Lyrd Of The Ryngs - The Homies

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

whilst a pale figure of a hippopotamus bounded down the escalator, headed straight for the threesome, frodo and sam both scrabbled to get to the sides, and out of the way, before gollum turned around "hurt you the apparitions can not!" he said "shapes of something else they are" he went on, as the hippo ploughed straight through them

[Butterbeer]

" .... a guinness .... .... a guinness .... .... a guinness .... " echos trail off into the translucent shimmering reflections of a plum floating in perfume ....

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

"Tarrying we must not!" said gollum "pass the tier of the level of the stargazing platform by nightfall we must! he went on

sam and frodo, having recovered from their ordeal with the ghostly hippo, and still not knowing what 'guinness' was, or why there were plumsin men's hats, that smelled oddly of perfume, obediently followed gollum up the stairs

[Butterbeer]

"Pie, Pie Pie"

"Oh glorious Pie! " sang the one they called merriadoc the pie-loving

"Oh my!"said Sam, "Pie Mr frodo sir! - just imagine a good ol' tater and meat pie just like the gaffer'd make it!"

Sam drooled .... the interdimensional disturbances appeared to be happening more often and with stonger effects: no wonder Mr S the evil Lawer could not put forth his writs or subponeas here.... this truly was a secret way into the dark City

[Grey_Wolf]

Finally, they arrived at the ancient subwaytunnel (built by the Gondorians at the height of their power, but now the rails had rusted away from hundreds of years of disuse.)

It seemed to go on for miles, and the cold air flowed at them through it. The fearsome breeze seemed to try it's best at daunting their attempt at passing the tunnel.

They only knew that they had come out of the tunnel when they noticed that there was no wall to their right. They could see very little. Great black shapeless masses and deep grey shadows loomed above and about them, but now and then red lightning lit up the fearsome mountains and the showed off the grey clouds as a uninterrupted grey roof.

They seemed to have climbed several hundreds of feet on to a wide shelf. A cliff was on their left and chasm on their right.

Gollum led the way keeping close to the cliff. They were no longer climbing and was on level ground but it was full of potholes and boulders lying and standing in their way. They didn't know how long they had been going.

The night seemed endless. At last they came to the Winding Escalator. It wound back and forth along the cliff and now and then Frodo could see the unwholesome City of Evil Lawyers and the Ancient Motorway to the Hideous Namless Pass far down below. He turned hastily away.

[EarthBound]

Frodo noticed that the elevatorehad two large W's in gold lettering painted upon it's doors.

[Grey_Wolf]

Still on and up the Winding Escalator bent and crawled, until at last with a final flight, short and straight, it climbed out again on to another level. The path had veered away from the main pass in the great ravine, and it now followed its own perilous course at the bottom of a lesser cleft among the higher regions of the Ephel Dúath. Dimly the hobbits could discern tall piers and jagged pinnacles of stone on either side, between which were great crevices and fissures blacker than the night, where forgotten winters had gnawed and carved the sunless stone. And now the red light in the sky seemed stronger; though they could not tell whether a dreadful morning were indeed coming to this place of shadow, or whether they saw only the flame of some great violence of Sauron in the torment of Gorgoroth beyond. Still far ahead, and still high above, Frodo, looking up, saw, as he guessed, the very crown of this bitter Ascending Path. Against the sullen redness of the eastern sky a cleft was outlined in the topmost ridge, narrow, deep-cloven between two black shoulders; and on either shoulder was a figure not unlike Willy Wanka.

[Grey_Wolf]

He paused and looked more attentively. The horn upon the left was tall and slender; and in it burned a red light, or else the red light in the land beyond was shining through a hole. He saw now: it was a black tower poised above the outer pass. He touched Sam's arm and pointed.
"I don't like the look of that! ' said Sam. "So this secret way of yours is guarded after all," he growled, turning to Gollum. "As you knew all along, I suppose? '
"All ways are watched, yes," said Gollum. "Of course they are. But hobbits must try some way. This may be least watched. Perhaps they've all gone away to big battle, perhaps! '
"Perhaps," grunted Sam. "Well, it still seems a long way off, and a long way up before we get there. And there's still the tunnel. I think you ought to rest now, Mr. Frodo. I don't know what time of day or night it is, but we've kept going for hours and hours."
"Yes, we must rest," said Frodo. "Let us find some corner out of the wind, and gather our strength-for the last lap." For so he felt it to be. The terrors of the land beyond, and the deed to be done there, seemed remote, too far off yet to trouble him. All his mind was bent on getting through or over this impenetrable wall and guard. If once he could do that impossible thing, then somehow the errand would be accomplished, or so it seemed to him in that dark hour of weariness, still labouring in the stony shadows under Cirith Ungol.

