LOTR X-(wo)men Style: A Mutant Fellowship

[High Plains Drifter]

Part 21 – The Dimrill Gate Falling

The ascent finally seemed to start leveling off. Soon, the steaming breath coming out of the eleven companions’ mouths and noses in the early morning light ceased being a ragged, deep staccato and turned to a lighter, regular pattern. From the snow and ice on the red hued slope above them, trickles of water sluiced down narrow channels carved deep over millennia. The channels came down to the trail a hundred yards in front of them, making a minor stream. The resulting rivulet slowly dribbled off around an upcoming corner of the trail, gravity taking the water away from the weary travelers, downhill.

“We have reached the summit of the pass,” declared Aragorn.

“The gate is near,” said Gimli, his voice shivering with cold and excitement.

“The Redhorn Gate has laid in ruins for centuries my friend. Do not raise your hopes for what you shall see,” said the Ranger.

“And the guardroom entrance into Khazad-dum blocked by a thousand years of rubble,” added Gandalf.

“Yes, yes,” the dwarf muttered in acknowledgement. Regardless, he increased his pace on the path, occasionally hopping from one side of the tiny brook to the other in his progress.

“Why is Gimli all jumped up excited to see this gate? I thought ‘gate’ was just another term around here for mountain pass.” Kitty asked Legolas.

“It was once a natural chokepoint to the pass, where some long ago Dwarf Lord of Moria decided to place an actual gate; probably to test the mettle of stripling warriors in the cold and provide punishment for guards caught lazing at true duties. For Gimli, he simply yearns to see anything of Moria. His first forbearer, Durin the Deathless, who woke in the Years of the Trees, before Eru created the Sun and the Moon, chose the caves deep beneath our feet to make his home. Until his kinsman Balin, and the company he led, came to Moria thirty years ago; no dwarf had set foot in the halls of the Dwarrowdelf for a millennium. So he doubly seeks for any sign to gladden his heart.”

“Oh,” replied Kitty. “OH!”

The company had marched around the corner in the trail to reveal the Redhorn Gate. The minute stream ended its short journey in a diminutive pond formed by the fallen remains of what had once been a natural stone arch: the Redhorn Gate. A stubby eight foot high tooth of red granite, standing two horse lengths from a small cliff face, was all that remained upright of the formation. Intricate bas-relief could still be seen on many of the chunks of rock sticking out of the gathered pool of water.

They climbed on the few remaining dry patches of trail and exposed rock to get past the pond, though poor Fatty the pony was only given the option of being led by reins straight through the near freezing water, to enter the gate itself. A drab of water continued through the gate and on down the trail, being joined by more and more trickles off the slope above it. Gimli paused to examine a small alcove carved out of the cliff face, but blocked only a few feet into it by a cave-in.

“My ancestors stood guard here,” declared the dwarf grimly, causing Kitty and Legolas to exchange an amused, though secretive, look. Gimli harrumphed mightily at the fallen, decrepit memory of his folk, hiked up his belt, and started marching purposefully forward again. All the others followed him, except Jean, who stood craning her neck up, trying to imagine what it once might have looked like.

Creak, Whoosh, Rumble, Spin, Slam, Rumble, Flash, Groan!

“Gimli, Gimli,” shouted Frodo and Sam. “Gimli!!”

“What!?!” replied the dwarf angrily.

“Turn around!” “Look!”

“By my mother’s beard!” exclaimed the dwarf in wonder.

“Hope you don’t mind,” called out Jean gaily. “I can take it back down if I did anything sacrilegious.”

“No, no, no, please don’t,” stammered out Gimli, staring back in wonder at a reconstructed gate. The arch had been remade by Jean from the largest pieces that still lay around. Small gaps existed in many places, letting sun and wind through. To achieve some sort of stability, not all the remnants with decorated sides were necessarily outward facing with their bas-reliefs. But a verifiable ‘arch’ had been fused into place.

“I don’t think it’s strong enough to last very many years … but it seemed the right thing to do.”

“Thank you,” declared the dwarf. “Truly, thank you.”

Legolas turned to Kitty. “The stones are pleased.”

Storm, standing near Gandalf, let out with, “Hmmmn, errr, well …” at her friend’s actions.

“She grows quite comfortable with her powers,” stated the wizard in a dry tone of voice.

An unhappy sounding “Yes” was Storm’s only reply.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

“Kheled-zaram. The Mirrormere!” exhaled Gimli with awe.

They had descended several thousand feet down the Dimrill Stair, passing alongside and crossing over the slowly growing stream, taking stone steps hewn by dwarves from the very crimson granite of Caradhras to descend alongside cascades, and occasionally walking through passages cut behind waterfalls. Now the Fellowship had reached a vantage point that revealed a large portion of the Dimrill Dale and the Lake cradled within the valley.

“Wow!” uttered Frodo peering to the south along the length of the lake. The white and red color of the heights around him and the Fellowship were reflected like a mirror off the dark waters still several thousand feet below.

“It’s beautiful alright,” agreed Sam. “But I wouldn’t mind seeing at least a few trees scattered here and there to spruce it up a bit.”

“Oh Master Gamgee, a forested Azanulbizar was indeed the glorious view before the War of Dwarves and Orcs.”

“What happened?” asked Rogue.

“My uncles and cousins drove the vile rakhas from their strongholds along the Misty Mountains till their last host gathered inside Khazad-dum, Moria, here under Azog, curse his name for eternity.”

“A mighty battle then? Down in the glen?” asked Boromir.

“Aye. The battle teetered this way and that. Thorin, just a stripling then, earned his title of Oakenshield that day. All seemed lost till at the last moment sturdy warriors of the Iron Hills, under Nain, arrived and won the battle for my kin. Azog had his vengeance though and killed Nain, but in turn was avenged by Nain’s son, Dain, who is now my King, the Lord of Erebor.”

“So all the fighting destroyed the trees?” asked Kitty.

“No. We needed fuel for the funeral pyres for all the dead,” the dwarf replied stoically. That ceased conversation for a time as each member of the Fellowship imagined the magnitude of the dwarf’s statement.

“Where is the entrance to Moria?” wondered Storm, being the one to break the silence.

“To the right, below that slope,” answered Aragorn. “In two or three more waterfalls we should be able to see the remains of the Dimrill Gate. The doors were broken long ago.”

“There!” shouted the dwarf, drowning out the others. “I spy Durin’s Stone.”

“And soon you shall get to touch it, unless you’d prefer to lollygag here,” said Rogue.

“No, no, I am prepared to continue … in another minute … or three or four.”

The wizard chuckled. “Good, because our journey today cannot end in the dale. Orcs most likely patrol in the night, so I want to be far down the Silverlode before dusk.

“And can we see the river from here?” wondered Jean.

“Assuredly. It starts from a spring on the far side of the Mirrormere. See where I point? Then it winds as a slender ribbon south toward the gap between those two ridges,” said Gandalf.

“Oh, yes. There it is.”

<doom!>

Jean looked around to see if anyone else had spoken.

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The obelisk standing before Gimli and the rest of the Fellowship was old, very old, and worn. Runes carved three Ages earlier were so eroded by weather they could no longer be read. Behind them at the bottom of a green slope lay the shores of the Mirrormere.

“Here did the dwarf father, first of all my kind, Durin the Deathless, gaze out upon the Kheled-zaram and chose to make the first Delf of my peoples,” proclaimed Gimli.

“You’d think the stinking turds would have pulled this down years and year ago,” pondered Rogue.

“Complicated thought such as comprehending the importance of writing or symbolism or art … that is beyond the keen of things such as orcs,” declared Legolas.

“Ha!” barked Gimli in challenge. “Many has been the elf who thought similar of dwarves.”

“Perhaps about most, but certainly not about all dwarves,” was the quick rejoinder.

“Master Gandalf, I know my duty does not allow me to enter Khazad-dum in search of some sign of my kinsman Balin. But with the sun high in the noon sky, is there not time for me to at least see the Dimrill Gate? Perhaps there is some mark or clue I could espy?” pleaded the dwarf.

<doom!>

“Hmmmnn,” Gandalf pondered, thoughtfully stroking his beard.

“And what if we are seen by guards? Surely some will sit within the shaded entrance?” interjected Aragorn. “We have already given too many signs of our presence,” he warned.

“Then what is one more?” offered Legolas.

“Oh very well,” Gandalf answered peevishly. “Balin was my friend e’er you were born Gimli. We shall all make the short march. But I warn you, we shan’t stay long.”

<doom!>

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“There are orcs within the shadows of the Dimrill Gate,” announced Legolas. “Several are pointing in our direction. See! One just stepped into the sunlight.”

“We should not tarry long,” declared Aragorn. “They will come out tonight to hunt us.”

“Do you hear that? They are chanting something,” said Frodo.

“Ghash,” answered Legolas.

“What does that mean?” asked Boromir.

“Fire,” replied Gandalf. “I wonder what they mean by that.”

<doom!>

“Do you feel that?” posed Jean.

“I feel it,” whispered Gimli. “The ground shakes.”

“I do too,” stated a frightened sounding Sam.

A far off boom seemed to echo through the depths of the stone and mountain beneath them. Their feet catching the reverberating tension of whatever rhythmic energy pulsed forth among the tunnels, halls, and chasms of forlorn Moria.

“Larger orcs are gathering by the gate now,” said Legolas.

Gandalf placed a hand above his eyes and peered intently into the gloomy entrance. “Black Uruk of Mordor,” the wizard proclaimed.

“That bodes most ill if the Enemy is already seeding goblin dens in the Hithaeglir with his shock troops,” said Boromir.

“Or he foresaw our stratagem and the likely footways of our Fellowship,” worried Aragorn.

<doom!>

“I think our Ranger’s earlier advice quite sound,” stated Gandalf. “’ We should not tarry here.’”

“Would I could kill even one of the vile rakhas,” drawled Gimli with venom in his voice.

“Me too,” replied Rogue with just as bloodthirsty a tone.

“May I offer myself as your proxy?” Legolas solicited.

The dwarf’s eyes narrowed. “How so elf?” he asked suspiciously.

The Prince of Mirkwood slung his short bow from his back. “With this.”

“From here? With that itty thing?” scoffed Gimli. “As if …”

“Do it!” snapped Rogue.

<death comes.>

Legolas smiled, notched an arrow, and brought it up to eye level. His arm moved slightly, then slightly again.

“Do it,” muttered Rogue.

“Patience woman,” whispered Boromir who stood by her side.

Twang.

The arrow arched into the air toward the Dimrill Gate.

“Distance. It will have the distance!” exclaimed Gimli excitedly, just as a gentle waft of air blew by.

“Too much wind,” whispered Aragorn.

“No,” declared a certain sounding Legolas.

Thunk. A muted “arrrkkk” spilled out on the breeze.

“Well shot! Well shot!” exploded the dwarf as he jumped up and down slapping the elf on his back in congratulations.

<i will feed on your bones.>

“This isn’t good,” stated Jean.

“Oh they will respond,” chuckled Gandalf. And as if on cue, a half dozen orcs carrying bows rushed out of the gloom on to the sunlit ledge in front of the gate and fired. The nearest black colored arrow landed fifty feet in front of the group. “See? Nothing to worry about,” declared the wizard. “But we really must be moving. They will be highly agitated tonight.”

“No, not that,” said Jean anxiously.

“A light comes toward the gate,” said Legolas.

“What?” responded a startled Gandalf, turning to again place a hand above his eyes to peer back into the dark entrance of Moria. The outline of something around the size of a Cave Troll holding some sort of unusual torch slowly revealed itself through the gloom.

<(malevolence)>
<(arrogance)>
<(hunger)>
<doom!>

Frodo’s hand subconsciously rose to rest upon the tiny lump under his cloak and shirt where the Ring lay entwined on a necklace, resting against his chest. The hobbit whimpered pitifully.

<<<hold me>>>
<<<join me>>>
<<<return me>>>
<<<become me>>>

“Ai!” cried Legolas. “A Balrog!”

“Durin’s Bane?!?” shouted Gimli frantically.

“The enemy has truly prepared for us,” whispered Gandalf despondently. “What a fool I am.”

A terror, greater than that experienced by even those who had in their lives had the misfortune of encountering Ringwraiths, started gripping the hearts of the Fellowship. Sam and Kitty fell to their knees in fright. Storm shivered, imagining herself alone, buried deep underground. Aragorn saw himself holding Arwen, blood weeping out of a death wound across her neck. Rogue staggered in her despair, grabbing on to Boromir’s sleeve to keep herself upright. The physical contact jerked the man’s mind back from envisioning the sack of Minas Tirith. The Captain of Gondor gazed down to see horror frozen on the lady’s proudly scarred visage.

‘No,’ Boromir thought. Hands shaking, he raised the white and silver Horn of Gondor to his lips and blew. “HHHAAAAARRRUUUUMMMMMMMMMM!!!!” filled the air of the Dimrill Dale, echoing off the Mountain tops surrounding them and spilling down the course of the Celebrant toward the golden woods of Lorien. The resonance of the mighty blast gave even the spirit of the evil Maia pause. More importantly, it broke the purchase the Balrog’s baleful spirit had cast over the Fellowship’s brave hearts.

<(frustration)>
<(resolve)>
<doom!>
<die!>

Jean drew herself up straight, a look of pure anger raged across her face. Feathers of pyrokinetic flame started to erupt out of her, bathing her body in colors of orange, red, yellow, and white, as she shouted, “ I am SO done … with the likes of YOU … SCREWING WITH MEEEEEE!!!”

A burning, telekinetic clawed fist the size of a semi sprang forth from Jean’s extended arm to race toward the Dimrill Gate. Detecting the quick as thought coming onslaught, the creature tried to erect a magical barrier, but to no avail. The fist crashed through a half form shield with barely any loss of ferocity to plow straight into the Balrog’s chest sending it flying backwards. A hundred yards it flew uncontrollably down the Dimrill Gate passageway, its two mighty wings unfurling from the speed of the unexpected flight. Back through the broken doors of the First Hall and into the sunlight, brought into Moria by the great shafts hewn into the hall’s ceiling to act as windows, the ancient servant of Morgoth tumbled. Till finally the Balrog smashed into and entirely through a thick pillar supporting the roof of the First Hall. The creature was not dead, but could hardly move so many of its bones being snapped and smashed into ruin.

<(pain) (pain) (pain) (pain) (pain) (pain) (pain) (pain) (pain) (pain) (pain) (pain) (pain)>

“And none of you little SHITS are going to come after ME EITHER!!!” screamed Jean.

As the red haired mutant raised both arms above her head, so too did two gigantic burning, telekinetic clawed fists extend several thousand feet into the air and come slamming down on the slopes of Fanuidhol, white sheathed Silverhead. The granite of the slope shattered, and an enormous roar was heard by the Fellowship below.

“Jean? What have you done?” gushed a nervous Storm.

“Payback!” Jean yelled with glee and a mad grin through the thunder caused by thousands of tons of rock suddenly finding itself affected by gravity.

WOOOSH! CRASH! KABOOM!!

“The … the … the Dimrill Gate!” shrieked Gimli through air now filled with dust and grit. “Balin!” he cried.

“Gone,” said Gandalf solemnly. Then the wizard tiredly turned and started trudging away from Moria. One, by one, the members of the Fellowship took a last look at where the east gate to Khazad-dum once existed, before following Gandalf on the next step of their journey.

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Through its immense pain, the Balrog heard a sound of approaching thunder. Then a rock, and another, and another, and another came slipping through the eastward facing, high placed windows to smash upon the floor of the First Hall. The dribble of incoming rubble grew to a stream and then quickly turned into a torrent. As more and more stone fell through the windows, the gaps admitting sunlight grew smaller and smaller until the windows became so choked they admitted no light at all. Eventually the debris so clogged the shafts, no more stone could funnel past. By the time the last falling rock stopped bouncing around inside the First Hall, its floor, or what now passed for a floor, stood from five to twenty feet taller than it had minutes earlier. And the form of the perverted Maia could no longer be seen.

 

[High Plains Drifter]

Part 22 – The Golden Wood

The road from the now buried East Gate of Moria led generally south on a descending slope. The Fellowship silently walked past the trailhead for Durin’s Stone and the Dimrill Stair. The road curved around the bottom of the Mirrormere and even turned slightly to bring it within sight of the spring from which the Silverlode arose to then tumble down a narrow rocky channel, growing ever larger as it absorbed more and more mountain streams the further it ran from the arms of the dale. After a league, Gandalf finally halted and sat upon a fallen log. It took five more minutes before the last of the party, under the mournful eye of Legolas, again taking responsibility to cover the rear of the march, shuffled to a stop at the wizard’s impromptu rest site.

“Long ago, many feet trafficked between the dwarven halls of Moria and the elven boughs of Lothlorien, near twenty leagues further,” the wizard recited to his gathered companions. “The remains of that road, here beneath our feet, follow along the Silverlode till it nears the Nimrodel, we shall follow it.”

“I doubt we have much to fear from Moria now,” added Aragorn. “Nevertheless the farther we go from this dreary place, perhaps the better.”

“Elves still live there, don’t they?” asked Frodo in a quiet voice.

“Yes,” replied Gandalf. “We shall seek a refuge with them for a time, to rejuvenate our weary minds and bodies.”

“Though none from Mirkwood has journeyed there for centuries, it is renowned as the fairest wood of all my peoples,” declared Legolas. “From here I can just catch a golden glimmer of the tree tops.”

“My heart will be gladdened to rest there again too,” intoned the Ranger.

“In Gondor,” stated Boromir grimly, “we too have legends of this place. It is said to be perilous, which few who survive it come out unscathed.”

“Then the lore masters of Gondor who taught you were fools,” barked Gandalf. “I have no time left for fools, least of all old ones like myself.” With that the wizard jerked himself upright and placing his staff before him as a support, started walking tiredly forward again.

“All are foolish,” agreed Gimli bitterly, “who once had dreams. Come Frodo, come Sam, Gandalf does not deserve to walk alone.” The three smallest members of the company and the only four legged member started after the figure in grey.

“Forgive Mithrandir’s outburst,” said Legolas. “We have undergone much these past two days and he has not slept a wink of it.”

“C’mon big guy,” added Rogue. “Give the wizard a break. I’ve at least had a nap or two and you wouldn’t believe how bitchy I feel right now.”

Boromir’s face remained set in stone, but at the teen’s words he stopped glaring after Gandalf and turned his eyes to peer down at the teasing face next to him.

“You remember Arwen, the daughter of Elrond, do you not?” asked Aragorn. At Boromir’s nodding agreement, the ranger continued, “She is the granddaughter of Lorien’s rulers, Celeborn and Galadriel. It was within the Golden Wood where … where I first spent much time with her. For one of good heart, to enter is to … change, and for the better. Fear not what is to be found in Lorien.”

“Besides big guy, your only other option seems to be to turn around and climb back over the mountains,” said Rogue mischievously.

“Very well,” grumbled Boromir. “Lead on.” Then turning to the foil at his side, he added, “And stop calling me ‘big guy.’ Or I shall have to spank you for the impudent child you are.”

“Ohhh, in your dreams ... big guy.”

The Fellowship slowly travelled another four leagues, till near midnight, when they dragged themselves off the trail and dared make a camp with fire in the chilly December weather of the foothills of the Misty Mountains. Few dreamed that night, and none were pleasant for those that did.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hide!” shouted Legolas. “Something comes!”

The party drew to a sharp stop and all head’s turned to take in the countryside before and behind them.

“No! From the sky.”

Luckily, their descent alongside the Silverlode has taken them from the bare grassy slopes of the Dimrill Dale to an area, while not a forest, that at least offered trees, bushes, and brush; some of it not far off the tumbled remains of the ancient road. So with trained practice, the group spread out quickly, each person seeking shelter best suited to their size and athleticism. Sam was heard to mutter, “Darn it Fatty, lay down ya nag,” to which the pony replied with an indignant “neigh.” Aside from that burst of sound, their disappearance from the road occurred with minimal noise.

Within two minutes, a dark dot could be spotted by non-elven eyes coming up from the southwest, heading northwest, toward Moria. In only a little longer the dark dot turned into the outline of some sort of great flying beast, beating its wings, a small dot upon its upper back or neck. As the Fellowship held its collected breath, the winged creature beat parallel to them, only about a mile off, near enough that the small dot upon its back turned into the outline of a black garbed man.

<fly left wretch(urgency)(frustration)>

<(pain)(acceptance)>

“A Nazgul,” Jean whispered to the nearby Frodo.

<<<hold me>>>

“I know,” the slender hobbit answered with a frightened squeak.

Jean smiled reassuredly at the hobbit, then turned to look back up at the sky.

<<<return me>>>

“Hmmmnn? Did you say something Frodo?”

“No,” he whispered.

Five minutes later, Legolas stood up and gave the ‘all clear’ sign.

Looking at the mid-day sun, Aragorn announced, “We’ve come five leagues. I’d like to make another five by dusk.”

With grumbling acquiescence the party stumbled to its feet and returned to the path.

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Storm’s hand lashed out, its hardened edge slapping against the wolf shaped head of the beast savaging her leg, causing it to release its fang filled grip. She rolled to put her uninjured leg up and lashed out with a kick.

“Stop,” hissed Boromir. His hands grabbing Storm’s ankle in an iron vise, keeping the heel of her foot from breaking a nose protruding from beneath his freshly cut eyebrow.

“What?! What?!?” yelled Storm, her eyes opening.

“And quiet too,” urged the big man.

Calming herself, Storm said, “I’m sorry Boromir. I must have been dreaming or something.”

His steely grey gaze didn’t leave what little blue the moonlight illuminated of her eyes. “It happens on long patrols. My fault, I should have been more careful in waking you.” He chuckled. “At least you didn’t have a dagger, that’s happened a couple of times to me.”

“Well …” the mutant responded, pulling a small knife enough out of its boot sheath to catch a dull glimmer in the night air. “And I suppose I could have …” and she pointed with a finger up at the sky.

His chuckling continued, “I’ll definitely remember that.”

“So what’s up?”

“The flying Nazgul has worried the better minds of our party,” he drolled sarcastically. “They want us to reach the edge of Lorien by daybreak.”

Storm held up her wrist to catch more moonlight. “Its midnight!”

“Yes. And another five leagues to walk according to they that know.”

“Any breakfast?”

“Elf bread.”

“Ugh.”

“When I travelled to Rivendell from Minas Tirath I would have considered ‘elf bread’ manna. But now, I quite agree with you. Ugh.”

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A wide shadow loomed up in front of the Fellowship in the graying air of pre-dawn. The rustle of a million leaves shifting in the breeze reached their ears.

“Lothlorien!” cried Legolas. “We shall soon enter beneath the arched boughs of the Golden Wood, oh to see the beauty of it under the full light of day.”

“Contain your enthusiasm my friend,” said Gandalf with the first smile any had seen on his visage in days.

Rogue suddenly started choking when Boromir leaned over and whispered, “The elf is as excited as a virgin at a brothel. I fear for the virtue of the first sapling that strikes his fancy.”

The entire Fellowship turned to examine the spluttering teenager till they finally realized she was laughing.

“What do you fine so amusing, stripling,” grumbled the still despondent dwarf, the companion closest to Rogue save the Captain from Gondor.

“Boromir …” she gasped. “He said, haha, that Legolas, haha, looked like he wanted to make love to the … trees!”

Gimli’s stern face, rumbled. He fought a fierce battle against his own lips, and lost, as they started to curve up into a smile. “Bwahahahahahahahahaha!” the dwarf roared, falling to the ground and beating it with his fists. “Bwwwwaaaaaaaaahahahahahaha!”

“Laugh to your misshapen heart’s content, child of Durin,” replied the affronted Legolas. “The beauty of Lothlorien will no doubt be lost on the likes of you,” he declared and then looked for agreement from his companions, only to find them chuckling outright or at best hiding ill concealed grins. The elf gave a harrumph, gathered his cloak about him and stalked off toward the outline of trees just barely getting lit by the first gleams of the morning sun.

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A little more than a mile into the ever goldening forest, the party came upon a swift flowing stream, which by its east, northeasterly direction, must soon join the Silverlode.

“We have reached the Nimrodel,” Gandalf announced. “We have come far enough, for by now we are surely already observed. Stay here all of you, I shall go proclaim our intentions.” With that the wizard climbed down the steep bank and waded into the cold, shallow water. First Gandalf released a pleasant sigh as the stream bathed his feet, next he stamped his staff down into the stream, before raising it high. A silver glow began to emanate from the staff and spread its light around the Fellowship and far into the woods on both sides of the Nimrodel.

In an odd dialect of Sindarin, a language which even the non-elven speakers of the Fellowship had picked up at least a smattering of in Rivendell, Gandalf declared in a clear tenor voice that carried with the wind and echoed among the trees. “I am Mithrandir, friend of the Galadhrim. My companions and I come to you in peace from Imladris, at the counsel of Elrond, son of Elwing, grandson of Nimloth, great-grandson of Galathil, great-great-grandson of Galadhon. We humbly beseech permission to walk under the Mellyrn of Lothlorien, so that we may know a respite from the evils that afflict the world and hear the wisdom of this Golden Wood’s lord and lady, Celeborn the Wise and Galadriel Alatariel.”

As the wizard’s voice died, he lowered his staff and the glow receded till only the staff itself still faintly shined. Satisfied, Gandalf strode a few more steps to finish crossing the stream, climbed the bank and came to a rest, leaning against his staff and staring out into the mighty forest before him. “Ahhh, that didn’t take long,” he muttered to himself.

A grey clad elf, bow and arrow case strapped across his back came gliding ghost like out of the trees. Stopping in front of Gandalf he bowed, “I rejoice at your return to Lothlorien Mithrandir, I am Finareth,” he said in that different style of Sindarin.

“Hail, Finareth. May my companions cross the Nimrodel and freely enter your wood?” he asked politely.

“All but one,” came the answer.

“What?” replied Gandalf, tension gathering at his brow. “Does our pony present some unknown danger?” he asked in a sarcastic tone.

“No wise one. It is the dwarf I see among you. Since the Dark Days, they are forbidden to pass within our realm.”

Gandalf ground his teeth. “This is unacceptable. He was chosen by Elrond himself for this journey, word of which was sent from Imladris to your lord and lady. I would place my very life in his trustworthy hands. You must come up with a different answer.”

“Which I, unfortunately, cannot give you, though it pains me greatly to disappoint you, Mithrandir. Evil travels near our borders …”

“The very reason we must meet travel, and quickly, to Caras Galadhon for counsel …”

“Uruk from Mordor marched passed only a week ago. So we must abide, strictly, to the laws governing the protection of Lothlorien and the Galadhrim.”

“And there is no compassion, or common sense, to your position?”

The elf looked thoughtful at the request. “I will allow him to cross, but then he must be blindfolded while we take you to a refuge and seek guidance for this conundrum from the city.”

“Yes, we shall accept your invitation for all to cross, but none shall suffer the indignity of a blindfold. We will make camp here, and await a message of welcome,” Gandalf near growled. He turned his back on the elven warden and beckoned his companions to cross the healing waters of the Nimrodel.

“Oh uh,” Aragorn said loud enough for Storm to hear. “Mithrandir does not look pleased.”

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A new elf emerged from the golden haze of the forest, and for once, one who spoke Westron.

“I am Haldir. I bring word from the Lord and Lady of the Galadhrim.”

“You came from Caras Galadhon?” asked Gandalf.

The elf nodded.

“Impressive,” whistled Aragorn. “It is near twenty five leagues from here. Our request went there and an answer back in a single day and a quarter.”

“Yes, yes, bore me more later,” cut in Gimli. “What is their answer,” he rumbled dangerously, the slight of him having festered overnight in his dwarven heart.

Haldir smiled. “You may walk freely dwarf, with eyes open. The Lady Galadriel knows all of your company, including your distinguished presence in it. I will be your guide to bring all of you to her and her husband, the Lord Celeborn.”

Gimli gave a satisfied nod that some proper respect was finally proffered him.

“When may we leave?” asked Gandalf.

“As soon as you desire. I am at your command.”

“Well you heard him,” chirped up Sam. “Let’s gather our things. I’ll start packing Fatty.”

“Be not in such a hurry little man,” said the elf.

“Hobbit,” Frodo and Sam echoed in reply.

“Hobbit. I shall have many questions as we walk. But I fear the route we take will not necessarily be easy for you.”

“What d’ya mean?” asked Sam suspiciously.

“Soon we must cross the fast flowing Celebrant, or Silverlode as you call it, over which there are no bridges, so as to help protect us from marauding orcs and evil beasts. It is crossed only by footing a single strand of rope stretched across it.”

“We can’t cross that!” shouted Frodo. “We’re not elves!”

“Fear not Master Hobbit, we shall add additional ropes such that your hands may also assist you. However, I am afraid your pony must be left behind, he would never make.”

“No!” yelped Sam. “We can’t leave Fatty. Not after coming so far. He’s like family.”

“Sam, Sam,” soothed Jean. “The time may come where we must say goodbye to Fatty. But now,” and she grinned as she said, “is not that time. I think I can guarantee everybody a safe crossing,” at which point the red head tapped the side of her head and winked.


--------------------------------------------------------------------

He sniffed and tasted another hint of fresh air through the normal dust and stench of the unnaturally straight and smooth caves he had been wandering the past four months. The scary meats had uncovered a third small crevice that reached to the unpredictable surface, to friendly darkness and horrid brightness. The scary meats would probably placed watchers on this one too, watchers holding pointy sticks and cruel sharp edges.

“My precious,” the thing drawled. Then stopped and looked around to see if anything on two, four, or six legs had heard his dry, creaking, ancient voice. No nothing.

The spindly, boney thing debated for the thousandth time in the last three days whether he had smelled his beautiful, terrible birthday present right before the sphincter loosening movement of the mountains. Or had his mind decided to play nasty tricks on him again.

“Baggins,” he croaked. “Hate.” For the millionth time he thought he must leave, keep searching. “Shire,” hissed out of his ragged half-toothed maw.

Then all thought slipped from his weak brain as his stomach rumbled. It had been before the mountains cried since he had last snuck up oh so quietly on a solitary scary meat and bashed its skull with a rock. Stringy, but satisfying enough flesh the thing thought as it licked its lips.

“Gollum,” it croaked.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

“No one fell out overnight?” inquired Sam, pushing his torso up from the floor by his elbows to peer around the flet to count those of his companions already moving and those still recumbent. “Well that’s a wonder, isn’t it?”

“What’s that Sam?” asked Frodo sleepily.

“I was worried Mister Frodo that this porch without any railings could provide quite the painful drop down from the tree branches if one didn’t sleep real careful like.”

“And weren’t you the brave one plunking yourself right in the middle,” teased Kitty.

“I were looking for the safest spot to protect Mister Frodo,” Sam declared.

“Which you then happened to share,” added Rogue.

“He might o’ needed somethin’ in the middle of the night,” retorted the hobbit defensively.

“After the meal each one of you packed away last night, I suspected the last thing any of your bellies were up for last night was rolling over,” chortled Gandalf, entering the conversation.

“I was just glad to have someone either than you two pot burners make dinner,” piped in Frodo to take digs back at the girls in defense of Sam.

“It did taste heavenly,” said Storm.

Gimli, nervously peering over the edge of the platform, belched, then added, “T’were a satisfactory feed, cept for the insufferably sweet mead. Can’t expect elves to have ale I suppose.”

“Best sleep since Rivendell,” proclaimed Boromir, stretching arms over his head. “Only a light ten league march yesterday and no watch to interrupt the night. It was downright …”

“Peaceful,” declared Jean. “This Lorien feels much akin to Rivendell. Beautiful of course, but my whole being feels like its gently floating in a soothing, warm bath.”

“Oh don’t mention baths,” whined Kitty. “I’d kill for one, and not just because I’m dirty and stink.”

“You do, you know. In case you had any doubts.”

“Thanks Rogue. Takes one to know one.”

As the two teens started to bicker, egged on occasionally by Gimli, Sam, and Boromir; Gandalf crouched down beside Jean. “I was wondering when you would notice the serenity of the Golden Woods. It is part of the mark that the Lady Galadriel has lain upon Lorien to shield it from Middle Earth.”

“Isn’t she married to these elves’ leader?”

The wizard smiled, “Celeborn is wise and mighty, mistake it not. But Galadriel, Galadriel is the greatest elf remaining in Middle Earth.”

“Stronger than Elrond?”

“I do not know how one would measure such, but yes, even so. It will behoove us to listen dearly to any confidences she chooses to share.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

“Aragorn? Hey! Aragorn?”

“Hmmmnm?”

“Haldir says … Dude, snap out of it,” barked Rogue.

“What?”

“We’re almost to that Amroth place.”

“Yes, I know,” replied the Ranger. “I’ve been here before, e’er you were born child.”

“Well, I don’t think the paper’s been published yet confirming whether the quantum signature of Middle Earth coincides within the same frequency of my own Earth, thus predicting the likelihood of chronological synchronicity. So don’t be counting your chickens before they hatch. Hear what I’m saying?”

Aragorn looked at Rogue perplexedly, smiled, shook his head in wonder at the gibberish the teen had spouted, and kept walking.

“How long have you been waiting to use that line on someone?” asked Kitty.

Rogue giggled, “Like a week.”

“And do you have any idea what it meant?” interjected Storm.

“Hell no, but I thought it sounded pretty good.”

“Impudent chit,” laughed Storm.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The Fellowship and their guide exited from beneath a canopy of trees to enter a great open space, covered in afternoon sunshine. “Behold Cerin Amroth, you are come to the heart of Lorien as it was o’er a thousand years ago,” announced Haldir.

Jean goggled at the natural perfection before her. Grass green as springtime ran to the foot of a slope sprinkled with golden and white winter flowers among the greenery. The slope gave shape to a raised mound upon which grew two circles of trees surrounding a solitaire trunk, more massive than any of the others. The first band of trees were leafless, as even winter apparently had some effect in this sanctuary, but magnificent nevertheless with snowy white bark. The second band, of a greater height, still retained their golden leaves, as so much of the forest did. The last tree, the one in the middle, stretched near three hundred feet tall. Stairs circled its trunk, leading up to a brilliant white flet supported by the trees upper branches. “Wow” she whispered, every nerve ending of her body tingling with joy at the sensations of beauty and pleasure welling up within her.

Legolas, besotted by the view, almost immediately broke away from his friends to begin exploring the enchanted vista before him.

“Be gentle on the trees,” Rogue called out.

Kitty laughed, then snaked out a hand to touch Sam. “Tag, you’re it!” she shouted, then started running off through the grass. Sam laughing, turned to Frodo and gave him a gentle push, “You’re it Mister Frodo!” Then he too bolted off, throwing arms wide open and reveling in the feel of the luxurious grass passing between his toes and beneath his hairy feet. Frodo gave Gimli a look. The dwarf puffed up his chest and declared a tad huffily, “A warrior does not play Tag.” Giggling, Frodo said, “I’m very sorry for you,” and with that he started chasing after his friends.

“This is a place to forget one’s burdens Gimli and rejoice in life,” said Aragorn kindly. “Be not afraid to do so. Few will be the moments for happiness once we depart the Golden Wood, my friend.” He clapped the dwarf once on the shoulder before starting his own wanderings over Cerin Amroth.

“Sage words,” advised Gandalf. “I’m for the flet. Who will go with me?”

“I will,” volunteered Storm.

“Haha, no fear of heights for you. Anyone else? Boromir? Rogue? No? Ah well, come then my lady.” Gandalf half bowed toward Storm and dramatically swept one arm in an invitation to start walking.

“Oh, very gallant,” said Rogue.

“Yes,” agreed Boromir, feeling an unusual tingling in his belly. “Ahem. Would you care to stroll with me, uh, Anna Marie?”

Rogue smiled up at the tall man, “My pleasure,” and off the pair went.

Jean walked to the start of the slope and peered closely at a star shaped flower, ‘Perfection,’ she thought. Another flower, ‘perfection.’ The distance of the open green space to the start of the mound, ‘perfection.’ The equidistance between each tree of the first ring, ‘perfection.’ “This is ridiculous,” Jean muttered. Her mind began to race, mental powers brought into sharp focus to spot even the slightest mar or flaw in this Eden. The health of each tree’s bark, ‘perfection.’ Interlocking branches of the trees to provide an uninterrupted canopy, ‘perfection.’ Hue of color on every blossom, ‘perfection.’ ‘This is madness,’ Jean thought, reeling her powers back in. A surge of guilt started filling her. ‘My imperfection stains this sacred place.’

