History

By Asteria

See part one for disclaimer.

*****

The group walked through the echoing stone halls in a clump. The darker of the two Men had taken one of the torches from Noire, and now walked toward the back of the group, making sure everyone stayed together. Noire walked at the front, both to light the path and because she was the only one who knew where they were going. She set a slow pace: all of her guests were still slightly dazed from the spell. The group proceeded through the stone passageways without speaking.

After many minutes of walking, they began to hear the noise. It started as a whisper, like dry leaves caught in a gentle breeze, and built to the roar of a waterfall. They turned a corner and the narrow passageway through which they had been walking ended at an impossibly vast, pillared gallery, lit with torches in brackets set about thirty feet above the floor, four on each pillar. The roar was the echoing voices of six thousand Fari, all speaking at once. The guests stared.

“This is the Royal Marketplace,” said Noire, a hint of pride in her voice, “the best place to buy or sell in all of the Barrier Mountains. There are other markets, of course, in other parts of the mountains, but none so complete as this one. Almost anything one could want can be found here, from food to Datascrolls. We’re near the southwestern corner, now, and we need to go almost straight across to get to the corridor that leads to the Residences. Put out the torch, but bring it with you,” she added, tapping out the flame of her own torch against the wall, “and stay close to me.”

They started out across the crowded space. It was not as difficult as it seemed, for the crowds parted as Noire approached and closed up again when she had passed. Her guests had only to stay close to her. In a few minutes they had crossed the teeming market and were standing just inside the passage that lead to the Residences.

“This passage may be too dark for your eyes,” said Noire. I could light the torches again, if you’d like.”

“I’ll do it,” said the short, bearded one. “Nobody can light a fire like a Dwarf.”

Noire smiled. Her teeth glimmered silverly.

“I am certain that is so, Dwarf-san,” she said, “but you are my guest, and it is no trouble at all for me to light the torches. Watch.”

With that, Noire stepped a bit further into the passage and raised her torch so it was level with her face. She opened her mouth and blew. A brief burst of flame lit the passageway, and in the momentary light it cast, NoireÂ’s face became almost the face of a dragon. The torch caught, flickered, then held, and in the torchlight Noire was once more a gold-skinned young woman who looked more human than anything else.

“What are you?” asked the woman in a fearful whisper.

“Fari,” was the reply.

“That doesn’t explain anything,” said the younger of the Men. “What, exactly, is a Fari?”

“We once were dragons,” said Noire. “Follow me, please. We still have a ways to go.”

*****

“I’ve been here before,” said the Dwarf. “I’m certain of it. What did you say was the name of this place?”

“The Moonlit Caves, in the Barrier Mountains,” said Noire. “My people have lived here for well over sixty millennia.”

“I am inclined to agree with Gimli,” said the Elf. “I have not visited as many caves as he has, but I, too, feel that I have passed this way before.”

Noire said nothing.

“What’s in there?” asked one of the small ones, pointing to the door they were just passing, which was solidly bolted.

“The Queen’s Throne Room. We will see her later. Come, we are almost to the dining chamber.”

The dining chamber was a circular room of a decent size, lit by torches. In the center of the room was a circular wooden table, ringed with a dozen backless chairs. As they entered, Noire set her torch in an empty bracket near the door.

“Please, be seated,” she said.

The nine guests sat, somewhat uncomfortably, unaccustomed to both the strangeness of the situation and the backless chairs. Noire brushed her fingertips against a panel of black glass set into the wall. Almost instantaneously, a hidden door slid silently open and a soft-footed servant entered.

The servant was male, clothed in gold and ivory livery. His wings were the exact color and shape of young willow leaves and his hair was a slightly darker shade of green. His pupils were vertical slits, bisecting his light green eyes. Like Noire, he was pale, though his skin lacked the golden tone of hers, and his face was all together less reptilian.

Noire addressed him in their own tongue, a language that bounced and flowed, was high and low at the same time. A discordant, contradictory language, of which many of the individual sounds were beautiful, but combined, they grated on the ears like a piece of music played out of key.

The servant bowed and left the room, the hidden door closing silently behind him. Noire sat in one of the remaining chairs.

“You said you would tell us what was going on,” said the darker Man.

