This is a sequel to Rune Ranko. It was originally written as a sequel to the original version of Rune Ranko, and while it is being rewritten, there may still be elements that refer to the prior edition. In particular, the character 'Tofu' makes an appearance, who has not yet had a part in the rewrite of Rune Ranko. As Rune Ranko progresses, I expect it to occasion changes in this and the other sequels, which I will make over time, as necessary, to ensure that the series eventually settles into a coherent whole.
Some of you may have seen more of Lady of the Ring than is here presented. What you may have seen in that respect, prior to this posting, has been, for the time being, abandoned in favor of this rewrite.
TheGrum
Prologue - The Ring
In the darkness a ring lay waiting, fallen from the hand that had held it for hundreds of years, just in time to be found when a hapless hobbit happened by.
Before that chance event could occur a figure appeared in mid-air and fell, landing heavily upon the ring. The minds within the figure being disoriented, the binding magic that ruled the figure's existence acted unguided. Finding a large source of powerful magic nearby--well, closer than nearby, actually, being pressed into the flesh of a shapely buttock--it immediately absorbed it.
Ranko's disorientation fled in an instant as her danger sense flared wildly and a sickening sensation of pure evil filled her surroundings. Acting on desperate instinct, she cast a protection from evil even as her dragon mentor did the same. Huddled together within their shield, the pair were unable to exert influence upon their form, which at the ring's behest resumed the form of the ring, matching it in all particulars.
No sign of the figure's brief presence remained and where the ring had lain there lay still a ring, of size and weight and substance identical to the first.
Neither the maiden that was once a man, Ranko, nor the dragon spirit that was once a blade, Tofu, felt or knew it when a small chubby hand picked them up and slipped them into a pocket, for they were focused on their defense.
Their counterattack began almost immediately, as one would cast, shoring up their protection from evil, while the other would try a spell against the flowing darkness that surrounded them.
It was a strange fight, for neither mind had form within that mental void, nor could they see one another, and that against which they warred was but a vague darkness that swirled about them.
Still, they were powerful in their own right, and they were two working united against one divided, for the ring had to ply its influence on its new wielder as well as trying to subdue them.
In fact, there was no real attack against them. The ring was not sentient, per se, and while it had definite effects on its wielder, they were not consciously directed. The impact it was having on Ranko and Tofu was not a result of a deliberate attack, but rather a consequence of the intense concentration of evil within the ring.
With nothing working intelligently against them, Ranko and Tofu soon settled into a pattern. Tofu maintained the protection from evil spell while Ranko used her attacks to burn away the evil. It was a slow process, since she also had to supply Tofu with energy to keep up the shield and had to take regular rests herself to recoup the energy she had used, but they made steady progress.
Trapped within as they were, they had no sense of the passage of time, so once they finally regained control they had no real idea of how long it had taken.
They were, they discovered, on a fine chain in the pocket of a fellow who went by the name Bilbo and lived underground. Ranko wanted to immediately vacate the area. Magic would suffice to allow communications and she had severe problems with the idea of being wielded. She had had wielders before and with a weapon of her power, most such memories were dark ones.
Tofu counseled patience. The matching process of their traveling device could take an indeterminate length of time, so there was no particular reason to hurry. They were safe, for the moment, and had an opportunity to learn languages and history. Tofu reminded Ranko that the better she got at matching her observations of the degree of difference between the world and the one she sought and the state of the dimensional artifact, the easier it would be for her to guide them home.
She reluctantly agreed and together they watched Bilbo and learned of his people. Ranko was quite surprised at the tale Bilbo told to his young relation Frodo of his 'Adventure.' He seemed far too ordinary a person to be involved in such things, to her mind. He was not even cursed! Unlike her, however, his adventure seemed to have happened and then ceased, while her life had never really settled down. It all seemed to have happened when he was around fifty and when his next birthday rolled around, they learned that it was his hundredth. The realization that it had taken them nearly fifty years to finally cleanse the ring of evil was deeply disturbing to Ranko. Just what was this ring that she had accidentally become one with?
She wanted to know its powers, to know what it could do aside from merely turning its bearer invisible, which ability she learned from Bilbo's tale, but Tofu cautioned her against exploring its powers. He feared that any such attempt might awaken a link between the ring and its creator such as she had had with Distanfae's helm so long ago, and he feared also that use of its powers might make it detectable. They could feel reasonably certain at the moment that no-one who desired the ring knew of its whereabouts, or it would not have remained uncontested in Bilbo's possession for fifty years.
After nearly a decade, Ranko and Tofu had both become comfortable with the common speech of the hobbits, as Bilbo's folk called themselves, and had learned to read and speak, sort of, the Elvish speech, or at least, as much of it as Bilbo had taught to Frodo. Ranko was becoming restless.
Before she had wearied completely of Tofu's counsel of patience a change occurred. Bilbo began planning for a huge party to celebrate his 'eleventy-first,' or one hundred and eleventh, birthday, as well as his nephew Frodo's thirty-third birthday. Thirty-three was the year that hobbits 'came of age,' and were considered adults in the eyes of the community.
Bilbo spent many long hours by himself before that party, talking to himself and to his ring. Key among the revelations that came to them from these ramblings were that Bilbo intended to leave at the climax of the party, and travel to Rivendell to live with the elves. That would have pleased Ranko, except that he also planned to leave the ring with Frodo, whom he would name his heir and the owner of Bag End, the home they lived in together.
Still Tofu convinced her to wait. The conversation, after the party, between Bilbo and the wizard Gandalf, in Bilbo's study, disturbed them both. He had put them into an envelope, still resting on the chain he had put them on so many long years before. For a moment they had rested on a mantelpiece, then they had been stuffed back into his pocket.
That was when Gandalf had come in. Their discussion had made it clear to Ranko and Tofu that one of the ring's properties, that had not ended until near the end of their campaign against its evil, if ever it had, was that it extended the life of the wearer. Bilbo's comments made it clear that it was not a pleasant extension. "Stretched," he said, "like butter that has been scraped over too much bread."
It took a bit of convincing on Gandalf's part, but in the end, they were left on the mantelpiece to await Bilbo's heir, Frodo. The conversations that ensued between Gandalf and Frodo disturbed them further. Gandalf placed great emphasis on not using the ring without need, and on keeping it secret.
"He knows something, or suspects something, about the ring," concluded Tofu.
"It hardly matters," objected Ranko. "What do I care what he thinks about it? What reason have we to remain here with this fellow? He's going to settle down and do just what Bilbo was doing. I wish that Gandalf fellow had kept his mouth shut. I would'a liked to see that Rivendell place Bilbo spoke of."
"It is dangerous, Ranko, to act without knowledge. We know nothing of the ring, nor of what it might do, beyond that it extended Bilbo's life and turns him invisible when he puts it on. That cannot be its sole purpose, not with the extent of the evil we purged it of! We have a chance, if that wizard fellow is off to do what I suspect he is, to find out the truth of the ring."
"But what does it matter?" Ranko said, irritated. "We purged it of evil."
"That we did, child," Tofu sighed, "but what of its maker? What if it attracts evil when you are near it? What if the only reason we've seen nothing is because we are in the middle of this Shire land, where nothing ever happens?"
