn are all my children. And so, that was my gift to the Lord of the Last Homely House: I took him star-gazing." Michael said with a kind smile.
Bilbo had the distinct feeling that 'star-gazing' with the Titan of the East involved far more than standing outside on a cloudless night to crane your neck and stare up at the sky. His suspicions were confirmed as Michael continued with a fond expression on his face.
"We walked amongst the clouds and underneath the stars for many an hour, letting the light of his father's star wash over us. We gazed out over all of Middle-Earth: from the furthest lands of Rhûn beyond the glittering river Running, where Man first awoke before travelling West and where the Blue Wizards dwell, to the furthest reaches of Tol Morwen, where tormented Turin Turambar lies buried until the Final War at the ending of the world, his burial mound standing on the edge of where Lindon looks out over the sunken remains of Beleriand. We stood there under the lights of Varda, who the Elves call Elbereth, Queen of the Stars, until from the furthest West, over the edge of great Belegaer, arose the first glimmering rays as Arien brought aloft Anar the Fire-Golden, the last light of Laurelin, the Golden Tree of Valinor. And with the rising of the sun, we descended back towards Rivendell, for its coming is not merely the heralding of a new day: it is also a sign of the dawning of Man, and the waning of the Elves, who feel a deeper kinship with the stars and the light-filled night. But our outing gave me a great many ideas as to adventures I would like to embark on after our quest is finished; such as retrieving icy Ringil, famed sword of mighty Fingolfin, which bit deep into the cursed form of Morgoth seven times, before turning the Dark Lord a cripple forevermore."
Bilbo was awed at Michael's retelling, and much the same was true for the rest of their company, for they had come to a halt as they let the god's words wash over them.
"What a wonderful sight it would be to behold. I have not witnessed such majesty in… well, in more than an Age." Gandalf spoke with a deep melancholy, his voice tired yet wistful.
At his words, many of the dwarves nodded and it was Thorin who spoke next.
"A kingly gift indeed! As befitting someone of such lineage." He stated proudly, drawing Michael's amused gaze.
"In time, young Thorin, you will find that the greatest of gifts are not to be found in gold and jewels, much as this world seems to think time and again. What is gold, but metal with a shine. What are jewels, but rocks with a splash of colour?"
Bilbo gulped as the rest of the company bristled in great anger at his friend's soft-spoken words. It was to be expected of Dwarves, who were among the world's greatest craftsmen and jewellers after all.
"Pah, the high mountain air has clearly caused you to speak non-sense, great Hyperion!" Thorin barked, though as soon as the words left his lips, the proud Prince seemed to remember just how great the Titan Hyperion truly was, as he quickly continued in a much more nonchalant tone.
"Of course, you are a much different being to us sensible Dwarves. It only stands to reason that your tastes would seem un-sensible to my kin as well." He swiftly said, several of the other Dwarves letting our hurried "hear hear!" and "Of course!" and "Stands to reason, doesn't it?" and similar platitudes.
Bilbo puffed up in righteous indignation at that, but Michael didn't seem particularly bothered, even as Gandalf led the company further on with some more urgency in his tone. Bilbo was to remark upon his friend's composure, when Nori, youngest in the company, held back his own pony, surreptitiously half-turning in his saddle.
"Psst! Hyperion, sir?"
"Yes, little one?"
"Uhm… Hyperion, sir… if I may ask, sir… what are treasures greater than gold and jewels? Sir."
Michael's smile widened in victory as he gazed down upon the wide-eyed Dwarf.
"Nothing you can grasp with your hands, young Dwarf. All that can be raised from the Earth or hewn from stone: these are mere things. You could haul up a great amount of gold, or fashion the most shining gem, but what would that give you? Nothing more than a thing, young Nori. And a thing can be lost, marred, bartered, broken and reforged again and again. And, once you pass from this world, it will either be lost forever, or taken up by someone else and the entire thing will occur once more. No, young Nori, the greatest gift to someone… is experience. How they learn, how they grow, what they see in the world and ultimately give back to it. It is unique to everyone, no two experiences are alike: it can never be stolen, not by the greediest of people, it can never be bartered or gambled away, not by the most desperate of people, and once you pass from this world, it will be all that you can take with you, forever more denying it to the world: only in the people you have connected with through your lifetime will you be remembered and cherished. Yes, young Nori: an experience is more valuable than any treasure. There is no thing rarer or more precious."
Nori's wide eyes blinked a few times as he tried to wrap his head around Michael's words as Bilbo rubbed his chin in contemplation.
