Lyrd of the Ryngs - Return of Good Architecture

[Grey_Wolf]

Sam had just wits enough left to thrust the halogene lamp back into his breast. "Run, Mr. Frodo!" he cried. "No, not that way! There's a sheer drop over the wall. Follow me!"

Down the road from the gate they fled. In fifty paces, with a swift bend round a jutting bastion of the cliff, it took them out of sight from the top of the Tower Complex.

They had escaped for the moment. Cowering back against the rock they drew breath, and then they clutched at their hearts. Hovering just above the ruined gate the Nazgûl Harrier's engines sent echoes all around.

In terror they stumbled on. Soon the road bent sharply eastward again and exposed them for a dreadful moment to view from the Tower. As they flitted across the road they glanced back and saw the great black shape landing on top of the battlement; then they plunged down between high rock-walls in a cutting that fell steeply to join the Morgul-road.

[Grey_Wolf]

They came to the way-meeting. There was still no sign of orcs, nor of an answer to the coming of the Nazgûl fighter plane; but they knew that the silence would not last long. At any moment now the hunt would begin.

"This won't do, Sam," said Frodo. "If we were real orcs, we ought to be dashing back to the Tower, not running away. The first enemy we meet will know us. We must get off this road somehow."

"But we can't," said Sam, "not without wings."

The eastern faces of the Ephel Dúath were sheer, falling in cliff and precipice to the black trough that lay between them and the inner ridge.

A short way beyond the way-meeting, after another steep incline, a suspension bridge leapt over the chasm and bore the road across into the tumbled slopes and glens of the Morgai.

With a desperate spurt Frodo and Sam dashed along the bridge; but they had hardly reached its further end when they heard the hue and cry begin. Away behind them, now high above on the mountain-side, loomed the Cirith Ungol Condominium Tower Complex, its stones glowing dully.

Suddenly its harsh bell clanged again, and then broke into a shattering peal. Vehiclehorns sounded.

And now from beyond the bridge-end came answering cries. Down in the dark trough, cut off from the dying glare of Orodruin, Frodo and Sam could not see ahead, but already they heard the tramp of iron-shod feet. And the roar of motorbikes.

They were at the far end of the bridge now.

"Quick, Sam! Over we go!" cried Frodo.

Half fearing a breaking plunge down on to unseen rocks the hobbits landed, in a drop of no more than a dozen feet, with a thud and a crunch into the last thing that they had expected: a tangle of thorny bushes. There Sam lay still, softly sucking a scratched hand.

They had just hit the shadow of cover when the tramping of ORCer infantry and roaring motorbikers could be heard on the tarmac top of the bridge.

"Bless me, Mr. Frodo, but I didn't know as anything grew in Mordor! But if I had a'known, this is just what I'd have looked for. These thorns must be a foot long by the feel of them; they've stuck through everything I've got on."

"These clothes we put on don't do indeed do much good." Frodo agreed.

They had a struggle to get out of the thicket. The thorns and briars were as tough as wire and as clinging as claws. Their cloaks were rent and tattered before they broke free at last.
"Now down we go, Sam," Frodo whispered. "Down into the valley quick, and then turn northward, as soon as ever we can."

[Grey_Wolf]

At length they stopped, and sat side by side, their backs against a boulder. Both were sweating. "If Shagrat himself was to offer me a glass of water, I'd shake his hand," said Sam.
"Don't say such things!" said Frodo. "It only makes it worse." Then he stretched himself out, dizzy and weary, and he spoke no more for a while. At last with a struggle he got up again. To his amazement he found that Sam was asleep. "Wake up, Sam!" he said. "Come on! It's time we made another effort."

Sam scrambled to his feet. "Well I never!" he said. "I must have dropped off. It's a long time, Mr. Frodo, since I had a proper sleep, and my eyes just closed down on their own."

Frodo now led the way, northward as near as he could guess, among the stones and boulders lying thick at the bottom of the great ravine. But presently he stopped again.

[Grey_Wolf]

At the end of the ravine they found a pair of abandoned dirt bikes.

And off they roared not caring much for the noise they made but more for getting across the awful Plain of Gorgoroth which was so before but had gotten even worse from the return of Sauron.

[Rían]

They rode on for some time, popping wheelies and kicking up dust. After a while, Frodo brought his dirt bike to a halt.

"It's no good, Sam," he said. "I can't manage it. This sweatsuit jacket, I mean. Not in my present state. Even my mithril-coat seemed heavy when I was tired. This is a far heavier burden to bear - it's so much more stylish, and I feel that I just can't do it justice, what with my hair not being washed and styled for weeks and all. And what's the use of it? We shan't win through by being put on the Top 10 Best Dressed list of Hobbit Quarterly."