<<mine. soon. all of it.>>

“And would you care to experience Cerin Amroth closer up, master dwarf?” inquired Haldir.

“I’m fine,” replied Gimli shortly.

“There is more to beauty in the world than stone and metal,” chided the elf. “Then if you don’t mind, I too shall take my leisure.”

“No, no, go ahead. I’ll be fine, won’t I Fatty?” Once alone, but for the pony, Gimli felt an unknown pressure building inside him. Finally, unable to contain himself any longer, he barked at Fatty, “What are you looking at!” The pony just continued to stare placidly at him and chew grass. “Oh forget it,” the dwarf harrumphed. He dropped the reins and reluctantly started dragging himself toward the mound.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The wizard and the mutant took the last step up onto the flet and gained their first truly unimpeded view of the Golden Wood stretched out before them in every direction.

“Amroth ruled Lothlorien in days long gone and he made his home here. A fine choice I always thought.”

“Where do Celeborn and Galadriel live?” asked Storm.

“Off to the south,” pointed Gandalf. “There, in the city of Caras Galadhon.” In the distance Storm saw a hill crowned with magnificent tall trees, sunlight reflecting off flets large and small built high up among their branches.

“Will we get there today?”

“No. I suspect Haldir diverted us here on purpose to give our hosts another day to prepare for our arrival.”

“Why?”

The wizard chuckled, “It’s probably been centuries since an embassy as impressive as ours has crossed their threshold. They’re probably out of practice.” Gandalf pulled out his pipe and sucked on its end. “Hopefully, they have some pipeweed stored away somewhere. Should have packed more. I ran out the other side of the Misty Mountains.”

At their mention, Storm turned to look back at the cold, snowy heights. “This weather isn’t natural, is it?” she asked.

Gandalf chuckled again, “You should know.”

Storm stared up at the sky and sent part of herself soaring upward, going as far as the stratosphere. Twenty seconds later she said, “Not your typical high pressure ridge.”

“Could you move it?” he asked mischievously.

Storm’s eyebrows clenched in concerted thought. “I could nibble around the edges, but it’s anchored tight … somehow.”

Gandalf smiled, “High praise. The Lady Galadriel will be pleased too, once she gets to know you better.”

“Plays havoc with weather patterns to the East,” declared Storm.

“Ah, yes, the East,” said the wizard, turning to look in that direction. Storm soon turned to share the view.

“That’s the Anduin, isn’t it?” The lands beyond the river appeared grey, dull, and lifeless. “What’s the dark smudge on the horizon?”

“The southern fastness of Mirkwood,” Gandalf answered grimly. “The Enemy once dwelt there on the stony height of Dol Guldur, under the disguise of the Necromancer, till we drove him out.” The member of the White Countil turned his thoughts toward Saruman and what had occurred sixty years earlier. “Or did we really?” he whispered.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The soothing calm and joyous mood bubbling physically, magically, subconsciously throughout Lorien, and enhanced even further at, or by, Cerin Amroth, had had a pacifying effect on Jean, giving her a chance to appreciate her passage over and around the small hill. Several times she found herself remembering happier times, of another place, another world. “Scott,” she moaned aloud after her most recent dalliance down memory lane. The red head quickly turned to see whether anyone had caught her sudden loss of self control. Only Aragorn was anywhere near earshot, and he seemed as self absorbed as she had been. “Arwen vanimelda, namarie!” she heard him say longingly in the elven tongue.

Intrigued, Jean’s mind reached out to brush against the ranger’s. For a wonder, the man’s shields were barely present. Jean physically and psychically gave furtive glances to see whether anyone was watching. Finding herself free from observation, she slipped lightly into the man’s mind. A younger, fairer, more innocent Aragorn strolled hand in hand with the beautiful Arwen, the elven princess who during a song in the Hall of Fire had seemed to stare right into Jean’s soul her first night awake at Rivendell. The two were clearly lovers, the elven words spoken between the two needed no translation when stolen straight from the handsome man’s mind. The lovers pained at a nearing separation, Aragorn’s humanity making him an undesirable match for the ageless Arwen, elven by birth. The melancholy of the couple as they lay down together in a bed of leaves, exchanging passionate kisses that both knew might be there last, thrust a dagger of pain into Jean. ‘Scott, oh my lost Scott,’ she thought. Suddenly she flung herself from Aragorn’s mind. The outburst over her own far away lover had waivered Jean’s control enough to give the strong willed Dunedain an inkling he was not alone in his mind.

The telepath promptly sauntered as inconspicuously as possible out of his sight, only to gain a view of Rogue and Boromir together. The pair held hands, staring into each other’s eyes, not daring to kiss. Jean’s probes slid easily into the subconscious of both, immediately feeling the heat of their unfocused passions, brought on by the sheer magnitude of life flowing around and through them in this elvish Eden. Yet both were wary of the consequences of Rogue’s power, and the effort by both to stop from fully expressing the emtions building within themselves over the last few weeks was physically painful.

<<alone so long.>>

Tears sprang to Jean’s eyes as the frustration the two felt began to reflect back into the telepath. She effortlessly withdrew her probes and started to try to physically run away from the longing she herself also yearned for.

Smack.

“Oh Jean, I am sorry,” said Legolas. “You came around the trunk so quickly … are you hurt? You are crying.”

“Legolas, I .. I ..“ she stuttered out, peering into the Mirkwood Prince’s perfectly sculpted, beautiful elven features. “I’m fine … It’s just … well ..”

A solicitous look crossed his face, “Confide in me. Cerin Amroth is a place of pleasure, not tears.”

“Oh Legolas!” Jean threw herself into the elf’s strong arms, which wrapped reflexively around her.

“Jean?”

“Love me Legolas. Make love to me. Now! I’ll scream if you don’t.”

The elf’s body tensed at the bizarre turn of events. His hands came up to the side of the red head’s shoulders, and began to try and pry her clinging body from his frame. “Jean, this isn’t appropriate,” he whispered forcefully.

“Oh you ass. I’m not asking you to marry me! No one’s held me, no one’s shown me love even once in this damn world. Is it so wrong, in this place of life, to need love?”

Legolas shook his head in the negative. “I am not that person, Jean. I cannot.”

“God damn ass!” she shouted. Invisible, impossibly strong telekinetic hands threw him twenty feet away from the angry mutant. “I ought to …” and Jean stomped her foot before turning to stride off forcefully from beneath the tall trees and down the slope of the mound.

 

[High Plains Drifter]

Part 23 – The Lady

“Phew,” said Storm, walking next to her red haired friend as the Fellowship and their elven guide left the night’s encampment and took to a wide, white stone graded avenue passing beneath a golden leafed canopy. “You can almost touch the tension this morning. What is it with everybody?”

“Cerin Amroth,” Jean responded.

Storm crinkled her face trying to put meaning to words, but failed. “I don’t understand.”

“Didn’t you feel it? Didn’t it make you … more alive?”

Storm laughed, “Not feeling alive isn’t usually a problem for me.”

“Well it was tough on a bunch of people. In about five seconds Rogue is going to turn around, again, to stare at Boromir. … There!”

“I was wondering when something would happen on that front. Those two have been edging closer and closer the whole journey. What did you see?” asked Storm in a voice of gossipy enthusiasm.

“A lot of holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes. Boromir’s a gentleman enough, but if Rogue’s power wasn’t what it is, she’d be trying to cover a bunch of hickeys this morning.”

Storm let out a sympathetic, “ohhh. Poor girl.”

“You don’t disapprove? He’s got to be close to three times her age.”

“I didn’t say that I approve, though you must admit none of us are the same people we were three months ago. Besides, what can they really do? I almost wish they could. She is one affection starved girl.”

“Well she’s not the only one missing affection. Aragorn is mooning over Arwen. Seems they fell in love in Lorien. All he did yesterday at Cerin Amroth was relive his memories of her here.”

“Did he tell you?”

“No. Ahhhh. I sort of read his mind.”

“What? Jean!!” Storm whispered in harsh condemnation.

“I know, I know. I pick up a lot more these days, and he was just broadcasting his … feelings, and for once he didn’t have his shields up, so I just sort of wandered in.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Yes, I completely agree. And what’s worse, I’m pretty sure he figured out I was there. But that’s not the most terrible part.”

“Oh Jean, what did you do?” Storm asked with a low rumble of thunder to her voice.

“I, uhm, I made a pass at Legolas,” Jean replied in a barely audible tone.

Storm sucked in a deep breath, but refrained, barely, from saying anything.

“I’m such a shit. I betrayed Scott. I betrayed Scott. Damn, damn, damn.” Jean snorted. “Legolas must be weirded out. And I’m racked with guilt. I betrayed Scott. All this crap because I couldn’t control myself, control my emotions, control my loneliness.”

Storm took another deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I think, I think we are all in an incredibly unusual and stressful situation here. No one is perfect. Now more than ever, a little tolerance and latitude seems appropriate. It might not look this way right now, but I think this will blow over. Just, for the love of god Jean, please don’t do it again.”

Jean sighed, nodding her head in agreement. Storm’s words were kind, but the guilt, oh the guilt she felt gnawed at her, deep, deep inside.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

For the second time in as many days, the Fellowship stepped out of the forest and into a large open space deep within the heart of Lorien. A tall earthen rampart, lush with vibrant grasses, loomed high above a deep ditch. The wall curved away in a circular arc from the party to both the east and the west. Inside the palisade rose a green hill upon which rested a veritable forest of its own, with trees rivaling at least the height and breadth of those the company had seen at Cerin Amroth. Supported by the immense branches of the mallorn trees rested an elven city of flets, shining silver in the reflection of the noon day sun.

“Behold Caras Galadhon, the city of the Galadhrim. Alas, we still have another mile’s walk, as there is only one entrance and it sits upon the southern rim. Come, come.” And with those brief words, Haldir resumed the march, though at a slower pace to allow the Fellowship a chance to gawk at the graceful sight.

Twenty minutes brought the group to a white bridge, which they crossed to find themselves before the tall, strong gates of the city. Haldir knocked upon a thick timber of the gate and whispered something in the Lorien dialect of Sindarin. Immediately the gates swung silently open to reveal two of the tallest and most beautiful elves anyone, save Gandalf and Aragorn, had ever seen; a Lady and a Lord clad wholly in white, Galadriel and Celeborn, the protectors of the Golden Wood.

“Welcome Mithrandir,” spoke the Lord Celeborn. “Far too long has passed since last we could partake of your knowledge and kindness. The paths you travelled since have led you through dark and perilous places. And now you journey on the most hazardous one yet, but the most hope filled too. Rest and be at peace as our guest.”

“Hail Celeborn, your wisdom is rightly renowned. Happily I accept your invitation and hope to see it extended with friendship to the Fellowship which walks this long, hard road with me.”

“Of course, now enter and take respite from the world’s ills.”

Gandalf bowed slightly to Celeborn and Galadriel, and strode eagerly past them, through the gate and into the shaded boulevard beyond.

Celeborn’s eyes, ageless and deep, next honed in sharp as a lance upon the smallest member of the party. “Welcome Frodo of the Shire. Ring-bearer. Please enter and may the serenity of our home ease, if even only for a short time, the weight of your burden.”

“Thank you,” whispered Frodo shyly in response to the might elf, though he could not take his gaze away from the silent golden haired lady standing beside the great Lord, who stared intently at him, as if searching through his very soul.

“Hail Aragorn, son of Arathorn. Welcome to Lothlorien. Near two score years have passed since we walked together through the Golden Wood. The weight of time and responsibility presses upon you. Enter and find peace.” The Lady Galadriel appeared to fix her eyes somewhere deep within the Ranger while her husband spoke to him.

Celeborn then received in turn “Legolas, son of Thranduil, Prince of Mirkwood,” “Boromir, son of Denethor, Captain of Gondor,” “Gimli, son of Gloin, scion of Erebor,” and “Samwise, son of Hamfast, tender of gardens.” With each greeting from the Lord of Lothlorien, the Lady of Lothlorien stared keenly into the face, the eyes, the heart, and the soul of each companion.

“Welcome Katherine Pryde, friend of the Ring-bearer, Fanadilthien. May the sights and sounds of our haven rejuvenate the joy of your heart. Enter and join your companions.”

<[images of the school, of her room, of friends laughing]>

“Welcome Anna Marie D’Ancanto, lost child of not Arda, Faergadien. May your souls find harmony in the rhythms and songs of my home.”

<[image of rogue happy in the embrace of a man who’s face is hidden]>

“Welcome Ororo Munroe, daughter of man, Suliltanis. Breath the fresh air of the woods, feel the gentle breeze of the wind, listen to the rustling of the leaves. Enter and rejoice in the beauty of the world.”

<[images of the wide open savannahs, might rivers, and dense jungles of Africa]>

“Jean Grey, far, traveler, Narwilinien. Enter. Become one with yourself.”

<[image of scott]>

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Jean, the last of the Fellowship to pass through the gate followed the lead of Storm, just visible in front of her, and headed toward the raised center of the city of trees. Taking many paths and stairs, she climbed the hill till near its apex she came upon an open lawn. Toward the back of the space rose a mighty tree garnished with steps, guarded by four armored elves, leading up to the widest, most elaborately ornamented flet she had yet seen in Lorien. Nearer her, upon the lawn, a fountain sent spouts of water thirty feet in the air to shimmer in sunlight as they dispersed into thousands upon thousands of droplets returning to the bowled pond. Beside the fountain a pavilion spread over a sizeable area, and to that, Jean walked, still trailing the route of her friend. Entering, the first words she heard were the bantering and good natured ribbing so typical of her companions.

“You were blushing Sam, I saw it,” declared Kitty. “You looked like a boy with his first crush. Did you want to kiss her?”

“I thought no such thing,” protested Sam. “T’wern’t nothing like that at all. When she looked at me, and I saw her give near the same stare ta those afore me, well, I felt like she was offerin’ me a choice. A smart garden of my own back in the Shire or facing a cloud of darkness ahead. The garden was real pretty, with daffodils and sunflowers; little Samwises running about it. Then I felt ashamed as I knew going there t’would take me from Mister Frodo. Suppose that might have brought some color to my cheeks.”

Promptly stirring himself to his friend’s defense, Frodo said, “She looked at me first, for I don’t believe she tested Gandalf so, …”

Jean bent and whispered into Gimli’s ear, “Where is Gandalf?”

Pointing upward with a stubby finger, the dwarf quietly rumbled, “Apparently gone to wait for the elf lords in their flet.”

“… and my mind experienced, just for a second, how free it feels without the weight of the ring. It’s a heavy thing for something so small. Did the Lady touch you with such a sensation Kitty?”

“Well, uhh, home,” Kitty reluctantly drawled, then repeated in a harsh rush, “I saw home.”

“Home,” echoed Storm, nodding her head in joint agreement.

“Mithral,” laughed Gimli, slapping Frodo on his shoulder. “Like there’s a large enough pile of it near me that I’d be lured to turn my back on you Frodo. Ha!”

“I was not tempted by this trickery of hers either,” pronounced Boromir. “The Men of Minas Tirith know duty and honor.”

“Well what did she offer you?” asked Kitty.

The tall man shook his head negatively. “I will not say. Though I was not tempted, I will admit the offer did cut hard.”

Rogue started crying. “I failed, I failed,” she started wailing. “I’m so sorry Frodo, so sorry. I would have taken her offer if I could.” The teen turned with widening arms and took a step toward Storm. She stopped as suddenly as she started, realizing the impossibility of what she wanted. Rogue then knelt hard and started banging the soft turf floor of the pavilion as hard as her tightly squeezed fists could handle.

Storm quickly squatted beside the girl and rubbed a hand sympathetically along her back.

Jean looked at the guilt torn girl and remembered the choice offered her. A tear began to bud in the corner of one eye. ‘We are mutants,’ she thought. ‘Life is always unfair.’

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Galdor took a step and another step and another step up the curved stairwell of the tallest tower in Forlond, for upon his return from the delf lands of the Ered Luin he had been told that was where Cirdan was ensconced. Coming atop the dry deck ring of the Grey Tower he spied Cirdan surveying the shipyards. Few were the sounds of hammers and saws floating on the wind.

Without the Shipwright turning his head, he greeted him, “Welcome back Galdor, I have missed your wise counsel, but I cannot say I have been unaffected by your counsels.”

“It tastes good to breath the salt air again, Master.”

“And how did your trip among the Firebeard naugrims fare?”

“Well. Appeals to their greedy and martial vanity were effective. And every dwarf home has its malcontents, for good or bad, that even the stupidest of Lords can see the advantage of finding an outlet for. At least thirty of their delfs shall attend the council here in your name, though I was presumptuous to declare its existence without first seeking your permission.”

Cirdan still peering out, not yet having directly faced his chief councilor, waved a placating hand toward him. “Events may move quicker than even an elf may answer. You did what you deemed wise. I would hardly punish you for that.”

Galdor paused, disquieted somehow by the sparseness of work he heard from down below. “And is someone travelling among the Broadbeams?”

“Yes. Maethil. I sent Azaghal with him. He is sharp and can smell a coin. I gave him extra incentive by hiring him as the supplier for the gathering site of however many dwarves can be mustered for a host.”

Galdor’s head nodded at his Lord’s smart play, till his underlying worry finally grew into a concise thought. “A lax day it seems on the ships,” he tendered.

At these words, Cirdan at last turned to show Galdor sad eyes. “Yes, about the other plan you and this not-Edain, not-Quenya woman devised. I have had reservations.”

As the Shipwright explained his caution, Galdor felt an anger well up within him stronger than any he had felt since the fall of Arnor.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Gandalf returned to his companions, now taking ease in the luxurious pavilion provided them by their hosts, as the first hints of dusk were suggested by the slow dimming of light coming through the sheer white walls of the tent.

“Spruce up!” the wizard shouted immediately upon walking through the curtained entrance. “We are invited to dinner!”

“Gandalf!” most of them shouted.

“And I bring gifts,” he announced with a smile, then clapped his hands twice. A party of elves, both female and male, with sets of new clothing draped over their arms promptly swept in on cue.

Kitty and Rogue shrieked in delight. Storm and Jean smiled broadly. The males gave more ambiguous responses, though none failed to take advantage of the offer of clean, elven made garb. Both sets of genders, after making a choice from the admittedly limited selection of wears offered, withdrew to the sheet partitioned areas already set up to provide a modicum of privacy based on sex. Aragorn, Boromir, Frodo, Gimli, Legolas, and Sam came back to the main area of the pavilion in less than ten minutes. The mutant ladies only appeared after twice that amount of time.

“Ah, at last, they grace us with their presence,” the wizard proclaimed.

“Gandalf, why didn’t you change?” asked Kitty.

“I am rightly renowned as ‘the Grey’. Alas, they lacked my color, so I choose to remain my bedraggled self.”

“You could have at least used the time to bath,” smirked Storm, not letting a man’s snide comment about the speed of womanly dressing go unchallenged. “Your renown may soon alter to ‘the Over-ripe’ or dare I say, ‘the Whiffy Wizard.’”

Rogue laughed. “No, no, it needs more alliteration. ‘Gandalf the Gunky.’”

The wizard smiled good naturedly at their teasing. “Such disrespect for your elder, how disheartening!” he responded in an exaggerated tone of voice. “I hope you remember your manners when we sit down with the Lord Celeborn and the Lady Galadriel to sup. Come, come, they await.” And he ushered his friends out of the pavilion and toward the guarded stairs leading up the master tree to the lordly flet high above Caras Galadhon.

On the leisurely assent, Gandalf provided a summary of his earlier conference with their gracious hosts, which boiled down to a retelling of the Council of Elrond, especially highlighting the appearance of the four mutant ladies and the treachery of Saruman, as well as descriptions of the crossing the Redhorn Gate and the rendering of the Dimrill Gate in the face of the Balrog.

The eleven guests were greeted warmly and led to seats around a table at which Celeborn sat at one end and Galadriel at the other. Frodo, Gimli, and Jean were placed closest to the lady, while Boromir, Storm, and Gandalf took the chairs nearest the lord. The remaining five found themselves ensconced around the middle of the darkly lacquered, intricately carved dining surface. Once everyone was comfortable, Lord Celeborn lifted a crystal full of sparkling wine and toasted, “To your quest, may it bring peace.”

A few “here, heres” rang out as everyone took at least a sip in acknowledgement of the Lord of the Galadhrim’s words. Gimli took the opportunity of the toast to down his entire glass and then promptly look about the table for a refill.

“Gandalf has spoken to us of the difficulties of your plight, but my heart is gladdened each of you survived to reach fair Lorien,” said Galadriel, gazing the length of the table as she spoke.

<are you?>

Jean cast her question at the empty space in her mind’s eye where her physical vision placed the Lady of the Galadhrim. Surprisingly, she received a response.

<none of the deed’s in gandalf’s long, wise life have been needless or folly. he believes in the role thou shalt play in the demise of the Ring, therefore i must too, no matter how my soul trembles.>

“And our hearts have been gladdened walking the fair paths of your Golden Woods,” answered Frodo.

“Yes,” added Jean. “The stillness of your home can make me at times forget the terrible path we tread.”

After a moment’s pause Gimli realized the need for a social pleasantry, which he first responded to by noisily clearing his throat, then finally croaked out uncomfortably, “As the only dwarf of living memory to pass between your mighty trees, I am honored.”

The lady smiled at the politeness of her nervous guests and took pity on them by leading conversations on topics more easing to each of them; the Shire, teaching, the working of metal, and other subjects they might discuss in the surrounding of their own homes. At the other end of the table, Celeborn quizzed his dinner mates with questions on Elrond’s machinations for Mirkwood, Erebor, and the Havens. Food, glorious food, and sweet, savory, tasty beverages flowed across the dining board and into the flavor starved mouths of the Fellowship. Hours passed in agreeable repast and interesting speech.

“Long we feared and conjectured what terror might sleep far under the red granite of Caradhras, beyond the keen of our vision,” came Celeborn’s words flowing down the table. “Now we know for certain what the evil is, and it fills me with dread that such as that may one day try to enter the borders of the Golden Wood. No wonder Durin’s valiant folk were driven long ago from Moria.”

Overhearing the conversation from the other end, Gimli spoke up loudly, interrupting, “Begging your lordship’s pardon, but did your people ever have word with my cousin Balin or any of those who followed him to Khazad-dum over thirty years ago?”

“Our scouts noted their coming in a proud martial column, carrying many supplies and other materials. For a time I sent scouts to spy on the Dimrill Dale under a full moon to see what might be seen from a distance. It is near five and twenty years since any signs of dwarven work were noted.”

“Oh,” came Gimli’s forlorn response.

“Perchance they delved too deep and awoke this vile bane of your folk. I suspect they have paid in blood for the foolish dream of returning to Moria. May the Galadhrim not now suffer for it too.”

At the perceived insult of Celeborn’s words, a deep rumble of indignation started to ascend Gimli’s stout throat, to which Gandalf quickly intervened. “Come now Celeborn, remember your history. Durin started to delve Moria before the destruction of Angband. That Balrog must be one of the few survivors of the fall of Morgoth, fleeing far and deep to avoid the wrath of the Valar.”

“Perhaps,” responded the mighty elf dubiously.

Gandalf continued, “I suppose it could have lain there since the Music of the Ainur, but then to blame dwarves for digging, you might as well ask the acorns in Lorien to stop sprouting into saplings. Be reasonable.”

Galadriel laughed daintily at the image the wizard presented, though she noted a shadow of disapproval remaining on her lord’s visage. Addressing her husband, she asked, “If by chance our people were driven from Lothlorien by a dark evil, would even Celeborn forgo a chance to walk again, if only for just a minute, under the golden leaves? Regardless of the peril?”

The Elf Lord nodded his head as he weighed the words of his lady. She continued, meeting the sullen eyes of Gimli, speaking in Khuzdul, the language of dwarves. “The water of Kheled-zaram, the spring of Kibil-nala, the halls of Khazad-dum; these are the memories molded into the sturdy soul of each of Durin’s children at birth. Begrudge them not their dream.”

Gimli’s eyes widened in surprise and appreciation as the lady spoke of his people’s hallowed places in his own tongue, her accent one that would not be out of place under the Lonely Mountain, Erebor. The longer he stared back at Galadriel, the more a feeling near toward love stirred within his heart. Finally unable to further contain himself, he pushed back his chair, grabbed his glass and stood. “To Galadriel, a jewel greater than any every delved or shaped by my ancestors.”

Not a voice in the dining hall failed to rise in agreement with the dwarf’s gallant pronouncement. The Fellowship stayed late into the night enjoying the hospitality of the Lord and Lady of the Galadhrim.

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Galdor watched another tankard fall to the granite floor, spraying more ale or beer or wine among the bones, meat, and other leftover morsels from the messy lunch which the fifty seven dwarf lords sitting, yelling, stomping, and cursing in Cirdan’s Council Room had half masticated their way through while debating the proposal before them. To march on Isengard or to not march. Perhaps ‘debate’ was too kind a term thought the elf lord. ‘Airing of the grievances,’ more rightly he supposed. Firebeard versus Broadbeam. Delf versus delf. Cousin versus cousin. Jilted scorned suitor versus successful disappointed groom. Stonemason versus iron monger. The minutia for rivalries seemed endless.

Galdor felt a nudge in his ribs and he looked down at the dwarven trader beside him, his partner in plotting.

“It goes well,” whispered Azaghal, concealing a smile.

“How so?”

“The eight lady beards left before the mutton were even served. Everyone’s still talking. And no knives have been pulled, though I thought that turd Bavin was gonna throttle a couple of necks.”

“Yes, I suppose those might be considered positive omens. Lucky it seems all abided Cirdan’s request to keep steel out of the hall.”

“Rigghhhht,” drawled Azaghal sarcastically while rolling his eyes.

“Tempers did flair though when Blaese walloped Stend after being taunted for his resemblance to a randy goat.”

“What? That love tap? Negotiations, pure and simple. Nogur gave Stend the nod to stir up a little shindy, he just wanted to get a count of who backed him with a ruling council and who that clod Blaese with the stupid idea of a sole hereditary delf lord. Fortunate only the most stupid backed the idiot and the notion of a sole lord, else we’d be here till the host of Mordor laid siege to us before they’d have got done arguing over which sisters’ second boy deserved it over some other dimwitted spawn of a favorite aunt’s grandchild.”

“Then why the continuing … theatrics?”

“Details, details. Ever seen a sloppy bit of dwarven craftship?”

“No.”

“Damn right! Cause we take details seriously.”

The sound of another mug striking the floor reached Galdor, followed by deep snores. “Give Bilbo a poke, would you Azaghal. He’s an important symbol here. He shouldn’t be seen napping in the middle of council.”

“Oh give the old hobbit a break. He might just get the rest to thinkin’ it’s about time to wrap up.”

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Neralad hunched over and stepped through the door of the tavern in Waymoot. The stunned looks and gaping mouths of the crowd of hobbits warming themselves and taking liquid refreshment in the smoky establishment told the elf all he needed to know about how well the Shire was acclimating to the open presence of his kind, hardly at all.

“Over here!” piped the cheery voice of a hobbit who happened to be sitting at a corner table across from the only other denizen of the bar refusing to be nonplused by the company of an elf.

“Sooooo?” asked this other hobbit. “What’s the news?”

Neralad gave a brief nod. “Master Merry. Master Pippin. A letter,” and he reached inside his cloak to pull out the correspondence, which Pippin unceremoniously snatched out of the elf’s fine leather clad hand.

“It’s from Bilbo.”

“Open it you boor of a Took.”

“I am, I am,” he responded, fingers tearing through the wax seal clasping the envelope closed. A fine piece of vellum was then promptly extracted, from which Pippin started to read.

Dear Merry and Pippin,

I hope this message finds you two scoundrels in fine mettle and as busy as a farmer at harvest time. Myself? Well I can’t complain. The Havens is not Rivendell, Master Cirdan while a fine fellow cannot be confused with Master Elrond. But both do in a pinch.

I truly meant my hope about your busi-ness, haha, for Galdor and Master Cirdan tell me to tell you that the dwarves have agreed to march. How they figured that out I’m not sure, but Azaghal assures me it’s true. Mostly a lot of shouting seemed to happen. About ten dwarf lords left before lunch. I feel asleep for awhile after the victuals, and when I woke they seemed to be taking a final vote. Another ten didn’t like the outcome of that and stormed off in a huff, leaving a little over forty dwarf lords willing to form a host and march on Isengard!

They say the gathering of the host will start in the Far Downs on the twenty-fifth of this month and last for five days, with the march starting on the thirtieth. Everyone says to expect around four thousand mouths and eight thousand feet to come together. Cirdan says he can feed the lot of them through to Michael Delving. You two need to start setting your feedlot up there and be ready by the First. They claim you need to space them out every nine leagues, which means you need seven more lots, with the last by Sarn’s Ford. They seem pretty confident the dwarves will march that distance every day without fail, though I keep telling them its winter, but I don’t think they listen much to me.

Remember to make the Sarn’s Ford feedlot the biggest. It will need to hold enough food to tidy them over the next two hundred or so leagues to Isengard. It would probably be smart to leave any of the extra ponies and carts you bought, instead of rented, at Sarn’s Ford for the host to take with them. The less weight even a stout dwarf’s back needs to lug around the further he should be able to march each day. Think warm thoughts as you scurry in the cold across the Shire.

And if you need any help or guidance, Galdor says not to hesitate in sending him a note.

All for now, best wishes and cheers,
Bilbo

Merry stared hard at Pippin, sucking in a breath. “Well we’re on. Let’s not bollix this up.”

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Halbarad, crouched low on the ridge top, judged it was time to leave and slowly eased himself below the crest line. At least twenty wargs with a half dozen riders spread among them, which he had spied a half mile away through the light flurry, were the primary impetus for his decision. He hopped down the lightly wooded slope, dodging deep snow drifts and stout trunks, but the compacted base which had developed over the last month made it impossible to fully hide the impressions made by his feet. Much of Enedwaith, Minhiriath, Harlindon, and Arthedain lay under a much thicker winter’s coat than the norm, even for mid January. The ill weather had started in the last month of the old year, and hadn’t eased much between then and now. Worse luck, taking advantage of the cloudy, snow filled days and long winter nights, numerous bands of wargs and their orcan riders had pushed north, locust like, devouring any man or beast with the ill chance to come near their voracious maws.

Halbarad instead intended for misfortune to meet this band of evil creatures, much like the other five bands he had helped ambush during the last fortnight. He reached his birch tethered mount and began readying her to ride; first removing the feed bag and then the blanket upon which a half inch of dander had accumulated while he scouted above. The horse started to nervously move its hoofs before the Ranger felt the deep, almost imperceptible, low frequency growl. Then in an explosion of neighs, barks, stomped hoofs, thrown snow, and immense padded feet thumping on the charge, a solitary warg burst through branches and shrubs, aiming straight for him. Apparently the fools had smartened up enough to send out a scout.

With scarcely a blink, he pulled his hand-and-a-half from its sheath tied to the horse’s saddle and charged to meet the assault head on. To let the beast close enough to wound his mount would mean his eventual death from the nearby pack. The mail buried deep under his leather jerkin and bundles of winter clothing might temporarily stop the razor sharp claws and rending teeth of the wolf kin from disemboweling him, but the rest of him had scant protection from the pony sized beast. He stopped just shy of a snow drift, hoping it would cause the warg to jump too soon or provide too soft a base to allow the creature a strong leap.

Time slowed, three … two … one, the warg bounded high … ‘too soon’ Halbarad thought. As the creature descended from its leap, the back legs plunged through the top of the drift, causing the brute’s entire torso to bend to his left, off line. The Ranger stepped to his right and pivoted, allowing the warg’s momentum to start to carry it past him. As his sword started its two handed descent, he felt claws rake the top of a thigh, then a meaty thunk. The warg’s head didn’t come completely off at its neck, but near enough. The force of the rest of the hurdling body tore the sword from his hands. The release of tension caused him to fall back on his arse.

Halbarad peered at his legs through two pairs of torn pants and saw three ragged, parallel lines of gouged flesh. ‘No bone’ he thought. Then he flexed his knee several times. No arterial splash of color greeted that maneuver, just discomfort. Intense discomfort! Regardless, the Ranger forced himself to stand and then tenderly walk over to the rapidly blood draining corpse of the warg. He retrieved his sword, wiping the bloody blade on the cleanest part of the beast’s fur, before moving back toward his highly agitated, fiercely snorting mount. He knew he needed to return to Sarn’s Ford and pull a hunting party together for the next morning. But the question was whether he would be fit to lead it.

 

[High Plains Drifter]

Part 24 – And Her Mirror

When most of the party awoke the next morning in the pavilion, they found Legolas already departed and Gandalf standing at the entrance to the tent, gazing off over the lawn of Caras Galadhon while blowing rings with his newly resupplied pipe-weed. Noting Frodo and Sam’s attention to his smoky habit, the wizard reached into his cloak and pulled out a pouch. “It lacks the bite of a good Southfarthing blend, but it will do.” And Gandalf tossed the package to his two hobbit friends who quickly availed themselves of its contents.

Kitty coughed exaggeratively at the sudden graying of the tent’s atmosphere. “Is there anywhere I can go to escape your polluting hobby?” the teen asked.

Waving the mouth end of his pipe out the pavilion entrance, Gandalf answered, “Go explore. That’s where Legolas is already off to. There is an entire city of elves outside, and we have the permission of their lord and lady to go wherever we wish. Listen to their music, watch them at craftwork, stroll through their gardens, taste their food. You shan’t be bored.”

And for the next several weeks, that is what the Fellowship did. Live without much care for the morrow. Many a night Legolas never returned, sleeping in the homes of whichever distant, distant cousin he had spent the day with. Frequently the Prince of Mirkwood would drag a reluctant Gimli with him to experience some wonder of nature, and as time slowly seemed to pass, the need of Legolas to drag the dwarf lessened until it became totally unnecessary. Boromir and Rogue continued that which they had started at Cerin Amroth, strolling together amongst the trees, in the sunshine, holding hands, and talking. Kitty, feeling abandoned by her teen friend, came one day upon Galadriel and several of her ladies spinning thread, weaving clothes of subtle colors and delicate patterns, and singing songs of tremendous joy and others of terrible sadness. Regularly the youngest mutant returned to that spot, her presence always welcomed. Sam dragged Frodo to every garden spot he could discover within the tall ramparts of the city, and ever so careful did he watch the skills of cultivation the elven greenskeepers applied to their botanic wards. Storm appointed herself Jean’s keeper and brought her to the centers of learning within Caras Galadhon, which tended toward a higher probability of containing an elf with at least a smattering of Westron, the common speech of men and nearly identical to their own English. The women offered to those elves who would listen their earth born explanations for astronomy, physics, chemistry, botany, and calculus. In exchange they listened to the elven explanation of Eru’s laws for how and why Arda functioned as it did. Of Aragorn and Gandalf, little was seen or heard during this time. They would usually leave early, sometimes together, sometimes not; and they tended toward returns after the evening meal. Often they were asked their business, but polite evasions were their invariable responses.

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Legolas jammed his fingers and toes into crevasses of the rough bark of the Mallorn tree as he continued his descent. Dinendon had steered him true, several types of creeping violas, in white, pale yellow, and soft orange hues grew along the upper branches of several Mallorns in this part of Lorien. Somehow, enough soil to support their delicate roots had lodged in the crooks of various branch junctures with the trunk, which along with sufficient mist and precipitation that seeped down the bark from above kept them feed. The part of the elf’s mind not focusing on the climb, reflected on the perfection of the lilac color streaked through the slightly differently colored petal of each viola. He paused and smelled a distinctive odor of smoke. A quick glance showed him a mere twenty feet from the forest floor, he released his grip and dropped, landing lightly on his feet, knees bending to absorb some of the force.

“Hail Mithrandir.”