"Even so, I think life would be dreadful without things in them Michael. Imagine going without food! Or not having appropriate cups and saucers for tea-time!" the Hobbit said aghast and now it was Michael's turn to blink in surprise, before he erupted in merry gales of laughter, the booming sounds of his voice rolling down the vast slopes of the Misty Mountains like the rolling of thunder.
And so on they went, up and up and yet up again as they scaled the towering sides of the mountain range. They continued for days after they had climbed out of the valley and by now they had left the Last Homely House miles behind. It was a hard path and a dangerous path, a crooked way, lonely and long. Now they could look back over the lands they had left, laid out behind them far below. Far, far away in the West, where things were blue and faint, Bilbo knew there lay his own country of safe and comfortable things, and his little hobbit-hole. He shivered. It was getting bitter cold up here, and the wind came shrill among the rocks. It was only after a few hours that Michael saw him shivering and the godking called out for a halt.
"My apologies, dear Bilbo, it has been so many an Age since I felt the biting chill of the cold, I had honestly forgotten its existence. My subjects were a hardy people and my children even more so. The cold never bothered them anyway." Michael spoke as he reached into the pack strapped to his horse.
His arm disappeared in far further than should be possible however, almost reaching up to the elbow and it drew the surprised and curious looks of the other Dwarves, who knew of such bags if only because of their rarity even amongst their greatest kin. As they crowded around Michael, he withdrew his arm with a triumphant shout, a great mass of brightly colored wool clutched in his large hand.
Throwing a bundle to each member of the company, Bilbo just barely caught the bundle before it smacked him square in the face (judging by his muffled curses, Thorin had not been so lucky). The Hobbit curiously unfolded the various layers of fluffy, bright-red wool only to see something large and lumpy fall open to reach right down to his hairy feet.
In glittering gold thread, a large H was displayed across its front.
"Michael? What are these?"
"Hyperion family jumpers! Perfect for some mountaineering!" the god-king said with good cheer.
The Dwarves (and one Hobbit) exchanged some doubtful glances as they compared the various luridly colored lumps of cloth and wool, pinks clashing violently with greens and purples blazing alongside yellows and reds.
"Truly, you have a keen sense for… gifts, Lord Hyperion… but, ah, I feel that-…" Balin eventually started up, but before the aged Dwarf could finish, a keening gust of air ripped through their company, stealing away the warmth of their bodies and chilling them briefly down to the very bones.
"-that these gifts are indeed, as you said, perfect equipment for mountaineering!" the elder Dwarf quickly finished, throwing on the garish garment in a hurry, with the rest of the company quickly following suit.
And so on they went, a dotted line of vivid, contrasting colors as they made their way up the narrow mountain path, easily visible even from afar. Bilbo's cheeks felt as red as the jumper Michael had given him (and not because of the cold) and this time, when he looked out over the great vistas spreading out from the foot of the mountain, the thought of Hobbiton filled him with embarrassment when he imagined that his fellow Hobbits could likely see him even from there.
Despite their colors, these jumpers of Hyperion did ward them against the chill of the blowing winds which kept descending down upon them with an ever increasing vigor. Boulders, too, at times came galloping down the mountainsides, let loose by midday sun upon the snow, and passed among them (which was lucky), or over their heads (which was alarming).
The nights would've been comfortless and chill if not for Michael's gifts, though many a nose and ear turned red and pained from the unrelenting winds. Even so, they did not dare to sing or talk too loud, for the echoes were uncanny, and the silence seemed to dislike being broken-except by the noise of water and the wail of wind and the crack of stone.
"The summer is getting on down below," thought Bilbo, "and haymaking is going on and picnics. They will be harvesting and blackberrying, before we even begin to go down the other side at this rate." And the others were thinking equally gloomy thoughts, although when they had said good-bye to Elrond in the high hope of a midsummer morning, they had spoken gaily of the passage of the mountains, and of riding swift across the lands beyond. They had thought of coming to the secret door in the Lonely Mountain, perhaps that very next first moon of Autumn-" and perhaps it will be Durin's Day" they had said.
Only Gandalf had shaken his head and spoken softly in the dead of night to Hyperion in hushed tones so as to not awaken any of the company. He had inquired about the perils of the journey ahead, knowing that they would be many, yet Michael had declined to hurry the journey along.
"It is not the destination, but the friends we make along the way that counts." The god-king had proclaimed as if dispensing great wisdom.
Seeing the wizard disappointed at his words, Michael placed a strong hand on the aged man's thin shoulder, clasping it with strength.