"But we may have some stylin' to do," said Sam. "And there's knives and stray arrows - an unstylish dude may get shot at, but in that natty outfit, no one would DARE shoot at you - it might ruin the fabric! That Gollum isn't dead, for one thing. I don't like to think of you with naught but a bit of t-shirt between you and a stab in the dark."

"Look here, Sam dear lad," said Frodo: "I am tired, weary, I haven't a hope left. But I have to go on trying to get to the Mountain, as long as I can move. The Ring is enough. This extra weight is killing me. It must go. But don't think I'm ungrateful. I hate to think of the foul work you must have had among the bodies to find it for me."

Sam shuddered. He had torn off the outlet tag from the sweatsuit, but the shame of knowing Frodo was wearing something that was bought at a discount still burned in his memory. He decided to go along with Frodo's decision - maybe it was best - maybe orcs could tell the difference between full-price and outlet, even at a distance, and it wouldn't stop the arrows, then, if that was the case.

"Don't talk about it, Mr. Frodo. Bless you! I'd carry you on my back, if I could. Let it go then!"

Frodo took off the sweatsuit jacket and flung it away. He shivered a little. "What I really need is something warm," he said. "It's gone cold, or else I've caught a chill."

[Grey_Wolf]

The wind in the clouds and smoke from the chimneys changed visibly.

"Look, Mr Frodo, something up. He's not having it all his way."

It was the 15th of March, and in the fields of Pelennor, General Theoden was dying, and in the sky above him a western wind was disolving the darkness.

"This will give us some light to see the way."

They dismounted from the dirtbikes and sat down had some of the elven MRE's.

[Grey_Wolf]

After their meal they mounted the bikes again and drove off, somewhat more carefully this time.

The light, though no more than a grey dusk, was now enough for them to see that they were deep in the valley between the mountains. It sloped up gently northward, and at its bottom went the bed of a now dry and withered stream.

Beyond its stony course they saw a beaten path that wound its way under the feet of the westward cliffs.

[Grey_Wolf]

Had they known, they could have reached it quicker for it was a route that left the main Morgul road at the western end of the supension bridge and was used by security patrols and motorbiked messengers going swiftly between the lesser officebuildings and and warehouses north-away, between Cirith Ungol and the narrows of Isenmouthe, the ironjaws of Carach Angren.

It was dangerous for the hobbits to drive along this route, but they needed speed, and could not scramble about like triathlon bikers among the boulders and trackless glens of the Morgai.

And he judged that north was the least likely direction that the security personnel would think they would go.

The road east to the plain, or the pass back westward those they would search most thoroughly.

Only when they were well north of the Tower did he mean to seek a way that would take them east, east on the last desparate stage of their journey.

[Grey_Wolf]

So now they drove as stealthily as they could until they reached the narrow road and for some time they drove along it.

The cliffs at their left were overhung, and they could not be seen from above, but the road made many bends and they were always prepared to get off the it and hide in the bushes which grew along the road, but as of yet nothing had happened and on they went cautiously.

The light grey no stronger, for Orodruin was still belching forth a great fume that, beaten upwards of the opposing airs, mounted higher and higher, until it reached a region above the wind and spread out in an immeasurable roof, whose central pillar rose out of the shadows beyond their view.

They had driven slowly for more than an hour when they heard over the engine-noises a sound that brought them to a halt. Unbelievable, but unmistable. Water was trickling out of a gully on the left, so sharp and narrow that it looked as if the black cliff had been cloven by a huge axe.

Probably some sweet rain had fallen here, in the Black Land, only to trickle down into the remorselessly harsh and dry desert.

Here it came out of the rock in a little falling streamlet, and flowed across the road in a stormdrain, turning south it ran swiftly to be lost among the dead stones.

Sam went over to the flowing water.
"First light now water, if I ever see the Lady again I'll tell her." Then he stopped."I'll drink first, Mr Frodo."

"All rigth, but there is room enough for two."

"I didn't mean that. It could be poisonous, and that'll show soon enough when I take a sip. And better me than you, if you get my meaning."

"Yes, Sam, I do. But I think we can trust our luck together."

The water was icy cold and had a unpleasant taste, at once bitter and oily, as they would have said back home.

[Grey_Wolf]

They drank their fill and Sam replenished his waterbottle. After that they got back up on the bikes and drove on for several miles until they came upon a wall that warned that they were nearing an ORCer Office complex.

"This is where we turn aside and begin to head east." Frodo said."I've just about enough strenght in me to drive a bit more and find us a shelter where we can take another break."

[Grey_Wolf]

The riverbed was now some way below the road. They drove carefull down to it and over to the other side.

Here they come upon, to their surprise, dark pools fed by streams coming from sources higher up the valley.

Mordor was a dying land here. The smoke from the industries was slowly smothering it.

Grassy tussocks from ancient lawns and low scrubby trees were struggling among the rocky soil. and everywhere great writhing brambles sprawled.