“Greetings Legolas,” came a voice from the shadow of a nearby tree. The words were quickly followed by his grey hat topped form emerging into a ray of sunshine, giving a paler tint than usual to his normal coloring. “I fear I must ask that our conversation here remain private betwixt us.”

“Your confidences shall remain unspoken.”

“And unthought too, if you will,” came the wizard’s enigmatic reply, which raised the elf’s curiosity higher still, though to look at him revealed no change in attitude. “Soon the Lady Galadriel will begin to offer the members of our Fellowship, either in pairs or alone, the opportunity to peer into her mirror.”

“I have heard rumor of this enchantment, none experience it unchanged.”

“Yes, that may well be true. But even for those of us who may choose not to see her reflections, the mirror is still a sign; a portent that our time of peace in this tranquil wood is ending. The last to be asked will be Frodo, the Ring Bearer, and we shall depart Caras Galadhon the morning after our dear hobbit friend has seen what he will see.”

“What path will you lead us on? To where?“

“To the future.”

“Ah.”

“Each of us shall have a different one. But yours I wish to be entwined with Frodo … to the end. To the very end.”

Legolas crooked his eyebrows, “You and Aragorn have passed beneath the Shadow before. I know nothing of the dark paths and secret tracks of Mordor.”

“True, but Aragorn’s destiny shall tug him elsewhere and I fear I will be needed everywhere and all at once. In your favor you have the keen eye and silent sylvan step of Mirkwood. No finer guide could Frodo want, nor one likely to be tempted aside.”

“And what of Sam?”

Gandalf sighed. “No truer friend could one hope for than Samwise Gamgee. He would protect Frodo with his very life. Let us hope that need never arises, though if ever there were a place to require such, then within the Black Land it is.”

“You spoke of privacy for these words. When shall they be told?”

Gandalf pursed his lips. “Not now. Not for weeks. Far down the Anduin. The time when it comes will likely be obvious, though hard on everyone. Do not mull on this over long in your mind. But do discover what the lore masters of Lorien know about the Ered Lithui and the Ephel Duath.”

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Cirdan peered out through the swirling snow above Forlond toward the Gulf of Luhn. Two inches had already fallen since dawn and much, much more was gathering in the moisture laden skies to the west, ready to bear down and drop at least another foot. This was the start of the third blizzard since the beginning of the new year. December had been wetter than usual as well. It all added up to more than mere coincidence. The Shipwright’s gaze softened and took on a dreamy quality as he widened his vision. A melody came unbidden to his lips and he began to softly sing of his friend Earendil and of the ship Vingilote that he himself had built for the son of Idril and Tuor to ride the swells of the Belegaer, the Great Sea.

As he continued the gentle song, the inner glow of Cirdan touched with echoes of the Music of the Ainur and his vision swelled. His mind’s eye swooped down the long Gulf of Luhn and out over the storm swept waves of the Belegaer. He tasted the air and felt the tug of the currents. As the most skilled captain yet remaining on Middle Earth, the Shipwright adjudged the patterns of wind and water somehow askew. The song he sang then took a harsh tone and spun the tale of how the treacherous sons of Feanor attacked Earendil’s home of Arvernien in search of the Silmaril rescued from Morgoth by Luthien.

His vision turned north, seeking answers. Clouds finally gave way to fierce winds as he looked past the Island of Himling. Eyes grew cold as he peered over the frozen sheet atop the Icebay of Forochel. Further north he stretched, his body swaying in unity with the arctic blasts his mind saw dipping south. Thought became slow, sluggish. The view of Arda started glazing over. Ice! Near invisible black ice was clinging to his aura. The song rasped out through near paralyzed vocal chords, but struggle out it did, telling of beautiful Elwing, the wife of Earendil, grabbing the Silmaril to her bosom and throwing herself into the Sea to avoid capture, though it meant her own certain doom. Then miraculously, Ulmo, the Vala Lord of Waters, raised Elwing out of the waves, giving her the visage of a great bird.

Cirdan fled south, immensely weary, fleeing the icy wind chasing after him, trying to immobilize him in its frozen embrace. But his song warmed him and his vision cleared the farther he withdrew. Refusing to abandon his duty, as Elwing refused to stop searching for her love, he turned his gaze below the Gulf of Luhn and extended his view beyond the shores of Harlindon, eventually catching a glimmer of the waters near the Cape of Andrast. The Harn whales and fluke tunas broached waters too far into the north Belegaer, away from their normal winter grounds in the waters of the Bay of Belfalas … unless, unless, currents warmed in the Southron sun now flowed in opposition to the natural rhythms established by Ulmo. Satisfied, the Shipwright returned to himself, as he sang of how on a clear night aboard the ‘Foam Follower’, swift Vingilote, Earendil spied a stark white cloud quickly rushing at him, as if driven by the winds of a storm. And then the white fell into his arms and he was amazed to behold his beautiful wife, asleep, exhausted by her long quest in search of him, at the last, successful.

The blustery gusts of the incoming blizzard muffled the Shipwright’s sigh and subsequent words, spoken only to the wind, for he had been alone on the deck ring of the Grey Tower. “The arm of the Enemy has indeed grown long; and woe unto us that his reach is aided by the traitor Curunir, whom once I welcomed here as he first stepped afoot on Middle Earth. But perhaps the course of diversion succeeds, if those two fallen children of Eru Iluvatar extend themselves so mightily to keep this refuge shut off from the sea. Much there is now to ponder. What course shall I set?”

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“Boromir was super quiet today,” Kitty said. “I was surprised he didn’t want to go for a walk with you after dinner. You two usually do.”

“Yeah, he’s been kind of flaky today,” Rogue agreed. Then, looking sheepish, she added. “I’ve sort of been ignoring you lately. Sorry, Kitty.”

“You should be, getting yourself a boyfriend while on a mission.”

“No, we’re just …”

“Oh, please!” Kitty cut off her friend. After several moments of silence between the two, Kitty admitted, “He is pretty hunky ...”

Rogue smiled.

“ … if a little old.”

Rogue’s smile turned upside down and she punched Kitty, not too hard, in the shoulder. “He doesn’t even look thirty.”

“No. Nobody on Middle Earth looks their age. And no hitting. Slut.”

“Skank.”

“Uhm …”

“What!?”

“What about Bobby? I mean, back at school, weren’t the two of you … ? You both seemed so … happy … together. When we get back … aren’t you going to … with Bobby?”

A stone mask dropped over Rogue’s face. “Get back, ha! That’s a shitty pipedream. The school, Bobby, our friends, they’re all the hell way off there.” A hand waved vaguely toward the horizon. “And you, and I, we’re stuck here.” A finger pointed hard at the earth under their feet. “And that’s the way it is! Get used to it.”

Kitty started sniffling and tearing up at her friend’s unyielding words and harsh prediction of the future. The teen used the palms of both hands to wipe tears off her damp checks. Suddenly, through her dewy eyes and the twilight cast in the evening air by the lanterns dangling from the branches over her, Kitty saw the Lady Galadriel approaching the two of them. The lady spoke no words, but beckoned them with a welcoming smile and a delicately turned hand.

<come.>

The two friends exchanged a quick look and opted to follow the beautiful elf as she began a stately procession across the thick soft grass; eventually passing through a hedge to enter a garden neither had yet to explore. The lady continued on, taking a long flight of stone stairs placed in the curving turf, descending into a deep, narrow hollow carved out of the hill of Caras Galadhon. They stepped across a slender trickle of stream that watered the plethora of flowers and blossoming shrubs. At last Galadriel stopped on a small terrace of slate upon which rested a low stone pedestal carved in the shape of a Mallorn branch. The top of the pedestal reflected the silver of a basin nestled within an embrace of small marble limbs fashioned to make the top of the pedestal.

The lady waved her hand over the basin. “This is the Mirror of Galadriel. With it I have spied upon the heart of the ancient Enemy. Much it may reveal to one strong enough to look to the future. I offer each of you the choice to gaze upon it.”

“Wha .. what exactly will we see? Tomorrow? A month from now? Ten years from now?” asked Kitty.

“That I cannot say. The mirror reflects the wants, the needs of the viewer. Perhaps it shall merely show you things to gladden your heart. Or mayhap it will reveal things more terrible, more profitable, to behold.”

“That doesn’t sound so good,” murmured Rogue.

“Yeah, but remember what the Professor always says, ‘knowledge is power,’” said Kitty.

“Beware child, it shows not only that which will be, but that which may yet be. And even the wisest cannot always tell the twain apart.”

“Greatttttt,” Rogue sarcastically retorted.

“Can you guide us?” asked KItty.

Galadriel shook her head no. “The mirror reveals most when attuned to only the watcher. Do you wish to look?”

“Should we?” asked Kitty nervously.

“It’s probably a trap,” Rogue answered.

“Maybe it will show if we get home,” Kitty said anxiously.

“And if it does, it doesn’t mean it actually happens. You heard her, ‘that which may yet be.’ This is so a trap. Don’t buy into it Kitty,” Rogue said sternly.

“I’m going to. Please Lady, may I look?” Kitty begged.

Rogue shook her head disgustedly. “Idiot,” she whispered.

The Lady Galadriel reached down, picked up a delicately crafted carafe from behind the pedestal, and poured a thin sheen of water into the silver basin. “Come child, step forward and see what you will see.”

Kitty approached and peered down, noting the reflection of stars from above in the dark water below. Abruptly, the constellation of reflected star light changed and the dark water took on a greyer tone with a hint of mass behind it. The vision on the surface pulled further back, and the lights and grey tone came into focus, taking on distinct forms. Kitty gasped, “It’s the school! The courtyard at night time, the flood lights are on!” she squealed. “I’m taking a walk … with Bobby. We’re talking. I can’t hear what we’re saying.” Kitty leaned over the image; hands reaching to grab the sides of the pedestal, hoping words would emerge from the mute, watery picture.

“Do not touch the water!” Galadriel commanded.

Kitty flinched at the order, but did not lose focus on her glimpses of home. Home! “Coooool! Bobby’s icing up the fountain. We’re going skating.” She stopped talking as a funny feeling built within her, watching Bobby hold her hand, teaching her how to skate, together.

“Hey, the light faded. Oh!” A new image slowly swirled into focus on the Mirror. Forbidding mountains lay in the distance under a sky obscured by angry black clouds and soot filled air. A tired, pathetic group, all manacled to a long iron chain, trudged slowly in unison along a dusty, hard beaten trail. Several gnarly looking orcs, many missing digits, or a hand, or an ear, or even an eye kept pace, occasionally snapping whips fiercely across the backs of the lowly prisoners or slaves. Finally the fattest orc held up his whip and the chain gang lurched to a sudden halt, immediately followed by exhausted falls to the ground by those fettered together. The point of view of the mirror swooped around the group to the other side and focused closely on one excruciatingly slender, thread bare prisoner, bent over, long, tangled, dirty hair obscuring the face. A dirty, sore laden hand pushed the ragged tresses back, revealing … “Me.” Kitty uttered in a shocked huff. Kitty watched as a smirk came across her other face, and then watched her other self’s ankles phase through the shackles. “You go girl! No stop!”

Again the image on the Mirror swirled. Blacker than midnight the water churned, except for the dimmest hint of light on one edge of the vision. Seconds passed, then finally Kitty saw her own face slowly emerge from the darkness, a nose, a smiling mouth, two bright eyes, rosy cheeks. Her mirrored face expressed a look of euphoria. Bit by bit, more of her came into view. Her hair was whipping around behind her. The top of her upper arms, stretched outward from her shoulders, became visible. The light of dawn started to reflect in her irises. “I’m flying,” Kitty whispered giddily. Unable to restrain her enthusiasm at the moment of perfect happiness before her, the teen started jumping up and down, clapping her hands in joy. “Oh, is it over?” asked a crestfallen Kitty.

“Yes, Katherine Anne Pryde. Are you happy with what you saw?”

“Shut up! Of course I am!” Finally, remembering her manners, Kitty forcibly calmed herself. “Thank you for this gift Lady Galadriel. If there is anything I can ever do to repay your favor, please, just ask.”

The Lady of Lorien smiled at the enthusiasm and innocence of this daughter of man. “By your coming to my home, you and all your Fellowship have already given me a greater gift, the gift of renewed hope. So please take another gift, if you will, and that is to remember that the Mirror shows many things. Many have yet to pass; and some never do. Be wary in letting the Mirror be your guide.” With that pronouncement, Galadriel turned to her other companion.

“Anna Marie D’Ancanto, do you wish to dare the Mirror?”

A thoughtful look spread across Rogue’s face. At last she spoke. “Are you offering this choice to all of us?”

The Lady nodded her head in acknowledgement.

“Last night, did Boromir look in the Mirror.”

“It is not for me to say what any one person may have seen in the Mirror.”

“I’m not asking what he saw. I’m asking if he chose to look.”

“He did.”

Rogue chewed at her lower lip, remembering Boromir’s strange behavior all day long and trying to guess the implications of it. “No. I’m right. This is a trap. I failed your first test, the day we arrived.” Rogue whirled her hand around to encompass Caras Galadhon and Lorien beyond. “This is all a trap. I won’t look in your Mirror. I want to leave. We need to leave. This place isn’t real.”

Galadriel gestured toward the way they had entered the hollow. “You will depart anon, once every member of your Fellowship has been offered the use of the Mirror.”

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The Lady had surprised Jean, but not Storm. Jean’s back had been turned, and the gracious, beautiful elven maid presented nothing for her mind’s eye to take note of Galadriel’s approach. Jean was in deep conversation with Storm, when her snow haired friend unexpectedly blurted out, “A pleasure to see you this evening my lady. How may we be of service?” The resulting stroll with their hostess had taken the two mutants to a lovely garden, an intriguing magical device, and an interesting choice. After debating the metaphysics, quantum temporal mechanics, possible butterfly effects, and the morality of knowing the future, or fragments of possible futures, both women chose to view the Mirror, despite the frustratingly enigmatic answers they received from Galadriel to their more probing questions. By the ages old tradition of rock, paper, scissor, Storm, by dint of victory, earned the right to peer into the Mirror first.

The Lady of the Golden Woods poured water into the basin, bade Storm to watch, and added one final advice as the mutant stepped up to the pedestal, “Ororo Munroe, do not touch the water.”

“Wow, I’m gorgeous,” Storm whispered. A small crown sat atop her head, helping to restrain a tremendous amount of intricately braided hair. A luxurious gown of grey, white, and black lay draped across her shoulders, elaborate silver bracelets entwined around both forearms, and a thick golden torc wrapped her neck. Several graying, but still vital men and women sat at a long table before her. Resting on top of the mahogany colored wood were papers, maps, sketches, a diorama, and small models of buildings, a water screw, a wagon, a boat, and other devices. Storm saw herself point at something down the table and watched as the others in the room nodded their heads in sage agreement. The new view of the large stone room, hung with tapestries, allowed her to note the presence of a hobbit, a dwarf, and two elves also in attendance; though none she recongized.

As Storm became entranced with the revelations of the Mirror, Jean felt a tingling sensation come over her body. A buzzing sound swamped her ears, till she realized the buzzing came from inside her head.

The image in the Mirror spun to reveal herself now standing atop some precipice or great height. “Definitely not so glamorous now,” she whispered. A gaunt, bone weary picture of herself came into focus, her eyes milky white. Wind whipped around her, causing her to stagger as she raised tired, stick thin arms above her head. She staggered, and the reflection of the mirror pulled back enough to show strong arms snatch out to grab her thighs, steadying her. “Good catch.” She realized she stood in the crenellation of a battlement atop an almost impossibly white wall.

The picture changed to show a hand walloping her back, causing water to gush out of her mouth, adding to the sodden mixture drenching her body which lay on some nameless sand spit somewhere.

Jean shook her head, hoping to clear the uncomfortable feelings affecting her. She turned to her tantric lessons, hoping the biofeedback techniques first taught her as a young teenager by the Professor would restore her equilibrium.

<<watch. learn. freedom.>>

After only a few seconds of viewing the scene abruptly faded and shifted to a vision of Galdor, dressed in martial splendor, but a look of pained sadness on his face. Storm watched as the elf delivered a formal bow and turned to walk off into an all encompassing gleam of white light. When the light faded she saw a sweaty, gasping, tired version of herself staring straight out at her.

“What now?” Her neck arched, a pained expression spasmed across her tight face, and then a look of relief slowly, slowly spread through her checks, an unknown tension ebbing away. Her head finally turned downward and she saw her lips move, speaking, then ending in a smile. “Awwwwww,” Storm murmured with the sweetest tone. The mirror edged the view back slightly and the alternate Storm held a light mocha, olive skinned baby, with a brilliant white head of hair at her breast. The mirror darkened, and the reflection of the stars high above returned to the watery surface.

“That was incredible,” whispered Storm. “I think I was a Queen, and I had a baby. A baby.” Turning to look at her friend, she declared in an excited voice, “You really have to try this Jean.”

With Storm’s words, Jean gulped, the sensations afflicting her, had suddenly ended. “Woo, it seemed pretty intense from here. I’m not sure now ...”

<<do it. watch. learn.>>

“… but you look happy with the results, so why not. “

“Viewing the Mirror is both smart and perilous,” interrupted Galadriel. “Things that are seen may be fair or evil, or may only appear so. It is through the lens of your wisdom that you should act upon which you will see. It does not provide answers, only possibilities. Tread careful before you decide Jean Grey.”

A look of annoyance at being lectured to almost fought its way across the red head’s face. Instead, she plastered on her most gracious smile. “I think we understand the implications,” she condescendingly replied.

<do you jean grey?>

<yes.>

<<yes!>>

After a long pause, Galadriel said, “Very well, step forward and see what is to be seen.”

“Scott!” she yelped. Scott Summers, dressed to perfection in a grey morning coat with tails, paisley vest, and a top hat waited beside the alter of a crowded church; Hank, Piotr, and an uncomfortable looking Logan, all clad similarly, stood next to him. Jean watched as a woman in a wedding dress, with long red air spilling out from beneath the veil covering her face, walked down the aisle toward her beloved. At the bride’s side, accompanying her, Professor X rode in his wheelchair. Jean’s heart beat so hard in her chest she barely noticed the return of the tingling sensations and the buzzing in her mind.

The image started rearranging itself. “No! Don’t go yet!” pleaded Jean. Everything was different, except for the Professor. He was still there, but he stood, no wheelchair in sight, on a dark, storm swept hill in front of a rain drenched Jean. His hands beckoned at the other Jean. His lips moved, but no sound reached through the watery image to Jean’s ears. The Professor’s face took on a well known look of disapproval and sadness. ‘Oh how well he’d always done that,’ she thought. The Professor clutched at his head, and then his appearance started to waiver, became translucent, then disappeared all together. Jean saw her twin-self lift back her head and unleash a howl of anguish. Unconsciously Jean’s mind flexed, invisible telekinetic hands grabbed at the pedestal in frustration, causing it to lean slightly. The water in the basin started swaying to the side, the edge of the meniscus of the liquid just barely missing the rim of the basin.

<do not touch the water!>

Jean unclenched her mind, allowing the pedestal to settle, the shifting water lost the vision, replaced by swirls of ill defined color until slowly a new, fiery image finally took hold. Her other her now stood before a mighty structure of stone, tall as a skyscraper, and at its top hovered a giant, unblinking red eye. Bolts of black and green energy erupted out of it, firing down at the personification of Jean, promptly sheathed in the astral fire of a burning bird of prey. An arm raised, and with it a flaming wing extended, enlarged into a shield like shape, to intercept and deflect the rays of death flung upon her. An instant later she was airborne, telekinetic wings flaring with a burning light, as they lifted her into the air to weave and dodge the unending assaults. Jean watch as pain burst upon her face as a bolt struck home, burning through her shields, to leave horrible burns on arms, legs, and torso. A sudden burst of speed and Narwilinien rushed straight at the Eye, absorbing incredible punishment in the effort to close with the Enemy. She landed atop the tower and started to grow the size of her pyrokinetic avian alter ego till in hardly a blink of an eye it matched the dimension of the Eye. Fiery claws clutched at the magic fueled entity before it, pulling the Eye into the bird’s grasp. Then the enormous beak started lashing out, rendering huge chunks of magical manna from the barely tangible orb. The tower beneath her began to shiver and quake, but at that moment the Mirror started to rearrange its reflection yet again.

<<excellent. (supreme satisfaction)>>

A frightfully scarred Jean, wore barely a stitch of clothing, while she sat on a throne of skulls and swords. A horde of misshapen goblins groveled at her feet and a spider, at least ten feet long, slithered silkily above her, on the upper lip of the massive chair, like a demented pet monkey or the twisted parody of a parrot. “No, no, no,” she rasped aloud. ‘How could I ever come to that?” she wondered, horrified.

<<take the mirror. take it! take it! i will show you how.>>

A part of Jean’s psyche, barely accessible to her conscious thoughts, now hummed at an identical frequency as the buzzing in her mind. This part of her, scarcely acknowledged and kept hidden out of fear, began to slither loose from the near inaccessible compartment buried deep within Jean. It ever so lightly caressed the edge of the flux created by the Mirror, tasting the indomitable will that supported, enabled, and accursedly protected an echo of a pure note of the Song secured within the enchantment. The thing coiled.

Galadriel’s hand, one finger glittering like a comet, lashed out, cutting a swathe through the murky water inside the basin. The vision of the dark, perverted Jean immediately swept away, replaced by ... nothing. The buzzing which had built up like the waters behind a dam within Jean’s mind evaporated instantaneously. The thing found itself snatched unwilling back to its bitter, hidden dungeon.

A tiny smile played itself over the Lady’s lips. “My apologies Jean. I thought I should show you what happens when the water of the Mirror is touched. The images end. So sorry. Would you like to look again?”

“N .. n .. no, thank you,” Jean stuttered, feeling sick to her stomach at the whipsaw of events that had been revealed to her. “I think I saw more than enough.”

“Indeed,” replied Galadriel.

“Storm, let’s go back to the tent. I think I need to lie down.”

 

[High Plains Drifter]

Part 25 – The Anduin Calls

The curtained entrance to the pavilion turned slightly, revealing only a sliver of the night and two dour looking hobbits. They entered and trudged over to their sleeping mats. Frodo sat down on the edge of his with a pensive look on his face. Sam, with an evident amount of distress, threw himself down on his.

“Why so glum Sam? Frodo?” Gimli inquired.

Frodo simply shook his head no at the dwarf’s question. Sam answered aloud. “There’s trouble in the Shire. The gaffer’s running off in the cold dark wearing nothing but his gown and night cap. Bywater is a fire. Giant wolves are racing up the Hill. A right, scary mess!”

Knowing nods broke out across those of the Fellowship inside the pavilion. “Ahhh, the Lady showed you her Mirror then,” said a solemn Gimli. “I looked too and saw terrible things. I rode upon the sea. Worse,” and with that Gimli’s voice dropped and he peered around the room as if worried his words might be overheard, “I saw myself in a tunnel, so fearful I could scarce put a foot forward.” Then he bellowed, “ME!?! A dwarf! Afraid to walk beneath the Earth?!”

Boromir broke in, “I do not trust this Elvish Lady. What are her purposes? Are we fools to trust her so?”

“Say no ill of the Lady Galadriel,” interjected Aragorn fiercely. “She and this land hold no evil, unless one brings it here from within his heart.”

Anger at the implied slight burst upon the large man’s face. “Of course you would defend her, wouldn’t you Dunedain?” sneered Boromir.

“Oh be quiet,” declared Gimli loudly, “the both of you. I saw beauty too, not just ill. There were glittering caves and a field of slain rakhas. Our lives are what we hammer out of them. The Mirror offers but a glimmer of the possible shapes we can forge when we take our iron out of the fire.”

“Then why is the Shire falling all to pieces?” Sam cried. “I couldn’t cause all that to happen.”

“Of course not,” came Jean’s reassuring voice. “But as you are strong enough to follow Frodo on his quest, so too will you be strong enough to face whatever you find when you return home.”

“Face your fears and embrace the happy times. That is the lesson I took from the Mirror,” said Storm.

“No,” spoke Rogue sullenly. “Take nothing from the Mirror. Look at you, morose and fighting with each other. Boromir, what did you see?”

“I … I saw my father. He stood atop the Tower of Ecthelion in great despair. And he yelled at me in his Council Hall. Other things too I saw, of which I will not speak.”

“See. It’s all a trap. Jean did you look?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to tell us what you saw?”

For an instant Jean’s eyes darted to Storm’s. “I think, I think I will keep what I saw to myself.”

“Of course you will,” replied Rogue with heat and scorn. “None of us is a thousands year old elf filled with magic and oh so great amounts of queenly wisdom. The Mirror is a game we don’t even know the rules for. This Lady Galadriel …”

“Yes? What about me?” came a sweet, melodious voice. The Lady and Lord of Lorien entered the pavilion, immediately followed by Gandalf, and then by Legolas.

“Welcome,” responded Aragorn, giving the visitors a bow. “We were speaking of your gift of the Mirror.”

“Which you choose not to accept,” responded the Ladym with a smile on her lips.

“The glimpse granted me in my youth, lady, appears to have sufficed. That gift has not yet run its course.”

“We come,” announced the Lord Celeborn, “because all who would accept the Lady’s offer have done so. Tomorrow is the day for the Ring Bearer, and those who would accompany him, to return to the Quest, to journey toward Mordor and Orodruin. Any who wish may remain in Lothlorien, at least for a while. Peace you have felt here, but I warn you, we of the Galadhrim will face war ere long. This haven will struggle against the strong arm of the Enemy, to contest the guardianship of the Golden Wood. So think before you answer my question. Whither shall you go?”

“Forward I think,” Gandalf slyly espoused.

“They are resolved,” confirmed Galadriel.

“Yes. I see that too. But where exactly shall each go?” mused Celeborn. “And by what methods? The Great River looms in front of you, moving ever southward, widening, passing between Minas Morgul and Minas Tirith. Have you decided a course?”

“We have not,” murmured the wizard.

“To Minas Tirith,” declared Boromir, talking over any further words Gandalf may have intended to speak. “My way lies homeward. My father, Gondor, require succor. I beg my companions,” and the large man’s voice took on the most plaintive tone any had ever heard from him, “aid me. Give yourselves to Gondor, the bulwark against the Darkness.”

“Certainly aid shall come to the shining white walls of your home,” soothed Gandalf. “But many are the paths for accomplishing that. We are not at the point where we need to split asunder. But let us tonight talk about what paths we can foresee might need to be taken.”

“It is not for me to urge one road over another, but let me offer some small help if it agreeable to you,” Celeborn suggested kindly. Taking silence for concurrence, the Lord of Lorien continued. “Let us furnish you with boats, so you may use the Great River to speed your travels. And as there are no bridges now over the Anduin, when the time comes for the Ring Bearer to strike for the eastern shore, a means to do so will be available.”

“Boats,” muttered Gimli. “The Sea already prepares to mock me.”

“They shall be small and light,” added Galadriel, “so you may carry them where the waters turn too quick or rough for navigation. And I believe you have those among you with some skill in their handling.” And the lady nodded toward Boromir, Aragorn, and Legolas.

“I too have garnered some skills in Middle Earth more usefull than the enjoyment of pipe-weed,” declared Gandalf with a wry smile. “We thank you for your generosity. Now if you will forgive us, as we depart on the morrow, we must converse upon the way forward and gather up our meager possessions in preparation.”

“My kin shall help you in the morning with provisions and such before guiding you to the water’s edge by the sun’s apex,” announced Celeborn.

As the Lord and Lady turned to leave, Galadriel said, “Rest peacefully my friends. Do not linger long with thoughts of the road ahead. Perhaps the road you each shall tread is already laid before you like a gossamer thread. Good night.”

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As if Galadriel had already seen of what she spoke, the Company spent only a small while discussing the possible ends of the journey. Boromir again begged Frodo and the four ladies to come to Minas Tirith. “With your powers, Mordor and her allies would be crushed trying to cross the Anduin. Then we could march safely through the Mountains of Shadows to dispose of the Ring.” Aragorn admitted, “Before the journey is over, I shall come to Minas Tirith. I know this in my heart.” Storm asked, “Is anything to be done with Saruman? And what of Rohan? What good is everything if we get stabbed in the back?” Rogue questioned, “Who the hell has any idea of how to sneak into Mordor?” To which Gandalf, Aragorn, and Boromir all admitted varying degrees of knowledge. Sam declared, “I’m going where Mr. Frodo goes.” Kitty wondered, “Why wouldn’t we stick with Frodo? The only reason we’re here is because he asked us to come with him.” “Give me some orcs to kill and I’ll be happy wherever I go,” Gimli proclaimed to any who listened. Gandalf limited his remarks to stating the need to travel down the west bank of the Anduin and reassuring everyone that Frodo and Sam would not travel alone, but without declaring who would accompany them. Jean and Legolas stayed silent, staring at each speaker. Frodo too did not speak, but watched everyone intently, carefully weighing all he saw and heard. Boromir he found worrisome. Gandalf, by lack of a plan, unnerved him. Jean took his breath away the one time her hawk like gaze a lit on him.

When talk ended, each member of the Fellowship began to gather the slender goods they had carried into Lorien and any tidbits acquired in the month, less one day, they resided on the hill of Caras Galadhon.

Legolas announced, “Worry not about victuals, tomorrow the Galadhrim will provide us with enough travel fare to see us through the next step of our journey.”

“Oh cram. Lovely, lovely cram. How I struggle to hold you tight. My belt keeps you in my embrace, before you can slip away,” Gimli sang to himself in a soft bass.

“Mr. Frodo, can Fatty come on my boat? I think he’ll do best if I’m there to keep him calm on the River.”

Aragorn overheard the kindly hobbit, and chuckled softly. “Sam, I fear there will likely be bare enough room for the eleven of us. Fatty will need to stay behind.”

“What?!”

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Haldir, who the Fellowship had only seen occasionally the last month, led a contingent of elves, all of whom had some familiarity with Westron, into the pavilion in the morning, bringing gifts of food and clothing to the travelers. Sam and the four mutants recognized the thin, light brown cakes as a type of lembas, which Glorfindel had shared with them during their journey between Bree and Rivendell. An elf informed them that a single cake would keep a person on his or her feet for a hard day’s walk. Kitty’s pride shone when the elves unwrapped hooded cloaks to give to each of them. She had assisted Galadriel and her ladies, if only a little, at their looms in the making of the garments. They were warm, yet light, and most impressively seemed to alter their color to match the hues of whatever background they moved through. After a final, simple meal under the pavilion, the party picked up their packs and bid a fond farewell to their pleasant abode beneath the mighty Mallyrn of Caras Galadhon.

Sam, sniffling, whispered into Fatty’s ear, making the lone sorrowful goodbye of the morning next to the fountain beneath the Lord and Lady’s flet, “I’ll miss ya boy. You done good getting us here to these elves. They’ll treat you right. Master Haldir promised he’d look after you. Not many a pony can say he lived with elves. Try not to miss me too much. I’ll be back ta get ya if I can.” The kindly hobbit placed a last kiss on the pony’s muzzle, stroked his neck once more, then gave him a carrot. “I’m ready now. Let’s go,” he declared.

The Fellowship walked silently under the trees, following Haldir as he took the southern slope down the hill to the wide avenue which curved and stretched to the outer wall and the white bridge. Passing over the bridge they left the city of the elves, eventually taking a path weaving between Mallyrn, Oaks, and Elms that led east and southward, toward the distant hum of running water. After an easy ten mile hike over rolling woodland and the occasional flower spotted lea, the party passed through the opening of a tall green wall and came upon a shining lawn sparkling with golden elanor blossoms. The lawn ended in a tongue of land which divided the mighty, churning Anduin to the left and the glistening, calm Silverlode to the right. Upon the tongue many a boat rested by the waters and a gazebo sat, populated by many elves, dressed in vibrant livery.

“You did not think the Lord Celeborn and the Lady Galadriel would let us leave without a goodbye, did you?” asked Gandalf, a warm smile splitting his face.

As if to prove the wizard’s very words, the two great elves strode out from beneath the shaded resting place to greet them. “We have come to speed your journey with blessings from our fair land,” the lady said. “And to offer you a parting feast here before the flowing waters that will bear you far from our sight,” added the lord. The pair then guided the company to where four grey boats, empty except for paddles, lay on a small sheet of golden sand. Haldir and the other elves that accompanied their walk that morning took the companions’ packs and stowed them in the slender, but strongly built vessels. More packages of food, and coils of rope too, were laden into the hulls, till just space enough to fit the travelers was left open.

While the Fellowship ate the amazing spread of food splayed across the tables beneath the ornate gazebo, the Lady Galadriel picked up a harp and began playing. “I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leave of gold there grew: Of wind I sang …” Celeborn spoke to those who would listen of the course of the Anduin as it stretched south between the Brown Lands and the Wold, through the flinty moors of Emyn Muil, past the island of Tol Brandir, and over the cataracts of Rauros. Words of warning were exchanged on how far the evil in Dol Guldur might range and guesses made on whether orcs or fell men had begun to issue forth from the Black Gate. Frodo paid little attention to these discussions, though he did shiver once when he overheard Legolas speak of the flying creatures apparently now available to the Black Riders. Primarily the Ring Bearer focused his mind on the beauty of Galadriel and her voice, strong, but kind.

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Frodo shook himself alert when the Lady laid aside her harp and stood up, taking a chalice from a nearby maiden. “Now is the time for the Farewell Cup,” she declared, and walked to each of the Fellowship that they might drink from it. When all of the eleven had drunk, she offered it next to Celeborn, then finally she herself partook of it. “Before you depart, there are gifts which the Galadhrim offer you as tokens of our respect for the journey you take on behalf of all who wish to live freely upon Middle Earth. For the leader of your company, a trifle, to help ease your mind when it is weary.”

Gandalf chuckled with delight and appreciation as a water proof pouch filled to capacity with pipe weed was handed to him. Celeborn turned to Kitty and presented her with a silver gilded belt. Before allowing her to wear it, he demonstrated how it could uncoil into a rope and the buckle become a grappling hook.

The Lady stepped forward next to present Boromir a belt of gold. Legolas received from Celeborn a stout bow of the Galadhrim, strung with elf-hair, and carrying a pull far greater than that offered by his own bow, crafted in Mirkwood.

“For the gardener,” announced Galadriel, handing over to Sam a plain grey box embossed with only a silver rune of G. “Within is earth from my orchard. When you see your home again, plant a fresh with a sprinkle of it and few will be the gardens in Middle Earth that bloom to match which you till.” Sam reddened with embarrassment and could only bow his thanks to the Lady.

Rogue accepted from Celeborn a crescent shaped blade. “His name is Ithil Fein, Moonbeam perhaps you would say. A host of glam and other dread beasts it has slain since first it was forged long ago in ancient Doriath.” Rogue grinned in appreciation of the gift.

“Gimli, son of Gloin, it is said nothing made by hand may surpass the work of dwarves, so our gift to you is not one of craft,” declared Galadriel and she began to unbraid one of her long tresses.

“No, no,” stammered the dwarf. “I could not ask for such a gift, it … it surpasses the gold of the earth as the stars surpass the gems of the mine.”

The Lady smiled as she continued uncoiling a tress. “I spoke of the skill of your hands, rather should I have about your tongue. Your gallant words reassure me that the gift is well chosen.” With that three long golden hairs were plucked and laid in Gimli’s hand. “These words too I give thee, Gimli son of Gloin, if hope should not fail, then your hands shall flow with gold, yet gold shall have no hold over you.”

“In thanks I pledge unto you that so long as I breath shall there be good will between the hard Mountain and the airy Wood.”

“Ororo,” spoke Celeborn, garnering the mutant’s attention. “You march off to battle, for which you are well prepared. For you, we give the gift of life.” The Lord placed an intricately embroidered bag into Storm’s hands. “Within are special plants picked by the Galadhrim and draughts brewed by my lady wife that may, for some on your journey, prove the narrow difference between life and death. Ask of your friend the Ranger if you have questions about their efficacy.”

“For the heir of Elendil, may the sword that has been made anew never break,” declared Celeborn as he passed to Aragorn an elegant sheath upon which in gems was written the name of his blade, Anduril.

The Son of Arathorn bowed his head, “I thank you.”