"What do you advise then?" Ranko sighed. She had hoped to convince him, but though he had never contested her right to control the body, to be the one to live their shared life, she was never willing to simply overrule him. Though she did not hold with respecting someone merely because they were old, he had never led her astray, and she had come to depend on his knowledge. Too often, he was her only companion, and she did not want to alienate him. True, they both held other souls, a consequence of the nature of the blade he had been before becoming one with Ranko. Both had wielded the power of the soul-drinker, and they held those souls still within them. But those souls were not conscious, not active, though their knowledge could be gathered if one was willing to spend the time. Ranko was not, generally, for the only ones she had used the soul-drinker's edge against had been black of heart.
"Patience, child, is my counsel. Wait for the wizard's return. 'I may be able to tell you something when I come back,' he said. Let us wait for his return, and then we may learn what the ring was, and why he seems so concerned about it." Tofu smiled inwardly. He had grown to know Ranko very well over the years, as he watched over her as if she were his own hatchling. He knew as soon as she had spoken that she had resigned herself to following his advice. He was still surprised, occasionally, remembering his first experience with her indomitable will as it had shattered him, sending him into a decades long slumber, that she seemed to trust him so much, to so willingly abide by his counsel.
"Alright, Tofu. We will wait."
---
To Ranko's delight, Frodo did not follow the expectations of the folk of Hobbiton and settle down in the absence of the influence of the crackpot Bilbo and that dratted wizard.
Time passed swiftly enough, and as Frodo made his way into his forties, he began to go on long walks through the Shire. Often he would come upon one or more of the strange wayfarers that began at that time to appear within the borders of the Shire, and with them he would have long talks, learning of events far beyond the borders of his land.
Elves were seen passing through the Shire on the way to the Gray Havens, though as they were leaving Middle-Earth, they had little time or interest in the events in the eastern lands.
On the other hand, dwarves traveled the roads in unusual numbers, and from them Frodo learned much. Rumours came from strange dwarves from far-off countries headed to the mines in the Blue Mountains, seeking refuge, of the Enemy and the Land of Mordor.
Others spoke of the orcs, who were growing ever more numerous, and of trolls that wandered the lands once more, showing a cunning and intelligence unlike those of Bilbo's experience.
Ranko listened to all of this eagerly, though she found it somewhat disappointing that she found herself cataloguing differences between this world and Distanfae's world, not her home world. Indeed, other than not recognizing the speech nor any of the place names, the biggest difference by far, in her mind, was the almost complete absence of calls to higher powers. Even the dwarves seemed to swear by their ancestors rather than calling on a deity. She wasn't entirely sure how to take this, whether it was an indication that she was traveling in the wrong direction or not.
Frodo was forty-nine when Gandalf returned as night was falling one day in early spring, and for the first time had news of the ring. It had been nine years since his last visit. He began to tell Frodo his news, but stopped, saying that such matters were best left until daylight.
The next morning, Frodo and Gandalf sat by the open window of the study. A cheery fire was burning brightly in the hearth, for though the sun was warm, the air was still chill early and late with the memory of winter. Frodo sat in silence while Gandalf puffed on his pipe, blowing smoke rings as his mind wandered back to a spring nearly eighty years before, a late morning when Bilbo had run from Bag End without a handkerchief, trying to catch up to the party of dwarves that had left in the early morn.
When Frodo finally broke the silence, after sitting long in deep thought under the shadow of the tidings that Gandalf had brought, that seemed to bring a darkness even in the bright light of morning, Gandalf's first response disturbed Ranko and Tofu nearly as much as Frodo.
"In many ways, it is far more powerful than I dared to think at first, so powerful that in the end it would utterly overcome anyone of mortal race who possessed it. It would possess him."
Gandalf told Frodo of the history of the elvensmiths of Eregion, of the Great Rings, made for the elves, and their perils for mortals. He told of Bilbo's finding of the ring and the shadow that fell over his heart then, of Bilbo's preposterous story of a gift, fitting all too well the pattern of Gollum's matching story.
He requested the ring of Frodo, finally, and on receiving it, he cast it into the flames of the fire laid in the hearth. Tofu held back Ranko's reaction, reminding her that no mere hearth-fire could harm a Great Ring such as Gandalf had described, much less a weapon such as they were, while Gandalf restrained Frodo from rescuing the ring.
Finally Gandalf removed the ring and gave it to Frodo. Inside and outside of the ring were now visible fine lines of fire that formed the letters of a flowing script.
Thus it was that Ranko and Tofu, along with Frodo, heard for the first time the words of the ring, the One Ring, the Master Ring...
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
Ranko cringed within the ring as she listened to Gandalf's tale of Sauron the Great, the Dark Lord of Mordor.
"The Enemy still lacks one thing to give him strength and knowledge to beat down all resistance, break the last defences, and cover all the lands in a second darkness. He lacks the One Ring."
Gandalf told the tale of the history of the ring, how it was cut from the hand of Sauron by Isildur, Elendil's son, after Elendil fell in battle against the Dark Lord; how Isildur was betrayed by it and slain, and the ring fell into the great river, Anduin. He told what he had learned from Gollum, how the hobbit Deagol found the ring only to be slain by his friend Smeagol, who took the ring and ended deep beneath the Misty Mountains as the pitiful creature Gollum.
Much more was said, until finally Gandalf made it plain. "There is only one way: to find the Cracks of Doom in the depths of Orodruin, the Fire-mountain, and cast the Ring in there, if you really wish to destroy it, to put it beyond the grasp of the Enemy for ever."
Ranko was both impressed and dumbfounded when Frodo offered the ring to Gandalf and the old wizard reacted most vehemently. "But his fear is no longer well-founded, is it Tofu? Surely it would not warp him to evil to wield us?"
"Do not be so sure, youngling. There were those who took you up with good intentions only to give in to the lust for power. Great power is not a safe thing to possess, even if it is not inherently evil."
Ranko sighed and waited as the human and hobbit sat in silent thought, then watched in misery as Frodo declared his intention to leave the Shire.
"We cannot let this poor fellow set out on this journey! You know as well as I that casting us into a volcano is not going to destroy us. We cannot let them go to such risks for a false hope."
"Now, Ranko, were you not listening? The Enemy this wizard speaks of has already heard the name Baggins, and knows where to look for it now. He will have to leave."
Ranko was silent for a few moments, not paying attention as Gandalf captured the eavesdropping Samwise Gamgee and he was pressed into service on their trip. Finally she spoke again, more slowly. "There is little we can do about that. You are right, he must leave. But if he has the ring, he will be in peril! And eventually, someone will seek to take it to the volcano. At the least, I can leave him, and probe the ring's power while traveling through an unpopulated land, if we can find such. That will lead them away, will it not? If they can in fact feel the power of the ring?"
Frodo was holding the chain that held the ring up in the air, showing it Sam. It twisted gently in the air, catching the light and holding their gazes; such a small thing to be causing such upheaval. So all were watching when Tofu finally conceded to Ranko's point, and to Gandalf's dismay and Frodo's secret delight, the ring vanished in a flare of white light.
An Unexpected Meal
"What happened, Master Gandalf?" yelped Sam, startled by the sudden light.
"It's gone," whispered Frodo. Though he felt a tugging sensation in his heart, a yearning for the ring, it was but a minor feeling and by far overridden by his intense pleasure at being free of having such a weight on his conscience.