[Grey_Wolf]

In a dark crevice between two great piers of rock they sat down: Frodo and Sam a little way within. and Gollum crouched upon the ground near the opening. There the hobbits took what they expected would be their last meal before they went down into the Nameless Land, maybe the last meal they would ever eat together. Some of the food of Gondor they ate, and the old stale MRE's of the Elves. and they drank a little. But of their water they were sparing and took only enough to moisten their dry mouths.

[Grey_Wolf]

"I wonder when we'll find water again? ' said Sam. "But I suppose even over there they drink? Orcs drink, don't they? '
"Yes, they drink," said Frodo. "But do not let us speak of that. Such drink is not for us."
"Then all the more need to fill our bottles," said Sam. "But there isn't any water up here: not a sound or a trickle have I heard. And anyway Faramir said we were not to drink any water in Morgul."
"No water flowing out of Imlad Morgul, were his words," said Frodo. "We are not in that valley now, and if we came on a spring it would be flowing into it and not out of it."
"I wouldn't trust it," said Sam,"not till I was dying of thirst. There's a wicked feeling about this place." He sniffed. "And a smell, I fancy. Do you notice it? A queer kind of a smell, stuffy. I don't like it."
"I don't like anything here at all." said Frodo, "step or stone, breath or bone. Earth, air and water all seem accursed. But so our path is laid."
"Yes, that's so," said Sam. "And we shouldn't be here at all, if we'd known more about it before we started. But I suppose it's often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually - their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on - and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same - like old Mr Bilbo. But those aren't always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we've fallen into? '
"I wonder," said Frodo. "But I don't know. And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to."
"No, sir, of course not. Beren now, he never thought he was going to get that Silmaril from the Iron Crown in Thangorodrim, and yet he did, and that was a worse place and a blacker danger than ours. But that's a long tale, of course, and goes on past the happiness and into grief and beyond it - and the Silmaril went on and came to Eärendil. And why, sir, I never thought of that before! We've got - you've got some of the light of it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you! Why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still! It's going on. Don't the great tales never end? '
"No, they never end as tales," said Frodo. "But the people in them come, and go when their part's ended. Our part will end later - or sooner."
"And then we can have some rest and some sleep," said Sam. He laughed grimly. "And I mean just that, Mr. Frodo. I mean plain ordinary rest, and sleep, and waking up to a morning's work in the garden. I'm afraid that's all I'm hoping for all the time. All the big important plans are not for my sort. Still, I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We're in one, or course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: "Let's hear about Frodo and the Package! " And they'll say: "Yes, that's one of my favourite stories. Frodo was very brave. wasn't he, dad?" "Yes, my boy, the famousest of the hobbits, and that's saying a lot."'
"It's saying a lot too much," said Frodo, and he laughed, a long clear laugh from his heart. Such a sound had not been heard in those places since Sauron came to Middle-earth. To Sam suddenly it seemed as if all the stones were listening and the tall rocks leaning over them. But Frodo did not heed them; he laughed again. "Why, Sam," he said,"to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story was already written. But you've left out one of the chief characters: Samwise the stouthearted. "I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why didn't they put in more of his talk, dad? That's what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam, would he, dad? " '
"Now, Mr. Frodo," said Sam,"you shouldn't make fun. I was serious. '
"So was I," said Frodo, 'and so I am. We're going on a bit too fast. You and I, Sam, are still stuck in the worst places of the story, and it is all too likely that some will say at this point: "Shut the book now, dad; we don't want to read any more." '
"Maybe," said Sam,"but I wouldn't be one to say that. Things done and over and made into part of the great tales are different. Why, even Gollum might be good in a tale, better than he is to have by you, anyway. And he used to like tales himself once, by his own account. I wonder if he thinks he's the hero or the villain?
"Gollum!" he called. "Would you like to be the hero - now where's he got to again?"