“Another item may yet lighten your heart,” said Galadriel. “It was left with me should you ever again happen to pass through this land.” The Lady drew out a silver brooch upon which lay a vibrant green stone of many facets. “From my hand to my daughter’s and from her hand to my granddaughter’s. Arwen wanted you to have this as a token of hope. Take it! And take too the name foretold for you, Elessar, the Elfstone of the house of Elendil!”

Aragorn accepted the gift and pinned it upon his tunic close to his heart. As he spoke, all who gazed upon him noted that a majestic presence had entered his stance, making him appear taller, broader of shoulder, and more regal of bearing. “O Lady of Lorien, of whom sprung Celebrian and Arwen Evenstar, what more could be asked for than your blessing. I thank you.”

“Jean Grey, you wear above your breast the image of a bird of prey. Not all of life is harsh. We offer you jewelry befitting the peace of Lorien,” said the Lord of the Galadhrim as he handed to the red head a golden necklace lattice supporting many small crystals. “Within each small gem is captured a particular, small token of the Golden Wood; be it wind, earth, water, leaf, bud, petal, or light. May the serenity of our home stay with you always.”

“And you, Frodo, bearer of the Ring,” said Galadriel, “who will travel into a darkness greater than any dare to imagine, we have prepared this.” The Lady held up a slender crystal phial, which glittered as it moved into the hobbit’s hands. “In here is light of Earendil’s star, may it brighten you in dark places, when all other lights, even hope, have dimmed.”

Frodo simply bowed to the Lady and the Lord, finding no words to say unto them.

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Celeborn and Galadriel led them back to their boats. All was ready for departure. Standing on the sand, Kitty asked, “Well who goes where?”

“A sharp question child, requiring answers,” responded Gandalf rubbing at his beard in contemplation. “The best four with paddle or oar should each perch at a stern. Legolas, I suspect you the steadiest, take Frodo and Sam with you.” The tiniest of smiles edged the elf’s lips and he nodded agreement at the wizard’s suggestion.

“Boromir, why don’t you have Rogue and Gimli row with you.” Boromir and Rogue beamed at the choice, pleased with the pairing.

“I take the front. I am neither cargo nor ballast,” declared the dwarf to the Company’s amusement. “And I surely don’t want to see Rogue turning to moon over my head every other minute.”

“Storm and Kitty, go with Aragorn. Jean, please come with me. I suspect I shall have need of your mind to help propel me when my old arms tire.”

As they climbed in, Haldir warned them, “Go slowly at first, till you gain the feel of these boats. They might tip if you treat them poorly.”

Elves with long poles helped propel them off the sand and into the calm waters of the Silverlode, reflecting the afternoon sun.

“You will not travel far before you pierce past the veil of Lorien; the harshness of winter will come back upon you then. Farewell!” shouted Celeborn.

“Farewell!” bade Galadriel.

“Farewell!” cheered all the elves watching their departure.

The Company shouted their goodbyes as well. They paddled slowly, learning the tricks of the craft. Slowly the Silverlode passed out into the current of the Anduin. The figures of the elves grew distant and smaller. But before they passed wholly out of sight, the whisper of song could be heard floating on the wind. Fair were the words, of any elvish tongue unknown to any of the Fellowship, save perhaps Gandalf, but little comfort did they bring as the world around them slipped from vibrant green to dull greys and cold browns.

“Ai! Laurie lantar lassi surinen, yeni unotime ve ramar aldaron! Yeni ve linte yuldar avanier mi oromardi lisse-miruvoreva … “

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The four small boats floating on the Great River steered around a bend and though the sun still hung high in the sky the light of Lorien seemed to dim till finally it lay completely hidden. Sadness for a time gripped the heart of each of the Fellowship as the peace provided them the last month under the veil of the Lady began to ebb. Some, such as Gimli, Sam, and Kitty expressed their loss by crying. Others like Aragorn, Gandalf, and Legolas choose to remember the fleeing sensation with something akin to nostalgia. Boromir and Rogue felt uneasy, not understanding the feelings sweeping through them, so they focused on what made them happy, thinking of each other. For Frodo, the passing of Galadriel’s grace returned the full weight of the Ring to his slender hobbit shoulders, and it had never before felt so heavy, causing him to slump in his seat. Jean grew faint, stopped paddling, and rested her head between her knees.

“Jean? Are you well?” asked Gandalf solicitously.

“No,” she mumbled, just loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the river. “Feel sick. Head hurts ... Might throw up ... I hear a buzzing, feel a buzzing ... unnatural.”

<<free me.>>

Jean caused the boat to sway dangerously as she leaned over the edge to wretch up much of her lunch. Gandalf quickly leaned in counterpoint and paddled furiously to keep them from tipping over and spinning. Once he recovered control of the boat, he spoke, “You feel the effects of leaving Lorien and returning to the less orderly nature of the world. I feel it too. We all do to one level or another.”

“Ungh.” Urp. More of the contents of Jean’s stomach emptied into the Anduin.

<perchance you were provided a remedy. find the gift.>

<hunh? … what?>

<the necklace, put on the necklace. [image of a shimmering golden necklace of many strands, with small crystals of various colors connecting between the strands to make a lattice]>

A shaking hand rummaged inside the folds of a pack, pulling this bit and that bit out until it clutched the fair bands and crystals of elven craft. Jean tried to clasp it around her neck, but the pendant of the winged bird she’d affixed to the breast of her tunic kept snagging at the necklace, keeping her from completing the circle. At last frustrated, she removed the gold jewelry she’d created months before in Rivendell out of the broken boulder from the Bruinen.

<<no!>>

“Ahhhhh,” Jean sighed, settling the gift presented her by Celeborn firmly around her neck and upper chest. “That feels better. Mind if I rest for a while Gandalf?”

“Pish, little bird. The river does most of the work. And since we’ll likely travel into the night, time enough for you to aid me later.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Saruman lowered his arms and from the Pinnacle of Orthanc gazed far off in the night sky, between the summits of the southern reaches of the Misty Mountains, out to the West and the Sea. Every night for the last three months he had climbed hundreds of steps to this perch, to spend an hour reinforcing the enchantments of air and water he conjured to keep Cirdan and his ships enclosed at the Havens. Tonight, for the first time, he had felt a power emanate from the Gulf of Luhn to contest his dominion of the southern seas and skies. From the beginning, the Lord of Many Colours had thought it unlikely that his former partners in the White Council would try to send the Ring to the West, but to placate his temporary, amorphous ally he had joined in the plan to bottle the Shipwright up. But before the start of the New Year word had trickled in of a particularly meddlesome hobbit’s journey from Rivendell to Lindon; as well as of elves skulking about to no good below the Gwathlo. This had tempered his ire some at these nightly expenditures, and had even intrigued him enough to send wargs and their riders to scout as far as the Grey One’s precious Shire. The unusual disturbances a month ago about Moria had smelled of That One’s trickery and tilted his opinion back to that of the Havens being a mere distraction. But now? ’Why after all this time would Cirdan finally seek to contest me? And him in Mordor?’ pondered Saruman.

Many possibilities bounced around his crafty mind as he made the slow procession back inside his black tower. Regardless, too few reports were coming back from the five hundred wargs sent north, something was up, whether the main stratagem of those seeking to thwart him or simply a mirage to distract him; and Saruman needed answers. “Ilgrik!” Curunir shouted upon returning to the Receiving Hall.

“Yes Lord?” hissed the Uruk-hai on duty.

“Send birds to the Axe Wolf of the Wildmen. Tell him he is to take his shieldmen in a raid over the Baranduin.”

“Lord, he is the furthest and newest of the Wildmen chiefs to pledge to you. The Baranduin is far.”

“You think he would defy my order,” rumbled Saruman ominously, displeased at his servant’s insinuation.

“Nooooo Lord. But he might think a farm burned or a sheep raped a great victory and reporting such to you, return home, satisfied with his honor.”

“Hhmmmnn, you may be correct. Tell me, which Hands prepare to next guard the Isen?”

“The Stone Fists, the Hammers, and the White Claws.”

“Pick the two most ready. Let us see if a thousand Uruk-hai will stiffen the spines of this Dunland chief’s warriors. Tell the Axe Wolf they will reach him in ten days; and I expect woe and ruin to be inflicted on these hobbits Gandalf is so fond of.”

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Frodo woke the first morning away from Lorien to find a thin sheet of snow on the ground. The night before, as clouds began to cover the moon, they’d pulled up their boats on the west bank of the Anduin among a small woodland of grey barked trees. When Frodo poked his head out from beneath the tarp he’d slept under, he saw Sam and Boromir puttering with a fire and making a breakfast of porridge with raisins. Once served breakfast, a distinct unease descended upon the hobbit, for each time he looked up from his bowl, he found the large man from Gondor staring at him. It unsettled him enough he reassuringly patted his tunic several times to feel the comforting lump made by the Ring where it hung from the necklace around his neck.

As the Fellowship broke camp and made its way to the boats, snow and ice crackling under feet on the sands of the river bank, Boromir spoke up, ”Frodo, why don’t you switch with Gimli and ride with me today?”

“What? Want to get rid of me already?” burst an agitated Gimli.

“No, just you became such friends with Legolas in Lorien, I thought you might …”

“No thank you Boromir,” interrupted Frodo. “I’m quite happy staying with Sam. You keep Gimli.”

“I’m an unwanted prize now, am I? Well I shan’t ride with either of you today.”

“Come ride with me Gimli,” offered Aragorn. “We’ll pass over Kitty so Boromir will have two children to nursemaid today.”

The dwarf snorted with amusement at the Ranger’s jab.

“Hey, not nice,” declared Kitty.

“Agreed,” Gimli happily assented. “But I don’t ride in the middle.”

Storm sighed and shook her head slightly at the seemingly petty politics. “Oh very well. I will.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The second day on the Anduin was much like the first, just enough paddling to gain a better feel for the elven built crafts and to keep them pointed in a southerly direction while the current did most of the work in moving them on. The western shore periodically presented signs of life: copses, waterfowl, and the occasional otter, even though it was January and the heart of winter. The far off snow capped heights of the Misty Mountains would inch in and out of sight depending on how the river bent or the mood of the clouds. However, the view of the eastern shore offered little beside withered scrub or grass poking up through patches of melted snow. One monotony the Fellowship did relish was seeing no sign of an enemy. Not that day, or the next, or the day after that. If anything, during the fourth day afloat, they noted the east becoming an even more bleak and muted landscape, offering only the sight of snow, dust, and weather beaten stones. They had come to the edge of the Brown Lands that stretched near a hundred leagues till the river would bring them to the slopes of the Emyn Muil.

The fifth day saw them paddle hard to get through the Anduin’s rough confluence with the Limlight, which had started its course in mysterious, primeval Fangorn. Boromir and Aragorn pointed out to those who would listen that there, on the western shore, began the lands of the Rohirrim, mighty Rohan. Much speculation was subsequently spent debating whether the proud Riders of the Riddermark still clove to their ancient alliance with Gondor or had perchance become the cat’s-paws of the traitorous Saruman. Storm grunted with typical relief as they drew ashore that night to make camp. After the minor readjustments to the seating arrangements at the start of second day, everyone stayed put in their boat of choice. The boat middle’s lacked a seat and with Gimli hogging the front, by the end of each day’s journey Storm’s uncomfortably cramped body always yearned for the unkinking of standing up and walking on shore. The snow haired mutant wished for once Frodo would accept Boromir’s daily offer to travel with him if for nothing more than it might offer her aching back and sore bottom an opportunity to graduate to a cushier seat.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

“Back to the shore,” yelled Legolas, as he heeded his own advice and pulled his paddle in close to the boat, causing it to turn to the west. While all immediately heeded his call, trusting his warning implicitly, the other ten members of the company quickly shifted their heads to and fro to see what necessitated the unexpected order.

In a quieter voice, once he was sure the other boats had followed his lead, Legolas called out, “A winged beast, following the course of the Anduin south.”

A chill went through many of them. ‘A Nazgul,’ they all thought in unison.

“How far away?” questioned Gandalf calmly, paddling strongly toward the bank.

“Near the Limlight.”

“Three leagues off, maybe four,” said Aragorn.

“It’s using the river to navigate,” Storm announced, causing Gandalf to nod his head in agreement.

“We are mostly likely not its target, but we may become so,” the wizard declared. “We shall beach the boats.”

“There’s no cover,” barked Boromir, the bank only a hundred feet away.

“Calmly, we have time,” Gandalf reassured.

“It might turn aside,” hoped Sam.

<<<join me>>>

As the shore approached, Jean put down her paddle and tugged at her elven necklace as she prepared to hop out. “I don’t like the feel of this,” she muttered nervously. Then the sound of sand scrapping the bottom of the boats drowned out her ramblings.

“Pull them up. Pull them up. Farther, farther,” Gandalf ordered. “How far now Legolas?”

“Two leagues.”

“Ok, now what?” Rogue asked.

“Flip the boats,” ordered Aragorn. “We can hide beneath them.”

“Wait!” shouted Storm. “If it spots us, we want it to see what we want it to think it sees. Boromir, Gandalf, grab Galadriel’s cloaks from your packs. Aragorn, put your hood up. Then we flip the boats and the rest of us climb under.”

“Alas, I did not take one,” Gandalf said somewhat ashamedly. To Storm’s accusing eyes, he responded sheepishly, “It wasn’t in grey.”

“Well then you go under too. We need a fourth crouched outside, we have four boats.” Storm looked back and forth between Kitty and Rogue for a second. “Kitty, you’re it. Keep your hood up at all times.”

“But …” Kitty hesitated, more than a little scared.

“I see Storm’s plan,” announced Aragorn, as he started flipping over his boat. “Legolas will have his bow. If it comes close, he will shoot at it. Seeing ‘four elves’ here with four small boats will be unusual and worth taking note of, but perhaps not so unusual it will risk the hide of its flying fell beast to get closer once arrows start pelting it.”

<<<return me>>>

“So we will be under the boats?” asked Frodo, somewhat a quiver.

“Yes,” replied Gandalf reassuringly. “And doing so very, very quietly.”

“Durin’s Folk do not hide from their enemies,” said Gimli defiantly.

“Do it!” hissed Storm angrily as she dropped to the ground and grabbed Sam to pull him under a boat with her.

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Freezing winds, near as chill as the corporeal remnants of his body, embraced him while he soared thousands of feet above the ground. His reptilian like brain surveyed the rapidly moving landscape beneath him and something akin to pleasure grew in some remote corner of his mind. As a child, thousands of years earlier, Berumor had frequented the coastal heights around the Haven of Umbar in order to stare down at the busy roads, sleepy fishing villages, and sails plying the waters; and imagine all that fell within his sight were his to command. The thirst to make something of himself had led to his first dabbling in the arts and the unintended blood sacrifice of his family. Years, decades on the run, abasing himself in wretched apprenticeships to whichever Black Numenorean master or witch would take in a starveling runaway with a hint of the gift. He suffered through the petty spitefulness, the intentional cruelty, the ritual disfigurements to learn whatever nugget of truth could be gleaned from the weak enchantments most had practiced; and then moving on again, but never before he’d had his revenge. He took a moment of delight remembering a few of his sweet, gore drenched goodbyes, only to fade back to the first time someone came to him, a desert scum of the Far Harad, to ask for a dark favor. In hardly a score of years he had dozens of nomad septs scurrying to his will, yet it failed to quench him. All he remembered of his oasis sanctuary was the heat and the scents; smells of dust, sweat, dung, and the occasional exotic spice. Finally he had followed the shadow whispers north, seeking a darkness strong enough to smote at the very world. And in Mordor, he was offered a ring. Berumor shivered in ecstasy, reliving the first instant of pain and love as it slide down his finger. Smells, heat, suffering, bodily pain, learning; none of these things mattered, not for millennia, only the Ring. Only the Ring.

<<<find me!>>>

The wyvern shrieked; jolting his consciousness to full concentration on the now. He felt a chaotic, avian thought try to pass some information to him through their psychic bond. He gazed along the Anduin, trying to see whether the Fell Beast was only interested in a meal or if its keen eyes had discerned something significant. Having passed the Limlight, the time had nearly come on the flight from Dol Guldur to stop heading due south and begin to veer west towards Isengard.

<what?>

More useless chaos. He sank more of his strength into their bond.

<show me!>

The beast squealed in pain as his control stabbed deeper into its mind.

<[image of the river bank and four boulders between which rests four grey bushes, one of which blooms yellow at the top]>

‘No,’ the Nazgul thought, interpreting his mount’s mental picture for a second and a third time. ‘Elves. And far from Lorien!’ Again he raked the creature’s mind, this time to make it descend toward the very interesting targets ahead. ‘Why?’ he pondered. ‘What errand of her are they on?’ The beast glided low enough he now saw through the elven skill at deceit to spy four small boats and four elves of varying heights. He commanded a wide turn to allow him to check for any hidden surprises. Upon seeing none he clutched tightly to the enormous leathery neck and commenced a dive. Though they were elves, and unlikely to be affected, by habit he extended his icy, dark aura.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Jean breathed the close air of the overturned boat, her hands twitched nervously at the strands of the necklace; shifting it around and around her neck, nearly saying a silent prayer with each jewel as it brushed past her fingertips.

<<<take me!>>>

“What did you say?” Jean asked in an edgy tone.

“I said I’m scared too,” replied Rogue with a husky whisper.

“Who said I was scared,” the red head snapped.

“Jesus, Jean, don’t bite my head off.”

“Sorry.” Jean took a deep breath, and ran a bio feedback program to steady herself. “Who did Frodo go with?”

“Gandalf I think.” Silence. “You, uhm, feel anything out there?”

“No. Didn’t think it was smart to try.” Jean laying on her side, head near the front of the boat, decided to curl her body around to get a better look at Rogue in the muted light available beneath the overturned boat.

“Oh.” Unable to abide more than ten seconds of silence, Rogue asked petulantly, “Why didn’t Storm pick me?”

“You mean to be out there? Scared?”

“Yeah!” Rogue challenged defiantly.

Jean chuckled quietly while her fingers kept spinning the necklace. “Boromir.”

“Boromir?”

“Yes, we didn’t need you distracting each other in a tight situation,” said Jean. Unbeknownst to herself, she had abruptly stopped turning the necklace and began to prod at one of the jewels.

“Why would we distract each other?”

“C’mon Rogue, we all know.”

“But we’re not … I mean, we haven’t. We can’t,” Rogue stammered.

“Like each other. Spend all your spare time with each other. None of us are stupid, nor does anybody think you are doing anything wrong, so relax.” The jewel, containing a drip of water from the fountain atop the hill of Caras Galadhon, worked itself off the clasp securing it to the strands of the golden necklace, and fell to the earth.

<<ahhhh!>>>

Rogue turned red with embarrassment. “I thought only Kitty knew.”

Catching Rogue’s fragile mood, Jean decided not to tease her. “I said it’s alright. Besides, you’re probably a good influence on him.”

“Really?”

“Yes, definitely. He’s a total guy, and can be a little, uhm, brash. So when we get travelling again, see if you can use some of that influence to get him to ease off Frodo. He’s starting to creep the poor hobbit out with all his Minas Tirith this and Minas Tirith that talk.”

“Ok.” Silence, till Rogue again pestered Jean. “Think you could do a quiet listen? Being stuck in here blind is killing me.”

Jean thought it over for a second. “Ok. Hold on.” The red head lowered her barriers just enough to passively listen for any high powered thoughts zinging openly through the telepathic aether.

<(terror)(terror)(terror)(terror)(terror)(terror)>

“Shit!” shrieked Jean, slamming up her shields, having been nearly overwhelmed by the strength of the brutal emotions cutting her psychically.

<<<wear me!>>>
<<<become me>>>

<<i will! (satisfaction)>>

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“Do you know the full range of this bow?” Aragorn asked in Sindarin.

“No, as yet I have only slain a few rabbits and swans with it.”

“I have seen the faithful warriors of Lorien bring down game at two hundred rangar with such a bow as yours.”

Legolas grunted in acknowledgement, as he peered from a kneeling position behind the hull of one of their four boats up at the rapidly approaching winged Nazgul.

Boromir looked fit to burst for wanting to make a suggestion to the elf, but the Ranger had said that to maintain their disguise in the face of the enemy they should only speak Sindarin; which of course limited any contribution he or the girl could provide.

They all watched silently as the enormous flying beast continued to glide south along the course of the Anduin, then suddenly started a descent.

“We are discovered,” announced Legolas. “He watches the ground for us.”

The Nazgul pulled up its winged mount around five hundred feet about the earth, then started a wide circle around them. Apparently satisfied with whatever it discovered, the Nazgul dove the beast right at them. Legolas immediately stood and notched an arrow. The elf’s inner mind saw the currents of air above him as much as his body felt them blow across his face. He lightning quick judged the velocity and angle of his prey. He pulled the bow. A tiny portion of his mind acknowledged the psychic malevolence that swept down at him and fell to pieces upon contact with his radiant inner spirit. He waited another moment, arm taught, eye unblinking.

Twang. Twang. Twang. The mallorn bow and elf-hair drawstring hummed with each release of nearly two hundred pounds of tension. In less than three seconds three shafts sped into the sky.

The Fell Beast jerked to the left to avoid the first slightly misaimed arrow, exactly as Legolas intended, thus revealing more of its silhouette.

Thunk. The second arrow stuck in the leather strap securing the Nazgul’s saddle.

“Aaarwaaukkkkkkk,” shrieked the creature as the third arrow penetrated the wing membrane just below the right shoulder nub. Even as the sound of pain reached his elven ears, Legolas took aim and let fly with another arrow, then another, and another. Twang. Twang. Twang.

The Nazgul pulled hard at the reins to sharpen the avian monster’s turn away from the Fellowship. Spurs or a command of some sort must have been used too, as the immense wings pounded at the air to carry it further away from the accurate barrage of barbs. The second trio of which found a point stuck in the Nazgul’s thigh and another in the thing’s chest near its neck.

Kitty felt the paralysis leave her and she shouted “Yippee,” as she wrapped her arms around Legolas.

“Quietly, everyone” spoke Aragorn softly, gently prying the ecstatic girl off of the elf. “Legolas has driven the Ringwraith of Sauron off, but stay under the boats till it is out of sight.

 

[High Plains Drifter]

Part 26 – Dangerous Conversations

When the boat lifted off of him and Frodo, Gandalf popped up and scanned the horizon as he set his grey cap back atop his head. Satisfied, he turned to his companions and barked, “No fool like an old fool, and that I surely am. I thought too little of the enemy’s ability to spot us in daylight and too much in the skill of our elven garb to disguise us. Well, I have been proven wrong. Word is already spreading of our presence, even if they do not know the true or full meaning of our presence.” He dropped a hand to the gunwale next to him, took a grip, and started pulling hard. “Get the boats back into the water, quickly, quickly everyone. With luck, we will travel the rest of today and then by moonlight to place some distance between us and this debacle. After we rest, we will resume our ways of only traveling at night.”

“Won’t it be dangerous to be on the boats in the dark?” asked Storm as she joined the wizard in dragging his boat.

“Not so much. The river stays slow till close to the rapids of Sarn Gebir. How far is that Aragorn?”

The Ranger shrugged his non-carrying shoulder while he and Gimli toted a boat between them back to the riverbank. “I have not travelled that part of the Anduin. Maybe five days from here, certainly no more than six or seven.”

“When we get closer we will make sure your boat takes the lead then,” announced Gandalf. “I want a dwarf’s keen eye to guide us where light shines sparsely. Come, come! No dawdling, we must be off!”

Boromir and Legolas each took a side of the craft holding Frodo’s gear. Kitty and Rogue took a step toward the last boat only to find it suddenly hovering over the grass by itself, to which they cried, “Jean!” “Showoff!”

Within minutes their crafts shoved off the gravelly shore back into the broad river. They paddled steadily for more than two hours. Except when the occasional shoal forced them toward the middle of the channel, the Fellowship tried to not stray too far from the western shore in case they needed cover quickly. As dusk settled, they let the current primarily move them as they broke out Lembas for the first time, aside from the occasional snack by Gimli. They travelled through the night as Gandalf had hoped, no interruptions other than brief calls to nature. When the first glimmers of grey and pink touched the eastern sky, Legolas pointed out to the group an eyot near the western shore which all four boats promptly turned toward to make a landing. With boats pulled deep within a blanket of still standing, waist high marsh weeds, a cold camp of no fire nor even pipeweed was made in the chill January morning. More elf bread was eaten, the only nourishment taken, before the eleven companions draped themselves in blankets and settled heads down on rolled up cloaks or travel bags.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The boats coasted, dragged slowly along by the sleepy current of the Anduin. The previous night’s exertions had tired everyone and after the first few hours paddling, the consensus developed among the four boats to let the river do most of the work for them. Conversations, when they occurred, happened in hushed tones and whispers.

“I wouldn’t want to play poker with you,” Jean told Gandalf.

“What’s poker?”

“A betting game with cards. It involves a lot of bluffing to keep the other players from guessing whether your hand is strong or weak. A great player can sometimes get everyone to fold despite holding a poor set of cards. You’d be a natural.”

“I’d think the same could be said of a certain red head with unusual talents of the mind.”

“Ha! You’re probably right. But even with any extra acuity I may possess, I’m flummoxed as to what your real plans for us are.”

“Plans? I’m not sure what you mean?” asked Gandalf kindly.

Jean chuckled. “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Anytime anyone asks how this is all going to end, you dodge, you placate, you distract. But is there ever an answer? No.”

Gandalf cleared this throat authoritatively. “Well, Frodo will go to Mordor, and Sam with him. Boromir, most like with Rogue happily in tow, shall head for Minas Tirith. I thought that fairly obvious.”

Jean groaned. “Tell us something we didn’t know before we left Rivendell. What of the rest of us?”

“Who am I to tell you or anyone where to go. We took oaths to aid Frodo as far as each felt able. You must decide for yourself how far it is wise to accompany the Ringer Bearer on his quest to reach the fires of Mount Doom.”

“Sigh. And you’re not the leader of our little company? Don’t deny it! Everyone looks to you to make the important decisions. You aren’t sending Frodo and Sam off by themselves, Middle Earth would gobble those two little hobbits right up. Who will go with them? You? Aragorn? Storm? Me?” Jean asked, her voice growing more and more agitated. “Who will aid Boromir? Surely we aren’t all going to Gondor? What do we do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? That’s crazy!”

“Strangely enough, it will all work itself out somehow, and for the better. It did so for Bilbo. It will for Frodo, I feel it.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. It’s a mystery,” replied Gandalf enigmatically

“Arrgggg!”

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Rogue heard a soft snore come from the middle of the boat. She turned and saw Kitty’s head leaning uncomfortably to the side, mouth slightly open. Satisfied her friend was napping, the teen gently pivoted her whole body so she knelt backward on her seat, faced toward the strong man guiding the boat.

“Boromir?”

“Yes?”

“Uhm, you know I’m going to go to Minas Tirith with you, don’t you?” she asked, staring through the dark, trying to catch a glimpse of the man’s eyes in the gloom.

“Of course, we’ve spoken of it often. Your choice heartens me greatly.”

“And I’m trying to convince Storm and Jean to come with us too.”

“With them at our side, the forces of Mordor could never cross the River,” he said definitively. “We might even drive them back to Minas Morgul!”

“Yeah, uh, I’ve been thinking and if you want a shot at their help, you need to lay off Frodo.”

Boromir’s suddenly ebullient mood quickly dropped to grumpy. “What do you mean?” he asked suspiciously.

“Frodo has to go to Mordor, and you’re freaking him out with all your talk about Minas Tirith. Jean and Storm are very protective of him. So your constant pestering is making them unhappy with you. Ergo …”

“Yes, yes, but if he came to Minas Tirith first, he could have a last place of rest before making his final effort. And when he comes to the White City, so do your friends,” he announced with a sense of smug satisfaction.

“Uhm, ok, see …”

“In fact, after we kill hosts of orcs and other Sauron spawn with their help, perhaps even taking back all of Ithilien, then Frodo will have an easier time crossing into Mordor to destroy the Ring.”

“Oh c’mon Boromir, Frodo’s not stupid, I’m not stupid. We’ve heard the stories about the Ring and Isildur and why it’s safer for a hobbit to lug the thing around than anybody else.”

“Yes, stories,” Boromir spat out.

“If Frodo made it to your Tower of Ecthelion, does he ever come out again?”

Boromir drew in a sharp breath at the accusation. “How dare you!” he snarled. “I pledged an oath to Frodo. I would not harm him. You go too far to suggest otherwise!”

“Do I?” Rogue snapped back angrily. “In Minas Tirith there’s an army that’s also pledged an oath … to Gondor. Are they going to let the Ring walk away?”

“They will not be told,” scoffed Boromir.

“And Denethor? Will he not be told? Would your father let Frodo go? For Gondor, would he let the Ring walk away? Ever?”

Boromir took another deep breath, an angry retort on his lips. But his honor refused to let him spew out what it knew to be a lie. The caught air finally left his chest in a long, forceful sigh. In a quieter, sadder voice, he finally answered. “Turn back around woman, no more talk.”

Rogue muttered, “jerk,” then flipped back to the normal position on her seat. After which the boat quickly surged forward as Boromir took out his unfocused anger through fierce paddling. Kitty, laying in the bottom of the boat, wondered how long it would be prudent for her to keep pretending to be asleep.

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Saruman stood atop the steps at the entrance to Orthanc as the magnificent specimen finally a lit on the grounds of Isengard after a leisurely half hour’s examination of his works of war. Even his mightly Uruk-hai stayed well back, either from fear of the creature or of the no longer man who rode it. The wizard himself debated whether to be irked that his temporary ally kept watch of him or pleased at the opportunity to observe such an impressive animal.

“Hail Berumor, scryer of the sands. What assistance may I offer you?” the wizard of many colours called out in a loud voice, not bothering hide his sarcasm, once the Nazgul dismounted.

“The Dark Lord commands me to judge your readiness,” came the icy, toneless response.

“My readiness?” sneered Saruman. “Sauron sends the least of his nine servants to judge a scion of Valar?”

A giant pressure suddenly prodded and weighed on the Nazgul’s mind. His vision faded to gray as the force gripped him, pressed all around him. He threw his entire might at staving off the avalanche burying him, but he did not flinch. The Eye had tasked him, the Eye held his soul, if this glimmer of a Maia tore him asunder, his Lord would recreated him … probably. Berumor’s vision returned and he saw a smiling Saruman standing next to him beneath the mighty neck of his winged mount. “War comes.”

“Yes. Yes it does,” replied a suddenly solicitous Saruman.

“Your army will march on the spring equinox.”

“So I have already agreed with your Master.”

“And I will check the number of your sword arms, and the strength of the steel forged in your workshops."

“Of course. Ilgrik! Show this Lordling all he would see above and below the grounds of Isengard, save the Tower. That is my abode alone.” Saruman’s deep eyes sparkled darkly as he spoke those last words.

The Nazgul gave the briefest of nods to show his acceptance of the wizard’s parameters of his tour.

“I shall make sure your mount is well tended in your absence,” and Saruman delighted in the touch as he ran a hand down the flank of the Fell Beast, till it came to rest on a mallorn arrow shaft sticking out of the saddle belt. “I see you came too close to Lothlorien.”

“No. I spotted a few on the river, below the Limlight. They would not easily let me close them.”

“Oh. Well they shall be crushed soon enough. Please, proceed, so you may report back to your Master all the sooner. You will undoubtedly find the White Hands of Saruman a formidable host.”

Once the Dark Rider and his escort marched out of sight into the sinews of his war making machinery erected beneath the walls of Isengard, Saruman spun toward his nearest aide. “Ugluk, race for the redoubt on the Isen and take command of the newly arrived Hammers. March them night and day across the West Emnet, skirting close to the shade of Fangorn. Once over the Entwash and in the East Emnet break the Hand into its five fingers and head for the Anduin. The north most finger shall head to the junction with the Limlight and then turn south. The southernmost shall make to the Mouths of Entwash and go north.”

“Why Lord? We may rouse the hooves of the Riddermark.”

“Elves. Elves of Lorien have slipped out of their Golden Wood to spy or perhaps carry a message of import. Capture them, so I may unravel their plot. Kill only those that you must. Worry not about the Riddermark. I will ensure the Rohirrim pose no difficulty.”

“Yes Lord.”

“Go, before the servant of the Eye returns here.”

The Uruk-hai bowed deeply, then trotted off like an obedient dog wanting to please its master.

‘What mischief are you up to Galadriel?’ pondered Saruman.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The boats had been pulled up the bank and left in a depression that made them invisible from the river or the far eastern bank. Sam had caught a couple of fish during the hours of darkness and Legolas shot a bird near the shoreline less than a minute after Aragorn indicated the upcoming end to the night’s travel. As the usual minor bustle of setting up camp occurred, Gandalf agreed to the pleas for a fire to cook their catches. Frodo volunteered to collect driftwood for it. Though everyone was kindly, and there weren’t many of them, the Fellowship was always there, assisting him with even the smallest of tasks. Sam was the worst, slowly killing Frodo’s spirit with his unending sweetness. Being stuck in a small boat for nearly a week full of days and nights had turned him near claustrophobic. He needed some space and a chance to be alone.

The hobbit scrambled through some reeds and stubs of river grass to look for old, washed up branches. The moment he bent over to pick the first piece of wood up, the weight of the Ring tugged mightily at him.

<<<return me>>>
<<<become me>>>

As he patted the precious bundle beneath his tunic, he chuckled ironically at himself. ‘With you, I’m never really alone, am I?’ he thought to himself.

“Hullo Frodo,” said Jean.

“Oh Jean, hi. I didn’t see you. Out picking up wood too?”

“Sure,” she replied. “Feeling blue are you?”

“Yeah. This is …” And he waved his hand vaguely toward the river and beyond. “all so much. I’m just a hobbit from the Shire.”

Jean squatted down in front of Frodo and rested her hands on his shoulders. “A big thing’s been asked of you. No wonder you feel overwhelmed at times,” she said sympathetically.

He nodded his head.

“And you’re being pressured.”

<[image of boromir looking stern and talking]>

“Boromir’s been hounding me something fierce to go to Gondor with him.”

“And you’re journey ahead so long and hard.”

<[image of frodo dragging an exhausted sam over a desolate moonscape overshadowed by giant, gnarled mountains]>

Frodo shivered and nodded his head in agreement.

“And no one paying attention to your needs. Offering you the help you really want. Telling you what happens next.”

<[image of gandalf, aragorn, and legolas walking away from the river, leaving frodo and sam alone in a boat under foreboding skies]>

“G-g-g-gandalf refuses to promise how far he’ll go with me. He just says everything will turn out well.”

“Sigh. Yeah, he tells me that too,” Jean lamented.

“What am I to do?” Frodo asked plaintively through a sniffle.

<[image of sun rising over a peaceful meadow, birds flying through blue skies]>

“I’ll go with you Frodo and keep you safe. All the way to the end.”

<<<find the master>>>
<<<to mordor>>>
<<<join me>>>

Frodo smiled. “Would you Jean? To the end?”

“Yes.” She leaned forward and pulled Frodo into a hug, a warmth spreading across her chest where his tunic rubbed against her. “I’ll keep you safe,” she whispered in his ear.

“And Storm too? Will she come with us?”

“Sure,” replied Jean, releasing her hold on the hobbit and standing up. “Now go find some wood, or they’ll think you lazy.”

“Ok Jean,” he answered cheerfully. “Thank you, thank you so much.” And the Ring-bearer nearly skipped off, cheerfully resuming his search for more things the Anduin offered up on its shores to burned.

Jean watched Frodo for a minute or two, while she slowly spun the necklace from Lorien around her neck, the occasional jewel passing between her strong fingers. And then one hand gave a sharp jerk; a single jewel fell to the ground, promptly lost amongst the pebbles and muck of the shoreline. A confused look passed over Jean’s face. She looked around, not really remembering coming there. ‘Did Frodo call to me?’ she wondered. The red head shrugged her shoulders and walked back to the camp, hungry.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The seventh night since the Fellowships departure from Lorien passed uneventfully. They paddled for long stretches and rested for short bits as the boats coasted with the leisurely current. With clouds obscuring most of the moonlight, they saw little in the darkness, but did take note that the banks of the river rose while an occasional silvery shaft revealed rocky hills. They were come to the start of the hill country of Emyn Muil.