His pleasure was short-lived, however, as Gandalf seemed to age before his eyes. Gandalf eased himself into a chair, looking at Frodo with sad eyes. "I don't know what happened," he said then muttered, almost to himself, "I've never heard that any of the Great Rings could do such a thing."
He straightened in his chair and fixed Frodo with a piercing gaze. "It changes nothing for you, my lad. You must still leave, for the name of Baggins is known to the Enemy now, and lack of the ring will not avail you. He would take you and torture you to garner whatever clues you might possess to its location. If he does not already have it." That thought seemed to age Gandalf still further.
"But you will have to make your plans without me, I am afraid," he continued.
"But Gandalf, you've only just arrived!"
Gandalf sighed unhappily, looking into the worried face of his young friend. "The consequences will be ill if the ring falls into the wrong hands, but I must admit that I have no real idea how to find it again. Very well, Frodo. I will stay for two weeks and help you prepare for your trip. I think now, that you should go as soon as you possibly can."
Gandalf sighed when he saw Frodo's expression. "I had thought to let you leave in your own time," he admitted. "But if the Ring itself is going to be playing a more active role, there may not be time."
---
Tofu was understandably furious with Ranko for her little prank. "You should have slid through the shadows, Ranko! You know that an unguided teleport is hideously dangerous!"
"Hah!" Ranko laughed merrily. "Come on, Tofu, it can't hurt us even if we had ended up in the same place as something else. Besides, there are no mountains near us, we both knew that, we've seen enough, so there was little risk in teleporting a mile up and several over."
This discussion was progressing as a flashing golden ring whistled through the air, falling towards the ground far below. Turning her mind from Tofu's continued complaints, Ranko checked quickly about to be sure that she was unseen.
Quite suddenly the ring became a miniature dragon. "Hurry up, Tofu," Ranko urged as the dragon tumbled listlessly through the air. "Take over and start flying already."
The opportunity to move again, to take over their shared body for a short time, and even more so, the chance to fly once more cut off Tofu's protests in mid-stream, as Ranko had known they would.
Soon the tiny dragon was flying easily over acres of well looked after farmland. Tofu's mind was better equipped than Ranko's to process the visual information their surface could give them and his keener sight soon found a rising thermal. They began to make lazy, sweeping turns as the warm air lifted them upward again.
Tofu felt their mouth stretch into a grin without his influence. It widened when he himself smiled, please at the evidence that Ranko was enjoying the flight as much as he.
"One of these days, Tofu, you're going to have to teach me how to do this!"
While Tofu could not activate nor deactivate the magic connection that Distanfae had given Ranko between her soul and the body, the connection that let her move normally and use her martial arts skills, he could, with her assistance, place himself between her soul and the body. If the connection was active, he could insinuate himself into it and take control. In doing so, the connection seemed to change to fit his soul's experience, so he was able to work a body with six limbs, two of which were wings. Having experienced a human form before, like many ancient dragons, he was also able to operate Ranko's drow form.
Ranko found this extremely unfair but was of the unswerving opinion that Tofu would eventually figure out a way for her soul to gain the experience to be able to fly the dragon form that Tofu had crafted for them.
As the land continued to shrink beneath them, Tofu slipped out of the updraft and began a long glide. Ranko had been very confused the first time they had done this, becoming worried as he continued to hold his wings steady, never flapping. These days she was as used to it as any large bird, though she still couldn't read the air as he could, to find the thermals that they traveled between.
Their sharp eyes tracked the roads on the ground below for great distances and caught in the air the rising of smoke away to the east. The roads from within the land they were leaving were two, one fairly straight to the east, well-maintained, and one that wandered to the south-east, over-grown where it left the shire, though it did not look wholly unused.
"Which way should we go, little one?"
Ranko thought for a while then on impulse, she opened her senses to the ring. She felt several pulling sensations, as if the ring were tugging her first one way and then another. One was back the way they'd come.
Another, fainter pull, was to the east, but the strongest pull was to the south-east, in three very slightly different directions. Of course, if they were quite far off, the distance between them given even a tiny deviation here and now could be immense.
That the ring's desire seemed to coincide with the over-grown path decided her. She did not want to wander the wilderness forever, just draw the heat away from the Shire for a time.
"That way," she said, indicating the direction of the strongest pull. Tofu bobbed his head in acknowledgement and they veered to match the course she had set.
They crossed the course of a river, far below, and Ranko nodded to herself. "We're out of the Shire now, I think. I'm going to start exploring the ring."
"Should I land first?"
"No, if something happens because of this, they'll have a harder time actually coming upon us if we keep moving fast. Besides, if the worst happens, a fall from this height wouldn't hurt us, but it would put us far from where the worst was felt, assuming they can feel it at all."
When no further objections were forthcoming, Ranko began to examine the ring. As she had done with the other items she had eaten over the years, as opposed to those she'd merely drank power from, she traced the lines of magic power within.
She quickly realized that this ring was like nothing she'd seen before. She was used to finely woven patches of power that led to even more complex deeper weaves, a pattern of activator and effect. This ring held almost nothing of that sort. There was a response to fire, that she could see, though it was not crafted in the way to which she was accustomed.
The greatest portion of the ring did not seem to be organized at all. It was little more, it seemed, than a deep reservoir of power. No, it was more like a well, a well brimming with power and drawing from some deep source she could not see. She could not resist tasting the power, letting a little of it trickle to her quicksilver.
She jerked back instantly. It wasn't that it was a foul taste... in fact, it was rather sweet, but it had carried a metallic tang, a sharpness that seemed to bite her, as if she'd bitten aluminium. "Damn, I'm glad that evil we destroyed wasn't smart enough to draw on this. It should have crushed us!" That errant thought brought another one. According to the old wizard's words, somewhere in this world was a being of great evil and this ring was his. If she fell into his hands, could she keep him from using this well of power, that he had created?
Exploring further she eventually found new patterns beyond the well. It took her hours to puzzle out the strange patterns and recognize them. One was the pattern that stretched the wielder's life. It was bit disturbing, because it was intimately linked to the second pattern which was similar to her own shadow shifting. It brought the wielder into a different state of being temporarily, rendering the wielder invisible. The two together, though, worked to bring the wielder permanently into that other realm.
She dimly heard and acknowledged Tofu's warning that he had come across a city and was going to land and rest for a while on the central tower. A corresponding realization filtered into her quite slowly and she screamed for him not to land, only moments too late. The place that the thing the ring was trying to draw her to was here, right here, wherever they now were. She desperately pulled away from the ring, trying to re-engage her senses and find out where they were.
Even as she turned from the ring she felt the process of assimilation begin again, the magical process activating on its own in the absence of her control and intention. For a moment she merely sighed in irritation, hoping that this one wouldn't be evil. Then the scale of the assimilation hit her, the unbelievable mass of the magic they were becoming one with. Opening her senses wide, she saw the sky, the spires of black stone rising about her, the city far below, for but a moment, before the black stone swallowed her.
She could feel the thirst growing within her already. Tofu, fragile as his mind was after her terrible attack so long ago, and even more millenia from his last true sensation of need than she, was quickly overwhelmed by it and she was left to resist it alone.
Normally she had more than time enough to prepare, to make sure that her quicksilver was well-fed before her dead elements absorbed a new item, a new power. If the item she wanted to eat was unusually large, she always made sure that she had smaller magic sources nearby to drink.
