The Ancillarion: Of the Silmarkenstone Conspiracy and the Incidental Fellowship

[Morthoron]

The Ancillarion: Of the Silmarkenstone Conspiracy and the Incidental Fellowship -- Their Trials, Tribulations, Loves Lost and Found, and Their Salvation of Middle-earth (as utterly unlikely as that may seem)

Prologue: How the West Was Won

In the waning years of the Third Age of Middle-earth, things were not good; in fact, they were quite ungood, unwell, and just plain bad. The Dark Lord Sauron, a rather unpleasant divinity with a penchant for cruelty and a lust for domination, had arisen once again (the term ‘comeback’ was originally ascribed to Sauron ‘coming back’ to Mordor on multiple occasions to attempt to conquer Arda, that is, the world as we know it). The old alliances among the Free People of the West, the Elves, Dwarves and Men, had been in decline for some time, and it was considered with trepidation among the wise that Sauron would eventually engulf the West in its patchwork of petty kings, lords and stewards bit by bit as a ravening wolf might gorge on pieces of meat ripped off a prone carcass.

But as the old saying goes, perhaps Sauron’s ‘eye was bigger than his stomach’, for while the Dark Lord slathered over the slabs of fat and juicy meat ripe for the taking, there were nasty bits of indigestible gristle, tough and sinewy opponents with resistance bred in their marrow. These did not sit well on Sauron’s dainty palate, and caused him much indigestion and sleepless nights (although, I am not quite sure Sauron did much sleeping anyway, as his eye was lidless). But to say that Sauron's eye was fixed in one direction (that is, westward) regarding his precious missing Ring is an error of the gravest magnitude, and is a mistake on the part of the chroniclers (mewling sycophants, one and all), who relied on the word of simple Hobbits, halfling folk with the merest inkling of the wide world and the struggles that occurred outside of their ken (in fact, mention of the lands east of the Misty Mountains during the War of the Ring barely merits a paltry page in the annals of Minas Tirith).

Now, much of the existing lore of that time did indeed concern the stalwart Hobbits, their intrepid Fellowship and the eventual destruction of the One Ring. Yes, we know they did have a hand in Sauron’s destruction, but seriously, were they really all that? I mean, think about it, these were a few half-pint neophytes blundering about like naïve innocents, trusting in the goodwill of their betters and relying on blind luck to see them through. Obviously, Frodo did indeed fail in his mission, but that fact was blithely glossed over in a wave of sentiment and relief when Sauron, through his own stupidity, bungled the War of the Ring, and all that wonderfully wrought evil was lost forever in a wistful wisp of smoke.

No! There is, of course, more to the story. It was not just the Hobbits who saved the day, as legend would have it. Admittedly, from the point of casting a yarn or embellishing a fable, there is no better moral for the story than the meek rattling the thrones of the powerful, and the greatest being laid low by the least (it is so egalitarian and nauseatingly democratic); however, there is another tradition, one not so bound by storytelling convention. In fact, the great and wise, embarrassed and unwilling to soil the sanctified memory of an epic of such grandeur, have nervously attempted to keep the tale hushed up, as one would their drunken idiot brother making an arse of himself at Sunday dinner. But the truth, like a beacon in the fog, cuts through the murk and mist, and leaves the blemishes – the goiters, blackheads and moles – as clear as the nose on one’s face (or, more precisely, the pimple protruding from one’s nose).

This is the story of those very blemishes who, regarded as unsightly and needing to be completely done away with (or at least hidden for appearance sake), burst forth in a blaze of glory, their passions erupting, their blistering rage burgeoning forth, and in the end, their seemingly monumental mission accomplished, they receded back into the shadows where they began, and their unlikely (but grammatically impressive) tale was lost to the ages. What they gained and what they lost was a mystery up to this point, and there are folks who wisely claim that some mysteries should never be solved; perhaps this is one of those.

[Morthoron]

AND SO THE TALE BEGINS...

His mother had never named him; she died of grief at his birth. His grandfather, who was to die shortly afterward in one of the terrible sacks of Menegroth, had been either clever or cruel, for he named the newborn orphan Amarthanuin. Now, depending on one’s translation of Sindarin, the name could mean ‘under a doom’; however, Amarthanuin had considered his name over the dreary ages, and came to the unsettling conclusion that this epithet meant ‘doomed to be under’, or perhaps more aptly, ‘fated to be less’.

“And that I am,” Amarthanuin sighed aloud (to no one in particular), “that I am.”