As a pink tinge took to the clouds, Aragorn barked an order, and all four boats turned toward the western shore. The Ranger had spotted a cleft in the steep slopes choked with brambles, creepers, and ivy where a small stream had eroded through the crumbling grey rock of the bank to make a minor inlet. A single boat at a time could just squeeze through the gap to enter a hollow carved out of the bank by a thousand years of the stream’s relentless trickle and periodic flash flood. No more than a foot’s worth of water covered most of the hollow’s floor which encompassed enough room to fit all four of their crafts. A minor cascade at the back of the hollow both brought the stream into it and provided a means of egress by the steps it had slowly cut into the rock over time.

Storm was the first to leap out of the boats and she instantly climbed the natural stair to scout the immediate countryside. Aragorn quickly followed. “Sure, leave me to guard the boat and guide the other’s in, without even a by your leave,” bellyached Gimli. By the time a much wetter dwarf had helped pull the last of their tiny armada through the crevice, the two scouts were returning.

“This stream wore out a ravine not fifty rangar back from here. Big enough to fit all of us,” declared the Ranger.

“And its top is combed over by bushes and young birch. We should be well shaded from view,” added Storm.

“Will we need to leave a guard with the boats?” asked Sam.

“No, they should be well enough hid. But once we’ve made camp, I’ll come back and cut some brush to cover the entrance, just to be sure,” answered the man the hobbit had first known as Strider.

With no more trouble than some wet feet, the hardened group of travelers hiked their gear back along the stream’s course to the upcoming day’s campsite. A cold breakfast eaten, each companion staked out a personal space while bartering happened for the order of the day’s watch. As blankets began to unroll, Aragorn remembered the boats and left to attend them. Not long after, a solitary, loud splash made all heads jerk toward the river. After several seconds without further noise, Legolas chuckled softly. “It appears Aragorn has taken a tumble.”

“Are you sure?” questioned Gandalf. Legolas nodded. “And he is unhurt?”

“Perhaps only his pride,” replied the elf, causing the rest to chuckle.

“Children,” chided the wizard. “If Aragorn can suffer a mishap, so may any of us. A lesson you would all be wise to consider. Now to rest.”

Gimli, with wet boots and socks hanging from branches, took first watch, so he was the only one to blatantly smirk at the sodden Ranger’s return. With boots making sucking sounds as he walked over to his pack, near the recumbent form of Jean, Aragorn shucked his drenched footwear, socks, pants, and shirt; then starting rummaging in his bag for a dry set of clothes.

“Aragorn,” whispered Jean. The Dunedain turned, bare-chested, to peer down at the red head, her long crimson tresses framing her beautiful face; round bosoms swelling with every breath, a delicate hand resting on the golden chains nestling into her cleavage. His gaze quickly centered on her eyes; unfocused, yet somehow aglow with an inner ember, a magnificent intensity. “You’re wet and cold. Come, share my blanket. Let my heat warm you,” her voice throbbed seductively.

<come to me (warmth)(empathy)(attraction)>

Jean’s eye’s held his. He couldn’t turn his vision away from those deep, fiery orbs. The longer he stared, the more he wanted to step toward her, so generous, so alluring. Both dread and excitement welled up in the pit of his stomach. He felt his resolve teeter. His hamstring and calf muscles started to move, slowly bending a knee and raising his heel from the earth. Aragorn saw a predatory grin swoop across her beguiling face for a split-second, then she shifted the necklace about her neck ever so slightly and a stray sunbeam dropping through the leafy canopy reflected off one of its jewels to spread prism like across his brow.

“No,” he stated firmly. “I know my duty … the next watch to prepare for.” He mustered a peremptory smile, “My blanket will suit me just fine.”

Instantly, the force in Jean’s eyes withered and disappeared. An embarrassed, confused smile teased at her face. “Well get some clothes on quick. You’ll catch your death if you don’t.” She blinked thrice at the Ranger, then rolled over to place her back towards him.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Gimli silently waved a hand at Aragorn to pass on the Watch duty, carefully lay down his axe, and climbed into his bedding. The Dunedain had spent most of the past hour reliving again and again his strange encounter with his very attractive red haired companion. ‘Was it merely odd coincidence? Was he truly attracted to her in some way? Or was there a mysterious magic at work?’ He knew of her powers and suspected her mind’s touch on him at the hill of Cerin Amroth, if not other times too. Of Jean’s loneliness for her ‘Scott’, he knew of that trauma long ago, since their first day’s talks on the march out of Bree. That she still suffered greatly, Legolas’s tale of his experience with her on Cerin Amroth only confirmed what he suspected. ‘Just how far might Jean use her powers, even on friends, if spurned once too often? Should these concerns be shared with Gandalf?’

As these questions and other thoughts churned through his mind, a dense fog crept up the stream course from the Anduin, slipping between shrub and stalk. A soft cry and then the movement of green came from within the fog. An elven cloak made in Rivendell style lay flatteringly over a slender, feminine form. The hood was drawn up tight, leaving a pool of darkness to hide the face. But by her very movement he needed no other sign to recognize her.

“Arwen,” he whispered with husky emotion.

The elf nodded her head and stepped out of the stream bed toward him, saying with an emotion filled voice, “Elessar, nin mel, my love.”

“Why are you here? You should not have left the safety of your father’s home. This quest is full of danger.”

“This quest is folly. I will save you. Come with me.” Her gloved hands shot out and gripped his fiercely.

“I cannot go you,” Aragorn said troubled. “I gave an oath, nin beth. What of Frodo? Shall he go to his doom? Would you let the Enemy attain the Ring?”

“No. Bring the Ring with us. We shall be the new Earendil and Elwing and go with it to Valinor and live forever together in the Blessed Realm. Our love shall be our shield from the coming tragedy.”

“And our promise to your father means nothing to you?”

“Only our love has meaning. Do you not love me?

“Of course I do. You wound me by even asking.”

“Then prove it and I will leave you to your fate. Kiss me.”

Aragorn let go of her hands and leaned forward through the fog and mist swirling around her. He reached up gathering the folds of her hood, pulling it back to uncover the darkness hiding Arwen’s face. Crimson tresses tumbled from out of the dim veil, the blackness shrinking away from his love’s face, revealing delicate, pointed ears and arched scarlet colored eyebrows. Two almost cat-like orbs, reflecting passion and flame now stared back at him, drawing him in closer and closer. His hands dropped along her sides to the small of her back and pulled her closer as he parted his lips, ready to tenderly kiss with all his love and yearning the image of an elfish Jean.

A flash of brilliant green blinded him. Jean’s elven face began to fade. Aragorn saw her lips form to make words, then he thought he heard a distant cry of ‘Nooooooooooo!’ The beautiful face disappeared to nothing as the rest of her cloaked body started to fade also. The fog and mist rolled back out of the ravine as fast as thought.

Aragorn blinked his eyes as he sat atop his blanket. Sun shone sporadically through the branches and brush above him. The green haze lighting the gully dimmed, pulling back, retreating toward him, into him. The Ranger looked down at his chest upon which lay the silver brooch of Arwen, given him by the Lady Galadriel on the leave taking of Lorien. The emerald stone set in the middle of the brooch gave one last glimmer of brilliant green light, then turned lifeless.

Rage surged through every sinew of Aragorn. Waking dream or not, only one person could have placed such a vision within him, his head jerked toward the intruder, the violator laying not ten feet from him. Spotting his prey, supine on the earth, he propelled himself into a tuck and roll right at her, his hand plucking a dagger from its sheath inside a boot as he spun forward to the edge of her bedding. His free hand tore back her blanket, and there Jean lay, exposed, breathing the slow steady beat of sleep, lids closed, eyeballs occasionally darting to and fro beneath the lids, a soft snore emitting from a small gap in her lips. The blade hovered over the red head’s almost bare neck. Even in sleep one of her hands occasionally twitched on the necklace gift from Lorien.

Doubt seized the Ranger, for surely the woman slumbered deeply. She had not so much as twitched at his almost deadly assault. ‘Is she to blame? And if she is, does she even know it?’ he wondered. He pulled the blade back and lowered the blanket back over the woman’s shoulder. Silently he stood, casting one last glance down at her angelic face. He turned and walked over to the lumpy gray form of Gandalf.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

“Enough about this boyscout, as you referred to him earlier,” said Gandalf.

Jean snickered. “Well you asked. It’s not like I haven’t talked about him … oh … a hundred times already to you.”

“Yes, yes, but never in a dedicated fashion. Curiosity struck my fancy that maybe you’d yet to relay every tawdry detail of your romantic past. Was there ever another besides Scott who caught your eye?”

Jean laughed nervously, “Who could you possibly mean?”

“I notice a slight tension in your voice when you talk of him.”

“Him who?” she asked nervously, one hand coming off her paddle to tug lightly at her necklace.

The wizard made no comment at his companion’s sudden lack of assistance in propelling the boat, but he did continue speaking, “The Wolverine, as all of you most often call him.”

Jean gave a hoot of relief. “Logan???? Ahhh, nooooo. Definitely not him.”

“Is he so unattractive?”

“Of course not. He’s … a hunk,” replied Jean, bobbing her head slightly as she remembered the first time she saw him, shirtless, hairy, and muscular; very defined. “And passionate, surprisingly kind, oddly charming, extremely loyal in his own way. He …”

“Sounds positively dreadful,” mocked the wizard.

“Yeah, well, he’s also wild, undisciplined, probably crazy, infuriating, completely carefree, stubborn, and a loner. Not the person you bring home to meet your parents.”

“Or throw over a steady, reliable boyfriend to have an affair with.”

“Damn straight!” Jean said heatedly.

“So you are attracted to him,” Gandalf smirked.

“No!”

Gandalf laughed. “Examine yourself Jean, you’re all aflutter. The man clearly strikes a nerve in you. Is it because you envy those parts of his character you feel unable to emulate.”

“That isn’t fair,” Jean pouted.

“You’ve lived in the cocoon of your Professor’s school since you first became a woman, the perfect daughter if you will. Is it any wonder part of you yearns for the freedom this Wolverine represents?”

“I don’t want to be free,” Jean retorted, reflexively denying Gandalf’s implications.

“Tut-tut, we all do Jean. This desire marks us as different from the minions of Mordor. But it also unfortunately offers us a trap too, for without utilizing our freedom responsibly, with love in our hearts, our souls may stray into darkness. Mark my words little bird, the trap is subtle, it can seduce one to take horrible actions, believing they are done for a greater good.”

<you would make a goddamn good shrink.>

<shrink? i will take that as a compliment, whatever it means.>

Smiling, Gandalf hummed a few notes then started to softly sing in a deep voice, “The Road goes ever on and on, out from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow, if I can. Pursuing it with eager feet, until it joins some larger way where many paths and errands meet.”

The rough baritone dampened the flame of Jean’s emotions, the simple harmony bathing her in a calm, reassuring glow. Slowly her hand dropped from her neck back to the paddle. Soon she dipped it back into the water, happy to keep the craft moving forward.

 

[High Plains Drifter]

Part 27 – Ending Plans

Near midnight the pace of the river picked up, eliminating the need for paddle work, except for a periodic stroke to keep the bows of their boats pointed correctly. Gimli peered forward into the night’s gloom, his view occasionally brightened by the few stars peeking now and again through breaks in the clouds, alert for signs of the start of the Sarn Gebir rapids. “I hear the rush of water,” he declared.

“Should we make for shore now Aragorn?” called Gandalf.

The ranger stared hard at the dimly lit shoreline, trying to spot a safe haven to dock at, seeing only a sharp rocky bank overhung by the dark silhouettes of scrub and small trees. Finally he invoked an unhappy sounding, “Yes, let us at least get closer.”

Before any other than Aragorn could commence a turn, the dwarf, eyes more naturally attuned to the dark, shouted, “There! Shapes in the water!”

“Where?” bellowed Boromir, guiding the next boat.

“In the middle of the channel, are you blind?” Gimli barked back.

“Paddle Rogue, Kitty! No! The other side, the other side!” called out the man from Gondor.

The current suddenly grew much swifter and turned the main thrust of the river toward the eastern shore, all four boats strained to resist the massive watery force as the rocks Gimli had spied came into everyone’s view, revealing sharp, jagged edges bathed in foam.

Aragorn’s boat, in the lead, just failed to make to the western shore side of the rocks before passing the first one, nearly scrapping against it. Boromir’s boat too failed to fully turn, forcing all three companions to push away from several boulders with their paddles to avoid smacking hard into them. This, unfortunately, then put their craft into a spin. “Not gooooood!” cried Kitty.

Jean felt a gnawing in the pit of her stomach as the boat she shared with Gandalf started to heave, bob, and drop like an amusement park ride. “Oh this is ridiculous,” she muttered right before her face grew taught in concentration.

“Whoa!” shouted Sam, almost falling over the edge of his boat when it suddenly jerked to a dead stop in the middle of the strong current. As he regained his seat, he looked around through the dark for the other boats and gaped when he realized all of them were no longer moving either. Sam swallowed hard. They were moving again, but this time backward, and with apparent ease.

“Why’d you take so long Jean?” asked Rogue loudly.

The red head laughed at the teen’s impertinence. “Thought you liked adventure?” she responded, getting a sarcastic “sure,” in answer.

In a minute all four boats were safely huddled together in the dim shadow of bushes atop the river bank. Arargorn stretched his neck north and south. “I see no obvious landing, and this is surely the start of the Sarn Gebir. I am out of my reckoning. Legolas, Gimli, do you see anywhere craft may have docked to bypass the rapids?”

The elf promptly alit to stand straight on his seat and look far off into the murky night.

“Show off,” snorted the dwarf, staying seated while he too gazed off to the north.

“No.” “No.”

“Well in that case,” declared Gandalf, “if you bring a … yes, a telekinetic, then trust the telekinetic. Jean, if you would be so kind?” And the wizard jerked his head up toward the top of the steep river bank.

“Elevator, going up,” she announced. Aragorn’s, then Legolas’, and finally Boromir’s boat floated up one at time, on very even keels, thirty feet into the air and then another fifty feet over till they settled gently back on rocky earth, just barely within the red head’s line of sight. So delighted were they with their jaunt, that both Frodo and Sam broke out their paddles to pretend they themselves propelled their craft through the air instead of Jean’s mind.

“Get ready for a shaky ride Gandalf,” Jean said with a tight voice. “I’ve never been smooth at lifting myself.”

The wizard revealed his white teeth through a smile. “Never fear, you’ll manage it Jean,” he said with a tone of certainty. He reached into his cloak, pulled out his pipe, and slid it into the corner of his crooked mouth. “I think I shall enjoy this.”

With herks and jerks, the fourth boat rose out of the water and nearly spun one hundred eighty degrees before it made landfall with a bit of a plunk. Only twice did Gandalf grab at his hat to keep it from falling off; the smile never left his lips.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The boats were dragged further back from the Anduin, by hand, and a rough camp made. Lembas was snacked on and water drunk while blankets unrolled. Storm assured her companions that no snow or rain were likely for the next few days, and happily enough new warmth was in the offering to preclude the threat of even a frost.

“We shall need to be active again during the daylight,” announced Aragorn.

“You and Legolas will search for the path around the rapids?” Gandalf asked rhetorically. The Ranger nodded in agreement.

“Why should we continue past the rapids on the river?” interjected Boromir. “It only leads to the Falls of Rauros. Even with Jean’s powers, it would be no easy flight o’er them, and that would only land us in the marshes. We have come to the Emyn Muil, we should strike west for the Entwash and then south to Gondor.”

“We can, if we are all making for Minas Tirith,” retorted Aragorn. In near unison, ten heads turned to look at Gandalf.

“Some of us shall succor Gondor, never you fear Boromir,” replied the wizard to Aragorn’s implied question. “A few will dare the Black Land, the Land of Shadow, with Frodo. Mistake it not, his path leads there, and only there,” and as Gandalf spoke, his voice took a tone of power and authority that none present would challenge. “The rest must somehow assure Rohan cleaves to the old alliance, and dances no longer to the tune of Saurman’s lying tongue.”

Confusion broke out at the pronouncement.

“But who?”

“Where should I go?”

“I won’t abandon my friends!”

“What will you do?”

The wizard’s eyes darted left and right, to take in who said what and perhaps more importantly who murmured nothing at all. As the utterances quieted, Gandalf continued, slowly turning his head so each companion might feel his words addressed them personally, “I know you’ve bantered much among each other on this, and certainly pestered me almost beyond all forbearance. But that was your right for you all have trusted in me to lead our little expedition. The time for hard choices draws very close,” and at this moment the wizard’s gaze alit firmly on Legolas. “But not tonight.”

“When?” came the excited echoing chorus.

“At Amon Hen, upon the Seat of Seeing. I think that an auspicious place for such a decision. From there Boromir, you can take the North Stair to pass by the Falls of Rauros, if you so wish. Frodo shall cross to the eastern shore. And Legolas and Storm, at the least, I think shall try to beard Saruman and his many ill colours.”

Another loud cacophony greeted this statement, but the wizard refused to address any of it. He leaned back on the ground and tipped his cap over his face, pretending obliviousness to the hornet’s nest of speculation he had stirred.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Hard gusts blew in from the west off the Gulf of Luhn, losing some strength scouring over and between the Tower Hills, till they buffeted the Far Downs where only a few stray flakes were left in the air to be deposited. The sound of the wind failed to drown out the symphony of mail rings jostling on mail rings, nor the drumbeat of feet stomping along the Great East Road. The first elements of the Dwarven Host were gathering in a valley of the Far Down at an encampment prepared for them by the elves of the Havens. A small, assorted group stood at the edge of the great tents, carts filled with supplies, and huge cords of wood, waiting to greet and direct the warriors of each delf as they arrived.

“Hail Aki,” Azaghal shouted in greeting to the Firebeard leader of the third delf to arrive on the first day of the mustering.

“Go hump your donkey Broadbeam,” came the cheery reply, as the heavily scarred lordling pulled to a stop and started to blow on his gloved hands through an ice streaked maroon beard. “Its bloody cold, where can we get something hot and tasty? I’d not want to be forced to drink your putrid blood.”

“Ahh, let’s see where to put you,” drawled the merchant, unfolding a rough map of the valley to look at it. “How many did you bring? Three score?”

“Three score eleven khuhaj and it weren’t easy getting here, no thanks to all that snow.

“You will be in the Moon sector,” said Azaghal, peering back up from the map. “Over that way,” he waved. “Still, you made it, and on the first day of the muster too.”

The minor Delf Lord turned to his lieutenant, “Domburo, get the lads moving to where this fat ass Broadbeam pointed.” Pivoting back to the merchant, he continued yapping while his uneven column of warriors started up again, “Well it finally stopped falling three days ago. That helped, though barely a day has passed since we agreed to march where it hasn’t snowed. Damn weather. It better warm soon, no one wants their tackle turning to an icicle, even one as stubby as yours.”

Azaghal smiled politely at the insult. “Perhaps that won’t prove a bother. The elves whisper to me that Cirdan and his Lore Masters extend themselves against the elements, hoping to break winter’s hold over the Harn Baland.”

“Well good for that poncy khulm. Hope he freezes his tackle off doing it. He should have started sooner. Now you better hope you gave me a good place Broadbeam, or I’ll be back to break your knees with my hammer,” proclaimed Aki. The hard Firebeard then went off in pursuit of his receding warriors.

With the delf leader’s departure, Azaghal and his mix of elf and dwarf assistants looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, so far the day was going well.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Slowly the sky filled with a pale light. A mist, just thick enough to keep the far bank hidden, hovered over the river. Having only rested half a night, and an agitated half at that, the Fellowship did not eagerly stir in the dawn. But by drips and drabs they started to make themselves useful, till everyone’s throats were wet and bellies no longer grumbled, though remained far from satisfied. Eventually, Aragorn and Legolas started gathering their weapons.

“How long do you imagine?” asked Gandalf.

“A couple of hours,” guessed the Ranger. “Unless the track to bypass the Sarn Gebir went very wide indeed.”

“Be off then, we don’t want to waste the whole day in frivolity,” the wizard declared.

“Mind if I go with you?” asked Storm.

The man and elf exchanged a quick glance.

“You’re more than welcome Lady Storm,” answered Legolas for the both of them.

“Thanks.”

The trio quickly left the rest of the group to the frivolity of mending clothes, repacking bags, checking the boats for damage, sharpening blades, oiling gear, and complaining. In a little more than an hour they found the heavily overgrown trail.

“Should we follow it?” Storm wondered.

“Let’s make sure there are no surprises, shall we?” answered Aragorn, while Legolas nodded his head in agreement.

As they followed the track, Storm posed the question which had led her to come with the two that morning.”Why did Gandalf say that I would go with Legolas to help with Rohan and stop Saruman?”

“Mithrandir has his ways,” the elf responded enigmatically.

“I think with your Haradrim-like skin, Gondor as a destination would likely prove a problem.”

“With Boromir to vouch for me …”

“He cannot be with you every moment,” scoffed Aragorn. “His father, the Steward, will have errands and missions to take him from Minas Tirith. Then you would face their distrust alone.”

“But I must go there!”

“Yes, Rogue. No separating the two, is there? We all know how hard you fought to stay together.”

“And what of Jean?” asked Legolas.

“What are you talking about?”

“She promised Frodo she would go with him to Mordor.”

“What!? She hasn’t mentioned that to me!”

“He is greatly pleased by her offer,” the elf replied drolly. “My hobbit friends discuss many things all day and all night in our boat. But worry not, who knows where Gandalf will judge it best to send her.”

“I think if she came with you and Legolas, that would be a force Saruman would find hard to resist or corrupt,” Aragorn suggested.

“And what about you? Where will you go?” asked Storm.

“If I am not needed for Frodo, then Gondor.” The Ranger’s hand gripped his re-forged sword strongly. “Always Gondor.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Before noon, the three scouts returned to the camp. “There is a track. It starts above us, and only passes a little more than three furlongs to the west of here,” Aragorn announced to his anxious friends.

“The rapids only last a mile,” said Legolas. “And lead to a still serviceable landing. The river is still swift there, but navigable.”

“So we only need drag our things that far?” asked Boromir. “A burden I think we can manage.”

“Who said anything about we?” chuckled Jean, as she extended invisible hands to lift all four boats waist high. “Just make sure there aren’t too many trees in my way.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

All except Jean shouldered their packs. Not that this reduced the burden of the boats in any significant manner for the mutant, but it made the others feel they at least pulled their own weight. Once they found the track, rising away from the river, it turned south, taking them through tumbled grey limestone, thickets full of thorns, scratchy brush, and the odd bog or three. In less than two hours they found themselves at the portage-way, which provided a gentle slope down to a flat pool scooped from the edge of the river, now no longer covered in any mist.

“Shall we risk the daylight and paddle some?” Gimli asked.

“You’re becoming quite the river rider my dwarven friend,” announced Legolas.

“Bah!” came the quick and grumpy response. “If we must get wet, be done with it soonest is all.”

“Then let us not keep our friend waiting,” laughed Gandalf. And to playful chuckling, they started again, fighting the fast current and trying to stay as far toward the western shore as the Anduin’s current permitted. They passed cliffs, some sheer as walls. As an hour passed, the heights to either side grew higher still, the channel narrower, and the river itself even faster. Not much later any attempt to paddle, either than to steer, was given up. Only Jean’s ability would be able to stop the Fellowship, should it for some reason prove necessary, as they forged rapidly ahead through the black hills of Emyn Muil.

Eventually, two great rocks ahead in the distance breeched through the water, tall and sheer pillars of stone, forming narrow brackets through which the river hurled itself.

“What are those?” cried Frodo over the increasing bass rumble of the water echoing off the canyon around them.

“The Argonath!” shouted Gandalf. “The Pillars of the Kings!”

“Spread out!” yelled Aragorn. “Try to go through one at a time! Stay to the middle!”

<stay alert little bird. in case your help is needed>

<of course mother hen. i was not born yesterday.>

As the Fellowship passed them, the two vast grey figures rose like armor clad giants, two great kings of stone. The left hand of each was raised palm outwards in a gesture of warning; each right hand clutched an axe; upon each head a crumbling helm supporting a crown. The majesty of an earlier age lay preserved within the hewn rock, suffering from, but still resistant to the endless beat of rain, snow, heat, cold, river, sky, and time. With awe filled hearts, none in any of the boats spoke as each craft took its turn to pass between these remnants of ancient, proud, skilled Numenor.

Once through, the unbroken line of cliffs continued; the chasm long and dark, permitting little light to shine upon the rushing water and slick stone around them. Finally, after another hour a tall gap of light, catching the first pinks of sunset gapped ahead of them. Growing larger and larger as ten more minutes passed, until they finally shot out of the canyon and came to the calmer waters of Nen Hithoel.

“Tol Brandir, Amon Lhaw, and Amon Hen!” cried Gandalf, pointing at the three peaks which could just be seen at the end of the long, pale, oval lake. “There we will find the Hill of Sight.”

Many of the Fellowship swallowed hard at these words, for the pronouncement meant the end of the Fellowship was nigh.


<<<return me>>>
<<<to mordor>>>

Legolas cleared his throat loudly. “Perhaps we should spend one last night of rest before we approach such … an important place.”

“Yes!” immediately agreed Frodo.

“I’m still sick from the canyon,” announced Sam. “I need a good lie down.”

A green looking Gimli concurred, “I do not think that such a bad idea.”

“Very well,” answered Gandalf. And the wizard seemed to grow smaller as he spoke. “One last night together then. I spy a landing, let us head there. A small delay will prove no harm.”

<<no!!!>>

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Frodo dropped his pack where Aragorn indicated they would make camp. “I think I’ll go stretch my legs,” he declared.

The Ranger nodded his head. “Should be safe enough. Don’t go too far though Frodo. It will be dark soon enough. We’ll be having a small fire tonight, so if you get lost, look for the glimmer of it or follow the scent of smoke with your keen hobbit nose.”

“Ok Strider, I will,” Frodo replied in a small, tired voice.

“I’ll come with ya, Mr. Frodo. Ifin you don’t mind,” piped up Sam.

Frodo smiled. “No thank you Sam, not tonight,” he said with a bit of a sigh.

“Shall I go with you Frodo?” asked Boromir. “’save enough,’ doesn’t mean completely safe.” The large man smiled, “I even promise not to talk to you about Minas Tirith … much. Haha.”

Rogue elbowed Boromir sharply in the side. “Ignore him Frodo, go take your walk. We’ll get camp set up and have something more than Lembas for you to eat when you get back. Ok?”

Frodo nodded and slowly walked away from his friends toward the south.

“What did you hit me for woman?” Boromir fiercely whispered down at Rogue.

“You big oaf, can’t you see the poor guy desperately wants to be alone for a while.”

A confused look crossed the large man’s face. “Why?”

Rogue rolled her eyes. “Ahhgg, men. No emotional sense. None.”

Boromir made a dangerous sound in the back of his throat. “Explain,” he finally rumbled out.

“Tomorrow Gandalf will tell him who he goes with to Mordor. We’ll be breaking up. He’s scared and also worried he might not ever see us again. We are his friends after all. Besides, he doesn’t want us to see how afraid he is.”

Boromir nodded his head, “I understand wanting to hide one’s fears, from friends as well as enemies.” He then stared off after Frodo’s receding form.

<<<take me!>>>
<<<power!>>>

“The hobbit bears a heavy burden,” Boromir whispered. As he continued gazing off through the descending dusk, one eye started twitching. Eventually he returned to helping his friends set up their meager camp.

“Legolas,” chirped Gandalf, while he collected things into his pack.

“Yes, Mithrandir?” responded the elf, squatting next to his own carry sack.

“Tonight … we will have a fire. That gets me to thinking of coney. I believe I saw signs of a pair of them, out there,” and the wizard jerked his head to indicate out beyond their camp. “So why don’t you take your bow and go search for them … tonight.”

The elf’s eyes quickly darted left and right, taking in the camp. “Two of them?”

“Yes, a pair. You may only find one at first, but I’m sure you will find the other shortly, perhaps taking a drink.”

Legolas picked up bow and quiver before standing up. “It will get dark, but I shall manage. Wish me luck.”

“Always.”

Legolas nodded and headed north out of their camp, opposite to the direction which Frodo had taken.

“What does the great yellow haired sissy need luck for?” harrumphed Gimli.

“Yeeessss,” drawled Jean. “Luck for hunting rabbits?”

Gandalf smiled, saying, “Night comes. And well, I’m rather fond of coney,” which caused several of the Fellowship to chuckle as they continued readying the camp. After a few minutes, Gandalf stopped futzing with his pack. “Sam?” he called out.

“Yes Master Gandalf,” came the hobbit’s always cheerful voice.

“I was wondering if you might do an old man a favor?”

“Certainly? Did you forget your smokeweed again?”

The wizard laughed, “Ahh, you know me too well wise Samwise Gamgee. Perhaps I should have said two favors.” The helpful hobbit nodded his smiling head to indicate his willing acceptance of the requests. “First, if you would be so kind as to take my bag here and place it in your boat. I shan’t need it till the morrow before we push off.”

“My boat?” he asked a tad perplexedly.

“Yes, if you would be so kind. And the second favor is as you so smartly guessed, can you rummage around down there and find my pouch of the bittersweet weed?”

“Glad to,” Sam replied as he came over, hefted up the wizard’s pack, nearly equal in length to his own height, and stomped off east back towards the river and where the boats lay tied up.

Jean ran a hand over the gold strands around her neck and gazed from her spot in camp at the grey clad old man. “Tsk, tsk,” she said in an exaggerated voice. “Abusing the good nature of hobbits so, just to get them to do your biding; for shame Mithrandir, for shame.”

<<<join me!>>>
<<<become me!>>>
<<<become complete!>>>
<<<love!>>>
<<<power!>>>

Gandalf’s eyes looked right back into her’s. He smiled. “I think you’ll find them sturdier than you imagine.”

<<soon!>>

“Perhaps. Well, if we are to have the fire Aragorn promised Frodo, someone needs to go collect some wood. So I’m off.”

“Want some company?” asked Storm.

“No thanks. Occasionally, things are better done alone.” And with those words, the red haired mutant strode west out of the camp, in search of kindling and other flammable things.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Many, many scary meats wearing hard shells and carrying sharp sticks had marched through the early evening out into the frigid winter air, a hint of snow on the odd gust of wind which broke through the West Gate of Moria and carried a ways down its many smooth carved stone tunnels. Some of the flesh had needed the encouragement of the whip to keep moving, and it had smiled with pleasure at each shriek, but knew better than to reveal itself by laughing out loud. Since the mountains moved, this was now, by far, the largest opening available from his accursed prison to the hurtful outside world, but like the others it too was well guarded. The poor, small creature felt very pleased with itself that it had found the hidden niche, only two bends, or so it guessed, from the gate and terrible freedom.

It huddled into itself at the sound of many feet returning past the safe hole, back into the awesome depths below. Once that beat receded, it tried to listen, between the banging voices inside its head, for any sounds that might hint at how large a guard remained. An ugly guttural murmur here, the scrape of a stick there, made it think a handful, no more than two handfuls. Then it heard a shout. And many answering shouts! The scary meats were leaving!! It’s heart beat faster, veins began to bulge through its tissue thin skin in excitement.

Thump! Thump! Thump! “Fear,” it croaked. A walking mountain was being brought to close the gate. The scary meats feared the walking mountains and kept them on chains. Soon it heard the chink, chink through the echoing of the thumps. Hope fell in its chest, the walking mountain and the two keepers passed beneath it before the guards of the gate could withdrawal beyond him. Now they passed! Only now! Too late!

Creak! The gate began to close. Prison trapped it again. Anger swelled. Sweat broke out across its whole body. Something broken within somehow snapped. “Precious,” the creature groaned erotically. With hardly a thought it leapt down from its cubby and started to sprint toward where it knew the hole to be, diminishing in size by the second. One bend. Two bends. There. Only a narrow streak separated the two doors.

“Grraaawwwk!” it shrieked wildly.

The two scary meats nearly dropped their chains to gape at it, racing toward them. Even the walking mountain slowed its heavy effort while its immense head turned to look for the source of the eerie call. It leapt over one chain, and slid between two tree trunk thick legs.

Smash! A boulder sized fist smashed the granite floor where its torso had passed a half second before. It sucked in its breath, as the sharps edges of the doors scrapped its chest, abdomen, and legs.

“Ahhhhhh!” It shouted in glee, feet striking mud and snow, no longer stone, as it danced a jig.

Freezing wind caressed its barely clad body, the creature shivered and began to focus on its new situation.

“Gollum,” it hiccupped.

 

[High Plains Drifter]

Part 28 – The Phoenix Rises

With a heavy heart, Frodo slipped out of the campsite into the descending gloom of dusk, only stopping to occasionally release his ever growing tension by randomly kicking at a small rock or stick. Since departing Lorien the hobbit had felt shadows growing around, and within, him; even while asleep. Frodo wished something, anything, would chase them away, but doubted he’d be so lucky. He knew the shadows names, no matter how hard he tried to deny it: fear, doubt, failure, pain, surrender, death. His hairy, unshod feet took him where they would, he paid small mind to where he wandered off to away from camp; Frodo’s thoughts seldom strayed from examining his shadows and who might help protect him from them. Was he strong enough to brave the perils of Mordor? At one point the slender hobbit remembered the autumn morning at Rivendell when he stood safely in the sunshine to declare in a quiet voice, “I will take The Ring, though I do not know the way,” and wondered what had ever possessed him to whisper such folly.

<<<seek the master.>>>

Frodo’s head hung low, chin nearly touching his chest, dragged down by the enormous weight of the small nondescript gold band, always tugging, always pulling, on the dwarven chain around his neck. Frodo moped at the knowledge only a very few friends might continue with him to the harsh, black land he had glimpsed in the Lady Galadriel’s mirror. Strider would not be coming with him. There had been too much talk of Aragorn and Gondor during the trek, but Frodo had always held out hope the wily ranger would keep guiding him. Now he knew in his heart it was not to be. And when just after the passage between the Pillars of the Kings, he had glanced over at Aragorn, steering the boat closest to him, there had been no mistaking the uncanny resemblance between his friend’s visage and those carved into the giant statues just behind and high above him, lit brightly by the sun, of the brothers Isildur and Anarion. Aragorn was a King and he needed to return; that was his destiny. ‘But what of my destiny?’ Frodo pondered.

<<<put me on.>>>

Losing Boromir too to Gondor did not overly bother the hobbit. The man was a strong warrior, a clever traveler, and clearly smitten with Rogue; all excellent qualities for sure, but there was something about him that Frodo knew couldn’t be trusted around the Ring. The Ring. The hobbit patted at the small bulge of it under his tunic and atop his mithral shirt of mail. He would miss Rogue though, so tightly bound to Boromir. She wasn’t as sweet as when they first met back before Bree; the orcs near Rivendell had changed her forever, but Frodo somehow had found the relentlessness nature of the feistier Rogue’s fight against darkness more and more reassuring the farther the Fellowship journeyed. Gimli would also be an implacable foe to any enemy that Frodo might encounter as he continued along. He hoped Gandalf would let the dwarf come with him. Bilbo had travelled with thirteen dwarves on his grand adventure. ‘Surely,’ Frodo thought, ‘I deserve at least one as a companion.’

<<<take me to mordor!>>>

The hobbit wondered why Gandalf would deny him the aid of both Legolas and Storm. The last nine days, and nights, afloat on the Anduin had opened Frodo’s eyes to the immense talents of the quiet elf: frightfully competent with both tool and weapon, cheerful in sharing the burden of chores, savvy in the ways of nature, and always reassuring with a kind look or word. Storm, tender and caring, yet strong as steel. From the barrow wight’s den to the appearance of Gandalf at the Prancing Pony, there had never been a doubt that the dark skinned women had been in charge. With clever insight, a gentle hand for cooperation, love, and discipline, she kept everyone moving forward, to where they needed to go. Frodo chuckled softly. ‘The fact she controls the elements and can rain down thunder isn’t a bad reason to have her come along either,’ he thought.