The thirst immediately turned her mind to the well of power she'd just pulled away from. For the barest instant she considered quenching her thirst at the well. The memory of the evil that had tainted the ring held her back. She did not know from what source the well drew. It could draw on something's lifeforce. It might be drawn from the nearest living thing or draw on the world's strength directly. There was no way of knowing what evil she might cause by drawing on that well and that she would not do.
Knowing that when she lost her senses, or they were overwhelmed, her mind, after Tofu's training, sought to slow, to let time pass unnoticed, she fought to regain her senses. Already, though it seemed but seconds to her, weeks or months might have flown by.
The assimilation of this monstrosity could take her months or even years, or longer still. She had to find a source of magic to quench her thirst lest the drain kill her quicksilver. If it managed to slay the last of her that was truly alive, Dist only knew what she would lose. She was supposed to be impervious to harm but even Distanfae had admitted that he had broken all the rules in creating her and there were no guarantees. If anything could harm her, she felt, it was overextending her reserves. If she drained all the magic from within her she might well die, as the magic that held her soul imprisoned crumbled and released her into death.
Forcing herself into the portion of the stone that she had so far assimilated, crying out in pain at the rawness of it, the untamed resistance, she thrust herself through it, driving herself once more to the surface, a surface, any surface.
Her dismay was terrible when rising from her ordeal she found herself on the pinnacle of a black tower and the nearest source of magic the very wizard she'd left behind. He lay there, Gandalf the Grey, sleeping. He did not look peaceful but weary, burdened. He looked huge to her, for though she had managed to increase her size from that of the ring to the winged lizard form she had after taken, her unconscious grasping of her trained form had not managed to restore her size.
Ranko stumbled backward, her feet never leaving the black surface. Indeed, they were mired in it, as if the stone were a treacherous bog. She drew away from him, feeling the thirst gnawing at her. The ring too she could feel pulling her to him. For just a moment she tried to increase her size so as to look on him with normal eyes, hoping that his gauntness was but a trick of perspective, but the attempt left her crumpled in pain. She had not completed her assimilation of the stone and it held a magic nearly as strong as her own, that held it together as one unbroken mass. Her attempt to increase her size would have affected all of her equally, but the unassimilated mass held what she had taken of the tower bound and its size could not change.
The unwise struggle left her weary, her thirst and hunger burning and growing within her. "I've got to get him away from here before I lose it," she muttered unhappily. Her eyes burned though she had no tears with which to moisten them, much less to let fall in her pain. Moving with slow and painful effort, she drew forth the ring, the one ring that seemed to mean so much to these people. "If I'm trapped here, eventually I'll give in to the thirst. I'll drink, and they'll all know where I am. Even if I drink my fill it will take forever to finish eating this damn tower. How can the whole thing be a single damned stone anyway!?"
Her eyes flashed between the ring and the wizard, dueling fountains tempting her to drink. A vague memory of a suggestion Tofu had made, one she had not really understood at the time, flashed in her mind. Even now she did not truly understand his words but intuitively, amidst the stress and fear, her ever agile mind finally understood what her body must do. As so often before, she found the key to defeat her enemy just in time.
Her hand plunged into the dark shadow cast by one of the spires gleaming like teeth upthrust around her. The ring in her hand shone forth from the shadow across the way. In a mind-warping twist, the ring inverted, swallowing the shadow within itself even as she pulled her hand back. As her hand threatened to leave the shadow, her fist clenched then melted into a fluid mass before it reformed, a second shadow held in a tiny open space inside her.
The ring fell to the ground, a single metallic note proclaiming its freedom.
Moving quickly in spite of apparently being mired in the stone floor, she slogged across and grabbed the ring. Holding it in her hand, her eyes crossed momentarily as she tried to comprehend what she'd done, how it could be separate and yet still part of her. Even worse, she could feel the drain of the shadow cloak increasing her thirst.
Eyes and throat burning, she slipped the ring into a deep pocket in Gandalf's robes. She moved to teleport him back to the one place she was sure she could remember; the little room in Frodo's home where they'd had their long discussion about the ring, the room she'd been held in, in the open, for several hours. As she reached for the magic of the ring of teleportation, she felt the quicksilver drinking power from the wand of fire. She grasped frantically for the thin skein of gold that held the power of teleportation, but it was empty, quiescent. To be sure, she knew how to power the magic items she absorbed with her own magic essence, but it was of precisely that essence that she was in such desperate need.
She collapsed then atop the tower, feeling a growing sense of hopelessness. If her quicksilver died, taking with it the pool of magic that sustained her, would she still be able to defeat Saffron and save her family when she finally made it home? Worse yet, would she even be able to make it home? She shivered, curling into a fetal ball, resting within the surface of the black stone as if it were inch-deep water.
She gave in to the feeling of hunger, losing her grip on all other sensation, surrendering to the unfettered flow of time. To her astonishment, when she was brought back to herself by a series of thunderous crashes, she found that she had been covered by a torn strip of cloth tucked in about her. She realized that she must have moved unconsciously to secure the makeshift blanket, for it was beneath one foot and grasped in her hand. There could be little doubt that the wizard had done this, gifting her with a portion of the cloak he could ill-afford to spare on this windswept height, but even he could not have slipped it beneath her foot, for in the absence of her will, though to her the black stone was like a thick mud, any other who sought to move her would not be able to effect even the most minute separation between her and the floor in which she lay.
She struggled to her feet and stifled a startled cry of dismay when she saw the huge wizard crawling toward her, a look of pity and compassion in his dark eyes. Quickly, fearing to reveal her nature, she swallowed two shadows on the far side of herself, where he could not see, granting her a means of apparent separation from the black stone, the gnawing hunger and thirst growing even stronger as she drew more heavily on the cloak of shadow.
The world whirled about her as he gently lifted her free of the entangling stone, gazing at her with mixed wonder and compassion. Murmuring soft words of comfort and assurance, he brought her close within the circuit of his cloak, cutting off the wind that blew chill upon the unprotected height.
The hunger assailed her once more and she felt even more keenly the strength that lay still within him, starved and chilled though he was, and a great terror leapt up within her. She could not free him from the height; she was too small even to simply carry him away in flight and she had no strength left to send him away through the shadows, as she should have done when first she discovered that her ring was dry. Somehow the shadow cloak, perhaps by virtue of its being already in use, had been undrained, but it was already strained by maintaining two open paths through the shadow.
She could not risk the possibility of hurting him should the magic fail as she moved him through it and she was leery of the danger of passing through two shadows at once or passing a shadow through a shadow, or whatever it was that would happen if she passed through the shadows while using them to separate her from the tower. Just thinking about it made her head hurt.
She shuddered as the pain worsened with her nearness to food but she would not drink of what was to hand, and there were no sources of strong magic within the ready reach of the portion of Orthanc that she had so far assimilated.
Despair grew within her once more at the realization that the strain on her quicksilver was becoming unbearable and the death she so feared could not be far off. She would never now be able to save her family. Two beings felt that despair and moved to aid her. One was long dead, acting from beyond the veil by virtue of the foresight granted by great intelligence. Her creator, Distanfae, had been well aware of her honor and how it could bind her hands. He had seen for himself in her memories her death at her own hands because of honor. Though he admired that in her, he wanted his creation to live forever, to bear witness to his greatness for all time.