Some had stabbing thorns some hooked barbs that rent like knives. The shrivelled leaves of last year still hung on them, but their maggot-ridden buds were only just opening.

Flies, genetically marked by the red eye, buzzed around and stung. Above the pools clouds of hungry midgets danced and reeled.

[Grey_Wolf]

"Good thing we got these windbreakers, eh, Mr Frodo." said Sam."They sure keep these biting flies and midgets from getting at anything but our heads."

Now the fuel was getting low in the tanks of the dirtbikes so they were forced to abandon them.

And they began walking again and did so for a long time.

At last Frodo could go no further. They had climbed up a narrow shelving ravine, but they still had a long way to go before they could even come in sight of the last craggy ridge.

"I must rest now, Sam, and sleep if I can." said Frodo.

He looked about, but there seemed nowhere even for an animal to crawl into in this dismal country.

At length, tired out, they slunk under a curtain of brambles that hung down like a mat over a low rock-face.

[Grey_Wolf]

There they sat and made such a meal as they could. Keeping back the precious Elven MRE's for the evil days ahead, they ate the half of what remained in Sam's bag of Faramir's provision: some dried fruit, and a small slip of cured meat; and they sipped some water. They had drunk again from the pools in the valley, but they were very, thirsty again.

The poluted air dried up their throats.

When Sam thought of water even his hopeful spirit quailed. Beyond the Morgai there was the dreadful plain of Gorgoroth to cross.

"Now you go to sleep first, Mr. Frodo," he said. "It's getting dark again. I reckon this day is nearly over."

[Grey_Wolf]

Frodo sighed and was asleep almost before the words were spoken. Sam struggled with his own weariness, and he took Frodo's hand; and there he sat silent till deep night fell. Then at last, to keep himself awake, he crawled from the hiding-place and looked out.

The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of voice or of foot.

Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him.

He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo's side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.

They woke together, hand in hand. Sam was almost fresh, ready for another day; but Frodo sighed.

His sleep had been uneasy, full of visions of courtrooms and malicious Black Lawyers accusing him of stealing the Package from their Master.

But after a morsel of food and a sip of water they went on up the ravine, until it ended in a sharp slope of screes and sliding stones. There the last living things gave up their struggle; the tops of the Morgai were grassless, bare, jagged, barren as a slate.

[Grey_Wolf]

After much wandering and search they found a way that they could climb, and with a last hundred feet of clawing scramble they were up. They came to a cleft between two dark crags, and passing through found themselves on the very edge of the last fence of Mordor.

Below them, at the bottom of a fall of some fifteen hundred feet, lay the inner plain stretching away into a formless gloom beyond their sight.

The wind of the world blew now from the West, and the great clouds were lifted high, floating away eastward; but still only a grey light came to the dreary industrially wasted fields of Gorgoroth.

There factories pumped out noxious fumes from tall chimneys along side fissures from which even more noxious fumes leaked.

Still far away, forty miles at least, they saw Mount Doom, its feet founded in ashen ruin, its huge cone rising to a great height, where its reeking head was swathed in cloud.

Its fires were now dimmed, and it stood in smouldering slumber, as threatening and dangerous as a sleeping beast.

Behind it there hung a vast shadow, ominous as a thunder-cloud, the tall spire of the Barad-dûr Main Office Complex that was reared far way upon a long spur of the Ashen Mountains thrust down from the North.

The Dark Power was deep in thought, and the Eye turned inward, pondering tidings of doubt and danger.

The bright silver blade of a Powersaw and the face of it's owner it saw, and for a while it gave little thought to other things.

All over the thoughts on it's great business venture, from the least post handling room to the other tower office complexes, went from it's mind and gloom spread it's depressing cloud over the land.

[Grey_Wolf]

Frodo and Sam gazed out in mingled loathing and wonder on this hateful land.

All the grounds from the foot of the rise on which they stood was ruined and polluted.

They wondered how the Dark Lawyer maintained his business venture under such horrendous conditions.

Yet the venture appeared to be an ongoing business in spite of the viciousness of the surrounding environment.

Workers and office employees scurried back and forth from the barracks, minor office buildings and factories which dotted the plain.

The largest office complex was right below them. Barely a mile out into the plain it sat right smack like a minor town.
In it an army of blue-collar and white-collar workers scurried back and forth on various assignments. A wide road ran from it south-east to join the Morgul freeway and on it lorries, SUV's and motorbikes journeyed.

"I don't like the look of things at all." said Sam."Pretty hopeless, I call it - saving that where there is such a grouping of buildings there must conveniences and places to have a drink. And these are Men not ORCers, or my eyes are all wrong."

