Prompt: How do you destroy a cursed ring? from V Tsuion
A/N: Hello again! Looking forward to another fun Calendar of Awesomeness
Of course, there was only one thing that popped into my head with a prompt about a cursed ring...
It was in my twilight years, when I least expected it, that I discovered a career hitherto unknown to me: that of the public speaking circuit.
It should not have surprised me that the public remained interested in the stories of my friend Sherlock Holmes long after I had ceased to publish, but I confess myself astonished that continual requests for my presence at commencement ceremonies, meetings of ladies societies, and even a few interviews for the newfangled wireless set arrived at our Sussex Downs cottage. I rarely refused these requests, for I enjoyed the occasional trip outside of our own corner of England, and the compensation was not unwelcome either. I remained, to my shame, no better off financially than I ever had been, and with my previous occupations behind me, I was happy to oblige the public, though I am sure my skills as a public speaker were far weaker than those as a writer.
Holmes often accompanied me on my speaking trips, and sometimes even took on his own, though he remained far more selective in those he accepted. He preferred, whenever possible, to conduct wireless interviews rather than give speeches in person, citing the danger inherent in such public gatherings. I am rather convinced he came to those I gave with some idea that he was my protection, in an utterly strange reversal of our previous roles. Yet if this is so, he was not incorrect, for my health and condition on my return from the Great War were, in anything, worse than it had been when we met in 1881, and my advanced age meant that full recovery was no longer possible. I, simply grateful to have returned at all from the fields of carnage in France, resolved to be content with what I had, and to spend my remaining years in peace.
I had been invited in the early 1930s by the English faculty of Oxford to give a talk to themselves and their students, after which Holmes and I decided to spend a few days exploring the city and surrounding countryside. Holmes wished to spend time discussing apiculture with Oxford's entomology staff and seemed ready to bury himself in the various works on the subject available in the magnificent university library. I, having little desire to hear more about bees than I did in Sussex Downs, spent my days ambling along the river and visiting bookshops, of which there seemed to be one on every street corner, as befitted such a bastion of learning.
We met each evening at a local pub with a friendly atmosphere, which was always crowded enough with locals we were certain not to be recognized and mobbed by the ever-interested public. Holmes would regale me with his findings of the day while I sorted through my purchases and waxed poetic about the beauty and charm of the place. I would be sorry to leave, for it had been a most enjoyable few days.
"Watson, were those fellows not at your speech?" Holmes asked, pointing out a table across the room from us. The men around it were the very image of college professors, each dressed in tweed suits and with bowler hats, engaged in a heated conversation, though the laughter punctuating their words told me the debate was friendly.
"I believe they were," I said. "Members of the English faculty, I expect." The students and their professors had been most effusive in their praise of my works, yet I knew what I wrote could not compare to the feats of literature men such as this were surely capable of.
"Come, Watson, you have said yourself that great literature is often a bore," Holmes said, answering my thoughts rather than my words.
I laughed despite myself. "Yes, well, it is, of late. I have missed the days of Thackeray and Stevenson." Much of what was published in these days was plain and spare, without the spark of imagination I remembered from my own favorite works. Perhaps, though, I was simply too old to understand the art of a younger generation, as happens to us all.
"Watson?" One of the gentlemen at the other table turned around, a balding fellow some twenty years my junior. "Why, it is Dr. Watson and Mr. Holmes too! Still here? Your talk was three days ago; here, come and join us."
Stammering my thanks, I joined the group. "We thought it might be pleasant to take a small holiday, since we were already here."
"Well, it is lucky you are here. Our literary society has been wanting a published author."
"You are a published author, Lewis," one of the other fellows said.
My new friend waved a hand dismissively. "Nonfiction, academic tomes only. I mean of fiction!"
I was astonished none of these esteemed men of letters had yet been published, and confess myself honored to join them, even for one night. I had never been part of any true literary society.
"We meet here weekly," one of the others said to me. "To compare notes and discuss ideas for our own works. It's all very informal."
"What he means is that no one takes us seriously!" another chap said laughingly, and there was then much toasting of each other and downing of the excellent beer the establishment was justly famous for.
"Why should they not take you seriously?" I asked. "Why, you are Oxford professors!"
"Oh, they take us seriously enough there; it's what we write they don't think is good enough," Lewis said cheerfully. "The literary establishment doesn't think much of magic and spaceships, do they, Jirt?"