"Do not trouble your weary mind, young Olórin. No undue harm shall befall this fellowship. Know this to be true by the light of Anar Fire-Golden and Isil the Sheen and all of the stars placed in the heavens by Elbereth." He intoned heavily, with even the winds dying down and the mountain stilling at the power in his words and Gandalf did indeed suddenly feel as if these words held as true as a law of nature itself.
Though that did not take away his worry what harm his company was due, for not even he could foresee all ends. He kept these worries from the members of the company however, and none save Michael suspected the troubled thoughts tumbling through the wizard's pensive mind. Though of course they went through the mountain passes with greater cheer than himself.
Dwarves had not passed that way for many years, but Gandalf had, and he knew how evil and danger had grown and thriven in the Wild, since the dragons had driven men from the lands, and the goblins had spread in secret after the battle of the Mines of Moria. Azog may have lost an arm to Thorin that day, but had gained a foul foothold for his people and ever they spread from that now darkened place.
Against such odds, even the good plans of wise wizards like Gandalf and of good friends like Elrond go astray sometimes when you are off on dangerous adventures over the Edge of the Wild; and Gandalf was a wise enough wizard to know it.
He knew that something unexpected might happen (such a thing was practically guaranteed since they were accompanying a Titan on his holiday after all), and he hardly dared to hope that they would pass without fearful adventure over those great tall mountains with lonely peaks and valleys where no king ruled.
They did not.
All was well, until one day they met a thunderstorm - more than a thunderstorm, a thunder-battle. Bilbo knew how terrific a really big thunderstorm could be down in the land and in a river-valley; especially at times when two great thunderstorms meet and clash. More terrible still are thunder and lightning in the mountains at night, when storms come up from East and West and make war.
The lightning splinters on the peaks, and rocks shiver, and great crashes split the air and go rolling and tumbling into every cave and hollow; and the darkness is filled with overwhelming noise and sudden light. Bilbo had never seen or imagined anything of the kind. They were high up in a narrow place, with a dreadful fall into a dim valley at one side of them and as such all in the company hugged close to the rising mountainside at their back, away from the perilous edge.
All save their resident god-king, Michael merely looking about the raging world with a sense of good cheer and (oddly enough) melancholy, apparently unbothered by the mighty display shaking their very world.
When the Dwarves asked him about this (like Bilbo uncomfortable with the sky above their heads in heaving turmoil, unused to such displays from within their underground mountain halls) Michael sighed wistfully.
"A good friend of mine, a fellow King, wielded thunder in battle. He was a strong ally and over time grew into a wise and beloved leader to his people. Though he could be a real idiot at times! But, when he was filled with great determination or a terrible wrath, the sky and thunder itself would wrap themselves around him and shudder with his every step. Out of all my allies, he lived to be one of the eldest, and his legacy endured even unto the time of my retirement."
As if in response to his words, thunder boomed out over the world and made the air waver and the mountain side shudder and heave, and Michael merely let out a deep sigh.
"I miss him dearly."
And with that, the thunder receded, a sense of loss and melancholy coming over the rest of the company and seemingly over the Misty Mountains themselves as well.
"Go. Rest. I shall wake over you. Thunder will not disturb your sleep and lightning will not dare to harm you." Michael said, clearly still reminiscing about his old friend and as if to prove his words to the company, he held out an arm above the precipice, palm splayed out wide.
As if it were a snake coaxed from its burrow, a bolt of lightning shot forth from within the dark, roiling clouds, straight towards Hyperion's awaiting hand and the company cried out in surprise and closed their eyes against the blinding light.
Blinking the spots from his vision, Bilbo was awed to see the coiling, shooting rays of the lightning bolt trapped underneath Michael's clutched fingers, dancing over his alabaster skin. The light was intense, brighter than sunlight even, though a cold blue-white instead of the day's golden rays. There was a shimmering field that briefly flowed between Michael's fingers and the trapped lightning, before it solidified into a glass-like crystal ball, the lightning still racing wildly within.
Placing the ball on the gravelly path beside him, Michael took a seat at the edge of the raving, legs bungling over the steep drop and for the rest of the night, the morose god-king did not deign to say another word.
Leaving him to his thoughts and comforted by the bright ball of light, the company took to sheltering under a hanging rock for the night. Bilbo lay beneath a blanket, still covered in Michael's bright red jumper and as he looked out at the view by the light of Michael's crystal ball. He saw that across the valley the stone-giants were out and were hurling rocks at one another for a game, and catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness where they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bang.