[Grey_Wolf]

There was no sign of him at the mouth of their shelter nor in the shadows near. He had refused their food, though he had, as usual, accepted a mouthful of water; and then he had seemed to curl up for a sleep: They had supposed that one at any rate of his objects in his long absence the day before had been to hunt for food to his own liking; and now he had evidently slipped off again while they talked. But what for this time?
"I don't like his sneaking off without saying," said Sam. "And least of all now. He can't be looking for food up here, not unless there's some kind of rock he fancies. Why, there isn't even a bit of moss! '
"It's no good worrying about him now," said Frodo. "We couldn't have got so far, not even within sight of the pass, without him, and so we'll have to put up with his ways. If he's false, he's false."
"All the same, I'd rather have him under my eye," said Sam. "All the more so, if he's false. Do you remember he never would say if this pass was guarded or no? And now we see a tower there - and it may be deserted, and it may not. Do you think he's gone to fetch them, Orcs or whatever they are?"
"No, I don't think so," answered Frodo. "Even if he's up to some wickedness, and I suppose that's not unlikely, I don't think it's that: not to fetch Orcs, or any servants of the Enemy. Why wait till now, and go through all the labour of the climb, and come so near the land he fears? He could probably have betrayed us to Orcs many times since we met him. No, if it's anything, it will be some little private trick of his own-that he thinks is quite secret."
"Well, I suppose you're right, Mr. Frodo," said Sam. "Not that it comforts me mightily. I don't make no mistake: I don't doubt he'd hand me over to Orcs as gladly as kiss his hand. But I was forgetting - his Precious. No, I suppose the whole time it's been The Precious for poor Sméagol. That's the one idea in all his little schemes, if he has any. But how bringing us up here will help him in that is more than I can guess."
"Very likely he can't guess himself," said Frodo. "And I don't think he's got just one plain scheme in his muddled head. I think he really is in part trying to save the Precious from the Enemy. as long as he can. For that would be the last disaster for himself too. if the Enemy got it. And in the other part, perhaps, he's just biding his time and waiting on chance."
"Yes, Slinker and Stinker, as I've said before," said Sam. "But the nearer they get to the Enemy's land the more like Stinker Slinker will get. Mark my words: if ever we get to the pass, he won't let us really take the precious thing over the border without making some kind of trouble."
"We haven't got there yet," said Frodo.
"No, but we'd better keep our eyes skinned till we do. If we're caught napping, Stinker will come out on top pretty quick. Not but what it would be safe for you to have a wink now, master. Safe, if you lay close to me. I'd be dearly glad to see you have a sleep. I'd keep watch over you; and anyway, if you lay near, with my arm round you, no one could come pawing you without your Sam knowing it."
"Sleep!" said Frodo and sighed, as if out of a desert he had seen a mirage of cool green. "Yes, even here I could sleep."
"Sleep then, master! Lay your head in my lap."

And so Gollum found them hours later, when he returned, crawling and creeping down the path out of the gloom ahead. Sam sat propped against the stone, his head dropping sideways and his breathing heavy. In his lap lay Frodo's head, drowned deep in sleep; upon his white forehead lay one of Sam's brown hands, and the other lay softly upon his master's breast. Peace was in both their faces.

Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo's knee - but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.

But at that touch Frodo stirred and cried out softly in his sleep, and immediately Sam was wide awake. The first thing he saw was Gollum - "pawing at master," as he thought.
"Hey you!" he said roughly. "What are you up to?"
"Nothing, nothing," said Gollum softly. "Nice Master!"
"I daresay," said Sam. "But where have you been to - sneaking off and sneaking back, you old villain? '

Gollum withdrew himself, and a green glint flickered under his heavy lids. Almost spider-like he looked now, crouched back on his bent limbs, with his protruding eyes. The fleeting moment had passed, beyond recall. "Sneaking, sneaking!" he hissed. "Hobbits always so polite, yes. O nice hobbits! Sméagol brings them up secret ways that nobody else could find. Tired he is, thirsty he is, yes thirsty; and he guides them and he searches for paths, and they say sneak, sneak. Very nice friends, O yes my precious, very nice."