Whether from melancholy or an attempt to recede further into the shadows, he slumped in his chair in the corner of the Prancing Pony – a tawdry establishment no self-respecting Elf would ever frequent – and sipped thoughtfully on his tankard of ale. He supposed it really did not matter that he hid from inquiring eyes, for it was unlikely anyone would mistake him for an Elf, save perhaps for his leaf-shaped ears, which he kept concealed beneath his travel-stained hood. No, he certainly had no other earmarks of his maternal lineage; rather, he bore much that was from his cursed father, unknown and unlamented, dead now these two ages of Arda.

Amarthanuin wondered if his father had been trampled under the powerful, plodding steps of the Onodrim on the bloody shores of the River Ascar, or perhaps it was Beren himself who slew him in righteous vengeance for the murder of innocent Elves in Doriath. Amarthanuin chuckled ruefully to himself. Not all the innocents were slain in the name of the Nauglamir; some lived on, and carried the shame with them, wearing it in their very countenances like a badge of dishonor for all to see. Amarthanuin was a living symbol of the ignominious fall of Doriath: Amarthanuin the Noegedhil, Amarthanuin who was neither wholly Elvish nor wholly Dwarvish, Amarthanuin whose two halves did not make a whole. He belched and became even more upset at himself. Elves do not belch, Dwarves do!

[Nerwen]

In another shadowy corner, a second cloaked figure shuddered at the sound of that belch.

Alatariel Moonflower relied on her delicate hearing nearly as much as on the special ability– a gift from the Valar, her grandmother had told her– which enabled her to feel the world around her even though her emerald eyes were sightless.

With the blare of coarse music and coarser voices assaulting her second-most important sense, she felt sick and disoriented. She was unused to mortals– her father would not let her associate even with the Dúnedain– and had never realised they were so uncouth.

"What am I doing here?" she whispered. Her long, slender hands clasped a mug of the sour-smelling drink the innkeeper had called "ale", but she had not yet summoned up the courage to take a sip. "I don't belong here... but then... where do I belong?"

Running away from home had seemed like such a good idea at the time, a way to prove to her father once and for all that she could take care of herself; a way to escape the barely-concealed contempt of other Elves; a way to forget... Glorfindel.

She had loved the Elf-lord ever since she could remember, loved him for his noble spirit and the sweet music of his voice– but she knew she was nothing to him. He might not despise her, as others did, for her handicap and her mongrel heritage, but to him she was merely Master Elrond's blind daughter– to be cared for and pitied, but never, never to be desired.

A choking sob escaped Moonflower's perfectly-sculpted lips, and from her beautiful, sightless eyes slid a single, shining tear.

It was just like a drop of quicksilver, only not poisonous.

[Kitanna]

The noble hound sat at Astalder's feet. The innkeeper hadn't objected to the dog's present. Scout was probably cleaner than most of the patrons anyway. Besides, he was needed for protection, especially with so much evil abroad. The dog stirred. The half-elf reached under the table to scratch his ears. “We are fine in here. Butterbur is a friend to Mithandir.” Saying 'father' in reference to Gandalf had never seemed right to here. Scout whimpered, but made no other response.

Astalder kept her hood up to she could hide her elvish traits from this rabble. The last thing she needed was to draw attention to herself. There was absolutely no need for this stinky, boorish men of Bree to be competing for an audience. Afterall, it was not like they were the valiant, dashing men of Gondor or Rohan. These fools did not even know what the brave men in the south did to protect the lands.

She sighed, she had left the south without even a word of good-bye. She hadn't even bothered to stop in Rivendell to inform Elrond of her plans. No, he would have too much to think about in the days to come. What Astalder was doing needn't be known yet. Still, for her own safety Scout had pushed her to send some message to the lord of Rivendell. As a quasi foster father he had a right to know. Elrond would understand when her journey was complete.

[Morthoron]

Amarthanuin drained his ale down to the bitter dregs, and wallowed in extravagant melancholia like a kraken lurking in a dark pool. He grimly gazed about in vain for a busty barmaid to fill his empty tankard (a little know fact about Hobbit maids was they not only had big feet, but they were also well-endowed elsewhere), and with his hyperacuity he immediately noticed something odd: in every corner of the inn lurked darkly hooded figures like him. Wherever there was darkness, wherever the light of hearth or candle did not touch, there were cowled characters cowering in conspicuous but incondign inconspicuousity, the chiaroscuro of light and shadow playing in parallel to the bright bustle and clammer in the center of the inn as opposed to the inordinate coolness and covert counterpoints, pregnant with portent, around its dim edges. Stranger still, the dark hooded figures all had savage glints, gleaming glances peering perilously from the unfathomable unlight of their covered miens.

