Mirkwood: A Novel About J.R.R. Tolkien

“Tell me what you’re seeing or I’m going to bonk you with this lamp!”

He put the papers down solemnly and looked over at her. “We’re in trouble, Cadence. More than I thought.” Then he again stared at the pages. “I’m going to read you the first one. It’s short. It’s in beautiful Elvish, by someone that seems to have the power to see at least some of the future. I may stumble a little, but here goes:

The fate of the tale of the hobbittess lies at a time and place distant even to my eyes. The world changes now with breathless speed, and much will be sundered from our influence and concern. But this I have seen: Holder will be the Hunted. Alansis!

“I think,” he interrupted, “that last word is a colloquialism, an imprecation like a ‘God Be With Them’ sort of phrase. So then it finishes with:”

May they sense the monsters that follow.

“What is that about?”

“It’s a warning beacon. Buried right in these texts. Putting the documents back together with the translation key just upped their power to attract these, what did it say, monsters. I think this is real. This isn’t shadows in the subway or a fairy tale or a video game. There may be no second chance, no restart.” “So what’s the other page say?”

“Here, you read it. It’s a note, probably from Tolkien, probably never sent. It was paper-clipped to the piece I just read.”

She picked the page up. It was undated, but in the familiar scrawl of the Good Professor Tolkien:

Jack,

Your point on the lectures is well taken, though some may not take it well. We shall see. As we discussed last Tuesday at the Bird and Baby, the approach of All Hallows Eve increasingly fills me with a dread that isn’t about Hollywood monsters.

It’s about something both ancient and unsettling. I have found a translation tool for much of this trove of documents. Use of it has unnerved me, for I fear that some, at least, of this Elvish must be the work of Dark Elves that make merry with caprice and ill-luck to others. It may be far worse; they may seek to forge a portal into our own time, into our very midst. The crux is this. The intensity of this damnable pile increases every fall, peaking on All Hallows, that ancient pre-Christian time, like the rise of some marauding fen-beast from the wastes below the keep.

Let’s hope I am just imagining things again. More when next we see each other.

JRRT

As she put the page down, he said out loud, “Don’t you see? We’re the Holder. We’re the Hunted!” He was losing it. She could almost smell the fried rotors in that old Emporia mixer.

She decided to stop the madness, at least temporarily. “Os, you’re at burnout. Put down the paper and pen. Stand up and walk out the door. We’re going to sit down and have a nice, civil lunch. As usual. On Mel.”

They convened in the Round Table Room. The same waiter fussed agreeably over them. They munched on designer bread, and didn’t begin to talk until the soup came. She waited until they agreed that the bean and ham soup was quite nice.

“Os, what do you think is going on? You know something.”

As usual, he deflected. “I can tell you the big picture as I see it, and then the situation we are in right now. And, Cadence …”

“What?”

“After I say my piece, will you agree to return home, go somewhere? Leave?”

“I’ll think about it. Now tell me.”

Chilled forks carried by unobtrusive hands came in from the side, along with icy plates of asparagus spears.

Osley began, “Here it is. All boiled down. Let’s indulge the assumption, one held by the majority of people — including Professor Tolkien in his own heart-of-hearts — that all sorts of fantastical things and places do exist, right here in our midst. Indulge, also, the thought that maybe there was once an embodiment of power — a wand or ring or pointy hat or something like that. The name of it—‘Bind’—keeps coming up. Maybe it was evil. But for every ounce of malevolence there was an equal measure of magic bound to it. With its loss went much of the magical power of our little corner of the universe. The twinkle went out.”

He took a swig of iced tea to bolster his pace. “This left a vacuum. The loss of this object did cost the world much. Into that vacuum, evil once again crept — not the evil that bears a capital letter in its name, but evil that is diffuse and cannot be wholly cornered or pegged down. It lives everywhere and compounds the petty and tawdry into horrors that are unnamed and often unnoticed. You can see this everywhere.”

“Try right here. Give me a for-example.”

He held up both hands to form an oval window the size of a football. “Fume, Narcross, the Great Eye that sees all …” then his right hand closed to a smaller circle, “… has been replaced by the little eyes. First TVs, then computer screens, now these phones. They are everywhere. They communicate to all. They speak the perfect hidden language of the pedestrian evil that is the lot of the Fourth Age. This manuscript, and all those who consort with it, are in danger. Someone is uncomfortable with it, not merely for the tale it tells, but with its very physical existence!”

“You think this Elvish keeps some of the original twinkle alive?”

“Most certainly, even though the hands that wrote it will never return.”

“But Ara, her story and her existence …?”

“I’m afraid, whatever we do, her days may be numbered.”

“Why?”

“Do you not suspect the answer? You are the steward of this document. Surely you must see something. Speak up!”

“Well, I’ve thought for a long time …”

“Sometimes Cadence, behind everything there is a question. It may be so hidden we never see it. It may be at the edge of our mind. It may be a whisper on the sea sounds floating up through the long spirals of a shell held to our ear. But not this question. This one is clear. Tell me the blunt question.”

“OK. What happened to the women?”

“Precisely! There must have been a process of censorship. Tolkien was discovering a myth. But myths don’t stay still. Something wants to erase the story of this once-famous heroine.”

“All right, Inspector Os, who is the culprit?”

Osley looked stymied.

Cadence picked up the inquiry, “OK, let’s look at what’s evident. This manuscript maybe, just maybe, fills in something from the Middle Ages, or Middle-earth or Middle somewhere. Take your pick. Or out of the mind of some writer.”

“Or some translator. Is that it? You think I’m making this up?”

“No, Os. You’re a type, just not that type.” Cadence didn’t signal her lingering doubt.

Osley kept on rolling. “Look, Ara was a mover and a shaker. She must have played a role far bigger than we have read so far. That’s the key!”

Cadence thought for a second. “Fine, I’ll play. We’re here eating. Let’s set the rest of the table, a mystery- story dinner to find the culprit. Who are the guests?”

“Well, not the authors of these manuscripts. They could have been participants in the tale, their descendents, or, more likely, historians in later ages. But that’s missing the point.”

“Ara?”

“Yes, at our own end of the table, at the head, is Aragranessa, the famous halfling, daughter of Achen. And you, my dear Cadence, are the Steward and the Holder. You sit at her right hand. Now who shall be our other guests?”

“Professor Tolkien?”

“Ah, yes. Our special guest. Just to stir things up. Let’s seat him in the middle, on Ara’s left, so he needn’t have to take sides.”