For a long time, Bilbo huddled as small as he could make himself be (which, him being a Hobbit, was very small indeed) as he glanced in scared awe at the display in front of him. So it was that he was only one of the few in the company that saw how Michael visibly shook himself, before rising to his feet, bending his knees, and blasted off towards the giants with a mighty leap befitting the strength of a Titan.
He caught one of the great flying boulders in mid-air with a single hand, before with a laugh louder than the rolling thunder, he threw it back towards the nearest stone-giant, who was nearly bowled off its impossibly large feet by the far smaller figure. For a moment, thunder and lightning stilled as the other giants seemed to briefly take in this new contender, before the game began anew with a greater vigor.
"Well, I'm glad he's enjoying himself again." Bilbo muttered under his breath as he saw his strange friend go toe to toe with the fearsome giants.
Unfortunately, Bilbo was not the only one that had seen Michael leap away: Thorin Oakenshield, now thoroughly fed up with the antics of immortals and deeply displeased with being subjected to thunderstorms atop a mountain (for a Dwarf's place is surely to pass underneath it!) had seen Hyperion leave as well and shook awake his fellow Dwarves, shaking the rain from their long hair and thick beards.
Despite the warmth provided by Michael's ridiculously dyed knitwear, the storm had affected them all. Even their ponies were standing with their heads down and their tails between their legs, and some of them were whinnying with fright. They could hear the giants guffawing and shouting all over the mountainsides as they contested their might with Hyperion.
"This won't do at all!" said Thorin. "If we don't get blown off or drowned, or struck by lightning, we shall be picked up by some giant and kicked sky-high for a football."
"Well, if you know of anywhere better, take us there!" said Gandalf, who was feeling very grumpy, and was far from happy about the giants himself.
Bilbo tried to protest and say that they should await Michael's return, but his small voice was drowned out by the laughter of giants, the bickering of dwarves and the rolling of thunder (not exactly circumstances that would make a Hobbit want to make himself heard very much in the first place). Besides, Michael was finally enjoying himself once more after being reminded of his long-dead friend, wasn't he? Wouldn't it be best to leave him to his own devices then? They needed shelter and a safer place to stay, but such concerns were not for a being of Hyperion's power, who could fend well for himself no matter how perilous the mountains turned out to be.
No, best not to trouble him with this: they'd find a better place to stay and he would find them in his own time, as he had done when he had saved them from the trolls. And so, the end of their argument was that they sent Fill and Kili to look for a better shelter. They had very sharp eyes, and being the youngest of the dwarves by some fifty years they usually got these sort of jobs (when everybody could see that it was absolutely no use sending Bilbo).
There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something (or so Thorin said to the young dwarves). You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after. So it proved on this occasion. Soon Fili and Kili came crawling back, holding on to the rocks in the wind.
"We have found a dry cave," they said, "not far round the next corner; and ponies and all could get inside."
"Have you thoroughly explored it?" said the wizard, who knew that caves up in the mountains were seldom unoccupied.
"Yes, yes!" they said, though everybody knew they could not have been long about it; they had come back too quick.
"It isn't all that big, and it does not go far back."
That, of course, is the dangerous part about caves: you don't know how far they go back, sometimes, or where a passage behind may lead to, or what is waiting for you inside. But for now Fili and Kill's news seemed good enough. So they all got up and prepared to move. The wind was howling and the thunder still growling, not helped in the least by the game between Hyperion and the stone-giants seemingly picking up in intensity as they tested themselves against the other, and the company had a business getting themselves and their ponies along.
Still it was not very far to go, and before long they came to a big rock standing out into the path. As Bilbo stepped around it, he found a low arch in the side of the mountain. There was just room to get the ponies through with a squeeze, when they had been unpacked and unsaddled. As they passed under the arch, it was good to hear the wind and the rain outside instead of all about them, and to feel safe from the giants and their rocks.
Sure, they trusted Hyperion not to smite them with a boulder, even if by accident, but they were wary to extend such trust to the raucous stone-giants as well.
Even so, the wizard was taking no risks. He placed the orb with the trapped lightning, which he had picked up while Kili and Fili had gone ahead, in the gnarled top of his staff, the white-bluish shine of the lightning illuminating the smooth walls of the cave. By its light they explored the cavern from end to end. It seemed quite a fair size, but not too large and mysterious. It had a dry floor and some comfortable nooks. At one end there was room for the ponies; and there they stood (mighty glad of the change) steaming, and champing in their nosebags.