[Grey_Wolf]

Sam felt a bit remorseful, though not more trustful. "Sorry." he said. "I'm sorry, but you startled me out of my sleep. And I shouldn't have been sleeping, and that made me a bit sharp. But Mr. Frodo. he's that tired, I asked him to have a wink; and well, that's how it is. Sorry. But where have you been to? '
"Sneaking," said Gollum, and the green glint did not leave his eyes.
"O very well," said Sam, "have it your own way! I don't suppose it's so far from the truth. And now we'd better all be sneaking along together. What's the time? Is it today or tomorrow? '
"It's tomorrow," said Gollum,"or this was tomorrow when hobbits went to sleep. Very foolish, very dangerous-if poor Sméagol wasn't sneaking about to watch."
"I think we shall get tired of that word soon," said Sam. "But never mind. I'll wake master up." Gently he smoothed the hair back from Frodo's brow, and bending down spoke softly to him.
"Wake up, Mr. Frodo! Wake up! '

Frodo stirred and opened his eyes, and smiled, seeing Sam's face bending over him. "Calling me early aren't you, Sam?" he said. "It's dark still! '
"Yes it's always dark here," said Sam. "But Gollum's come back Mr. Frodo, and he says it's tomorrow. So we must be walking on. The last lap."

Frodo drew a deep breath and sat up. "The last lap! ' he said. "Hullo, Sméagol! Found any food? Have you had any rest? '
"No food, no rest, nothing for Sméagol," said Gollum. "He's a sneak."

Sam clicked his tongue, but restrained himself.
"Don't take names to yourself, Sméagol," said Frodo. "It's unwise whether they are true or false."
"Sméagol has to take what's given him," answered Gollum. "He was given that name by kind Master Samwise, the hobbit that knows so much."

Frodo looked at Sam. "Yes sir," he said. "I did use the word, waking up out of my sleep sudden and all and finding him at hand. I said I was sorry, but I soon shan't be."
"Come, let it pass then," said Frodo. "But now we seem to have come to the point, you and I, Sméagol. Tell me. Can we find the rest of the way by ourselves? We're in sight of the pass, of a way in, and if we can find it now, then I suppose our agreement can be said to be over. You have done what you promised, and you're free: free to go back to food and rest, wherever you wish to go, except to servants of the Enemy. And one day I may reward you, I or those that remember me."
"No, no, not yet," Gollum whined. "O no! They can't find the way themselves, can they? O no indeed. There's the tunnel coming. Sméagol must go on. No rest. No food. Not yet."

[Grey_Wolf]

It may indeed have been daytime now, as Gollum said, but the hobbits could see little difference, unless, perhaps, the heavy sky above was less utterly black, more like a great roof of smoke; while instead of the darkness of deep night, which lingered still in cracks and holes, a grey blurring shadow shrouded the stony world about them. They passed on, Gollum in front and the hobbits now side by side, up the long ravine between the piers and columns of torn and weathered rock, standing like huge unshapen statues on either hand. There was no sound. Some way ahead, a mile or so, perhaps, was a great grey wall, a last huge upthrusting mass of mountain-stone. Darker it loomed, and steadily it rose as they approached, until it towered up high above them, shutting out the view of all that lay beyond. Deep shadow lay before its feet. Sam sniffed the air.
"Ugh! That smell!" he said. "It's getting stronger and stronger."

Presently they were under the shadow, and there in the midst of it they saw the opening of a cave. "This is the way in," said Gollum softly. "This is the entrance to the tunnel." He did not speak its name: Torech Ungol, Shelob's Lair, in which the Hideous industrially and genetically enhanced supermonsterspider had its abode. Out of it came a stench, not the sickly odour of decay in the meads of Morgul, but a foul reek, as if filth unnameable were piled and hoarded in the dark within.
"Is this the only way, Sméagol? ' said Frodo.
"Yes, yes," he answered. "Yes, we must go this way now."
"D'you mean to say you've been through this hole?" said Sam. "Phew! But perhaps you don't mind bad smells."