She refused to do what she had to do to survive, but there was that within her which would not. Within her the barriers she had built failed, and a passage she had never known existed opened to release the feral power and hunger of the Neko-ken.
When Distanfae had first explored the Neko-ken after finding it locked away in her mind, he had triggered it in a similar manner to the way it had naturally been triggered, sending her mind into a deep blackness. She still remained conscious, something that had not been true of the original Neko-ken, but she had been unaware of what her cat-self was doing.
This time she found herself retreating in fear, unable to escape to blackness as the cat took over. She had no alternative, no way to avoid seeing what the cat did. Her fear grew but there was no way out, no way to escape the cat that shared her very being.
Then the other who had felt her despair acted. Feeling the shudders and whimpers of fear from the tiny bundle he held, Gandalf reached out with his will, gently pressing her into sleep. He sighed and tucked her close by his body as the wind wailed about them. At least he could ease her torment, even if there was little he could do about his own.
---
Ranko awoke to the sound of snapping cloth and rushing wind. She found herself still being held and instantly she identified the hand as belonging to her master. In her despair she had put up no defense against his will and now she was bound to him. She felt a moment's distress at the thought until she remembered who he was. It did not hurt his case that the first command he had given, the first exertion of his will over her, had been to put her to sleep, a state she had not experienced for more than a thousand years. She felt unbelievably refreshed and though hunger and thirst still gnawed at her, the sensations felt suddenly familiar instead of terrifying.
They had deeply unsettled her when she felt them again for nearly the first time since her death but now sleep had brought dreams and memories of her first life, her time as Ranma, and waking up hungry had ever been a part of that. Indeed, hunger and thirst had been her... his constant companions through most of his early life.
Dimly she felt the pull of the power in the ring in another pocket of Gandalf's robes. In the distance she could feel the cat moving and she shivered in sudden fear but it soon passed. He was far away. She quickly turned her attention away, not wanting to know what he was doing, nor attract his attention. Hopefully he would feel the draw of the ring no more strongly than she. She remembered again the sudden spurt of sheer terror she had felt when the walls in her mind crumbled, but looking back, she understood now what Distanfae had intended.
Turning inward she verified her suspicions. The pool of her reserves in her quicksilver was not as low as it had been, nor had it ever been as dire as she had felt it. It had been the raw newness of feeling the unaccustomed sensations again that had made them seem so overwhelmingly powerful.
The sound of a single powerful wingbeat caught her attention and she deduced that the sound of wind was due to their passage through the air rather than wind on the tower's height. As that realization settled in she became aware of the occasional rocking motion as their carrier tilted this way and that to take advantage of the air currents.
She wondered why the wizard had not taken earlier advantage of whatever means of flight he had at his disposal, but as she shifted in his grasp preparatory to reaching for the pocket's lip to peer out, the wizard grew aware of her wakeful state, and concerned over what might befall were she to be afraid of heights or open spaces, he pressed her to sleep once more.
When she awoke for the second time, it was at his gentle insistence, and she sat up to find herself lying in his hand, while he looked down at her with a twinkle in his eye. She looked about quickly, trying to judge her location, and found that they stood between two lines of green mounds, while in the distance lights glimmered against a darkening sky.
"It is alright now," Gandalf said, smiling, "we are far from Orthanc, Isengard, and Saruman, though," and a frown stole the smile from his face as he looked about with concern in his eyes, "perhaps not far enough for safety. Soon he will be reaching out to strike against Rohan, I judge," he continued in a low tone, almost as if speaking to himself.
He shook his head, beard wagging comically, and turned his attention back to her. "Ah, but I am rambling, and we have not yet been introduced. I am Gandalf, also known," his eyes slid a tiny bit to the right, "as Mithrandir amongst the elves." Ranko realized that he must be looking at the tips of her ears and before she had even considered her actions, her hand had risen to grasp the top of her pointed ear.
"I apologize if I have startled or frightened you," he continued, "but I could not imagine any would voluntarily sleep on that windswept height and so assumed you shared my prison and would prefer to share my escape?"
Ranko nodded but a shiver ran through her as his words reminded her that he had done more than merely take her away from a dangerous situation without asking nor introducing himself; he had inadvertently bonded her, becoming the newest in a line of masters. He seemed unaware of what he had done though, for which she was thankful, and she had good reason to hope that even should he become aware of their link, he would not understand how to use it, if her sort of magical item was uncommon in this world.
He sighed at noting her shiver, thinking her still afraid, as could hardly be surprising in one so small, faced with someone so much larger. Then too he was conscious that while he did not think he looked particularly like Saruman, they were both old men, white of hair and tall of stature, and all men might look alike to one so different as she.
"We are in the land of Rohan," he said, "south of the Golden Wood where the High Elves still dwell. I am making all speed for Rivendell in the far north, where elves and men dwell in the house of Elrond Half-Elven. Close at hand," he gestured at the lights, "lies the long-house of Theoden, King of the RidderMark, the Horse-Lords. South and west at the end of the mountains stands the white city of Minas Tirith, seat of the Steward of Gondor. The Gap of Rohan, soon to be my path upon the swiftest steed I can find, lies to the west, near to the Isengard where Orthanc stands and from whence we both escaped."
"You may do as you will now. If you wish, I will bear you with me to Rivendell." His tone was gentle but questioning and Ranko looked up at him. He had not tried to choose her way, nor even in offering his company had he concealed the dangers of his path. Most importantly, he had not phrased any of his words in the form of an order, which left her unconstrained, unworried about losing her easy mobility as a consequence of disobedience, of being restricted once more to reshaping herself to move.
She smiled softly, but shook her head and stood. Bowing, she said, "I am Ranko, and I thank you for taking me with you, but I will not go with you if you pass Isengard." A frisson of fear rolled through her at the thought of the cat still loose there, though surprisingly it lacked much of the irresistable and illogical force it would have once held. Perhaps it was because she was considering it at a distance. "There is a new danger there of which you know nothing," she continued, though privately she wondered whether her respect and lack of anger to this man would translate to her cat-side's behavior, as it once had. Was this manifestation of the cat actually the same as that which came out when she was subsumed by the darkness? Or was it some creation of Distanfae's?
Gandalf frowned, wondering what she might be speaking of, but seeing that her shiver, assumed she feared it too greatly to speak more of it. Could it be merely the gathering orcs and goblin-kind that he had witnessed? Or was there truly something new, something unknown there, that she had seen to cause this fear in her?
"Well, it would be a less comfortable road for a horse, but I could pass north, across the Snowbourn, the Entwash, and Nimrodel, passing Lothlorien where the Lady of the Golden Wood dwells, and up the Dimrill Stair," Gandalf mused. "To be sure, the first part of the journey would be more pleasant, but to take a horse up the Stair . . ." Gandalf paused, considering. He had thought to take the Gap, to judge the preparedness of Rohan and Isengard for war, and that he might pass through the Shire on his way back, for urgent as it was that Elrond learn of Saruman's treachery, he greatly desired to know whether the Enemy's spies had reached the Shire and where they stood in their search for the Ring. Most importantly, he wished to learn if anywhere in that Land sign of the Ring had been seen again. If he could use the Enemy's spies to learn what he needed, so much the better. At the least, perhaps he could discover if the Enemy still believed the Ring to be in Frodo's possession, or in the possession of the Wise.