Amarth chuckled knowingly to himself. It always amused him to think in ridiculously ornate verbosity, a garrulous internal monlogue that never impeded his everyday conversations. After all, these folks were all simple; he needn't flaunt his superiority among the guttural farmers and stuttering ploughboys dripping rank ale down their filthy jerkins. They wouldn't understand him anyway. He moved from thinking about his thoughts back to the mysterious figures ensconced in the gloomy recesses of the Prancing Pony. He wondered if the other inn patrons thought it odd that so many sinister shadowmen (there were at least twenty of them) in clandestine camoflage (all wearing some variation of a weatherbeaten hood or cowl in somber tones of scarlet, black, gray or dark green) were surreptitiously quaffing their stouts or ales as if they were stealing sips. Then Amarth noticed they were all glaring at him, as if he were casting unwanted attention on their furtive subterfuges. Catching the scent of unease in the air, he nervously fidgeted with his mug and cast down his eyes in embarrasment. He had got caught spying on spies!

Shifting uneasily in his chair, he sunk deeper into the darkness of his corner, and looked elsewhere in the inn, hoping that the other hooded figures would forget about him and allow him to once again eavesdrop and reconnoiter unhindered. It was then he notice a passel of hammered hobbits failing miserably at their half-hearted attempt at remaining incognito. He gave a sideways glance around the inn at the shadowmen. They had indeed forgotten about him and were all eyeing the hobbits intently. Amarth shrugged and decided the hobbits might prove entertaining to watch for a while, or perhaps he would shift his attention to and fro between hobbits and shadowmen as a means of passing time, for he was now dreadfully bored.

[Morthoron]

Amarthanuin's boredom grew downright fatiguing. Between the tediously covert but clumsily conspicuous shadowmen in the corners, and the jovially sloshed Hobbits (one of whom was singing an off-key rendition of a Shire lullaby -- something about spoons forking dishes over the moon, or some such nonsense), Amarth eventually slumped against his tankard and began fitfully dozing. He was startled awake when one of the drunken hobbits (the one with the horrible tenor and childish lyrics), tripped over Amarth's outstretched boot and was sent sprawling to the floor.

Amarth wearily gazed with glazed eyes down at the prone Hobbit, when *POOF* the hapless Hobbit vanished. Amarth wondered at the alcoholic properties present in Butterbur's obviously potent ale. "Damnation! Th' stuff is better'n I thought," Amarth belched and fell back asleep.

[Kitanna]

Astalder gasped as the singing hobbit fell and disappeared. It couldn't be, could it? This was who she had come so far to find. And now she learned he was as clumsy and hapless as any hobbit. She sat forward in her seat, straining her ears for the sound of an invisible crawler, but to no luck. There was far too much external noise to here the softness of a hobbit crawling away from his landing spot.

This was a most unfortunate turn. If someone was out there, following this poor fellow, no doubt they would now be drawn to this incident. Astalder shuddered to think. The hobbit had reappeared by the feet of a man. Astalder immediately recognized him, Aragorn. She need not worry for a little while. It was time for some fresh air anyway.

She pushed herself away from the table. She made sure her hood was up and her ears were concealed. The hound at her feet trotted out in front of her as she made for the door. She passed by the man who had tripped the hobbit in the first place.

She could disguise her face and body, but Astalder's sweet, melodic voice would always give her away. So when she spoke to the shadowy figure she kept it low, "You should be more careful where you stick your feet." He didn't move and appeared to be asleep. Astalder, in elven grace and beauty, kicked his foot and headed for the door once more.

[Nerwen]

The voice was not too low for Moonflower's super-keen hearing. She recognised those cloying, would-be musical tones immediately. The padding of the fleabitten hound who followed her aunt everywhere only confirmed her fears.

"Auntie Astalder! Here!" she gasped. All Moonflower could think of was that her family was looking for her, trying to take back her hard-won independence.

She shrank back into her shadowy corner, hoping to escape the notice of her least-favourite relative. Astalder had always pretended to sympathise with her blind niece, but never missed a chance to remind her of her handicap. Worse, Moonflower suspected that her aunt knew all about her unhappy love for the Balrog Slayer– knew, and secretly laughed at her.