[Grey_Wolf]

Neither he nor Frodo knew anything of the great fields by undernourished captives away south in this wide realm beyond the fumes of the Mountain by the dark poluted waters of Lake Núrnen; nor of the great autobahns that ran away east and south to the Mordor Inc Conglomerate subsidiaries from which the employees of Barad Dúr brought long convoys of lorries and long-haulers containing goods, pirated copies of dvds and fresh captives.

Here in the northward regions were the mines and huge industrial forges and the military camps of long-planned campaig; and here the Dark Lawyer, moving his employees like pieces on the board, was gathering them together.

It's first moves, the first feelers of his strenght had been checked on it's western line, southward and northward.

For the moment he withdrew them, and brought up newly hired personnel massing them about Cirith Gorgor for an avenging stroke.

And if his purpose had been to keep safe the Mount Doom Post Office he scarcely had done more.

[Grey_Wolf]

"Well!" Sam went on. "Whatever they have to eat and drink, we can't get it. There's no way down that I can see. And we couldn't cross all that open country crawling with enemies, even if we did get down."

"Still we shall have to try," said Frodo. "It's no worse than I expected. I never hoped to get across. I can't see any hope of it now. But I've still got to do the best I can. At present that is to avoid being captured as long as possible. So we must still go northwards, I think, and see what it is like where the open plain is narrower."

"I guess what it'll be like," said Sam. "Where it's narrower His employees will just be packed closer. You'll see, Mr. Frodo."

"I dare say I shall, if we ever get so far," said Frodo and turned away.

[Grey_Wolf]

They soon found that it was impossible to make their way along the crest of the Morgai, or anywhere along its higher levels, pathless as they were and scored with deep ghylls. In the end they were forced to go back down the ravine that they had climbed and seek for a way along the valley.

It was rough going, for they dared not cross over to the road on the westward side.

After a mile or more they saw, the ORCer offices built into the rock and a cluster of barracks.

There was no movement to be seen, but the hobbits crept by cautiously, keeping as much as they could to the thorn-brakes that grew thickly at this point along both sides of the old water-course.

They went two or three miles further, and the buildings were hidden from sight behind them.

But they had hardly begun to breathe more freely again when harsh and loud they heard orc-voices.

Quickly they slunk out of sight behind a brown and stunted bush. The voices drew nearer. Presently two orcs came into view.

One was clad in blue coverall, holding a small sensing device, it was of a small breed and evidently a tracker of some kind.

The other was a big ORCer official in a red t-shirt and black jeans. He held a sawed-off shotgun. And like those of Shagrat's company, he bore the token of the Eye.

[Grey_Wolf]

As usual they were quarrelling, and being of different breeds they used the Common Speech after their fashion.

Hardly twenty paces from where the hobbits lurked the small ORCer stopped. "Nar!" it snarled. "I'm going home."

It pointed across the valley to the office buildings.
"No good wearing my Sniffer out on stones any more. There's not a trace left, I say. I've lost the scent through giving way to you. It went up into the hills, not along the valley, I tell you."

"Not much use are you, that device of yours?" said the big ORCer. "I reckon eyes are better than your snotty noses."

"Then what have you seen with them?" snarled the other. "Garn! You don't even know what you're looking for."

"Whose blame's that?" said the soldier. "Not mine. That comes from Management. First they say it's a great Elf in bodyarmour, then it's a sort of small dwarf-man, then it must be a pack of lousty Black Sabbath fans of
Uruk-hai; or maybe it's all the lot together."

"Ar!" said the tracker. "They've lost their heads, that's what it is. And some of the bosses are going to lose their jobs too, I guess, if what I hear is true: Tower Complex raided and all, and hundreds of your lads done in, and prisoner got away. If that's the way you fighters go on, small wonder there's bad news from the battles."

"Who says there's bad news?" shouted the soldier.
"Ar! Who says there isn't?"

"That's cursed rebel-talk, and I'll stick you, if you don't shut it down, see?"

"All right, all right!" said the tracker. "I'll say no more and go on thinking. But what's the black sneak got to do with it all? That gobbler with the flapping hands?"

"I don't know. Nothing, maybe. But he's up to no good, nosing around, I'll wager. Curse him! No sooner had he slipped us and run off than word came he's wanted alive, wanted quick."

"Well, I hope they get him and put him through it," growled the tracker. "He messed up the scent back there, pinching that cast-off bodyarmour that he found, and paddling all round the place before I could get there."

"It saved his life anyhow," said the soldier. "Why, before I knew he was wanted I shot him, as neat as neat, at fifty paces right in the back; but he ran on."

"Garn! You missed him," said the tracker. "First you shoot wild, then you run too slow, and then you send for the poor trackers. I've had enough of you." He loped off.
"You come back," shouted the soldier, "or I'll report you!"

"Who to? Not to your precious Shagrat. He won't be captain any more."

"I'll give your name and number to the Nazgûl," said the soldier lowering his voice to a hiss. "One of them's in charge at the Tower Complex now."