Still, passing up the Northward road would not be slower, for the snows of winter were yet far off, and doubtless Elrond had sent Aragorn and others in search of these very answers some time ago. In fact, he probably already had the answers he sought. The first searchers had left Rivendell on the tenth of June, the day after he and the hobbits had reached Rivendell. By now, they would have returned, and more searchers sent out with more specific goals, and the same cycle passed yet again. Elrond might even have the Ring in hand again. He nodded, stroking his beard. "Yes, you are right, it is the better road." He turned his gaze down to her. "And if I take that road, north to the Dimrill Stair, will you ride with me?"
Ranko nodded, "I will, at least as far as the Golden Wood you spoke of." She was not sure about staying too close to the Ring, and if she had known that Lothlorien lay across the river from Southern Mirkwood where the Enemy's former fastness of Dol Goldur stood, a region of growing evil, she might not have chosen that course. Knowing what she did, however, she felt that the elves were most likely to have the wealth of magic that would allow her to deal with the assimilation of Orthanc without pain. Coming as she was from a world where half-breeds, particularly of elvish descent, were often second-class citizens, she felt no appeal for Rivendell, where like as not the only item of great power would be the Ring, still hidden on Gandalf's person. She was somewhat worried that she might face prejudice because of her skin color, but Gandalf's complete lack of reaction to it had reassured her that at least drow had not here the all-encompassing reputation of evil that had so often haunted her in the past.
And so Gandalf went in search of a horse.
To Rivendell
Ranko wondered what was wrong with the King of the Rohirrim as they left. Gandalf had seemingly not expected the cold reception he was met with. She had thought that he was fairly well respected, based on the hobbit's attitude towards him, but the Rohirrim had brushed aside his claims of danger in Isengard. She had considered putting in her comments but in spite of having been, to all appearances, a prisoner of Saruman, she had never seen him nor seen or known of any evil that he might have done other than imprisoning Gandalf. Besides, she was more familiar than she liked with racial prejudice and the way its intensity grew or diminished in opposition to a people's happiness. Their dark looks and mutterings gave her sufficient reason to assume that they were in no mood to listen to an elf about matters they would not hear from a respected man.
When Gandalf was told to take a horse and be gone, she bridled with anger on his behalf and was delighted when he took the best horse they had. Shadowfax, Gandalf called him, King of the Mearas, and the great steed lived up to his name when Gandalf gave him his head, and though it had taken Gandalf two days to catch and tame him, he seemed like to make up the time lost. Ranko gloried in the speed as they raced across the plains. She had learned to ride in the past so as to fit in, though her weight had ever made it a challenge, but this stallion put her in mind of the fabled chariot of fire. An older memory trickled to the surface from the buried depths of her mind and she found a better analogy. Riding on Shadowfax, clinging to the hem of Gandalf's pocket as the wind whipped about them, was akin to riding on the tops of Japan's swift trains, as he had done more than once in his days with his father.
They crossed the Snowbourn at a wide ford, clattering and splashing across the stony expanse, and passed like a wind into the deepening night. As they raced across the fields where Shadowfax was foaled, moving at what would elsewhere be a reckless speed, but which was safe enough here where Shadowfax knew every stone and hollow, Gandalf spoke softly of the history of the land they passed, and the land they approached.
He told her much of the Golden Wood and its Lord and Lady, Celeborn and Galadriel, where its borders lay, and of the lands that lay about it. He did not mention Dol Goldur, not wishing to draw the attention of its master to his flight, but he spoke of Moria and the nameless evil that the dwarves had awakened in the mountain that had driven the two peoples, elves and dwarves, apart. He told her also of Rivendell, and so she learned that here half-elf was no insult, and that Elrond Half-Elven was considered one of the greatest of lore-masters and ruled a great household, and many elves dwelt with him and gave him honor and respect. She was tempted to go there, to see the hobbits again and watch the planning, for he told her just enough for her to guess that he had taken Frodo and perhaps some of the others there before leaving to seek counsel from Saruman.
It was clear to her that her first impressions had been greatly mistaken, and that an elf, or sprite, as she would think herself to be if seen unawares, given her past experience, though it seemed they had no such creatures here, would be more welcome at Rivendell, where all were welcome and many races dwelt together, than at Lothlorien, where the elves had closed their borders and seldom ventured beyond them, or allowed others to venture in.
Two things held her back from this more promising course; the Ring, and Gandalf himself. Not that he counseled her against it, for it was his preference that she should journey to Rivendell with him, though whether for her sake, or for the satisfaction of his own curiousity, or as a second voice to give evidence of the betrayal of Saruman, she was unsure. No, it was Gandalf himself that gave her pause, the fact that in her moment of weakness he had become her new Master.
He bore the Ring, though he did not know it, and she did not like the thought of remaining in proximity to the lure that would be drawing the agents of the Enemy of which he had spoken back in Frodo's comfortable home in the Shire. More than that though, was the danger for her if he realized her connection to the Ring, an event that would be made considerably more likely by her proximity to it, especially if that proximity caused her to attempt to use it or the well of power within it.
Even if the Ring did not exist, however, she preferred to be without a master, and if she had a master, the best time to leave was before her master gave her any commands, or after he told her to do as she wished. If ever Gandalf had cause to order her to stay behind while he took the Ring somewhere, or to follow him to the land of the Enemy to seek destruction, or any other course she could not reasonably follow, her ability to move would be stolen. The magical connection upon which she so relied, given her by Distanfae, that linked the reflexes of her past life in such a way as to allow them to move her normally, was dependent, she had learned, upon her obedience to the orders of her Master. Certainly, she could disobey with relative impunity, or ignore her Master as she chose, there being little anyone could do to harm her, but the loss of that connection was then unavoidable.
She had accepted that consequence in escaping from a Master who sought to put her to evil use, but it had never been pleasant, and in fact it had been pretty much the only situation that ever caused her to actively seek out a new Master. Being limited to the slow and mentally intensive form changing for even the simplest of movements; the constant frustration of trying to move or act on instinct, only to realize once more that all her physical skills and abilities were out of her reach; these things haunted her, but none so much so as the simple inability to speak. She did not know what aspect of Distanfae's spell it was that allowed her speech, even with a metal throat, to sound alive, but without that spell, she could not speak at all, except mentally, to her master, and even then, only while in physical contact with him.
If she left Gandalf now, before he had given her any explicit orders, she would not need to fear that loss of control, as long as she did not let down her guard around any other strong-willed individuals. Leaving the Ring with him was actually a risk as well, since it was her, insofar as the magic was concerned, but he had seemed adamant in his unwillingness to take it or wield it when the topic had come up with Frodo, so she had little fear for that consequence, and hopefully the Ring's flight and return would be sufficient to curb any plans they might have for destroying the golden thing. She thought that she had made it sufficiently clear that the Ring would not countenance such an undertaking.
As well, there was the consideration that she would have to seek out and consume items of magic, and she would prefer she not be thereby reducing the effectiveness of Gandalf's resistance against the Enemy, and the resistance of those who sided with him. Elves were known, in her mind, for keeping history and knowledge of the past long beyond the memory of most other races, so hopefully in Lothlorien she would be able to learn where she might seek for unused or unusable magic, without having to worry about Gandalf's curiousity about her leaving to obtain it, nor the possibility of his ordering her not to attempt it.