Only when she heard the door close behind her aunt did Moonflower allow herself to breathe a sigh of relief. It was shortlived: Aunt Astalder might have gone, but her other problem remained.

She desperately needed someone to explain to her what was going on. For her, invisibility had no meaning; she did not understand why a simple hobbit's drunken singing had made a shocked silence fall over the common room. Yet she just knew, somehow, that danger was in the air.

Moonflower rose to her feet and made her way to the mysterious individual her aunt had rebuked.

Standing over the slumped figure, she increased the strength of her psychic "vision". With her power at its height, she could see more clearly than those with working eyes– but it was a terrible strain. For now, she made do with dimly recognising the outline of a hooded head and... could it be a beard?

Moonflower fought down her disappointment. For a moment there she had thought she sensed the presence of a kindred soul, but clearly this being was no Elf.

Still, she reasoned, anyone who annoyed her aunt so much couldn't be all bad.

Moonflower cleared her throat.

"Elen síla lúmenn’ omentielvo," she said. [Sindarin. = "Hi there."]

[Lalaith]

“Oh Morcair-shu! You bad, bad boy! What will daddy say?” Sharpairien wrinkled her freckled nose in adorable dismay and tossed her shining auburn locks over her bare, Arien-kissed shoulder. She pushed aside the luxurious damask sheets, got out of her hand-carved Nan Emloth mahogany bed, and removed the chewed circlet from the maw of the little dog that sat wagging its tail on the exquisite Teleri-crafted rug.
“Oh no, it’s the one You-Know-Who gave Daddy. And he gets *so* weird and boring about anything to do with Her.” Sharpairien’s mother, Ivanariel, never referred to the first wife, Celebrian, by her real name, and had brought Sharpairien up to do the same. It was kind of a mother-daughter private joke. It had to be. Elrond would smile indulgently at most of the antics of his charming and wilful youngest child, but he did not like any jest or disrespectful reference to the departed Celebrian. And now Morcair-shu had destroyed her last gift to Elrond before she passed over the sea – the priceless amethyst and crystal-studded mithril circlet he always wore on his noble brow at Council meetings.
“Now, you naughty thing. Make amends by going to fetch Daemian, tell him to come to help me choose my outfit for today.”

[Morthoron]

It was not that he hated Hobbits. Truthfully, he had never even engaged one in a conversation longer than a brief remark about the weather or to ask directions (which always turned out to be an insufferable chore, considering the Halfling predisposition to long-windedness). But there was something annoying about the paunchy little blighters: in their omnipresent and almost manic cheerfulness; their incessant geneological rambles (I mean, really, how far could they trace their brief ancestries back -- one or two hundred years? Pffft!); their inveterate butchering of Westron, droppin' the g's and losing the 'andles on the 'aitches; and the folksy but addled adages that peppered their glib speech (''After all's gone, nothin' is left", "I don't cotton to conies lest they're skinned and sauteed", "Don't count your barley before it's batched", or some such rot).

No, Amarthanuin did not have any ill-will for the half-witted Halflings, but he couldn't countenance their annoying presence for more than a few hours at a time, and the alloted amount of time that Amarth could bear these plump periannath had reached the frayed edge of forebearance several hours ago. He noticed the Prancing Pony had thinned out dramatically; in fact, all the Hobbits, including the one who seemingly disappeared, were long gone, and only a few drunken sots were left, sprawled and snoring, until the next morn's cock crow. No longer drunk himself, but with a headache to match his annoyance, he wondered how long he had been napping.

Catching the proprietor of the inn, one Barliman Butterbur, at the top of a flight of stairs, Amarth inquired about a room. Butterbur scratched his head for a moment and drawled confusedly, "Well, that's just the thing, beggin' your pardon, kind sir. You see, it's like this: what with the seeming invasion of hooded strangers lurking about, it seems the old inn is piled to the rafters with 'em."

"And...that means...what?" Amarth growled rather sternly.

"Well, one thing pushes out another, as they say." Barliman replied, "and no new is good news."

Amarth bit his lip and stared hard at the innkeep.

"Now, now, no need for all that," Butterbur continued hesitantly, mopping the sweat off his forehead with his apron so that half of his words were muffled in beer-soaked cotton. "It just that there are no rooms left for the big-folk. There, I've said it, and beggin' your pardon and all, but there's just so many rooms to let and so little time to make sure every patron is...ummm....patronized."

Amarth sucked his teeth in exasperation. "So," he sighed, "there are no rooms to let then?"