“And I will,” said Noire. “Before I begin……… Please do not think me rude, but I am not certain how to pronounce all of your names. I have only ever seen them written, and I should not like to mispronounce anything.”

*****

“This may be difficult to believe,” said Noire, “but know that I speak the truth. You are no longer in your own time. I have brought you approximately one hundred thousand years from the conclusion of the War of the Ring.”

The room fell silent. A hundred thousand years. It was almost too much to take in.

“Why?” asked Legolas, “What is your purpose?”

“This.”

Noire reached into her pocket and drew out a black velvet pouch, the contents of which she slid into her hand.

It was a thin gold plaque, oval in shape, as long as the palm of her hand, with a hole at one end where it could be hung on a cord or a chain. Engraved into the surface were ten lines in neat Elvish script. The nine crowded in for a closer look.

“I cannot read it,” Noire explained, “but I can tell that it burns with evil and the fires of the Earth. We have tried everything, from sharp blades to the most modern of explosives. Nothing can even scratch the surface. It is thought to be a warning of evil to come. So it was brought here, in hopes that the Fari could contain this evil. We cannot. Already, the land where it was found is changing. The fields are barren, Worlds Mouth does not erupt any more; it only spews thick smoke and clouds of black ash.

“So I went to the archives at Villeblanche, south of here, to see if anything like this had happened in the past. What I found was the War of the Ring, a thousand centuries ago. That is where I found your names. I brought you here because you were all vital to the downfall of the Dark Lord.”

“I know what it says,” said Frodo. “The part at the end. Not the last line, but the four before it. It’s the same writing that was on the Ring.”

“But the Ring was destroyed,” said Aragorn. “We all felt it. The shadow that Sauron had cast over Middle Earth was lifted. There was a noticeable difference.”

“I can say no more here,” said Noire. “These walls are ancient, but they listen with young ears. Anyway, it is now time to see the Queen. I must tell her that the spell was a success and you arrived here safely, at the very least.”

Noire slipped the plaque bag into its bag and returned the bag to her pocket. As she turned to leave, she was stopped by a touch on the shoulder.

“Wait,” said Faramir. “I understand what all the others did to aid in Sauron’s downfall, but why am I here? I did not fight him. What did I do?”

“You were presented with an opportunity to take the Ring for your own,” Noire answered, “and you let it pass. You understood that it had to be destroyed. You aided the Ringbearer and his companion. That is just as significant as the fighting of a battle or the slaying of a wraith.”

*****

At the heavy doors of the Throne Room, the group waited. Noire slipped away for a moment and returned wearing a gold diadem worked to look like a pair of elaborate horns. She returned to her place as the doors were thrown open.

The Throne Room was candlelit and unadorned. In the center of the room was a low dais. On the dais was an elaborate backless chair, and seated on the chair was the Queen of the Fari.

She was old. Her mahogany-colored hair was shot with gray and her large brown wings drooped slightly. Her gold-toned skin was wrinkled, but in such a way that her face looked scaled. Her gold-and-mithril crown, shaped to look like delicate flames, seemed too heavy for her weary frame, as did her brown silk gown, heavily embroidered with gold. Only her rich brown eyes, with their slit pupils, looked alert. They gave a disconcerting appearance of youth to the millennia-old Queen.

One guest was not paying attention. Pippin was looking around the room. His eyes lit on a circular lid set into the floor behind the dais. He saw how a beam of light fell onto the Queen, emanating from a window cut into the wall opposite the door.

“Merry,” he whispered, “Gimli was right, we have been here before.”

“Hmmm?” Merry whispered back.

“This is Moria.”

*****

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Preview of History- Chapter 3

“:I can give you no more aid, my daughter,:” said the Queen, “:Go north, to the school at Silver Canyon. Yes, He is there. He will know what to do.:”

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This is the end of chapter two. The identities of the rest of the travelers will become evident in later chapters, though if youÂ’ve been paying attention, you should have a good idea as to who everyone is. The next chapter should be much shorter. Thank you.

P.S.- For all of you who were confused by my passage about the Fari language, it’s supposed to sound like a combination of French and Japanese. That explains why Noire is named Noire (feminine form of the French word for black), and why she addressed Gimli as “Dwarf-san.”

I also took some creative license with the layout of Moria. Some things have fallen down and some things have been built up. This will become more evident in later chapters.