Finally the time of choice, of parting came, after they had passed under the eaves of a great, watchful, silent forest and come out again and crossed yet more grassland. Gandalf reined in Shadowfax and looked with a solemn eye at the lady climbing from his pocket to rest upon his upheld hand. "If you still desire, Lady Ranko, to see the Golden Wood, it lies upon our left, for we have just crossed the course of Nimrodel, whose waters I must trace now to the west, to the Dimrill Stair. But you, to reach the hall of Celeborn and Galadriel, must enter the Golden Wood, and travel east and a little south. Will you part from me here, or will you not come with me to Rivendell? My companions would be most pleased to welcome you, I am sure. Your welcome in the Golden Wood is less certain, though none need fear evil there beyond the evil that they bring with them."
Ranko shivered at his words, though she knew that he was without knowledge of the evil she carried with her, and indeed, the Ring itself was remaining with him and not traveling with her. Still, her mind had long since been made up, and his offer did not greatly move her, for it but stirred her fears, and she had never been one willingly controlled by fear. Or so at least she told herself, willfully ignoring her fearful avoidance of the Ring and the Enemy. After all, it was not the consequences to herself she feared from these things, but the effects on the world and people about her.
Standing on his palm, steadying herself against his thumb, she gazed across the western land, then turned and bowed low to Gandalf. "I will part with you here, but perhaps we shall meet again," she offered.
Nodding, Gandalf dismounted, careful not to dislodge his passenger, then kneeled, lowering his hand so that she could step off of it onto the ground. Ranko looked around and groaned unhappily at the grass all about her, standing high over her head, like an endless field of corn. Turning back, she watched Gandalf remount, and Shadowfax carefully step away before beginning to trot and then gallop, swiftly vanishing into the distance.
Looking around, Ranko grimaced. She could see nothing through the tall wide blades of green but blue sky overhead. Where was the forest from here?
She sat down with a huff, staring at her legs. They looked as long to her as they ever had, for she kept her proportions as her size changed, but she knew them to be so short as to make walking a pointless gesture. She needed to gain her size back, as much to be able to move at a reasonable pace as to be worthy of respect.
Very lightly she tried to increase her size. The pain was immediate, if not as great as her first injudicious attempt at growing had been. That course was obviously blocked. How else then, could she increase her size? Consume something, her thoughts whispered, and she suddenly fell forward, punching herself in the head at her own stupidity.
With barely a thought she reached out across the shadows to Orthanc and began drawing substance from here and there within the great spires, creating small holes, large in overall number, but small in total mass. Through the shadows she pulled the stolen mass into herself, steadily gaining stature.
She was back to nearly half her normal height when she suddenly felt a presence watching her. There was a familiarity to it and she went rigid with fear. How could she have been so foolish? Drawing substance from Orthanc was as good as begging the Cat to notice her. She felt the sensation of fur brushing lightly against her leg, and trembled in terror. She tried to summon her ki, to shield her soul as she had done before, but her fear had her nearly hyperventilating, and her ki remained stubbornly beyond her grasp.
The sense of presence faded without any further action, and she slumped, disbelieving, to the ground. Her fear had not been that soul-consuming terror that usually preceded her flight into darkness, but neither had it been mere fright. It had been long years since she had last faced anything that made her fear that she would fail in her second life's goal, but the prospect of trying to defend herself against the very manifestation of her greatest fears in a place where failure would be eternal left her shaking. Forcing herself back to her feet, she grimly reached out again, drawing more of Orthanc into herself. For whatever reason, the Cat had not attacked her. She had screwed up by attracting his attention, but he had not attacked, and there was no way she would allow her fear to leave her crippled like this.
Still, she drew much more slowly, hoping to avoid getting the Cat's attention a second time, flinching at every sound she heard, and hours passed as she very gradually increased in size. She was not quite finished when she once again froze, a feeling of presence again surrounding her. This was no cat, however. "Damn," she whispered. "He found it already!"
She turned to look to the northwest where Gandalf was even now fingering a golden ring he had found in his robes. She could feel his mind, his emotions through it, through the direct contact between her surface and his skin. The sky between the peaks was black with clouds and a darkness lay below it, a curtain that could not be pierced by sight. Through Gandalf she realized that it was snowing, as should not be, a great storm in a time when the pass should be open. Caradhras, she heard in her mind the name of the mountain, and she felt Gandalf's fear for Shadowfax. They were together, she saw, backed under a slim overhang for what little protection it offered. Gandalf had been searching for something to start a fire, something he could burn for long enough to last out the height of the storm, then turn back and take the long road around.
Ranko shook her head. It had been her fault that he had chosen this course, though he had certainly never mentioned anything about bad-tempered mountains when he listed his options. Regardless, she could not allow him to have to retrace his path because of her. Tentatively she reached out to the pool of magic within her. A trembling shook her limbs as she drew upon it, wondering if the Cat would come to protect its lifeblood, if he would attack her for taking it. No sense of presence came, and Ranko breathed a sigh of relief as she fed the gathered energy into her wand of air.
The energy was released from the wand but through the Ring, dispersing the storm and guaranteeing the resulting good weather would last long enough for Gandalf to get down off the mountain, and she turned her attention away with a sigh of relief, as that extension of her being was returned to a safe pocket, out of contact with the wizard once more.
Returning her attention to Orthanc, she finally completed her return to her normal height. Focusing inward again, she reshaped her body, moving all of the Orthanc-stone inward, restoring her outward silver on black appearance.
---
Gandalf stirred then blinked as he heard a glad cry in a youthful voice. "Gandalf, you're awake!"
Though he was still weak from lack of food, his weariness had passed. He opened his eyes, which fell first upon Elrond, standing and looking down on him with a face that held both joy and a guarded curiousity. The cause of each was clear to Gandalf's keen perception. Elrond took joy in his recovery, but how could he help but wonder what had befallen Gandalf for him to return so late, and in such a state, and to have received no word from him for such a time.
A movement to his right caught his eye and he turned to see Frodo, eyes shining with happiness, though there was a haunted look in them that spoke of fear, a startling sight to see in the halfling's eyes. They had been lucky, Gandalf now realized, to have set out when they did, as a result of the Ring's disappearance, and in so doing, made their way to Rivendell a good ten days before the Black Riders crossed Anduin the Great and began their own search for the Ring. Their journey had been light-hearted in spite of the danger they were all in, and only now, in seeing his old friend laid low, and in fearing for his survival, had the shadow fallen upon Frodo.
"It is alright, Frodo. I will be well enough, when I have eaten."
"Wonderful! Shall I fetch you something?"
"Yes, yes, if you please, my dear Frodo. Go and fetch me a light breakfast. It would not do to eat too heartily after so long a fast."
Elrond stepped forward as Frodo nodded and darted out of the room. Drawing a chair by the bedside, Elrond sat and looked long into Gandalf's face, before he finally spoke. He shook his head slowly, for once seeming to show his age, though he tried to appear hopeful. "The Nine have been seen. They learned of the halflings, it seemed, and of their journey. They sought to force their way into Rivendell, the full Nine together. I suppose they knew we had strength enough to defy lesser numbers. They and their steeds fell to the floodwaters on the twenty-third of last month, and it may be some time before they can again come against us. A perfect opportunity to move, it would seem, for my spies have scoured the countryside, and the Nine are not abroad. They have fled for the time back to their Master. But," and here he sighed, his shoulders sinking as under a heavy burden, and Gandalf perceived that he parted with his next words only with a great reluctance and a sadness that, while not yet despairing, was without much hope, "we have had no word nor sign of the Ring. We know only that the Enemy has it not."