Oin and Gloin wanted to light a fire at the door to dry their clothes (Michael's jumpers had remained comfortable and dry of course, but the same could not be said of their pants and socks) but Gandalf would not hear of it. So they spread out their wet things on the floor, and got dry ones out of their bundles; then they made their blankets comfortable, got out their pipes and blew smoke rings, which Gandalf turned into different colours and set dancing up by the roof to amuse them.
They talked and talked, and forgot about the storm, and discussed what each would do with his share of the treasure (when they got it, which at the moment did not seem so impossible); and so they dropped off to sleep one by one. And, if not for the intervention of a certain god-king currently tackling a stone-giant into a mountainside to intercept a thrown boulder the size of a large house, that would've been the last time that they used the ponies, packages, baggages, tools and paraphernalia that they had brought with them.
But that is for later in this tale.
For now, what's important (especially to our Dwarves) is that it turned out a good thing that night that they had brought little Bilbo with them as well, after all. For he could not go to sleep for a long while, still troubled with the company seemingly abandoning his friend; even though he knew that their little cave was not far from where they had briefly rested, and that, even with them in here and Michael out amongst the violent giants, it was he that was the safer of the two.
But even the worry for a friend can only keep a Hobbit from sleep for so long, especially after a long day of hard trekking and even harder climbing. When he did finally sleep, he had very nasty dreams. He dreamed that a crack in the wall at the back of the cave got bigger and bigger, and opened wider and wider, and he was very afraid but could not call out or do anything but lie and look. Then he dreamed that the floor of the cave was giving way, and he was slipping.
He was beginning to fall down, down, goodness knows where to.
At that he woke up with a horrible start, and found that part of his dream was true. A crack had opened at the back of the cave, and was already a wide passage. He was just in time to see the last of the ponies' tails disappearing into it. Of course he gave a very loud yell, as loud a yell as a hobbit can give, which is surprising for their size.
Out jumped the goblins, big goblins, great ugly-looking goblins, lots of goblins, before you could say rocks and blocks. There were six to each dwarf, at least, and two even for Bilbo; and they were all grabbed and carried through the crack, before you could say tinder and flint.
But not Gandalf.
Bilbo's yell had done that much good. It had wakened him up wide in a splintered second, and when goblins came to grab him, there was a terrible flash like lightning in the cave, a smell like ozone, and several of them fell dead.
The crack closed with a snap, and Bilbo and the dwarves were on the wrong side of it! Where was Gandalf? Of that neither they nor the goblins had any idea, and the goblins did not wait to find out. They knew of course where Hyperion was, but that was of little help to the company and of little concern to the goblins; for he was outside and the Dwarves (and one terrified Hobbit) were taken further and further below and into the mountains. It was deep, deep, dark, such as only goblins that have taken to living in the heart of the mountains can see through.
The passages there were crossed and tangled in all directions, but the goblins knew their way, as well as you do to the nearest post-office; and the way went down and down, and it was most horribly stuffy. The goblins were very rough, and pinched unmercifully, and chuckled and laughed in their horrible stony voices; and Bilbo was more unhappy even than when the troll had picked him up by his toes. He wished again and again for his nice bright hobbit-hole.
Not for the last time.
Fun Fact: Tolkien considered his wife Edith our world's counterpart to Luthien. Considering Luthien was the most beautiful woman to have existed in the entire history of Middle Earth, that's quite flattering indeed. Oh, Mr. John Ronald Reuel, you charmer you…
AN: If you want to read ahead, you can! Chapter 6 is available over on my Pa Treon by the time this chapter goes live!
So, working on this fic is surprisingly difficult for two reasons (or rather, distractions).
1. I keep getting lost in the lore. There's just so much of it and all of it is just so frikkin' cool tho! For instance, a reader's suggestion that Michael should look into Ringil led to several hours reading up on Fingolfin's family tree and the coming of the Noldor to Middle-Earth (fuck Fëanor btw, all my homies stan Fingolfin). I really should pick up the Fall of Gondolin book sometime.
and
2. I keep getting pissed off at the mere existence of Rings of Power. Imagine having the biggest budget, the biggest fantasy world, the most though-out and among the most beloved of lore at your disposal… and you use exactly none of that! Shitty costumes, flat characters and a plot and lore that seems to intentionally contradict established lore at every opportunity. I mean, the bullshit that they turned mithril into, it's just… I can't even… why? Why would you feel the need to do that? It just makes me so angry, but that's so draining 'cause what can I do? It's already out there and Amazon claims (lies?) that over a 100 million people still watched it so… whatever, I guess.