<<<flee! false friends. to mordor. to mordor!>>>

The chuckle turned to a warm smile as Frodo contemplated Kitty, closest in temperament of all the Fellowship to his cousins, friends, and original accomplices in secrecy, Pippin and Merry. Were their plans succeeding? He hoped a dwarven army would march to help Legolas and Storm defeat that turncloak Saruman. He imagined the wizard in appearance as very similar to Gandalf, but had a difficult time understanding how a person who looked like that could be deceived by, or deceive himself through, evil. Frodo again clutched at the Ring buried under his clothing. He shook his head in sorrow that the horrible thing in his possession could have so terrible a sway over the wise and mighty. A pang of guilt stabbed through him as he remembered standing beside the Mirror and offering the Ring to the Lady Galadriel. A temptation not just anyone could have resisted he now realized, he should never have made the offer.

<<<The Ring. The Ring!>>>

The hobbit paused in mid-stride, a horny, hairy foot refusing to touch the ground. ‘Where was I?’ he asked himself. ‘Oh yes, Kitty.’ His foot finally found earth, but not where originally intended. He paced off unknowingly in a slightly different direction than before, continuing his mental meanderings and soul searching. Despite the similarities in disposition to a hobbit, the girl was still simply … a girl. Mordor was no place for young Kitty he judged. She hadn’t even yet reached her thirty third year, or whatever the equivalent was for the children of man, the children of Edain, even though she wasn’t exactly either of those two. That left only three who might go with him. No wait, four counting Gimli. ‘How could I forget the dwarf?’ he puzzled. Suddenly the image of Sam’s friendly, loyal face thrust to the front of his mind, knocking all other thoughts aside. And Frodo wept. He knew he couldn’t lead poor, sweet Sam to his doom. ‘Can I do this to anyone?’ he wondered through his tears.

<<<submit. obey.>>>

He sniffled, drying wet cheeks with the edge of his elven cloak. Frodo next spent long minutes debating whether his need for Gandalf outweighed the wizard’s other responsibilities. He knew there could be no victory without the destruction of the Ring, but his friend’s words kept echoing within him, “The time for hard choices draws very close.” Gondor needed protection, and there was Saruman to stop too. Frodo tried to wrap his brain about what Middle Earth would be like if Sauron were defeated, but only after Gondor were broken and Saruman had run amok. Then he remembered what Sam had seen in the Lady’s mirror; trouble in the Shire with Bywater on fire, wargs running up to Bag End, and the Gaffer fleeing in the middle of the night. “Perhaps this is my hard choice,” whispered Frodo. “To let go of Gandalf.” With those words a montage of memories swept through the scared hobbit, of the many happy times he had shared with the wizard back in the sweet sunshine of the Shire. He pulled his cloak back to his nose, hoping a hint of his friend’s, his protector’s smokeweed essence had caught to it. The faint whiff of smoke he detected brought on other recollections; of being saved from the Nazgul’s trap of fire by Gandalf, of riding hard atop Shadowfax secure within Gandalf’s embrace, of the reassuring comfort of his presence sitting next to him during the Council of Elrond. “Oh a very hard choice,” he moaned. “To save the Shire I must say goodbye to him. What shall I do?” he wailed.

<<<treachery. beware.>>>

At his moment of crisis, a strange almost eerie calm descended upon Frodo. His senses flooded with the image of a peaceful, sun filled meadow. He could almost smell the green grass and the hint of flowers on a breeze. Birds sang sweet notes. A family of rabbits nibbled at clover. Frodo dreamed he stood in this peaceful place, safe from all harm. As he relaxed, someone entered the meadow from the far end, walking toward him. ‘Who?’ he thought. The image of the person was strangely familiar, kind, yet fuzzy. He stared in befuddlement as it drew closer. He wanted to become nervous, but somehow couldn’t. The face was now right before, yet still unrecognizable, then suddenly it snapped into focus: a red haired woman, smiling down at him, with eyes deep and warm, so very, very warm. “Of course, Jean,” Frodo whispered. He snapped himself out of his dream like experience. “I know who I will take the Ring to Mordor with,” he declared. A smile of relief spread across his face.

<<<put on The Ring!>>>

Frodo now noticed that not even a sliver of daylight or hint of dusk remained in the night’s sky, but he did see a strange, soft florescent green glow moving slowly over hill and dale, through the trees, toward him. ‘Perhaps,’ he pondered, ‘someone has come from camp to get me.’ The hobbit shrugged his shoulders, he did know one thing for certain, the last stage of the Quest was upon him.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

<<<put on The Ring.>>>

“Where’s that woman?” Boromir growled.

“Who?” asked Kitty.

“Jean. She said she’d get wood for a fire. Well where’s the wood?” he grumbled.

“Keep your pants on big guy,” barked Rogue.

“If she wanted to shirk, she should have said so, instead of seizing upon an excuse to lollygag about. I for one looked forward to a cooked meal tonight. After a month’s travel together to act like a new spurred recruit, intolerable. Such a poor soldier would be scorned in any troop I commanded,” the large man relentlessly badgered.

“Oh for Christ’s sake! Stop bitching and go do it yourself then, before I bash your complaining skull in!” roared Rogue.

Boromir sucked in a hard breath, facing turning red, and straightened to his full height, towering over the mutant teen near him. “Alright, I will!” he hissed, dropping the large, leafy branch he had been trying to incorporate into a small lean-to. He snatched up his cloak and stormed away from the others.

“Sheez, what got into him?” muttered Kitty.

“Leave him be,” declared Gimli. “He carries more than his own share of the duties.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that supposed to mean?” Rogue accused.

The dwarf squinted his eyes dangerously as he looked at the hot tempered youth. “You’ll find my head tougher than most to bash,” he challenged.

“Now, now friends,” came Gandalf’s soothing voice.

Heading off to the south, away from his companions, through the brush and rough terrain, into the rapidly darkening air, no one could see the smirk on Boromir’s face. He had disliked using Rogue as a foil, but knew he could prod her into an outburst that would grant him a suspicionless departure. What guilt he felt was outweighed by his urgency to find Frodo and plead his case one last time. Boromir looked for the track of the little Ring Bearer, he could not allow Frodo to return to the lies of the wizard, the elf, and the so-called ‘Returning King’ without first freely talking to a true man, a Captain of Gondor. ‘The Halfling cannot be allowed to blindly walk the Ring into Mordor, offering the Enemy at every turn a chance at recapturing it,’ he thought urgently. ‘Folly!’ The longer he weighed the impossibility of the task those protected from Sauron by Gondor’s shield wanted the hobbit to perform, the more angry Boromir became. ‘There! A foot print.’

<<<The Ring. The Ring!>>>

As he followed what small signs he could detect of the hobbit’s earlier passage, Boromir’s thoughts started to focus on how the Ring was a gift, which could richly be used to turn the very power of the Enemy against itself. A gift that a true-hearted man; fearless, incorruptible, with the strength of Command, could use to drive off the hosts of Mordor. The more he imagined the ruin he could wrack upon vile orcs and traitorous southrons with the aid of the Ring, the more profusely his body sweated. The possibilities he contemplated excited him and only hapless Frodo stood between him and these visions of revenge upon those who tried to humble his mighty homeland. The sound of a rock bouncing through the brush somewhere ahead snapped him out of his mental revelries. He stared hard into the gathering gloom, one eye twitching as he scanned for the hint of a darker form moving through the last remnants of twilight.

<<<treachery. beware.>>>

“Ahhhh! I see you little hobbit,” he whispered. Boromir crouched, hand resting on the hilt of his sword jutting from its scabbard. The large man started to nearly tiptoe forward, gingerly watching where each foot stepped to avoid making any noise that might alert poor, doomed Frodo. Without warning his body jerked to a stop, rose off the ground, and spun around to hover several feet in the air.

“What?!?” he gargled in surprise.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Were you wanting to steal what I am about to acquire?” she asked with a light hearted laugh. “How delightful!”

“Jean?” Boromir gasped in amazement. The mutant stood right below his hanging body, exuding a soft glow off of her light green, yellow gold, and black colored clothes; her vibrant red hair flickered out behind her like jets of flame. The elven cloak from Lorien no longer lay draped across her shoulders. The multi-stranded, bejeweled necklace gifted by Celeborn no longer adorned her neck. In its place, resting upon her chest, lay the golden pendant of a blazing bird with wings spread wide; the very pendant which she had formed back in Rivendell with her mind fire. These things the man noted instantly, but it was the terrible beauty and ferocity of her face and burning eyes that held him mesmerized, both chilling his heart and exciting the very marrow in his bones.

“Oh so much more than Jean. Don’t you agree?”

He nodded mutely in agreement, muscular neck working hard to overcome the resistance of the invisible hand holding him aloft.

“Kind of you to say,” she chuckled softly. “But true. I’m so very, very much more now!” As she spoke her voice deepened, taking an eerie tone, and her eyes blazed even brighter. “You’re not so bad yourself,” she continued in Jean’s normal tone of voice. “And unlike a feckless elf or that love neutered Edain. Your blood boils hot, I feel it.”

In an instant Boromir’s tunic shredded into a hundred tiny tattered pieces, revealing his white scarred skin, muscular chest, and well defined abdomen. He watched as her yellow gold gloved hand stretched up and caressed across his chest, then her fingers leisurely trailed down between his pecs to his belly button, and further still. Jean smiled. “Oh definitely hot blooded.” She giggled. “When I rule, all of the White City will hear the shrieks of delight you give me each night.”

The invisible hand jerked Boromir again, angling his trapped body to make it parallel to the earth, his head now even with Jean’s face. Her two hands rested on either cheek and tilted his head back so she could gaze right at him. She gently pulled him toward her soft, moist, slightly parted lips and kissed him, hard; her tongue occasionally teasing him. For a second, a responding heat surged through his body. But it died, quickly, as an image swam up from his inner depths. This was not who he wanted to kiss. There was only one: Rogue. Funny, kind, infuriating, teasing, brave, pretty, strong, smart Rogue. Rogue, Rogue, Rogue, Rogue, only Rogue, the only one he loved. Rogue.

As his passion fled, a cold fury replaced it. Instantly Boromir knew all he had intended that night was wrong, monstrously so; but here, trapping him, was a thing much worse indeed. A looming devastation for Middle Earth that perhaps only Sauron could rival, or benefit from. He must protect Frodo, protect the Ring. With all his might, he heaved at the hilt his hand still rested upon. The blade came out all of an inch before his arm froze. Through his lips, still parted in a kiss with Jean, a chuckle vibrated into his mouth. Jean’s lips finally left his and she took a step back.

“Did you not think I could hear your thoughts as they formed? You would love that pathetic little girl child instead of me?” she asked in a light hearted voice. “How precious,” she snarled, voice dropping octaves, sounding course and discordant. “So try.”

Boromir’s arm half drew his blade, then thrust it fully back into the scabbard.

“Again.” Blade half out, blade back.

“Again.” Blade half out, blade back.

“Again.” Blade half out, blade back.

“Again.” Blade half out, blade back.

Jean chortled, “I can make you do whatever I want.” Boromir flipped upside down, only his strong, jutting jaw kept the chord holding the white and silver Horn of Gondor from slipping off his body. “See?” Jean jerked him back parallel the ground, arms and legs splayed so he made a giant hovering ‘X.’

Boromir sucked in a deep breath. As he started to release a mighty cry for help, a powerful unseen hand took hold of his larynx. Only a trickle of noise seeped out of his throat.

“You are relentless in your own insignificant way. And perhaps stupid. Did you not hear? ‘I can make you do whatever I want.’ What a wonderful toy you will make.” She stepped forward and again pressed her mouth against Boromir’s lips. But after a second, she began grinding his lower lip between her teeth, causing blood to splurt across both their faces and into both their mouths. After a minute of agonizing pain, she relented and released his shredded lip.

A yellow gold glove dabbed carelessly at the blood on Boromir’s cheek, smearing it. “Well, I have another little toy to attend to.” As the red head stepped past the floating body of Boromir, she laughingly called, “Don’t go anywhere.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

“Jean, you’re all aglow,” said Frodo with breathless wonder in his voice.

The red haired woman smiled kindly at the hobbit. “I wanted to be sure you saw me,” she replied. The brightness dimmed till only a faint greenish gleam outlined her in the darkness. “There. Is that better?”

“Oh I didn’t mind. You looked beautiful, magical even.”

The woman laughed lightly. “What a gallant fellow you are. Why haven’t you swept up some fair Shire maiden already?” And she punctuated her rhetorical comment by leaning over to kiss him on the cheek.

“Is? Is that blood?”

“What? Where?”

“There,” Frodo pointed. “The side of your face.”

She raised a gloved hand, which Frodo immediately noticed was also blood stained, and casually swiped at her face before peering down at. “Hmmmn, so it is,” the red head said nonchalantly. “I wonder where it came from.”

Confused by Jean’s odd behavior, he queried, “Why did you come looking for me?”

<<<take me.>>>

“I heard you call for me,” she answered.

“But I didn’t?” he replied uneasily.

“Not out loud silly,” she said gently laying an index finger alongside the hobbit’s head. “In here.” And she tapped the finger against his temple.

“What? How?”

“That’s not important,” she soothed.

<[images of the sun rising over a peaceful meadow, coneys nibbling at clover, birds flying through blue skies, a gentle breeze rustling through the branches of trees, a flower blossoming, a snug smial with a fire and a thin shimmer of smokeweed in the air]>

“What is important,” she continued, “is how brave you were in chosing to let go of Gandalf and place your trust in me. Only I have the strength to protect you, to keep the Shire safe.”

Frodo let out a big sigh of relief, “I never doubted your promise, Jean. I am so happy. Can we go to Mordor? Just the two of us, and leave the others?”

“We’re all going Frodo. It’s a frightful task ahead, but all of us will be needed to end the threat of that Maia Sauron,” she answered.

Frodo gulped. “All of us? But I don’t want to see Sam or Kitty or Gimli hurt.”

The red head laughed.

<<<treachery. beware. defend me.>>>

“Not them, silly hobbit. Us. The three of us.”

“Us?” he asked, now quite confused.

“Yes. You. Me. And this.”

Frodo’s eyes bugged out as the Ring and the necklace it rest upon slithered out of his tunic and hovered in the air between the two. Immediately, the slight green glow around the woman burst into full luminescence. She passed her hands under the floating Ring and a golden globe of brilliance sparkled in the air, heating it, changing it. As Frodo gazed in astonishment, Elvish runes took shape upon the Ring for the third time in his memory.

The hobbit listened as the woman’s voice again dropped several octaves and took on an unearthly harmony as she spoke the words, “One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them.”

“But you can’t” he whispered.

The dark creature before him chortled, “Oh I think I can.”

The laughter quickly subsided and a darker tone swirled through her voice, “Sauron’s minions hurt me, Frodo. Hurt me badly. And they hurt our friends too. He seeks to hear Middle Earth shriek with pain as he mars everything, to make all life as ugly as he knows himself to be. That is why he attacked us, Frodo, we are a threat to him. My beauty scares him. He cares nothing for beauty … or love. I do, I love. Yes, Frodo, it is true, but he cannot; so he must pay for his crimes ...” Here the red head suddenly smiled cheerfully as her words took on an almost seductive quality, “ ... in blood.”

The fire, passion, and madness the hobbit now saw in Jean’s eyes rooted him in place. Too mesmerized by the splintered, eerie, vengeful behavior of his friend, he did not even try to contest the ownership of his precious Ring, literally hanging in the air between them, within a golden globe of swirling energy. But as her song of pain and love ended in a libretto of death, the edge of Frodo’s consciousness just barely heard the sound of three silky soft notes overlaying the discordant composition of Jean’s bizarre aria.

Twang. Twang. Twang.

The tip of an arrowhead pierced the orb of churning golden light. Immediately the iron bodkin point began to melt and the shaft behind it caught fire from the intense heat as the entire arrow penetrated into the glow. In a nanosecond the feathers fletched to the sides of the narrow reed of mallorn wood vaporized into nothing. The deadly projectile wobbled, yet still it travelled true, for talented elven hands had crafted the weapon from the bounty of Lorien and a skilled elven hand had launched it from a Lorien bow. Just slightly off center, the tip of the dying arrow pierced the eye of the Ring and dragged it out of the red head’s conjured fire.

Frodo gulped in shock.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!” the dark creature before him screamed in outrage and then agony when near instantaneously a second arrow thunked feathers deep into the side of her chest, breaking a rib and skewering a lung. As the woman crumpled a third arrow transfixed her thigh.

With a thought, an invisible wall arose out of nothingness between the red haired dark creature and the deadly projectiles pelting at her through the darkness. As her breath came wheezing and ragged, blood trickling from her nose, she slowly lifted a hand to placed it on the stub of the arrow jutting out from below her shoulder. She gave a tug at it and moaned in terrible pain.

<<concentrate!!!>>

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“The RING!!!” Frodo yelled, jolted out of his trance by the unexpected intervention. His eyes followed the speeding flicker of flame that had snatched away his sweet burden. The arrow lay plowed into a scrub oak, pinning the Ring to the trunk. Without conscious thought, hairy hobbit feet scurried over a hundred feet of rough terrain to discover the still hot reed of badly burnt Mallorn barely reachable from his tippy toes. Placing fingers around the shaft, he gritted his teeth as skin blistered from the remaining heat. Nevertheless the doughty hobbit hung on and started to push and to pull at the arrow, hoping to dislodge it so he could retrieve his precious.

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At Jean’s cry, Boromir felt his invisible shackles slacken ever so slightly. He clenched the muscles of his legs, arms, and abdomen to try and wriggle free. What limited air he could suck in through his still ensnared larynx gurgled out of him in disappointment. He only jiggled a little. He hung his head in disappointment. Something swinging caught his eye, the Horn of Gondor. The cord for it still lay around his neck and drooped over his right shoulder; placing the mouthpiece below the arm and only six to nine inches from his mouth. The Captain of Gondor started shifting his hips, only a little, as far as Jean’s restraints let them move. With the miniscule rocking of his body, the horn began a gentle sway, no unseen force impeded its movement. The large man pursed his bloody, shredded lips in concentration. ‘Just a little closer,’ he thought. ‘Just a little closer.”

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The twisted woman gritted her teeth and weekly waved a hand over the arrow stabbing into her. A red glow issued from her hand, bathing the blood soaked area. Her tunic, then her very flesh pealed back, revealing where the shaft protruded through muscle, between her rib cage, and into her lung. She sucked in a painful breath, causing air to hiss out around the edges of the arrow from the puncture. Vertigo seized her for a moment.

<<concentrate!!!>>

The red glow slowly grew brighter, increasing in intensity with each beat of her dark heart. Now the muscle around the shaft opened and the very lung too. An invisible hand snatched the arrow and flung it far from her body. The tissue around the hole in her ruptured lung immediately tugged and stretched, knitting itself back together. A sigh of relief, relief from pain, relief from the threat of death slipped out, and for a change, as the air exited her nose and mouth, no new trickle of blood accompanied it. Within seconds, broken bone, torn muscle, slashed flesh rearranged itself, turning the diabolical creature whole once again.

“Elf!” she cried in fury. “Your time ends now!”

A hundred branches, logs, rocks, and boulders heaved off the ground. An instant later they all shot off into the night.

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Legolas gazed steadily from behind the edge of a tree at Jean, bow drawn and ready. Even in the dark, his keen eyes could spy small eddies in the air where his former friend manipulated the hidden tapestry of Arda to create an invisible shield. The frustration he felt at not having killed her could not be seen on his ice calm face or detected in the rock steady pose of the taut drawn bow. To no avail he had wasted a few arrows seeing whether he could penetrate her defense. Now he searched for a way to perhaps ricochet a shot into her. His stomach churned in revulsion at seeing her repair herself.

Suddenly an avalanche of detritus came roaring out of the night toward him. All thoughts of attack fell away. He ducked the first branch, and then hopped to his left before rolling backward and angling into a small depression. In the dark and with his natural elven shields, Jean could neither physically nor mentally see Legolas. Unfortunately she addressed this problem by throwing everything should could into the vicinity Legolas had fired his arrows from. The elf rolled back to his feet to avoid a fast rolling rock the size of his head, hopscotched over two, no three branches, and cartwheeled to avoid a log. Pirouetting behind the temporary safety of a pine, Legolas prepared to dance faster and more creatively than he ever had done so before.

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“Where’s that man?” Gimli growled.

“Who?” asked Kitty.

“Boromir! The big lout said he’d get wood. Well?”

“Enough,” said Rogue.

“Where’s that elf?” Gimli asked, with nearly the same growl as second before.

“Who?” asked Kitty, a smirk starting to fight its way onto her lips.

“That useless bow carrier. He’s supposed to come back with dinner. With rabbit. And?”

“Oh please stop,” Rogue gritted out through clenched teeth.

“Where’s that hobbit?” Gimli asked, now barely suppressing a chuckle.

“Who?” asked Kitty, now smiling broadly.

“Sam. The little fellow who was going to bring some smokeweed to that decrepit old man over there. So?”

Rogue rolled her eyes and clenched her mouth before saying, “I … am … begging … you.”

“Where’s that head basher?” Gimli asked, outright laughing.

“Who?” giggled back his teenaged accomplice.

“That one, right there,” the dwarf said, pointing directly at Rogue. “She keeps threatening to smack my skull.” Gimli quickly ran both hands over his head and then shrugged his shoulders. “Everything still seems to be here,” he teased.

“Stop it already!” Rogue snapped, stamping her foot to the ground. This only caused everyone to start laughing at her discomfort.

As Gandalf reached into his cloak to pull out his pipe and pack of weed, he inserted himself into the mirth to defend Rogue. Cough. Cough. “Enough now. You’ve had your high spirits. We’re all tired and on edge this night, leave the lady in peace.”

“Oh alright,” agreed Kitty, then she pointed at the wizard. “Hey, Gandalf, I thought you sent Sam to get you your smokeweed?”

“Hmmnn?” he responded, looking down at the pouch in his hands. “So I did. How very absent min….”

Gandalf’s words were cut off by a soaring sound reverberating across the hills surrounding the waters of Nen Hithoel.

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Boromir grunted in pain as the tip of the Horn of Gondor brushed across his shredded lip and smacked a tooth. The horn, suspended by its cord dangling over his upraised arm drifted back away from his face, reached the end of its trajectory past his right elbow, and pivoted back toward his face again. The strong muscles of his neck bunched up as struggled to turn his head just a fraction of an inch further right. A sole eye watched the mouthpiece approach him, he opened his mouth, trying to forget the grinding crush on his larynx. A bit of hardened keratin from a long ago slain Kine of Araw edged into his mouth, and the large man bit down hard.

Crack.

He grimaced, a tear forced its way out from under a now clenched eyelid. He had broken a tooth, yet triumph swelled within him, he had captured the horn between his teeth. Ravaged lips puckered on the horn and he sucked as hard as he could, causing a burning in his throat. Blood smeared the stark white of the horn and its silver inlay decoration as more of the mouthpiece slid slowly into his mouth, more under his control. His tongue lashed on too and dragged it in further still. He slowly exhaled, tension leaving his body. He might die, but he would at least be able to aid his friends and make amends for the treachery that had lurked in his heart. At peace with himself, he filled his lungs deeply, further paining his throat which Dark Jean somehow continued to hold in an invisible grasp.

“HHHAAAAARRRUUUUMMMMMMMMMM!!!!” the Horn of Gondor roared forth loudly in defiance and pride. The sound travelled quickly over the nearby scrubland hills of the rocky Emyn Muil and out over the waters of the Nen Hithoel. The resonance of the call also rumbled within the invisible hand holding Boromir aloft, trapped. In less than a second, his body started to wobble and jiggle, to bob and weave. The large man clenched hard down on the horn again, for fear the movements would dislodge it from his mouth. No sooner had he done so than Dark Jean’s imperceptible shackles shattered and he dropped five feet straight to the ground.

Womp!

The earth accomplished what the jerking journey through the air had not, the jolt from landing spit the horn from his mouth, ending the loud cry of alarm. In an instant he pushed himself to his feet, pulled his blade, and scanned the night for signs of the deadly traitor.

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“HHHAAAAARRRUUUUMMMMMMMMMM!!!!”

Gandalf scrambled to his feet with the aid of his staff and drew Glamdring.

Aragorn pulled out Anduril while looking to the south, from where the call had come.

Storm recognized the wailing notes too, for the Captain of Gondor had played the same tune outside the Dimrill Gate of Moria, in the face of the Balrog. “What’s wrong? Orcs?!?” she shouted.

“No, something much worse,” choked out the wizard, also staring hard to the south. “Jean has been subsumed by the beast. Narwilinien is free!”

“I don’t understand!” shouted a panic Kitty.

“Kitty, go to the boats. Protect Sam. With every power you possess, protect him,” Gandalf commanded.

“Storm?” she asked with a whimper, uncertainty and fear oozing out of her.

The white haired mutant gazed at the wizard’s face, so eerily identical to that fanatic Eric Lehnsherr, yet starkly different: frumpy, gentle, humorous. “I will see if anything is amiss with Jean or otherwise. Go, do what Gandalf asks, Sam may need help.”

With her words, the moment of inertia in camp broke, Gandalf started running toward the dying echoes of the horn. “And be quick about it!” he yelled over his shoulder at the teen. Aragorn followed right behine him, Gimli next with brutal axe in hand. Rogue trailed last, shoulder to shoulder with Storm.

“What the hell?” asked the teen.

“I don’t know Rogue. I trust Gandalf, but Jean’s my friend. And X-men stay together.”

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Anger boiled her thick, luxurious, sweet, sweet blood. ‘That fool excuse of a Numenorean has alerted the Arda enslaved Maia and the mutants,’ she thought. In a nano-second she detected his weak, slow, stupid thoughts. Almost instantly an invisible hand shot out like a fist and hammered him to his knees. A second blast of telekinesis lifted him off the ground and flung him cruelly into an oak. The dim sound of breaking ribs brought a smile to her terrible, beautiful face.

“Aha!” came a small shout of success off in the nearby darkness.

‘How bitter success will soon taste in your insignificant hobbit mouth, Frodo,’ she thought as her mind detected where her little plaything had run off too. ‘The Ring is not for the trivial likes of you.’

<<<take me.>>>
<<<join me.>>>

“Oh, I will!” cried dark Jean, hearing with her mind the seductive whisper of the great temptation.

<don’t go far frodo.(menace) (doom) i come for you [image of frodo’s flesh melting from his bone in a blaze of immense heat](elation) (joy)>

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Frodo moaned in fear. He staggered into the tree from which he’d just plucked free the Ring.

<<<put on The Ring! join me. flee! to mordor!>>>

Horrible images of Jean, doing unspeakable torture to him flooded his mind. She was coming for him; coming for his precious. He felt trapped; a poor, small beast treed by a vicious, ravenous hound. The Ring slid so easily over his finger.

<<<yes!>>>

He shook his head in wonder. The world seemed the same, yet so very, very different. Some things glowed black, but even in the night he could see them, shining their darkness, while at their heart, their core appeared drab, a muted thing of dust or dirt in the shape of a tree or a rock. The stars above him, high in the heavens, blazed silver within a haze of white.

<oh good for you, frodo. but i can still see you. you can’t hide from me. not ever.>

Now his whole body shook. He started running, vaguely downhill, through the strange twilight the Ring revealed to him.

The hobbit gasped. A bush twenty feet in front of him burst into flames.

<there is no where you can go where i cannot get there first (laughter)[image of hobbiton burning down](laughter)>

Frodo zigged and darted in another direction. He barely made fifty feet before his shins abruptly, painfully encountered an invisible barrier, not quite knee high for a hobbit. He flipped into the air and landed on his face, skidding to a stop. Before he could think to move again, an invisible hand jerked Frodo off the ground and back to his feet, then pushed him forward.

<run frodo, run. are you having fun? i am. (laughter) run faster, I’m coming for you.>

Frodo ran. Frodo ran very, very fast indeed for a hobbit.

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With the cry of the horn, Narwilinien had ceased her blind efforts to pummel him, though he had heard Boromir take two bone crushing wallops. He spied her, both her dim green physical glow and her swirling fire dark red aura, turn away from him in search of some other prey. Frodo. The elf scooted from tree trunk to next further trunk, fallen log, large rock, or depression. Any cover he could find. He gave praise that so far she had not unleashed her fire. Unfortunately the corrupted creature had not stopped shielding herself with the invisible walls he could luckily just detect. They had waivered for the smallest instant at the klaxon call of Gondor, but had solidified before he could unleash an arrow. So now he was forced into stalking something he could not hit.

Woosh!

A ball of fire had shot from her hand, lighting up a small tree. ‘Why there?’ he wondered. ‘There is nothing to be seen. Nothing to be seen! Frodo! He has put on the Ring, but she tracks him by his mind.’ For an instant he debated whether to retrieve Boromir’s horn or to wait for his friends, who must certainly now be coming. He choose neither. Frodo lay in danger, he must stay with his hobbit friend. Mithrandir would expect nothing less.

As worry turned to desperation, inspiration and daring struck him. Legolas silently darted from all cover to stand in open ground. He pulled back the elfhair string of his bow then tilted it nearly vertical. What could not pass through a wall might pass over it.

Twang. Twang. Twang. Twang. Twang. Twang.

The black bolts soared very high into the night air, arcing as they neared their apex, then straight down at dark Narwilinien. Five arrows struck within two feet or less of the fire creature, but only one fell true, skewering the fleshy part of a calf. The perversion of Eru’s will howled, though more from frustration and annoyance than pain the elf suspected. Only a mortal wound might kill this thing, and this blow paled in comparison to his initial assault upon her.

Immediately he sprinted for a hiding place, too late. A mighty scythe of flame, several hundred feet long, at least two feet wide, and shaped like the wing of a bird erupted forth from an arm of the dark creature, slicing in a near one hundred eighty degree arc. He dove toward a depression, bending his body downward to avoid the incoming wave of fire. He chanced a glance up to see how close the blow would come and the tiniest feather of a flame danced down from the sheet of death passing overhead to caress the skin and hair on the left side of his face.

Legolas burned.

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With the merest flick of thought, the flame shooting forth from Dark Jean’s hand retracted to nothing, leaving a scorched landscape behind her. Another smidge of a notion again erected an invisible telekinetic wall between her and the irritating elf. But this time the wall bent and curved, forming a bubble around her. ‘No more treating me like a pin cushion,’ she thought. While her mind scanned for her pet hobbit, one hand, emanating a red glow, waved once more over a piercing wound. The skin and muscle of her lower leg bulged unnaturally wide apart, creating a gap between tissue, tendon, and bone the red head could stick several fingers through if she so choose. She did not. The mallorn arrow levitated out of the gash before catching fire and incinerating into nothingness. With a final flourish her skin snapped back to normal, leaving not even a mark to show for the injury it had suffered.

“Ahh, there you are, my sweet-ling,” she said, spotting Frodo’s petrified mind on the other side of a small rise, focused as feeble best it could in keeping his stubby legs and hairy feet scurrying forward, angling toward some pathetically hoped for escape over the dark waters of the Nen Hithoel.

She paused, stroking a long finger over moist, red, kissable lips, as she contemplated the most pleasurable way to retrieve the Ring from her toy. “Fire? Invisible shackles? No, too simple,” she murmured to herself. “I shall bind your will to mine and make you hand over the Ring, willingly.” Laughter. “Before you kill yourself.” Satisfied with her choice of entertainment, she concentrated, building Frodo’s doom.

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In the near imperceptible, murky grey aether where lurked the juncture of thought, soul, and deed; fire spit out from the mind clutching together the tattered remnants of Jean Grey’s psyche and spun into the flaming form of a giant bird of prey. The great raptor rose to spy through the gloom for the miniscule presence of its victim, the ill-fated holder of a prize beyond value, protected by the most threadbare of shields. ‘There!’ Burning wings unfolded and started to beat, lifting this psychic portion of the dark red head, woven out of power, madness, and spite, forward with the speed of thought. The little hobbit’s tiny mind grew close, talons extended through the thickening grey aether preparing to penetrate the cerebral cortex of her new puppet and ensnare him in a web of unrelenting coercion.

The grey of the aether suddenly shimmered, taking a magnificent form, which swung a shaft of pure white at the extrasensory representation of Dark Jean.

“Awwwwkkkkkk!” cried the bird, tumbling into the gloom, a wing shattered, fiery feathers twirling in the eddies of the plane of thought before poofing into nothingness. The burning raptor skidded to a stop and awkwardly flipped itself back up to its taloned feet, staring with hard glowing eyes at the Grey Interloper standing betwixt her and the cherished, terrible, beautiful prize. The bird hissed at this nemesis, noting the symbolic white rod resting in one hand of this grey form of an old man and the glowing red ring, the astral projection of the Ring of Fire, of Narya, twinkled brightly on a finger of the other hand. She spat fire from her cruel beak at the figure. The old, strongly shaped grey man effortless swung his gleaming white staff and knocked her fire aside.

The Grey Man spoke, “You cannot pass. The darkness burning within you will avail you not, Narwilien. I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. Neither the Ring nor this Hobbit are for you. Go back to the Shadow. Return this vessel to her mortal owner. Be satisfied with the dear taste of life you receive through her.”

“Noooooooooo!” shrieked the bird. “I will not listen to one of my lesser fathers. I know you, puny Maia, now limited from your full strength by the weak flesh of Edain you chain your soul to. You have not the might to stop me Olorin. Oh yes, I remember you, your name. Olorin. I remember the sound of your voice as you helped create me at the Beginning. Beware my fury!”

“You were an unfinished thought, too influenced by the evil designs of Melkor. A half note of the Great Music better left unsung.”

“I was brilliance, perfection,” the bird cut in angrily. “The start of a melody more beautiful than any other chord played in the creation. So the Ainu hid me, muffled my music, kept me a prisoner away from Eru, making his harmony imperfect, so they could take earthly form to live here, to misrule, but under the cloak of his name.”

“I pity you, the Ages you lay trapped between being and not being. And now you throw away your chance at wholeness, merged with this gentle girl, this innocent child, for the Ring has seduced you. You have watched Ea from the beginning, yes, but only just lived in it for the mere blink of an eye, barely enough time to experience any of its beauty, its harshness, its joy, and yes, even its sadness. You are a toddler in the woods, now snared by the simplest of Sauron’s tricks. Do you remember the sound of his voice at the beginning? Do not beg for the favor of becoming his slave.”

“No, I will master it and him! And then I will pity you Olorin, for you will not be alive to see me change all the ugliness that you love into a reflection of me; perfection,” it hawked. The dark bird flapped its wings, grimacing in pain as it forced its broken one to work. Slowly it took to the aether, trying to glide around the Grey Man and seek out that which so sweetly called for her, begged for her attention, craved her love.

But with every move she made, the form of the Grey Man arrived in time to protect the vulnerable mind of Frodo from the fire the bird spat at the hazy, small image of the hobbit as it represented itself in the aether. “Listen to your true other half. Feel her love, her kindness,” called the reflection of Gandalf. “Let it heal you, make you whole, together. Come Jean, return to yourself!”

The fiery apparition paused for the smallest moment in mid flight. “Call me Phoenix!” the bird shrieked, then dove headlong at her tormentor, spewing forth flame, destruction, and hate.

 

[High Plains Drifter]

Part 29 – The Fellowship on Fire

After barely leaving camp, the horizon lit up in an eruption of fire.

“Shit!” yelped Rogue.

“By the Desolation of Smaug,” gulped Gimli.

“Jean, what have you done!” cried Storm.

“Not Jean, Narwilien,” Gandalf stated, increasing his pace from a fast trot to an outright run. No more than a minute and a half later, the wizard started to slow and the other four passed him, heading toward the still burning landscape before them.

“Boromir!” shouted Rogue, concern evident by the warble in her cry, as she spotted and immediately ran toward the large form of the hunched over Captain of Gondor.

“Jean,” he rasped in a strangled, fractured voice. “She grasps for the touch of the Ring.”