"Be cheered then, old friend. I have..." At that moment Frodo returned, knocking the door aside as he entered with a tray, his face once more bright with happiness, no sign of the shadow remaining to darken his features. Gandalf glanced at Elrond and made a sign for silence. No more would be said in front of the light-hearted halfling. Not yet.
It was clear that Elrond was greatly surprised at Gandalf's reaction and strongly desired to hear what news he had, but he conceded the need to wait. If indeed Gandalf had news of the Ring that might allow them to obtain it, then they were in a far better position than he had thought. They might even manage to take advantage of the window of opportunity afforded them by the ringwraiths' ill-fated attempt to gain entry into Rivendell.
Gandalf turned his thoughts back to that strange hour high upon the Redhorn Gate beneath the glowering mass of Caradhras when, searching his person for aught with which he might be able to kindle a fire on that height and thus safeguard the life of the horse that had become his friend, Shadowfax the Great, he had come upon the Ring in a pocket of his robe. He considered this as he ate, while Frodo chattered on about the things he had seen and done in Elrond's house while Gandalf had been away, his great relief at seeing Gandalf again quite apparent.
How had the Ring come to him? He knew well that he had searched every pocket he had during the first hours of his imprisonment on the windswept height of Orthanc and he had not had it then, else he might have believed that it had left Frodo and come to him that day so long ago when it had vanished from the young hobbit's chain.
But clearly, he had not had it then. He shook himself lightly, realizing that Frodo was waiting for him to respond to a question about Bilbo. Besides, he had puzzled over this mystery ever since he had chanced upon the Ring, wondering both at its appearance, and at whether or not it was possible for him to have accidentally used it to disperse Caradhras' building wrath, or if not, what agency had, for the sudden shift in his fortunes had seemed nothing less than miraculous. Perhaps he would find answers once he had a chance to explore the events and their ramifications with Elrond.
"Bilbo?" Gandalf harrumphed softly. "Of course I knew Bilbo would be here, and you would have too, if you had listened to him. 'One last adventure' he said. How long do you imagine that would have taken? His first adventure certainly did not take long, though granted it took long enough for Shirefolk to decide he was quite dead and try to sell off all his things."
The two friends shared a quiet laugh at the memory, though for Frodo it was not a genuine memory; he had not been there. He had certainly heard the story often enough, and quite vividly told, from his uncle Bilbo.
Gandalf noticed but paid little attention when Elrond excused himself and left the room. Instead, he allowed the cheerful prattle of the irrepressible halfling to fill his ears while his mind wandered one last time over territory covered again and again over the last several days.
The distances from the Redhorn Gate to where he had tamed Shadowfax and to Rivendell were not terribly different, but the land was quite different. The rolling grasslands of Rohan had taken less than a day to cross, though passing through Fangorn forest had stretched the remainder of that half of the trip to a full two days, but the crinkled hills of the land between the Trollshaws and Dunland, on the other side of the Redhorn Gate, were slow going and he might have turned aside and made westward to strike the Greenway and gone thence north to Bree and east again to Rivendell, but that he feared the Black Riders might be abroad in the land and he now bore the Ring.
In the end, therefore, it had been a bit over five days that he had walked Shadowfax through the rocky hills, five days without food nor rest. No horse but Shadowfax would have endured it, and Gandalf had considered releasing Shadowfax to make his own way had he not borne great misgivings about his own ability to resist the lure of the Ring. Alone and footsore, he would have been far more tempted to use it and thus have been lost.
Yet not once in those long miles had he felt the seductive pull of the thing. The only influence he could feel upon him was his own internal desire to right the wrongs it had created, a desire he remembered feeling before gaining the Ring. It made him question the lore of the Ring, the lore that had come from Saruman, now known to be a betrayer. For how long had Saruman's counsels been ill? It was hard to say.
Convincing Elrond of this wiser course would not be easy though, and the mere thought of it brought grave misgivings to Gandalf's heart. Might he not be being influenced without his awareness? Was the Ring more subtle than any had realized?
He held up a hand to stem the flow of words from his young companion when Elrond re-entered the room, for at that very moment the answer came to him, the true test that would prove both to himself and to Elrond if what he believed might be.
"I have the Ring," he stated, watching as both his friend's eyes grew wide with shock. He noted also the fear that lurked in the gaze of Elrond, the sudden readiness of his body to fight or flee. He reached into his pocket and drew it forth. He would return it to Frodo; if he, one that the Ring was designed to overmaster, could freely give it up after holding it and handling it for five days and perhaps having borne it for some time more, then in truth they would know that their knowledge of it was dramatically flawed.
Elrond stiffened when Gandalf drew forth his hand, then relaxed into readiness again. His eyes widened in disbelief when the old man reached out both hands, grasping Frodo's in his left, turning the hobbit's palm up, and with his right, placed in it the One Ring.
Gandalf leaned back in the bed and looked to Elrond. "Take Frodo, and place the thing in the fire. Verify that the words appear." He sighed, only then wondering if the lack of influence had been because this was not the true Ring. Ah, well, they soon would know.
Elrond looked at him with a shrewd eye then turned away, placing a slender hand on Frodo's shoulder, guiding him to the fireside. This time it was Frodo and not Gandalf who placed the Ring in the flames and this raised even Gandalf's eyes. Frodo had the Ring for years, he had seemed touched by its influence even when Gandalf first knew the Ring for what it was. He should be able to risk no hurt to the thing. Perhaps it was his having seen the Ring pass through flames unharmed and even unheated before that had tempered his fear.
With a long pair of silvery tongs Elrond drew the Ring out of the fire and held it up, looking at it with eyes filled with pain and remembered horror. Few indeed were those who would willingly pervert the beautiful Elvish script to bear the words of the Black Speech instead of the Sindarin or Silvan it had been crafted for, and never would he forget the words laid upon it, though he would not speak them.
"It is the One," he said at last. He turned to Gandalf. "It has not been long in your hands, then?" he asked, obliquely referring to the ease with which Gandalf parted with it.
Gandalf shook his head. "Five days, while I held it and mused on it, but I did not wear it."
"Ah, but neither has Frodo."
"Yes, but Frodo had it for years. There is more, though." Gandalf sighed wearily, propping himself up against the pillows while Frodo looked on in confusion.
"Saruman?" asked Elrond.
"A traitor," Gandalf spat, then, controlling his anger once more, he told them of what had befallen him in Isengard, leaving out only the little lady he had aided, though the realization that he had held her in one of his pockets between the time that he knew he had it not and when he had found the Ring on him struck him with new force.
Elrond's face darkened. "Ever treachery is our greatest enemy. Know you how long he has been untrue?"
Gandalf shook his head. "No, though I wonder... long years ago when he settled our fears of the One, insisting that it had long since rolled out of Anduin into the waters of the deep, never to be seen again, was that his true belief, or was he even then seeking it, and striving to turn aside our eyes so that he could search in peace?"
Councils Held, Counsels Taken
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