[Grey_Wolf]

Drawing a deep breath they passed inside the Ancient Gondorian Subwaytunnel which tracks had withered away. Now they were in complete darkness. Not since Moria had they experienced such utter sightlessness.
There, there were airs moving, and echoes, and a sense of space.

The darkness seemed to put a blight on seeing and hearing. Any memory of the outside world withered away. Night always had been, and always would be, and night was all.

[Grey_Wolf]

But for a while they could still feel, and indeed the senses of their feet and fingers at first seemed sharpened almost painfully. The walls felt, to their surprise, smooth, almost like metal and the floor, in which the groves left from the subwaytracks were filled with sharp little stones, were going ever up at the same stiff slope. The tunnel was high and wide, so wide that, though the hobbits walked abreast, only touching the side-walls with their outstretched hands, they were separated, cut off alone in the darkness.

Gollum had gone in first and seemed to be only a few steps ahead. While they were still able to give heed to such things, they could hear his breath hissing and gasping just in front of them. But after a time their senses became duller, both touch and hearing seemed to grow numb, and they kept on, groping, walking, on and on, mainly by the force of the will with which they had entered, will to go through and desire to come at last to the Exit beyond.

[EarthBound]

Great Noxious Fumes smelling of diesel and burnt rubber assaulted their little hobbit noses sending them to spasms of chokes and coughs. Occasionally, metal clangs like the slamming of metal drawers could be heard echoing through the chambers. Each time the noise occurred, the hobbits would be startled to a full stop where they would hold-fast until they were brave enough to continue...

[Lenya]

Bilbo was at the brink of turning around and going back. He imagined himself rather climbing over than going on through this dreadfully dark and scary place. He told himself: Hobbits like nice and comforting holes, not something as frightening as this. But Sam sensed rather than saw that his master has stopped. Groping through the blackness around him, he found Mr. Frodo and started dragging him onwards. Just then they heard a soft hissing sound, like something struggling to breath properly. The sound drove their pounding hearts into their throats. Their legs stopped working and they clung desperately to each other.

[Grey_Wolf]

They had reached lowest level of the ancient subwaytunnels, where, unbeknownst to them, Shelob, the superspidermonster had it's abode.
Frodo and Sam ran like mad up the steep slope and came to a place where the tunnel divided in two. They chose the right one and ran on but only for a short while because suddenly they were brought a stop again by a resisting material.

Frodo brought forth his high-powered flashlight. In front of him the Exit was covered in what looked like giant spiderwebs. Behind them the hissing entity continued to close in. Frodo turned his flashlight on the pursuer, its blazing light was reflected in hundres of tiny faceted eyes and beyond them a huge spiderlike shadow.

Shelob had never experience such an utterly ferocious headache before. The light burned white-hot into her now numbed brain. She choose to retreat.

[Grey_Wolf]

Frodo rummaged in his pack and found to his relief a pair of gardening scissors (apparently elven in make, because it was marked with golden leaves). He proceeded to cut an opening in the huge net.

Finally he'd made one big enough for him and Sam to get through. He crawled out and Sam followed him.

[Grey_Wolf]

"Come! ' cried Frodo. "On! On! ' Wild joy at their escape from the very mouth of despair suddenly filled all his mind. His head whirled as with a draught of potent wine. He sprang out, shouting as he came.

It seemed light in that dark land to his eyes that had passed through the den of night. The great smokes had risen and grown thinner, and the last hours of a sombre day were passing; the red glare of Mordor had died away in sullen gloom. Yet it seemed to Frodo that he looked upon a morning of sudden hope. Almost he had reached the summit of the wall. Only a little higher now. The Cleft, Cirith Ungol, was before him, a dim notch in the black ridge, and the horns of rock darkling in the sky on either side. A short race, a sprinter's course and he would be through!
"The pass, Sam! ' he cried, not heeding the shrillness of his voice, that released from the choking airs of the tunnel rang out now high and wild. "The pass! Run, run, and we'll be through-through before any one can stop us!'