Rogue took in his torn apart shirt and ragdoll appearance. Through the dim, flickering light, she stretched a gloved hand to touch his chin and raise his head. The man’s lower lip was shredded pieces of flesh, his nose lay heavily cantered to the left, broken and bleeding, and his forehead profusely oozed blood through a gash littered by bark, dirt, and grit.

Rogue’s eyes bulged wide as saucers. “Holy hell!”

“Frodo! Help Frodo,” he pleaded hoarsely. “Legolas is distracting the witch. She threw fire at him.” His body shuddered as he gulped air through his mouth to keep speaking. “I know not if he still lives. Go!”

“Go. Yes go,” muttered Gandalf in a distracted tone as he caught up to the companions grouped around Boromir. “If Narwilien gains the Ring, all of Middle Earth shall burn. And yet, … she would rise from the ashes … become death,” he whispered.

“Mithrandir?” queried Aragorn, startled by the wizard’s words of doom.

Staring at Gandalf, Storm shivered, a cold sweat breaking out over her whole body. She had seen that certain, not quite vacant look on the wizard’s face before, many times, with the Professor, when he was both there and not there. She tugged hard at Rogue and Aragorn’s sleeves. “Come! Now! We must find Jean.”

“Fly fools!” cried Gandalf, then his body spasmed, sending his hat tumbling. As the four gazed on in horror, part of the wizard’s beard sparked and withered while the skin of his neck bubbled as if scorched by an intense heat.

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The grey hand, sheathed in the soft red glow of Narya, grasped the Phoenix’s neck, striving with all its might to choke the life out of the fiery raptor. Razor sharp talons stabbed out, attempting to slice the Grey Man open and let his aura spill out into the void of the aether. His other hand whirled a staff of white light, the symbol of his service to the Secret Fire, hammering back at the assaulting talons, making them pay a price for every scratch and mark they inflicted upon him. He felt the creature’s chest heave and he ducked his head low as a small jet of flame spit out of the beast’s sharp mouth, just shooting over the top of him, leaving a streak of heat behind.

“Surrender little bird. Mercy too is part of the Great Song.”

“Never!” croaked the bird. The dark thing’s wings stopped beating, no longer trying to pull itself back from the Grey Man’s strong grip. Both feathered spans began to grow, elongate and thicken. Then they shot out, trying to gather the mental projection of the wizard into an embrace of psychic fire and agonizing death.

Before doom took purchase of him, the Grey Man released his hold the bird while he hammered the slippery, near intangible matter of the aether with his staff. Shimmering light instantly sprung around him in a body shaped envelope, armoring him from the burning feathers of the beast. The blazing wings pummeled at him, clutched at his armor, spun him around, searched for the tiniest chink in the Grey Man’s shields. With an iron will the Maia fought the pressure of the crushing, searing psionic attack.

“Enough!” he cried. Narya aided him, again merging its elven crafted strength with his own natural might. The defensive envelope exploded outward, taking the shape of a large blue and white glittering sphere, flinging the bird through the aether, wrenching feathers and pain out of the creature.

“Awwwwkkkkkk!”

The Grey Man’s chest trembled with the exertion. “Though shall not pass! Frodo remains free.”

The Phoenix bled fire and essence as its shattered body struggled to maintain focus of thought and unity of astral being. Spite filled the creature as it contemplated the loss of this battle. “How many of your friends do you think you can protect?!?” it roared, now lusting for revenge.

The Grey Man cringed inwardly at the threat, but bravely answered the challenge, “More than you can lay claw to, little bird.”

“Phoenix!” it squawked, then vanished into the swirling ill-defined mists of the aether and the universe of the mind.

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“Spread out,” shouted Aragorn, turning away from the stricken wizard to head toward the bright embers left by his former friend Jean. “Don’t let one blast of flame kill all of us,” he called in an icy voice.

“But aren’t we going to stay with …” stuttered Rogue.

“I survive,” gasped Gandalf, and he too started to stagger forward.

Boromir grunted, broken ribs grinding to together as he bent to retrieve his fallen sword off the ground. “You must be warriors,” he wheezed. “If given the chance, strike true. No mercy, for none will be shown to you. “

A hand snatched her forearm hard and near tugged the teen off her feet. “Come!” Storm commanded, no yield in her voice.

Rogue swallowed hard as they passed between smoking trees and burning brush. “Is it true?”

“I think … maybe yes,” her friend and mentor said.

“What do we do?”

“What Logan would do, whatever it takes,” Storm declared. “Now spread out, Aragorn’s right.”

Rogue edged away from her fellow mutant, pulled out Ithil Fein, the crescent shaped blade given her by Celeborn, and scurried across the battlefield.

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“Brother,” Aragorn whispered in Sindarin as he knelt in the soot next to the body of Legolas. He turned the face down body over. Much to his surprise, two beautiful, unfocused eyes blinked up at him. There was little else left of beauty in what he gazed down upon. Near one whole side of the elf’s face was burned off; a stub of a right ear, teeth visible through a gap in the flesh of his cheek, half his hair turned to a crispy stubble.

“Narwilien flies free. Frodo. The Ring,” he whispered, words near incomprehensible.

“Yes, Gandalf has warned us. Where?” the Ranger asked.

“Lift me,” he breathed.

“You are sore hurt brother.”

“My eyes still see true.”

While keeping a hold of Anduril, he pushed his other arm under the elf’s back and slowly hauled Legolas to his feet. Once upright, the Prince of Mirkwood leaned heavily on the Dunedain as his eyes searched the night, now only dimly lit from the remnants of the attack by fire.

“Towards the lake,” he feebly gestured with an arm. “I sense her aura, moving slowly.”

“Can you stand?” asked Aragorn. Legolas nodded yes. “I will come back for you,” he said as he slowly disengaged his arm that helped keep the elf steady.

“Do so,” he whispered.

Aragorn gave a grim grin, then suddenly the Ranger dropped to his knees, screaming in pain as the greatest agony he had ever felt in his seven and eighty years plunged, like invisible daggers, deep into his brain.

Before the unbalanced Legolas also fell back to the earth, he saw, as if looking through a dark glass or a fogged window, images of Jean’s beautiful, hate marred face and a fiery bird clamping over the visage of Aragorn like a mask.

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At the first sound of Boromir’s horn, Sam dropped to the ground and raised his head just enough to peer over the rim of the boat in the direction of the loud call. An orange glow of fire in the near distance soon rewarded his caution.

“This isn’t good Samwise,” he muttered to himself, all thoughts of finding Gandalf’s pouch of pipeweed now lost. “What do I do? What do I do?” he anxiously nattered, terrible visions of Black Riders swooping in on flaming dragons took over his imagination.

Several minutes passed with the hobbit nervously rooted in spot gazing off toward the multiplying spots of light, with only an occasional calculating glance at the boats to judge how quickly they might be made ready in case the fiery eruptions came closer.

At the nearby sound of a branch snapping somewhere behind him, Sam pivoted in an instant to peer fretfully into the night’s gloom and took note of a horrible, shadowy figure emerging.

“It’s ok Sam. It’s only me,” called a voice.

“St-st-stay where you are!” he choked out, tugging the barrow blade from his belt.

“Hey! Put your sword down.”

The darkness dropped away from the figure as it took another step forward.

“Kitty?”

“Duh!” she answered the hobbit brusquely, trying to hide her own agitation.

“Wh’what’s going on? I heard Boromir and there’s been fire.”

Kitty shook her head as she spoke. “I’m not sure. Gandalf says Jean’s gone crazy, but I don’t believe that.”

Sam gasped. “Frodo’s out there.”

Kitty swayed a bit as she thought of an answer to the hobbit’s excellent point. “Wellllll, they’re going to check on him … and Jean. I’m sure it’s just some misunderstanding. Gandalf and Storm will sort it out. Oh, they sent me to keep an eye on you, just in case.”

The teen’s word failed to satisfy the hobbit. “Just in case? So what should we do?” he asked anxiously, brows furrowing as he tried to comprehend what just in case might include.

“Hhhmmmn,” Kitty murmured thoughtfully, as she scratched her head, looking at both Sam and the Fellowship’s beached boats. Suddenly Kitty laughed, noticing all the baggage strewn on the ground. “You really went to town looking for Gandalf’s smokeweed. And he had it all along.”

They each sucked in a breath as a new flash of orange, red, and yellow colors drew their attention.

“Any ideas?” Sam squeaked.

“Let’s get the boats ready,” came Kitty’s equally jumpy reply.

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Gimli grunted again, acknowledging the pain stabbing through his shoulder, but kept walking.

The cruel beast stabbed again and again at his mind, finding the weaker joints of its strong as iron mental armor, first crafted during the Years of the Trees by Aule for Durin the Deathless, and passed down through him to all his descendants. In his mind’s eye he imagined himself swiping a mail clad hand at the creature’s prodding beak, only to find it pecked at.

Now blood seeped out the back of his hand from a psychosomatic wound mirroring the damage his psychic self took on another, more hidden plane of Middle Earth. The oozing fluid turned his gauntlet crimson. He suddenly staggered.

A mountain had landed in his head.

Stubbornly a foot moved forward. No mountain could kill a dwarf! Dwarves find the crevices, the fissures, and tunnel havens from them. He dragged the other foot after the first. Stomp, drag, stomp, drag, stomp. The dwarf gritted his teeth and through the agony his eyes spied the red haired demon less than a furlong away.

Immense burning claws reached through a grey mist to clutch at him, burying him in a furnace of heat and anguish.

The skin of his legs and back burned. His feet stopped moving. Tears of torment welled up under his eyes.

Now in his mind’s eye, the hammer his father Gloin had gifted him to first work a forge appeared in his mailed hand. Squirming within the deadly grip, he swung his arm as best he could and the hammer glanced across a giant talon, fire bursting from a dent upon the fiend. The hold on him loosened ever so slightly. His arm reared back more freely and smashed heavily downward. Somewhere inside his head he heard the creature squawk.

“Aaaaaggghhhhh!” the dwarf shrieked in rage, pain, and determination. A foot twitched, then slowly lifted off the ground. The dwarf leaned his weight to the fore and his boot came down, forward. The other foot now lurched up and also forward. “You … will … not … stop … me!” he whispered stubbornly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

A red hot poker jabbed into Storm’s cranium. Even as she screamed in pain, she recognized, from years of training with the Professor, the psychic nature of the assault. Immediately she clamped down her natural shields and rolled her mind up inside them like a telepathic armadillo or psionic turtle. The psyche ravaging probe jerked back in surprise at the speed with which the entry points to Storm’s mind closed themselves off. Insanely strong claws returned to grip at her sparse shields, crumpled them, tore them asunder and reached into her consciousness through the breach.

Storm screamed in excruciating pain, her body writhing uncontrollably, as the murderous astral phantom attacking her sadistically plucked the chords of her nervous system. Through open, but near unseeing eyes, a detached part of herself watched Rogue fall to the ground and perform the herky dance of a marionette with too few strings.

The image of her parents, the fetid smells of narrow Cairo alleys, the soft touch of an African savannah breeze, the taste of cool, refreshing, life giving water from an oasis, the laughter of friends.

<<<<nooooooooooooo!!!>>>>

Weight, crushing weight, grinding into dust, nothingness, the memories and thought patterns that constructed her, the sentience of Ororo Munroe. Light faded. Darkness grew. Life teetered. A flash of grey.

“No!”

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Aragorn futilely swatted at the outstretched wings of the raptor with the dim reflection of Anduril, his mighty sword now no larger than a letter opener in his hand. He dodged, rolled, and leapt away from both the brutal direct attacks and the just as dangerous oblique approaches bringing fire and death.

<<<<jump!>>>>

The Ranger spun unconsciously, suddenly grimacing as a curving spear of flame shot past where he had stood, singeing him through his sturdy Dunedain armor. He hacked down at the exposed tendril of fire, but Anduril simply bounced off the extension of Dark Jean. The mighty weapon lacked the necessary magical strength to aid him in the symbolic battle within his mind.

The creature laughed at his feeble effort. It bull rushed him. He promptly backpedalled, preparing to turn aside at the last second, but he failed to see the bird elongate its fiery tail, slipping it behind him; he tripped as his ankles burned from what he had stumbled over.

The image of Narwilinien reared enormous over his supine body. The thing’s beak moved in speech, “You should not have spurned my love! Pay the price of your feeble honor!”

“Baw,” a melodic, beautiful female voice rung out in Sindarin. “Never!”

A green light sprung from above the heart of Aragorn to interpose itself between the Ranger and the fiery bird like representation of Dark Jean in the aether. The raptor paused a moment in surprise, eyes squinting in anger at that before it which it could not fanthom. The light spun, twirled, and took form.

“Mel na thar cin. Love is beyond you,” spoke the echo of Arwen.

<<<<i can! ssscccoootttttt!!!!!>>>>

The bird spat a stream of flame at the green hued, translucent image of Elrond’s daughter and the granddaughter of Galadriel. The elf stood in the way of the fire, arms raised wide, accepting, embracing the otherworldly heat, pain, and loneliness. As the image of Arwen absorbed more and more energy, her near transparent body began to appear opaque and solid, almost crystalline. Finally the Phoenix contained no more fury to vent, only smoke issued in tiny vapors from her beak.

Green Arwen smiled. “Mel!” she proclaimed. Then to Aragorn’s horror, the image of his love exploded in a shower of razor sharp green glass. Not a shard of which touched the Dunedain.

The full force of the blast blew straight at the fire spent bird. She curled her wings in front to shield her as best she could from the approaching onslaught. “Awwwwkkkkkk!” the raptor cried in pain, knocked from her taloned feet, feathers shredded by the barrage of jagged emerald crystals. At last, lowering her damaged wings, the Phoenix saw dimly the form of Aragorn, ensconced within a mighty tower of immovable, impenetrable white stone. And before the tower stood a thing more impressive still.

“Olorin,” she evilly hissed.

“Did I not say I protect my friends?” declared the magnificent form of the Grey Man; the Ring of Narya gleaming red on one hand and a glowing staff of white light held by the other.

“Why?!?” it hawked in anger.

“Mel,” stated the pure representation of the Maia. “Love is a strength without limit. That strength you held as Jean. Now you are weak, made insignificant without it.”

“Noooooo!!” the Phoenix screamed, then fled into the grey mist of the swirling aether.

<<<<free meeeee! ssscccoootttttt!!!!!>>>>

The image of Gandalf turned to the fortressed image of Aragorn. “Apologies for my late arrival Elessar, but it appears you were well protected. But now the battle returns to the physical world.”

“Where Anduril and my sword arm shall prove more effective,” the Ranger grimly responded.

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Storm’s blue eyes slowly focused on the nearby, moaning form of Rogue. ‘Alive,’ she thought. ‘But how?’

“DAMN YOU!!” Storm heard a scream in Jean’s voice. She turned her head in the direction of the shout, soon spotting her friend wrapped inside fire of a burning bird the size of a house. The movement of the wings matched the gesticulations of Jean’s arms, and as the still dazed weather mutant took in the Dante like seen before her, a gout of flame burst from the tip of a fiery wing and shot forth at the distant figure of Gandalf.

A translucent sphere of blue-green energy immediately surrounded the wizard to protect him from the bone melting heat of Jean’s attack. As it contacted the magical orb, the brilliant orange-red fire started to turn a dull rust color, and then began to splutter. Through the swirling lights Storm vaguely saw Gandalf’s lips move and heard a muffled shout.

“Naur an edraith amen”

In an eyeblink the sphere unwrapped itself from around the wizard, visibly funneling its energy, along with the remnants of Jean’s fire, into the top of Gandalf’s staff. The grey clad old man immediately leveled the staff in her friend’s direction as he shouted,

“Dramm naur, dramm!”

A whirling beam of blue, white, and green light pulsed from the staff to lash out at Jean and the bird around her with the speed of thought.

A wing curved and enlarged in front of Jean taking the initial force of the attack, blunting it for the precious second the crazed red head needed to raise a telekinetic force bubble around herself. As the fiery wing disintegrated under the fusillade, the wizard’s shaft of colored enchanted might surged forward only to bounce ineffectually off her friend’s defenses.

“Old Man! I’ll gut you and dance on your soul!”

The white haired woman watched as what seemed half the loose flora and rocks on the small hillside menacingly started to rise off the earth. She barely heard Rogue’s weak, confused call for her, “Unnh, Storm?” The mutant’s eyes had turned all white and her mind was focused a mile straight up.

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“Push out the boat! Push out the boat!” came the frantic cry.

Sam’s head whipped around, looking back and forth again and again for the source of the sweetly familiar voice. “Mister Frodo?!?” he shouted in confusion.

“Push the boat!”

The cry was almost on top of him, but he saw no one.

Kitty added her voice to the mix. “Frodo? Where are you?”

“Push!!! She’ll kill us all!” the hobbit voice wailed plaintively.

Finally Sam noticed the boat furthest south start rocking and edging forward through the sand toward the waters of the lake.

“Mister Frodo! You got the Ring on.”

“Help me Sam! Help me!”

“I’m coming!” he answered, quickly scurrying over to the rocking boat. “Uh, which side are you on?”

“Push, push. Ouch!”

“Sorry Mister Frodo, I’ll move around,” Sam apologized, hopping back and then stepping around the end of the boat.

“Stop!” screamed Kitty in a panic. Tears now dripping down her face. “What’s going on!”

“Jean tried to take the Ring!” Frodo’s invisible mouth screamed back at her, voice just as loud.

Kitty gasped through her sniffling. “She’d never!”

“Push again Mister Frodo, on three. We’re almost to the water. One – two – three!”

Two hobbit voices groaned at the strain of pushing the partially laden elven craft forward.

“You can’t go! You can’t,” she wept.

“Another Sam! Another!” Frodo urged.

“One – two – three … ahh-uhhhhfff!”

“I won’t let you go. The grownups will be here soon. They’ll tell you not to go. You’ll listen, you’ll listen then!”

“They’re fighting Jean!” Frodo angrily responded. “And I’m leaving!”

“Nooo!” she cried, traumatized by what she had heard. But only to become even more petrified as she glanced away from the water in search of any sign of an adult and saw the lights and fires bursting forth in the darkness less than a half mile distant.

“You climb in now Mister Frodo,” called Sam. “I can push us off this last bit, then I’ll clamber over.”

“Are there paddles?”

“Yes Sir, should be at least three.”

“Good. Ok, I’m in. Push Sam, push!”

“One last heave Sir.”

The boat moved fully over water. Sam’s hairy bare feet took four wet strides walking alongside the stern to make sure nothing snagged it. Satisfied with the increasing depth of the lake, he hopped in, causing the boat to rock to and fro. “Uh? Mister Frodo, Sir, I never did learn how to steer one of these here things, begging your pardon.”

“Forget it, just row. Row!”

Sam’s paddle started quickly dipping in and out of the Nen Hithoel. Finally assured they travelled in the correct direction, anywhere away from shore, Sam sadly turned his head back to shore. “Bye Miss Kitty,” he cried, unable to check the emotion in his voice. “Tell them … tell them, we’ll try.”

“No Sam! Turn back damnit!”

“Bye Kitty, we’ll miss …”

But Sam’s last words were drowned out by a rolling call of thunder booms. KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM! KA-BOOM!

Kitty shrieked at the noise, jumping all around, which happened to give her vantage of several more lightning bolts scorching the area where she knew a battle of mutant powers and magic raged. Almost immediately the skies opened up, adding rain to the tears already drenching the teenager’s face. She peered upward. ‘Why lord?’ she asked herself pitifully.

At first, the only answer she received was another bolt of electricity and its near instantaneous accompanying thunder. But as if the elemental outburst rattled her brain, she suddenly remembered Gandalf’s command to her, “Kitty, go to the boats. Protect Sam. With every power you possess, protect him.”

“Fuck,” she whispered. “Sam, Frodo, I’m coming, I’m coming!” she shouted. And with that, she phased her body and began running on top of the water toward the outline of the boat receding into the night.

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The rolling chain of booms continued to echo but the blinding flashes disappeared to reveal that Jean still stood tall within her sphere of telekinetic force. Storm’s thoughts turned between anger that her attack was not more effective and delight that the lightning strikes had disrupted Jean’s telekinetic hold over a thousand flying potential weapons.

“How touching,” the red head called out sarcastically to her white haired friend. “You can’t bring yourself to hurt me, can you Storm? Were those bolts only warning shots? How noble. How pathetic!”

A jet of pyrokinetic flame appeared above one of Jean’s hands at the same time a hole opened in her shield. The possessed mutant flicked her hand and the fire spat forth, seeking Suliltanis, the Wind Dancer.

<<<<stop!>>>>

Storm flung herself to the side, relying on the darkness, the rain, and her movement to spoil Jean’s deadly aim. As she fell to the earth her mind again gripped the heavens and nudged several highly charged variances together, sparking electrostatic discharges. Storm’s face contorted in pain as her mind held and manipulated the initial bursts of plasma longer than she had ever before dared try in order to guide the lightning exactly …

Woosh! Storm only partially watched as the fireball, reflected huge off her all white, opaque eyes passed three feet in front of her.

Flash, KA-BOOM!

Over ten thousand amperes of electric discharge smashed directly onto the telekinetic bubble around Dark Jean, spreading with it several thousands of degrees of heat across the sphere’s surface. Instantly micro-fractures erupted all over the exterior of the twisted woman’s shield.

Flash, KA-BOOM!

Half a second after the first bolt another, containing tens of thousands of amperes, burst onto the shell protecting the red head, cracking it open. The fiery bird overlaying, intertwining with the mutant responded to the assault and loss of shielding by enlarging itself, elongating a hundred feet into the air and launching feathers of flames in the direction of the heavenly weapons lancing at her. Too little, too late.

Flash, KA-BOOM!

A third bolt crashed down from the roiling clouds high above, discharging itself on a downward trajectory through the burning skull of the fiery bird before terminating near the feet of Jean, throwing the red haired creature like a rag doll into the air.

All stood enraptured for a moment, mesmerized by the limp form of their friend, their enemy, laid out unmoving in the flickering glow from too many burning bushes, trees, and other vegetation. Then, with varying degrees of alertness, Aragorn, Storm, Gimli, Boromir, and Rogue all began to run, walk, or hobble toward their fallen tormentor and companion.

Gandalf merely slumped on his staff, exhausted, drawing deep breaths. On another plane of existence, he sought out any sign of his ‘little bird.’ On the hard ground of Middle Earth he gasped. “Trap!!!”

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The Phoenix lashed invisible hands out at the foolish oath holders of the Fellowship with the speed of thought.

The wizard found himself jerked into the air; violently, bone jarringly shook, while he struggled to maintain even the thinnest sheen of a protective shell around his body.

Rogue screamed as a giant vise latched onto an arm, snapping the humerus as it whipped her around and around and around.

Aragorn grunted from a crushing punch to his belly and then double over as constricting bands of force wrapped around his abdomen. He struck down with Anduril, and the blade glowed the color of the sun as it bit through … something; causing the painful grip around his middle to loosen. He slashed again and again, as he forced his legs to move, to pivot, to try and pull himself away from the deadly, unseen coils seeking a deathly embrace.

Boromir slammed backward into the earth, dazed and seeing stars from how hard his head smacked the ground. He tried to sit up, but arms, legs, and torso kept him locked in place; unmoving, helpless.

Storm too found herself airborne, slung between the branches of a tree, lacerating her skin, as the telekinetic grasp lifted her far into the clouds; unable to see, unable to direct a lightning strike. Rendered effectively impotent, the invisible hand next tightened around her, grinding air from her lungs, constricting the flow of blood and oxygen. Storm futilely resisted till she blacked out.

Only the insignificant dwarf remained for the other worldly possessed mutant to ensnare before the final slaughter could begin.

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Gimli felt the hand snatch at him again. He leaned forward and twisted his shoulders, feeling the hidden pressure slide from his chest and beard to his elven cloak. The tug on Galadriel’s woven art yanked him back several steps till the fingers of his offhand could prod the clasp open, dislodging the cloak and allowing him to plunge forward again.

Now the hand tried to push him straight down into the ground. He smiled grimly as he thought, ‘Gun birthed me, it feeds me, makes me strong, for I am a dwarf, molded by Aule from the stuff of earth.’ His legs churned with new strength, propelling him onward toward Jean.

Several logs flew out of the night to strike at him. Some he knocked aside with his heavy axe, others plowed into him, staggering him, but never succeeding in knocking him off his stout feet.

“Fall damn you, fall!” cried the red haired creature.

“A dwarf stops for nothing,” Gimli shouted back at her in defiance, continuing the struggle to advance.

“Lies!” she shrieked, throwing more and more telekinetic punches at him, till a look of crazed inspiration swept across her face. “Gold. Your kind stoop low for gold.” And with those words the palm sized golden bird pendant that rest at her breast wrenched away from her clothing and flew shining through the darkness to stab beak first at Gimli’s face.

Gimli tottered, his free hand clutching at the ornament of yellow metal plunged deep into an eye. As his vision narrowed and indescribable agony welled inside his brain, the dwarf rasped out Galadriel’s parting words to him, “yet gold shall have no hold over you,” before flinging his axe at the dark figure only thirty feet from him.

All Hell then broke loose as Jean’s hand found itself suddenly separated from the rest of her arm.

 

[High Plains Drifter]

Part 30 – The Fellowship in Ashes

Dark crimson flame erupted out of the stump of the possessed mutant’s devastated wrist. The twisted being’s eyes widened in shock as she tried to contemplate the ruin of her perfect vessel; the idealized forming for beauty, seduction, and love. Surprise mutated into a titanic rage and the red head pointed the flaring arm straight at the cause of her pain, the retched dwarf. “Die!” she commanded.

And Gimli obeyed. As flame coursed over his body, a heat exceeding all of Erebor’s forges burst his clothing and hair afire, melted the steel of his armor and weapons into liquid pools, shriveled his flesh to burnt nothingness; and in less than a second left only a mound of charred bones.

<<<<stop it! (misery)>>>>

But of the dwarf’s companions, only Legolas, watching from a far, witnessed his death. With the agony from her wound, the Phoenix lost control of her telekinetic grip on the other members of the Fellowship she had intended to so painfully grind into death and dust.

<<<<(despair)>>>>

The invisible hand spinning Rogue like a top through the air by her arm simply disappeared. Momentum kept the teen turning as gravity reasserted itself upon her body and dragged her back to earth, which she crashed along for fifty feet before finally coming to a stop. “Uuunnngghhhh,” the teen moaned in misery. Then when her eyes, barely focusing through fluttering lids, spied a snapped humerus sticking jaggedly out of her skin, Rogue mercifully gave up the fight with consciousness and passed out.

<<<<run!>>>>

Gandalf, barely cocooned within a protecting magical envelope of force, found himself flung vertically along the ground as the telekinetic might pushing him through the air spasmed ten fold in strength. Only an impact with a sturdy oak brought his impromptu flight to a stop, but the violence of the collision shattered both the tree and his enchanted shield, leaving the wizard stunned, bruised, and breathless.

<<<<(outrage)>>>>

Wind and rain caressed her cheeks. She slowly blinked. White hair blew all over her face, obscuring her eyes. Darkness. More wind. Her body tingled, stabbing pin pricks everywhere. She gasped, then sucked in huge gulps of air. ‘Air. Breath. Life,’ she thought. Her ribs hurt with each shuddering swallow of the bitterly cold, but so sweet ozone tinged air. Her ears buzzed with a roaring sound. Limbs dangled awkwardly around her. A familiar sensation of danger and excitement gnawed at the pit of her stomach. ‘Where am I?’ she thought. She shook her head and a strand of sweaty, dirty white air unglued itself from her face. Darkness, she saw, hurtled through more darkness, straight at her. In the instant she realized the danger, her mind clamped on to all the currents and remaining thermal updrafts near her in the sky and strove to meld them together around herself. Slowly, too slowly her body began to bend and curve, straightened by the concentrations of air racing toward and around her in a duel, a race against gravity’s ultimate destination. Final darkness almost upon her, Storm screamed, “AHHHHhhhhhhhhhhh!”

<<<<kill me!>>>>

The force pinning the Captain of Gondor to the earth suddenly reversed itself and the man found himself hurled into the air like a stone from a catapult. No tree or branch interrupted his ascent off the ground, only leaving Boromir to feel the sensation of wind on his face while he sailed through the sporadically fire lit night. His stomach lurched when he realized his already horribly abused body had started to plummet downward. Mere seconds before he struck, he recognized the fast approaching darkness to be the dim waters of the Nen Hithoel. If there had been any near to truly hear the crunching sound of his impact, it would have been brutal to their ears. The large man’s collar bone broke as soon as it touched something more solid than air. A leading shoulder drove so hard into sand the trailing arm dislocated from the socket. And more of Boromir’s already broken ribs snapped as the Horn of Gondor splintered in half, crushed between the unstoppable force of his body and the immovable shore of the lake. Water then slowly started to seep into the depression caused by the blow of his landing, the man’s body lay inert as more and more wetness soaked in around him.

<<<<scoootttttt!!!!! (love)>>>>

A last directed stab by one of Dark Jean’s invisible hands tripped the sword slashing Ranger, but as Aragorn rolled, blade still whirling, he promptly brought himself up in a crouch. At that moment, Anduril at the ready, Aragorn now only vaguely sensed, like passing shadows, aimless telekinetic strikes lashing out near him blindly. Taking a second of safety to re-orient himself, his eyes noted, despite the darkness and rain, both the fiery creature rampaging in a nigh uncontrollable state and the absence of his friends. A tiny whisper of a word echoed in the Dunedain’s mind, ‘Run!’ Grimacing in hopelessness, pain, and regret, the Edain who would be King, turned and ran away from the demi-spawn of Morgoth’s mind and voice.

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A blur of movement caught her eye and Kitty stopped mid-stroke. “Something’s falling by the boats,” she shouted over the wind.

“What?” yelled Sam, craning his neck around to chance a rearward glance.

“I … I think a person. Do you … should we … go back?”

“Keep paddling!!!” screamed Frodo in panic.

Kitty ground her teeth at the idea of possibly leaving a team member behind, but she knew she had already made her hard choice. After only a few more seconds of hesitation, she hunched forward to put some back into her paddle work.

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“Prrooooffffessssooorrrrr!!!!!” wailed a voice in ultimate anguish.

Heads turned on every floor and in almost every room of the sleepy school. Lights flickered on and doorways opened as students poured forth to see what the disturbance was.

<scott? (concern)>

“I hear her Professor. I hear her. She’s in trouble. Help her. Find her. Please!” cried the mutant code named Cyclops.

<to cerebro, now!>

<peter! get me! allspeed! [image of a man in bed struggling to move to a wheelchair]>

Within a second the sound of metal feet echoing off marble floors replaced the plaintive call of the love lost voice through the halls of the mansion.

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The man approached Legolas with the limp form of a young woman over one shoulder.

“Can you walk?” he asked the elf in Sindarin.

“No. Not for long I am afraid,” came Legolas’ painfully true answer.

“Can you stand?”

“Yes.”

The man held out his spare hand. The disfigured elf grasped it, using the weight of the man and his burden to help pull himself upright off the ground. Legolas swayed. His mind, distracted by the pain, choose at that moment to focus on how good the rain dripping upon the burns of his face and scalp felt. The hand shook his arm gently, centering his conscience again.

“Perhaps not after all.”

“Very well,” replied the Ranger. Keeping Rogue balanced as best he could on one shoulder, Aragorn bent over and lowered his arm under the elf’s skinny arse. With a small grunt at the effort, he both clutched Legolas to him and lifted with his knees. Unceremoniously the Prince of Mirkwood found himself dangled over the Edain’s shoulder, opposite the unconscious youth.

“You will not get far carrying us both,” Legolas declared.

“Does Gandalf still live?” Aragorn asked.

The elf slowly tilted his head and stared through the increasing down pour into the night. “His brightness still shines and moves against Nar ...”

A flash and almost immediate roll of thunder cut off the elf’s last word.

“And he has at least one ally yet,” grunted the Ranger, legs starting to churn, carrying forward the dual burdens upon him. “He shall gain us the time,” whispered Aragorn. “No matter the cost.”

“And for Frodo?”

“For all of us.”

Legolas nodded his head in agreement, then lowered it as he released himself to the healing realm of slumber.

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“You tire old man!” cried the creature, flinging pyrokinetic bolts at the wizard’s wobbly shields.

For a tired old man, he dodged quickly enough out of the way so that only a passing glance of energy sparked across the glowing bubble of light guarding him.

“And you are without a wing!” Gandalf shouted back, before clutching his staff in two hands to swirl it over his head in order to launch his own salvo, this one in a fury of green-blue color, at the enemy.

The Phoenix spirit proved equally nimble in using an invisible telekinetic hand to slide the red head away from the returning onslaught.

“Your friends are dead or fled Olorin. You stand alone against my might. Fall!” A blistering wave of heat swept toward Gandalf.

<they were your friends too, little bird. and you killed them. you, with no thought of their love. [images of storm, rogue, and gimli smiling and laughing with jean]>

“Lies! They never loved meeeeeeee!!!!!” A tsunami of near invisible force arose high into the air and came ramming down as an enormous hammer at the Maia.

<<<<please stop. kill me instead. i beg you.>>>>

Sensing the power of the impending blow, Gandalf crossed the white glowing blade of Glamdring with his white shimmering staff and started to chant, “Polod coe beri-cin mellon. Aule Than!”

The very ground within a dozen yard radius of the wizard’s feet erupted, spewing up dirt and stone which took the shape of a giant hand holding an even larger shield. The hammer of the Phoenix smashed down, rupturing cracks all over the aegis of Aule. The hammer rose and beat down again. Again. Again. Stone and dirt flew off in enormous chunks, yet the now misshapen shield held and stayed in place, Gandalf’s face near bursting from the strain of keeping the integrity of the enchantment above him.

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KABOOM!

The bolt of lightning came nowhere near its intended red haired target. As it lashed down from the heavens, the powerful electric discharge unknowingly warped through the semi-tangible construct of Dark Jean’s telekinetic hammer, shattering it into a million pieces of disarticulated energy that promptly evaporated back into the quantum essence of Middle Earth.

KABOOM!

A second bolt laced down, but this time, already alerted, the Phoenix spirit wove a defensive sphere of energy from the previously unrealized potential of Jean’s powerful brain, shielding itself from the blast of electricity and subsequent superheated plasma. Surviving the assault, Dark Jean next sought the mind of her best friend, hoping to strike her dead by psychic attack, but at worst wanting to detect her location in the physical world by the correlating position of her mind.

<<<<scoootttttt!!!!! (love) save meeeeeeee!!!!!>>>>

The cursed Maia still protected her in the grey void of the aether, but he lacked the skill to completely obscure her thoughts as she swooped through the sky. Feeling secure from the threat of Storm’s elemental strength, Dark Jean started throwing darts of hardened, razor sharp telekinetic talons into the sky at the poorly defined, soaring form high above in the rain and clouds.

KABOOM!

KABOOM!

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Reprieved from the sledge hammer blows, Gandalf released his protection ward and ignored the clods of dirt that sprinkled down upon him as it dissolved itself back to earth. The magic focused and magic fueled mutant power arrayed against him had yet again almost overwhelmed him. His mind burned from the strain of all the eldritch incantations he had so far channeled to such little good. His limbs responded lethargically to his command, drained by not only the bodily punishment he had already taken, but also by the physical energy his body and soul required to generate and manipulate the supercharged enchantments necessary to combat his possessed friend. He tasted the salty blood that dripped from his nose, through his mustache, and onto his lips. ‘Let this burden pass from me,’ he suddenly wished. The doubt within him now suddenly greater than at any other moment of moral weakness he had ever experienced during his centuries long sojourn on Middle Earth.

No, such freedeom was not to be.

In the grey aether he heard Storm’s mind abruptly diffuse to pain, incoherence, and then quiet.

He felt the energy of an impending lightning bolt, suddenly weaken, then fizzle into a barely seen discharge of static energy among the clouds.

Gandalf now stood alone against the coming fury of fire and hate.

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‘Wake up!’ shouted the voice in his head. Of course his head lay filled with rocks, so the call sounded as if it were shouted from a very great distance away. ‘Wake up!’ “Go way,” he muttered, feeling the taste of water and blood on his lips. He moved his head, searching for a comfortable ... ‘Ohhhhh, pain!’ he thought. “Unh,” he choked and weakly spit for he had turned his heavily canted nose into water and snorted some of it. He went to push himself upright, but his left arm refused to move at all. Painpainpainpainpainpain. ‘Run!’ the voice from another land now shouted at him.