"Oh no, not at all, I mean, yes, we have rooms, of course we have rooms. It's just that..."

"It's just that, what?"

"Well, you see, there's no rooms for big-folk, and, well, seeing as you're rather on the short side, I was wonderin' -- no offense and beggin' your pardon and all -- if you wouldn't...ummm...all things bein' equal and all, if you wouldn't mind..."

Amarth's ire was growing exponentially, particularly since Butterbur made reference to his height (a sore spot for him, to be sure). "Butterbur, if you don't spit it out, I shall cut out your tongue and nail it to your forehead, for all the good it is doing you now."

Barliman took a deep breath and then rushed through an explanation: "Well,allweseemtohaveatthemomentisanice,cozyHobbit room,ifyoudon'tmind,kindsir."

"A...Hobbit room?"

"Yes...yes sir," Butterbur gasped as if he were in agony.

"Well, I guess that will have to do."

"It will? Why, yes, of course it will," Barliman wheezed in relief. "I'll go roust out that lazy slowcoach Hob to fluff up the pillows, dust off the blankets and throw some new rushes down. It's flea season here in Bree, you know. Can't sleep tight if the bedbugs bite, as we say."

Equally relieved to be done with the fat innkeeper, Amarth nodded and answered, "Very well, Butterbur. In the meantime, I will take a walk outside for a bit."

Not waiting for Butterbur to reply, Amarth wheeled away and headed toward the great oaken door that led to the sodden streets. It had been raining on and off for most of the week, and the cesspool that was Bree was a muddy mire. Careful to keep his boots centered on the wood planks thrown down in a halfhearted attempt to keep passers-by from sinking waist deep in the puddling muck, Amarth tread lightly down the darkened street. He hadn't gotten very far when he espied shadowy figures huddled sinisterly over a body laying in the middle of the street.

[Kitanna]

*save*

[Nerwen]

Alatariel Moonflower was used to rejection. So many times she had tried to reach out to another Elf, only to be dismissed as unworthy, flawed, an embarrassment to the Firstborn. Thus, when the one she had greeted so hopefully suddenly got to his feet, pushed past her without a word and staggered away, she was saddened but not surprised. Only a solitary crystal tear marred the perfection of her alabaster cheek.

"What did I expect?" she muttered to herself. "Why should care if one more person spurns me, after... after... G-Glor– Glor– fin -del!"

Another tear, glittering like a priceless gem, welled up in her equally jewel-like eye, and then another. Moonflower was seized with a fit of uncontrollable sobbing, which only rendered her more beautiful, and definitely didn't make her nose run or her eyes puff up or anything like that. More and more sparkling tears streamed from her beautiful, sightless jade-green orbs. Frantically she tried to dry them with her cloak.

Suddenly she became aware that the background snoring had stopped, and that several of the patrons were no longer sprawled in drunken stupor, but were sitting bolt upright. She could not see their expressions– not without using more power than she had the heart for in her distraught state– but she had no doubt that they were staring at her.

Had they been awakened by the sound of her weeping? What would they think of the sobbing creature in their midst? Would they offer her violence? What horrors would their lewd minds conceive when they discovered that the mysterious cloaked stranger was a radiantly lovely Elfess?

Not wanting to find out, Moonflower groped her way outside.

Bree was cold, wet and miserable, but Moonflower was only glad that the weather was in keeping with her mood. She wandered on aimlessly, caring nothing for the mud that fouled the border of her plain green velvet cloak and besmirched the silver-broidered hem of her simple white silk travelling gown with its cuffs and collar of the finest snowy lace, its sleeves and skirt worked with niphredil flowers in silver thread and its bodice with seed-pearls in the shape of the Two Trees.

All the blind Elfess asked was to be left alone with her sorrow, but even that was not to be granted her, it seemed.

Ahead of her she "saw" a figure lying in the Road, and two more bending over him. Someone, it appeared was injured, and was being aided by his friends.

"At least he has friends," the outcast she-Elf muttered under her breath.

The constant scorn Moonflower had suffered from the world could not destroy her natural compassion. She was just about to offer to help, when somehow– through her innate intuition– she realised that all was not as it seemed.

Moonflower shuddered, sensing she was in the presence of evil... evil that might overpower even her brave and noble spirit. She was relieved when she heard someone approaching from the direction of the inn... until the newcomer got close enough for her to recognise the sound of his footsteps.

It was the stranger she had tried to befriend... who had brushed her aside as though she did not even exist.