This place is dead. My spirit strains to find some whisper of life, but my questions echo loudly in the silence. And yet something teases at the edges, stretching my senses to their limits, only to let them snap back, unsatisfied, the tendrils of my mind careening from infinite distance to foetal confinement.
Gimli rests his head upon the cold tomb of his sire’s friend, his tears an echo of the ones I dam within myself. My mind drifts again… no tree offers to hold me; no star sings my name, calling me to harmony with their soaring melodies. I feel the oppression of dark rock above me, the weight crushing my soul. The stone is hard beneath my feet, unyielding; no grass to cradle my weary steps. No brooks chatter, tumbling over shining pebbles, catching and playing with the twinkling lights of Elbereth above. Here there is only the echoing steady drip of water, strained through the dense granite around me and pooling in deep holes, inky black.
There is no musk of moist loam, no sweet scent of crushed grass or perfume of flower drifting on a warm stray breeze. My nostrils itch with the fine dust drifting in the air, disturbed by our passage. It is laden with a metallic tang and something else. My eye is pulled to the heaps of crumbling corpses scattered on the floor around us, and my breath catches, trying not to draw too deeply of this foul miasma. On our way here cold and sterile drafts flowed out at us from passages opening to left and right, like the frigid exhalation of death, its breath giving no refreshment to my skin or lungs.
Used to encompassing vast distances, my vision has been limited to the confining circle of the dim light of Gandalf’s staff. Shadows crowded in about me, hiding unknown chasms and imagined vastness, inhabited by monsters, long forgotten from childhood nightmares. At least within this chamber, light filters dimly from high above us, and my eyes, at last, discern walls and furnishings, all cracked and broken. But still, beyond this room the darkness smothers all, and I feel its presence waiting to enmesh me once more.
My mind screams in protest, and I clench my teeth to stop the rising wail escaping from my lips. For the sake of my companions I must endure. It is only they who hold the lifeline to the tattered remnants of my sanity. They, at least, I can sense.
Aragorn is a solid presence at my side. He, too, is fearful but not for himself. He spoke of his forebodings for Gandalf before even we crossed the threshold of this darkling tomb, and I know he strains to trace the first signs that his vision will arise to swallow our leader. Many times over past years, we have travelled as equals together, man and elf. Unable to help me now he stays near, offering what support he can by his presence, letting me know that he understands my discomfort. Anchored in the history of his sires, the light of his spirit burns strong and steady beside me.
Boromir has been ever hindmost of our company. I often heard his heavy step behind me and felt grateful for his protection. He speaks little and seems wrapped in his own thoughts. Although there is great honour in him, I know that the ring has already begun to thread his conscious thoughts with dreams of power and victory. This proud son of the Steward has seen his future snatched away from him by a man rising out of legend and dream. I sense the poison of the ring insinuating itself into his pride, and I fear that someday soon, he will be lost to its siren call. His spirit, once so powerful, now turns sickly.
The Ringbearer stands with Gandalf now, his eyes intent upon the book before them. Frodo, of all the hobbits I think, is the only one aware of my difficulties. There is a strong clear light within him, like sunlight through water but I can see the ring beginning to taint it. The crystal turns cloudy with each step that he takes, closer to his doom, and to the doom of us all. His friends seek always to place themselves around him, as though their soft bodies can shield him against the arrows that our enemy throws at him – seemingly unaware that the real threat is already within him.
Sam never strays from his masters’ side. When we stopped to rest yesterday, I noticed him sifting a small pile of dust through his gardener’s fingers, and I wondered if he was trying to assess whether it held any potential for life. His spirit glows strong and sure within him, and, like Frodo, I grasp its firm steady light.
Even Pippins’ bright spirit is dimmed in this deep place. He tries to hide his fear with bright words that fly, brittle in our ears, and I have watched him shiver, eyes open, as he lays sleepless in the night. Merry cares for him always, and I can see Pippin relax when they walk side by side, sleeping more easily with the comforting presence of his cousin at his back. Yet, fear tugs at them and I see their light burn bright and dim by turns.
Gimli knew my distress within hours. I tried to hide it from him, unwilling to display such weakness before a dwarf, but we have travelled too far together for him not to guess the reason for my silence. He steps surely in the ancient halls of his people, troubled only by the decay of what once was great. Many times, in these past days, he has distracted me by pointing out delicate carving at the base of pillars whose tops stretch into the gloom above us; or naming the different marbles just visible in the mouldering dust beneath our feet. I hold back tears of gratitude, surprised by the gentleness of a member of a race I have been trained to hate from the day of my birth. He seems to draw his fierce, proud spirit from the very rock around us. He, too, stands with Gandalf as the wizard reads aloud from the ruins of the book they have uncovered. My tormented spirit will not let me concentrate on his words.
Our guide, Gandalf, pulls his spirit close, hiding it within grey veils. In our journey through this brooding darkness, I felt him, often send out questing beams of thought, searching for the route through this maze. Sometimes his touch settled upon me, pushing gentle light and comfort into my quailing soul, and for a moment the darkness that oppresses me was pushed back, then he moved on, and I was bereft once more, floundering in dark meres of despair.
In Mirkwood, my father’s home is a huge stone cavern, but I cannot ever remember it feeling like this place. There is a power here that stifles all my rational thoughts and rasps on my emotions like some huge iron file, leaving them raw and bleeding. I must not give in to this insanity. I have a duty to my comrades. I reach out again, desperate to find the source of my distress. Something slumbers in deep caverns. I touch the edge of it’s dreams and feel it stir to wakefulness. My friends turn to leave, heading once more, back into the grim blackness that is Moria, but my feet will not obey my command to follow. There is a great noise: a rolling Boom that seems to come from depths far below and to tremble in the stone at our feet. A great horn is blown, an echoing blast that is answered by harsh cries further off.
At last my senses clear and the shadow that has clouded them for so long pulls back.
“Orcs.” I can hear the sound of their iron-clad feet, smell their fetid stench and feel the mindless anger of their presence. “They are coming!”