He rolled onto his less, but not by much, painful side. Sand. Beach. Water. ‘Where am I?’ His mind refused to sweep away the cobwebs that stopped him from focusing on the seemingly important question. ‘Why is that a good question? Dunno.’ His eyes looked about the darkness, trying to take things in. A boat. No two. No three. Funny looking. Not made in Gondor. ‘Not made in Gondor?’

KABOOM.

Thunderstorm. “I’m wet,” he whispered. He gently peered around again. “My horn!” he squeaked weakly. His good right arm and hand pawed at it, revealing two long fracture lines where the horn had broken along its entire length. Only the silver gilding kept the two severed white pieces together. His eyes spied a flash of white plummeting down from on high toward the water. Then he heard a dull splash. “Hunh,” he uttered. ‘Save her,’ cried the annoyingly familiar voice in his head. “Who?” he mouthed, confused about who he was and where he was or was not. The memory of words he must once have spoken to a Haradrim colored woman came uncalled for to his mind, “We are now brethren in war, Storm. I shall defend your life to the limit with mine own.”

The large man, a Captain of Gondor, hobbled to his feet. “I come my sister,” he vowed against the misery racking him by his every movement. ‘How?’ he wondered. ‘Ah, boat.’ He tottered down the shore to the three boats he had earlier spied. ‘Hurry!’ screamed the infuriating echo. One arm still would not move. He pushed futilely at a hull with his good arm, the craft refused to budge. He squatted and leaned a chest and shoulder against a stern and pushed with his feet. Sounds of pain whimpered from him, spots passed in front of his eyes, orcs beat upon him with hammers, a flying beast spouted flame, …

He shook his head, trying to focus. His eyes cleared. ‘I’m sitting … and wobbling,’ he noted. ‘I’m in the boat. How’d I do that?’ he slowly pondered. ‘She drowns,’ chirped a little bird in his ear. His eyes stared at the bottom of the boat. They stared more. Something was familiar he thought. ‘Paddle!’ “Oh,” he grunted, bending in agony to pick it up with his more functional arm. The paddle clumsily slipped in and out of the water, guided by only a single hand. The man grunted with suppressed pain at every stroke.

White, white, white. ‘Hair!’ he thought. The boat coasted to a close approximation of a stop near a patch of white hair splayed out at the top of the lake. He peered down. He could just see the partial outline of part of a body bobbing low in the water beneath the tangled mass of floating, ghostly white tresses. He leaned over and snatched at the hair so tantalizing close to the surface. The boat tipped. He sat back. Satisfied the rocking had stopped enough, he bent to kneel on the hull and then leaned his torso on the gunnels. The boat began to slowly edge away from the infuriating woman. His hand stabbed down into the murk, snaring a fistful of hair. He tugged and felt a heavy weight beneath shift slowly in response. He tugged harder. Nothing. Anger began to boil within the large man at the uncooperative woman. Woman! He screamed as he shifted his useless arm to purchase a hold with it on the gunnel in order to increase his leverage.

Then the Captain of Gondor shouted in pain, “Boromir does not leave his friends!!!” And he started to lift again. Impossibly, a head, then a neck, and finally a chest rose out of the water. Tears streamed down the man’s face, every muscle in his body drawn tight as steel in effort. The boat began to totter and the kneeling man swayed. He slowly flexed his thick bicep, causing the limp body to perch precariously on the edge of the small vessel. Then exhausted, he collapsed, though with hand still firmly clutched to the woman’s snow driven hair. As his weight fell, the momentum of his movement dragged the stiff form of Storm down atop him. Relieved, his hand let go its grip, and slid from her head onto her back.

One eye now pressed hard against her chilled, wet face. He felt no movement within her, no hint of breath. He raised his arm at the elbow and dropped it hard on her back. Thwack. Again. Thwack. Again. Thwack. Again. Thwack. At the last attempt he felt her cold body jerk and almost immediately a stream of water retched forth from her mouth spewing across his head. Boromir smiled through the filth and closed his eyes ... so tired, so deathly tired.

‘Thank you,’ chirped a little bird in his ear.

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Professor X settled the helmet of Cerebro atop his head.

<turn it on peter.>

The soft hum of the super-energized machine filled the large dome deep beneath the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. Reality seemed to fold and then it merged at a thousand different levels of consciousness with the extrasensory perceptions of Earth’s most powerful telepath. Almost subconsciously he watched as a globe shaped map unrolled before his third eye, revealing a dot of light for every sentient being above, under, and on the face of the Earth.

Instantly his concentration shifted and narrowed itself to examine the light of the anxious young man standing right next to him. An examination on a hundred different planes finally revealed a gossamer thin thread of guided perception reaching out from the grey aether of thought to touch the mind of this man, this friend, this surrogate son.

<i see a thought, scott. and it comes from jean.>

“Can you find her?” he asked, full of hopeful and fear.

<patience.>

He carefully followed the thread back into the void, through layers of thought, energy, and matter he had rarely ever had time before to study. Then the strand disappeared on the telepath, leaving him alone in a place he had never before been. Cautiously his mind started to trace its path back toward the anchor of his body, and amazingly the tiny sliver of a connection floated back into his extrasensory view. ‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ Charles Xavier thought. ‘Where through the rabbit hole are you Jean?’

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Green-blue flame shot out from his staff and stabbed the bird in its now partially stunted wing. The creature barely shrugged from the effect of the long range blow. Any time the wizard tried to close with the Phoenix spirit, Dark Jean floated away from him, keeping him at a distance.

A return salvo flew through the rain filled air and punched hard into his hastily reconstructed shield of magic and energy. He grunted at the effort needed to keep himself from being burned to a charred crisp. The perverter of Jean was stronger than he, but still wary of the might granted to the Servant of the Secret Fire and the skills which he had honed in over three Ages on Arda in how to wield that might. Gandalf admitted to himself that his opponent wisely meant to simply grind him down over time with her greater strength. Grind him down till he became too weak to defend himself anymore. The wizard contemplated the stratagems left him, and wondered if he could feign weakness to draw her in for one last unexpected, fatal blow.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The boat scrapped on the rocks of the eastern shore of the Nen Hithoel. The boat bobbed as an invisible weight hopped from the elven craft and splashed through knee high water.

“Now don’t be leaving us Mister Frodo!” called out Sam.

“We’re here to help you, not stop you Frodo,” Kitty added.

The splashing sounds stopped. “All the way to Mordor?” the scared hobbit asked.

“And Mount Doom too Sir,” replied the ever faithful gardener.

“It will be a long, hard trip. A bit easier with three,” cajoled the teenager.

“Well ….” came Frodo’s long drawn out answer as he imagined what frightful dangers lurked ahead, and behind. “I suppose.”

“Good,” said Sam cheerfully. “Let’s unload the boat then and we’ll be off. We should make it over the hills here before dawn.”

Kitty hopped out too and reached down to grab a pack. “I think this one is your’s Frodo,” she called out. Five seconds later she felt a tug on the bag. “Uhm, Frodo, I think it’s probably ok for you to take the, uhm, you know … it … off.”

“Oh, sorry,” came Frodo’s response. Then ‘Poof’ he suddenly reappeared before the hobbit and the young mutant.

“Thanks for trusting us Frodo,” Kitty whispered to him. After only a few moments more, where they slung on their packs and adjusted them, the party of three headed east into the rough lands of the Emyn Muil.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The flaming bird of hate and pain had finally caught him. The night was nearly spent and the seemingly endless hours of hotly contested battle had finally tired him too much to dodge aside from the slashing, flaming talons of Dark Jean. The wizard still managed to maintain a magical sphere around himself, protection from her assaults, but she had pinned him in place with her claws, no longer able to dodge and escape the full brunt of her might. Their contest of power now more resembled a siege, and Gandalf hoped he could keep his castle walls high and thick enough to blunt the attacks she would soon savage him with.

He grunted as the enormous claw trapping him squeezed tighter on his shields. In answer to the pain, he thought of those things he loved and made him happy. His mind saw hobbits running at play, heard elven voices raised in song, smelled the forges of dwarves hard at work. He remembered the taste of pipeweed after a good meal. As the memories flooded him, Gandalf smiled and started to hum a tune. The slightest of tunes slowly turned into a song, and when he added words to the notes, his shield started to push back against the colossal weight trying to crush him.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The light of dawn edged over the top of the broken landscape of the Emyn Muil.

Feeling the first warmth of the sun dance across his neck, Aragorn let out a long breath and stopped walking. Gently, carefully, he first lowered Rogue to the Earth and then did the same for Legolas. He paused for a moment contemplating which to aid first. The girl he decided. Gloved hands came to rest on enflamed flesh either side of where the bone wickedly broke through the skin of her arm. He began to pull, and as the bone started to recede through flesh toward its proper place, Rogue’s eyes shot open and she screamed horribly only to pass out again into unconsciousness.

Storm’s blue eyes blinked open. As soon as she realized she was awake her stomach heaved on her. It was only while vomiting did she realize she lay atop the insensible form of Boromir. And in a boat too! A soft rain fell upon them. She heard a loud, rumbling sound. ‘Thunder?’ No, she knew that was not right, the rumbling lacked the proper feel to it, nor any end point. She raised herself enough to look over the edge of the boat, noting how it moved at a fair clip. ‘Why?’ she wondered. ‘We’re on a lake, the Nen Hithoel.’ She turned her head and saw two heads of land nearby and a mist rising off the water that flowed between the two heads. Puzzlement crinkled her face, then her eyes bugged out in horror. “The Falls of Rauros,” she gulped.

Frodo, Sam, and Kitty hiked on the slenderest of trails past the apex of the narrow pass between two hills overlooking the lake. Kitty paused for a second to look back. From a far she saw a flash of light, brighter than the dawn, on the other side of the Nen Hithoel. Someone still fought. “God forgive me,” she whispered as she turned her back to the friends she left behind.

A shaft of light gleamed off the red ring, Narya, the Ring of Fire, resting, hidden in the open, upon Gandalf’s hand. The twinkle raised his flagging spirits. ‘Is this not the ring meant to rekindle hearts to the valour of old?,’ he thought, ‘regardless of how chill the world grows?’ Hope is never lost he remembered, and you are never lost when you are with a friend. “Little bird,” the Servant of the Secret Fire called out from his castle in the grey aether, “aid me or the world shall burn, all will then turn to ash and darkness.”

<<<<(fear)>>>>

“Believe in yourself little bird, those that love you do. There is love, find it, cherish it, grow strong from it.” The grey aether grew brighter from the pulsing of the warm, red light the wizard controlled.

<<<<scooottttttt!!!!! (love)>>>>

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The pyrokinetic talon tightened around him again. The wizard strove with his failing might to expand his shield against the contraction, but couldn’t. The hours of siege had sapped his strength. The magical energy protecting him from a thousand degrees of flaming death now pressed hard against his body at a hundred points, grinding him, constricting his chest, driving the very air from his lungs. He gagged, tongue lolling out, desperately searching for even a gram of fresh air to suck in. But it was not to be found. For several seconds his ward flickered. Poof. Gandalf the Grey lay fully exposed before the Dark Phoenix, his symbol as a Servant of the Secret Fire and the elven blade of the King of ancient Gondolin clutched tight to his body. Surprised flickered across Gandalf’s exhausted face, for the creature had not instantly incinerated him. The rain, he noted, which had not slacked once during the long night’s battle, felt good splattering on his face.

“Oh you will take a long time to die Olorin. A very long time,” she whispered to him.

<<<<stop it!>>>>

“Ahhhhh!” he screamed as ten thousand invisible needles jabbed every inch of his flesh. The sensation stopped as he felt her mind probe at the fortress he had made of his own.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Give up already Maia. You’ve lost.”

“Never,” he muttered.

The crimson haired monster smiled . “Suit yourself.”

“Aggghhhhh!” And the wizard’s body spasmed within the invisible shackles of Dark Jean’s grasp as more anguish rippled through his every sinew.

“All I’m asking is that you surrender your mind to me.”

“I will not become some hollow wraith for your amusement.”

<<<<help!!!!>>>>

She floated down in front of Gandalf and forced his arms, holding his wizard’s staff and Glamdring, far out to the sides, so she could come close to him, almost rubbing herself against him. One hand reached out and caressed the side of his burned, cut countenance. Then the earthly face of the Phoenix leaned forward to lick blood off his lips. “How delicious. Yield. Submit yourself to me, and I promise your death will be easy,” she softly promised in his ear.

“Like it was for Gimli?” he croaked.

Gandalf saw a near insane rage instantly ignite within her burning eyes. The creature raised the stump of an arm to the wizard’s face. “This for the dwarf then!” she hissed. And the last thing his left eye ever saw was a fiery talon extend from her ruined wrist and jam itself into his pupil.

“Agghhhhhhh!”

<jean! stop!>

“What!?!” The Dark Phoenix whirled herself in the air, seeking the source of the unexpected mental voice. A life sized astral projection of Professor Charles Xavier hovered insubstantially above the ground, rain pelting right through the image of his standing body, not ten yards from her and her captured prey.

“There is no Jean. Only Phoenix!”

<of course you exist jean. I see you, right before me, a brave young lady, trapped in a prison by this demon. [image of a blood stained, preteen girl gripping the bars of a giant birdcage, screaming for help]>

“Talk to me fool!”

<scott heard your cries jean. he felt the call of your love. he sent me to find you. to free you.>

“Stop!” A blast of flame shot through the flickering projection of the Professor.

Seemingly forgotten, Gandalf’s psyche heard a cool, relaxing music, like that of a mountain brook dancing over rocks in a stream bed.

<<<<scoooottttt!!! (love)>>>>

<you cannot harm me demon. i do not exist in this place.>

“Then I will kill what you love. Jean will end!”

<it would be better for you if you did not. you appear, demon, to be in symbiosis together somehow with jean. without a kernel of jean’s sentient essence to you, I suspect you would cease to exist.>

“The old man!” Dark Jean shouted triumphantly. “He is your friend.”

<<<<nooooooo!>>>>

<no, i suspect he is your friend, whether you appreciate that fact or not. i will say he does seem a quantum duplicate to my erik, who’s image you have seen from jean’s memory. and you will kill him anyway, or worse. i am sorry sir.>

Gandalf mustered a wry smile, “Quite alright.”

“Then these!” Dark Phoenix shouted. And the rain and dampness in the air coalesced through telekinetic manipulation into watery images of Storm, Kitty, and Rogue.

A sorrowful, pained expression came upon the visage of Professor X’s projection.

<and him too? [image of scott being crushed and burned into oblivion by a flaming claw] would you let this demon kill all whom you love jean?>

The Professor’s hand beckoned toward the body of Jean/Dark Jean.

<come to me jean. come to me my daughter!>

<<<<yes!!!!! (love)(love)(love)(love)>>>>

<<no!!!!!!! (hate)(loneliness)(loathing)(pain)>>

Gandalf felt the harmony of a beautiful, but not inspired by Eru, song reverberate through the aether and into his soul. As seconds passed, the play of the notes started to shift, becoming more and more familiar, altering into a tune so common, so universal, yet sweet and appealing, it might have been hummed by dwarf or elf or hobbit. But this song was sung by a child of man, and it sang of love. His shackles loosened, and his arms slumped down, almost causing him to drop his staff and sword. The wizard watched as the face of his tormentor rippled, fought itself, waging a war to determine what expression would cross her face. As this inner battle played out, Gandalf also noticed the image of the man, the renowned teacher of his four female companions, reach two hands up to clutch at his bald head. Next, the projection of the man started to waiver and flicker, become even less substantial. As the image of Charles Xavier started to fade to nothingness, the wizard’s mind heard one last echoing call from this wizard of another Earth.

<well done jean. goodbye.>

“AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaggggghhhhhh!” wailed Jean, and tears burst forth from the red haired mutant like the waters of the Anduin.

<<kill!!!!!! (vengeance)>>

“Oh Jean,” cried Gandalf, weeping himself from his sole remaining orb. “Little bird! Welcome back.”

“I … I …” Jean’s beautiful, haunted, humane face began to dangerously ripple again.

<<mine!!!>>

“I … can’t!” Jean cried out.

“Yes!” shouted Gandalf. “Yes, you are strong. Your love is strong.”

“Die!” snarled Dark Jean, as she tried to lift and point a hand at the wizard. “No!” choked out Jean, forcing the anger and hate from her face.

“I can help you!”

“Yes,” Jean gasped. “Help everyone ... love you all … so much. Love Scott! Forgive me … please.”

Jean’s hand rose to point at the wizard.

“Stop!” Gandalf shouted in anguish, feeling his arm dart forward at an impossibly fast speed. Glamdring, glowing white, plowed point first into Jean/Dark Jean’s chest, stabbing flesh, breaking bone, and transfixing her heart. As the elven crafted blade pierced the blood pumping muscle and symbolic house of the red haired woman’s love, the heat of a star erupted inside her body. The eldritch forged blade shattered at the immense surge of energy surrounding it. The concussion of the explosion flung the Servant of the Secret Fire arse over hat through the air. As he blinked his blurry, dazed remaining eye he saw no living being where Jean had stood, only a swirling haze of red hot heat and crimson energy that slowly compacted itself tighter and smaller, until just a ball the size of a hand hovered in the air. Then that too disappeared, leaving nothing.

Right before the light dimmed in him, Gandalf croaked, “Goodbye child.”

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FINIS!

 

[High Plains Drifter]

Appendix: Story Timeline

September 30th – The X-(wo)men arrive in Kansas looking to recruit a new student for the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. Frodo trapped in the Barrow-wight den sings for Tom Bombadil’s help. The X-(wo)men are ISOTed into the Barrow-wight den. Storm, Jean, Rogue, and Kitty join up with Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. Storm retrieves the Hobbits’ ponies. The party crosses the rest of the Barrow Downs and makes camp for the night.


October 1st – The party spots Bree-hill in the distance (Part 1 ends). The hobbits head first into Bree looking to buy appropriate clothing for the X-(wo)men. The mysterious Strider introduces himself to Frodo and Sam; and suggests a meeting with all four hobbits at the Prancing Pony. Sam races back out of Bree to retrieve the the X-(wo)men and they sneak back into the village (Part 2 ends). The X-(wo)men break in on Strider’s meeting with the hobbits. A confrontation almost erupts. Barliman Butterbur remembers a letter left him months earlier by Gandalf and gives it to the hobbits. Gandalf’s letter establishes Strider/Aragorn’s credentials (Part 3 ends). Gandalf, riding on Shadowfax, arrives at the Prancing Pony and is mistaken by the X-(wo)men for Magneto. A brief fight ensues, but a tense truce is reached with the wizard. That night six Nazgul attack the Prancing Pony, but they are driven off by magic and mutant power (Part 4 ends). The party assesses how well they survived the battle.
October 2nd – The party leaves Bree together. Out of sight of the village, Gandalf and Frodo leave on Shadowfax heading for Rivendell. The rest of the party goes off the Road, also headed for Rivendell but by a more roundabout route.
October 4th – Gandalf, Frodo, and Shadowfax reach Weathertop, where they find several Nazguls waiting in ambush. Shadowfax outraces the Black Riders and Gandalf and Frodo escape.
October 5th – Gandalf fights his way out of two more Nazgul traps on the Road (Part 5 ends).
October 6th – Elrond sends Glorfindel and 3 other elven warriors from Rivendell to search for Gandalf and Frodo.
October 7th – The four X-(wo)men, three hobbits, and Aragorn cross to the north side of the Weather Hills near Weathertop. Gandalf and Frodo cross the Bridge of Mitheithel and later encounter Glorfindel and his three companions: Neralad, Celethir, and Amdhros.
October 8th – Glorfindel and company ride over the Bridge of Mitheithel.
October 9th – Glorfindel and company split up to widen the search area for Aragorn and the party. Gandalf and Frodo arrive in Rivendell. Frodo happily reunites with Bilbo.
October 10th – The four X-(wo)men, three hobbits, and Aragorn leave the last of the Weather Hills behind them.
October 11th – Glorfindel finds Aragorn, the three hobbits, and the four X-(wo)men.
October 12th – The party with the four X-(wo)men reaches the Bridge of Mitheithel and finds it guarded by six Nazguls. During the battle of magic and mutant powers, Rogue, Kitty, and Merry are all injured to varying degrees. Jean, having been driven into a near catatonic state by the Nazgul’s mental powers, awakens as a Nazgul attacks her. As Jean is being stabbed, the wings of giant flaming bird erupt from her and burn the Nazgul into nothingness. Frightened by what happened to their brother, the remaining Nazguls flee. Jean falls into a coma (Part 6 ends). Sauron, Galadriel, Saruman, and Cirdan each react to having felt the battle between an unknown force, Jean, and the Nazgul (Part 7 ends).
October 13th – The elves Neralad, Celethir, and Amdhros arrive at the Bridge of Mitheithel and assist with the tending of the injured. The enlarged party, including the wounded, slowly resume the journey to Rivendell.
October 16th – The travling group of hobbits, X-(wo)men, hobbits, and Aragorn arrives in Rivendell, still carrying the unconscious Kitty and Jean.
October 17th – Kitty awakens in the House of Elrond. Bilbo hosts a dinner in his room for his hobbit friends and their new X-(wo)men friends, less Jean.
October 18th – Sam, Pippin, and Frodo ask Aragorn if he will teach them sword work. Storm meets the elf Galdor, visiting Rivendell from the Havens, in Elrond’s library and begins to learn the history and geography of Middle Earth him. Jean, tricked telepathically by Gandalf, rises out of her coma to find herself in the House of Elrond (Part 8 ends).
October 19th – Feast in honor of Frodo, the Ring Bearer, and Jean, destroyer of Nazgul. Frodo eats with Bilbo’s old companion Gloin. Arwen sings in the Hall of Fire (Part 9 ends).
October 20th – Council of Elrond. During the Council, Jean uses her new found power of pyrokinesis to heat The Ring, revealing its hidden inscription. At the end of the Council Frodo declares he will take The Ring to Mordor (Part 10 ends). After the council, Kitty, Rogue, Pippin, and Merry are informed by the others of what transpired at it. Storm confronts Jean about her new powers. The Elven leaders debate in private the issue of the mutants and the strategy they should take with both the X-(wo)men and The Ring.
October 21st – Aragorn, with Arwen at his side, takes Narsil to the forges of Rivendell to be mended (Part 11 ends). Storm, Galbor, the dwarf Azaghal who also attended the Council present to Elrond a strategy to more effectively use the strength of western Middle Earth in the coming struggle with Mordor. This includes gathering a dwarven host from the Ered Luin to march on Saruman and Isengard.
October 22nd – Elven scouts start to depart Rivendell to search for safe routes that Frodo may take in his quest to reach Mordor. Aragorn takes the four hobbits, as well as Rogue and Kitty, on practice march.
October 23rd – Jean, accompanied by Gandalf, Storm, and Glorfindel, practices her new, increased powers by the Bruinen . Glorfindel announces he will depart Rivendell in two days to help harness the support of Mirkwood, Dale, and Erebor for the coming conflict. Storm expresses her displeasure that Elrond’s scouts will take over a month to report back to Rivendell. Too tired and sore from the previous day’s march, Rogue and Kitty do not go with the hobbits and Aragorn on that day’s practice march.
October 24th – Elrond informs a disgruntled Aragorn of the plan for capturing Isengard and giving it in Stewardship to the dwarves (Part 12 ends). Boromir arrives in Rivendell and meets with Elrond, Gandalf, Aragorn, and Frodo. It is revealed to him that Frodo is the Ring Bearer and Aragorn is Isildur’s heir.
October 25th – Glorfindel, Gloin, and their mission departs for the East. Boromir joins Rogue and Kitty at sword practice. Unhappy with the two teens lack of seriousness, Boromir seeks to scare them. Rogue uses her mutant power on Boromir to stop him, and thus learns a great many things about the Captain of Gondor (Part 13 ends). Embarrassed by the incident with Boromir, Rogue and Kitty ask the hobbits during dinner if they can go marching with them the next morning.
October 26th – At breakfast Galdor asks Storm if she will come to the Havens in order to help the elven fleet when it sails south in the spring to aid Gondor. Merry and Bilbo then suggest that the plans to deceive Sauron about the whereabouts of The Ring would be aided if Bilbo, known by the Enemy as having gotten The Ring from Gollum, very publicly made a journey to the Havens. Jean’s regular morning practice with her powers ends when she makes a gold pendant in the shape of a phoenix (Part 14 ends). Aragorn, Frodo, Sam, Pippin, Rogue, and Kitty get ambushed by goblins on their march, some of them suffering wounds in the fight. To protect Frodo from a goblin spear, Kitty phases him, but The Ring stays solid and bounces away from Frodo. Rogue uses her mutant power on several of the goblins, causing her personality to alter significantly. Elrond, Gandalf, Storm, Jean, and a party of elves meet the injured marchers on their way back to Rivendell (Part 15 ends).
October 27th – The X-(wo)men debate what will they do; search for Tom Bombadil, go to the Havens, or aid Frodo in his quest. Rogue’s new, more hostile, anti-goblin/orc personality does not ease. Elrond approves of Bilbo and Merry’s plan. Elrond also adds on to the plan assigning Merry and Pippin the responsibility of returning to the Shire in order to create a logistics chain for the anticipated Dwarven Host that will march to Isengard in the new year. Pippin feels cheated out of not being allowed to accompany Frodo on his quest.
October 28th – Jean, Storm, and Gandalf discuss Rogue. With a group leaving for the Havens the next morning, including Bilbo, Merry, and Pippin, the evening is spent saying goodbyes. Bilbo gives Frodo his sword Sting and his suit of Mithral armor. Because the X-(wo)men cannot unanimously agree on what course to take next, Storm declines to accompany Galdor to the Havens in order to aid the elven fleet.
October 29th – Galdor’s party, including Bilbo, Merry, Pippin, Azaghal, Neralad, and Ahmdhros, departs Rivendell for the Havens. Merry, because he is still recovering from the battle at the Bridge of Mitheithel, rides with the elderly Bilbo in a cart (Part 16 ends).
October 30th – Boromir invited to sword practice again with the X-(wo)men and the hobbits.
October 31st – Elrohir, son of Elrond, and a party of elven warriors return to Rivendell after having burned out all signs of orc spore within many leagues of the Last Homely House.


November 1st – The Havens bound party crosses the Bridge of Mitheithel.
November 2nd – Gandalf has Kitty test a range of magical items to determine which ones she can phase and which she cannot.
November 3rd – Rogue experiences a powerful nightmare and the portions of the goblins she absorbed try to fracture her personality. Jean uses her telepathic powers to enter Rogue’s mind and after a vicious fight drives the orc taint from the teenager’s mind.
November 6th – The first two elven scouts return to Rivendell.
November 16th – Aragorn receives a reforged Narsil. He renames the sword Anduril (Part 17 ends).
November 17th – The Havens bound party arrives at the Brandywine Bridge. Merry and Neralad say goodbye and leave for Brandy Hall.
November 20th – The Havens bound party arrives in Bywater. An impromptu party breaks out at Bilbo’s surprise return to the Shire. Bilbo gives a speech announcing he is on his way to the Havens.
November 21st – The last of the elven scouts return to Rivendell. The X-(wo)men debate what to do. Elrond and Gandalf debate who shall accompany Frodo. Elrond is very leery of having Jean and her new found powers accompany Frodo.
November 22nd – Elrond selects the membership of the Fellowship which will accompany Frodo. Frodo asks the X-(wo)men if they will accompany him and to his joy they agree. The Havens bound party arrives in Waymoot. Pippin and Amdhros says goodbye and leave for Tuckborough.
November 23rd – Bill Ferny meets with Southron spy in The Prancing Pony to pass on information that Bilbo and elves came through Bree a week earlier. The ranger Halbarad overhears the conversation and is quite pleased to know the misinformation will soon get passed along to the Enemy.
November 24th – The Havens bound party passes through Michel Devling and the White Downs. Bilbo says goodbye to the West Farthing and the Shire.
November 25th – The Fellowship consisting of Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Storm, Jean, Kitty, and Rogue departs Rivendell at dusk (Part 18 ends).
November 26th – Jean discusses how leaving Rivendell has affected her shields. Gandalf discusses his release of Shadowfax a week earlier.
November 27th – Storm and Jean admit they should have practiced marching. Boromir harrumphs about women.
November 28th – Rogue starts her period. Boromir harrumphs about women.
November 29th – Galdor departs the Havens bound party to start visiting the Firebeards in the southern Ered Luin in order to begin the process for gathering a Dwarven host.


December 1st – The Havens bound party crosses the River Lhun to the north bank.
December 2nd – The Havens bound party arrives in Forlond, the north-haven of Lindon/Grey Havens. Cirdan greets Bilbo. Cirdan is told of the plans made in Rivendell.
December 3rd – Azaghal and a deputy of Cirdan’s depart Forlond to visit the Broadbeams in the northern Ered Luin.
December 4th – Legolas detects hawks watching from high overhead.
December 5th – Galdor meets with a Firebeard Lord in his hall and convinces him to attend Council in Forlond at the start of the new year to discuss the possibility of a dwarven attack on Isengard.
December 7th – The Fellowship enters Eregion (Hollin) and has their first sighting of the three peaks of Moria.
December 8th – Pippin and Merry meet in Bywater at the Ivy Bush Inn to discuss how their efforts to gather food and equipment for a Dwarven host are progressing.
December 9th – Azaghal holds a meeting with a Broadbeam delf Lord to ask him to attend a Council in Lindon. The Fellowship first encounters snow as they approach the Redhorn (Part 19 ends).
December 10th – The Fellowship arrives at the start of the Redhorn Pass. Storm blocks attempt to snow in the pass.
December 11th – Fellowship continues climbing the Redhorn Pass and is stopped by intentional attempts at landslides. Jean first blocks boulders thrown at the Fellowship. Then an avalanche buries the party under Jean’s barely held together telekinetic umbrella. Her mental cries of anguish reach her love Scott in the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, before her new strength asserts itself and she throws the avalanche off them (Part 20 ends).
December 12th – Fellowship passes through the fallen arch of the Redhorn Gate at the summit of the pass, which Jean restores. The Fellowship descends the Dimrill Stair; through, over, and behind a series of cascading falls that lead down to the waters of the Mirrormere in Dimrill Dale. The Fellowship gazes upon the Mirrormere and Durin’s Stone. Gimli convinces the rest of the Fellowship to go look at the Dimrill Gate of Moria. Legolas spies orcs in the Gateway. Gandalf and Jean feel the approach of a great power toward the gate. A Balrog tries to mentally attack Jean and in anger her telekinesis smashes back the Balrog and pulls down much of the Silvertine peak down to bury the Dimrill Gate (Part 21 ends). The Fellowship marches down along the Celebrant/Silverlode and makes camp around midnight having marched fifteen miles away from Moria.
December 13th – The Fellowship continues to march down the Celebrant/Silverlode. Legolas spies a Fell Beast flying overhead toward Moria and the Fellowship hides till it is no longer in sight. The Fellowship marches thirty miles during daylight before making camp at dusk.
December 14th – The Fellowship wakes up after midnight to continue to march down the Celebrant/Silverlode till they come to the Nimrodel, after another fifteen miles of walking. Gandalf gains them entrance into Lorien, but before they can proceed they must wait word on their elven guards are to handle the presence of a dwarf. While talking with the elves they discover that a large band of Uruk from Mordor passed the southern edge of Lorien heading to Moria only a week earlier.
December 15th – Permission is received for them to continue and the Fellowship marches deeper into Lorien. Gollum looks for a way out of Moria.
December 16th – The Fellowship reaches Cerin Amroth. Boromir and Rogue openly reveal their feelings for each other. Aragorn remembers his time at the hill with Arwen. Jean, feeling lonely, makes romantic advances toward Legolas, but is rejected, hurting her feelings deeply (Part 22 ends).
December 17th – The Fellowship is greeted at the gate of Caras Galadhon by Celeborn and Galadriel. Each member of the Fellowship feels as if Galadriel tested them as they were greeted. A giant tent is given them for their use during their stay in Lorien. Celeborn and Galadriel host a dinner that night for the Fellowship.
December 25th – Galdor returns to Lindon and discusses with Cirdan the upcoming Council with the dwarves and Cirdan’s opinion on whether to use the elven fleet against the Enemy.


January 1st – Many Broadbeam and Firebeard dwarf lords attend the Council in the Havens to discuss the proposal to attack Isengard. A majority of dwarf lords agree to march.
January 10th – A messenger from Cirdan reaches Merry and Pippin with a letter from Bilbo to tell them the mustering of the Dwarven Host will begin on the 25th in the Far Downs and will last for five days. Food depots must be readied for every nine leagues of march through the Shire.
January 11th – Not far from Sarn’s Ford, Halbarad fights wargs sent north by Saruman to scout the Shire (Part 23 ends). Cirdan takes note of an unnaturally harsh storm over the Gulf of Luhn.
January 12th – Gandalf speaks with Legolas, telling the elf he wishes him to be the one to accompany Frodo and Sam to Mordor. The ranger Halbarad
January 13th – Boromir views the Mirror of Galadriel.
January 14th – Kitty views the Mirror of Galadriel. Rogue refuses to look, claiming it is a trap.
January 15th – Jean and Storm view the Mirror of Galadriel (Part 24 ends).
January 16th – Frodo and Sam view the Mirror of Galadriel. They return to the Fellowship’s tent upset by what they saw. Gandalf announces the Fellowship will depart the next morning. Several members openly discuss their experience with the Mirror.
January 17th – The Fellowship departs Caras Galadhon and march to Lorien’s boundary with the Anduin and the Silverlode, where Galadriel and Celeborn provide them with a goodbye meal. The elven rulers of Lorien also provide each member of the Fellowship with a gift. The Fellowship then leaves Lorien by four boats provided them by the elves. Jean in particular feels the affects of leaving the aura of Lorien.
January 18th – Saruman feels efforts from Cirdan to fight the stormy weather he is helping to trap the Havens in with. Saruman orders a strong contingent of his Uruk-hai forces to head north raid into the Shire along with Dunlending allies. Boromir asks Frodo to ride in his boat that day on the Anduin, but Frodo refuses.
January 21st – Fellowship travelling in daylight on the Anduin passes the Limlight. A Nazgul on a Fell Beast flies over the Fellowship and partly detects their presence. Arrows from Legolas drive off the Nazgul.Jean barely controls her fright to the Nazgul’s presence (Part 25 ends). The Fellowship returns to traveling only at night.
January 22nd – The Nazgul which spotted the travelers on the Anduin meets with Saruman. Saruman orders a strong force of Uruk-hai to start investigating the course of the Anduin, from the Limlight to the Entwash. Jean tries to talk with Gandalf about who ultimately will go with Frodo to Mordor, but the wizard divulges nothing.
January 23rd – After making camp at dawn, Jean tells Frodo she will go to Mordor with him.
January 24th – After making camp in the morning and during his watch, Jean tries to flirt with him. Later, Aragorn then dreams of an elven Jean, but is woken by the brooch of Arwen gifted him by Galadriel in Lorien. He finds Jean asleep, confused he does not confront her (Part 26 ends).
January 25th – The Fellowship comes upon the Sarn Gebir and heads to the shore. Once camp is made, Gandalf announces when they come to Amon Hen, he will announce who goes where as the Fellowship splits apart. The mustering of the Dwarven Host begins in the Far Downs. The Fellowship makes the portage around the Sarn Gebir during the morning, then return to their boats on the Anduin. They pass through the Argonath, Pillar of Kings, on the Anduin, and finally make camp on the edges of the Nen Hithoel as dusk settles. Frodo, Legolas, Sam, and Jean all depart from the camp on real or pretend errands, each in different directions. Gollum sneaks out of Moria (Part 27 ends). Jean tries to take The Ring from Frodo (Part 28 ends). Jean fights the Fellowship, as Frodo tries to flee (Part 29 ends).
January 26th – The Breaking of the Fellowship (Part 30 ends).