This odd name turned out to belong to a tall, thin fellow next to him, who smiled and shook his head. "Fantastical literature is the least respected of all, yet the most difficult to write."
My interest piqued, I turned to our new friends. "You all write such things?"
"Indeed," Lewis said. "Smith over there has published some small pieces, though it's a bit darker than I like."
"Well, we can't all write about Jesus, can we?" the man answered good-naturedly, raising his glass.
Lewis shrugged, seemingly not offended. "Right now, though, we're working on a problem for Tolkien here." He indicated his tall, thin friend. "Go on, maybe he's got a solution for you."
"I am only in the beginning stages of the story," Tolkien said by way of apology. "So forgive me if this makes little sense. But the question I find myself returning to is: how do you destroy a cursed ring?"
I began to speak, sure the answer should be obvious, before sitting back, realizing I had not the slightest idea of where to begin.
"It is not so easily answered, is it?" Tolkien asked.
"No," I said. "I have given little thought to how to destroy a ring at all." I still owned, though no longer wore, my wedding ring, and would no sooner have sought to destroy it than to commit a murder. Yet the ring itself was made of solid gold, and I could not see any way to do so even had I wanted to.
Holmes, however, leaned forward, his eyes gleaming. "It seems to me that you must begin with how to destroy an ordinary ring. A jeweler can cut a ring using specialized tools, or else simply melt the metal."
"Yes," Tolkien said seriously, while I looked on in astonishment. Holmes had little patience for fiction of any sort, even that grounded in reality. He had expressed nothing but disparaging opinions of the likes of H.G. Wells, Lewis Carroll and Jules Verne, and yet now he was discussing a cursed ring as if it was one of the cases he no longer took. "A cursed ring, however, would be immune to such tools and I already have an important scene in which fire does not even heat the metal of the ring, never mind melting it."
"I have little liking for magic," Holmes said grandly. "However, if such a thing is said to exist in your tale, then it must at least make sense and follow certain rules. Inconsistency would ruin such a story, am I correct?"
"You are," Tolkien said. "I have often said so; the fantasy stories of earlier years follow no consistent rules and are utterly unbelievable. Mine shall not be like that; my world shall operate according to its own rules and be as believable a place as this pub. I want my readers to feel as if they can visit it."
"Give it a rest, Tokes, you think everyone's going to learn that language of yours?" The groans that accompanied Tolkien's pronouncement told me this was a well-worn point of discussion, though Holmes looked even more interested at the mention of language.
But the original question remained. "It seems to me to be simple chemistry," Holmes said, and I understood at last his interest. In his mind, it was a simple chemical question, rather than a literary one. "All metal melts when heated to its boiling point, cursed or not. Perhaps the curse is nothing more than an alloy which raises the boiling point past that of the temperature of ordinary fire."
"That would take heat found nowhere on Earth, or well, I suppose not Earth," I said.
"Middle-earth," Tolkien supplied. "It is not so very different from our own world; in fact, I have stated that it is our own world, only thousands of years ago, before the disappearance-"
"If you mention elves…" Lewis muttered under his breath.
"That makes it simpler," Holmes cut in. "If it is so very much like Earth, then I submit the only source of heat great enough to melt any metal would be a volcano." He said this in the same triumphant tone as when he revealed the conclusion to a case, though he was rewarded only by Tolkien smoking his pipe thoughtfully.
"That might very well work," he mused. "As I have it in mind that the ring was forged in a volcano…yes, I do believe that could work."
"Ah, Mr. Holmes, you've saved us from weeks of dithering from Jirt here," one of the other men said. "I'll be an old man before we ever see the finished story, you just wait."
"I shall be very interested to read it," Holmes said, astonishing me further. "Incidentally, I have done some studies of my own regarding language and would be interested in discussing it further. The thought of inventing an entirely new tongue intrigues me."
"Now you've done it," someone at the far end of the table said in a long-suffering tone.
A/N: Some historical tidbits:
I set this around 1933, before the publication of any of C.S. Lewis's fiction and well before the publication of The Hobbit.
Smith refers to Clark Ashton Smith, who had actually published by this point, but not very much.
Fun fact: Jirt was a nickname used for Tolkien by his friends, because if you write out his inititals - JRRT - that's how they would be pronounced.