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The Nightmare - Part 17

by Bex

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I was facing away from the door - as it opened, I turned my head to look back over my shoulder.

It was Martz.

We stared at each other for a few moments. "I thought he told you not to 'play' with me," I said finally, evenly, turning to face him.

He grinned at the reminder. "We play later. Right now, you're wanted."

Wanted...wanted. Apparently elsewhere in this place, for he stomped over and grabbed me by an arm and yanked, his way of encouraging me to go with him.

I yelped, and went.

*****

Down a myriad of steps we went, confirming my guess that this was Orthanc. Apparently further up, for we descended for several minutes, my guide pulling at the grip he had on my arm whenever my steps faltered.

I, meanwhile, was trying to maintain my footing on the narrow steps. My Uruk companion would lope over several at a time; I was trying to scramble down behind him.

One such yank surprised a curse out of me. Below me, Martz halted suddenly.

"What you call me?"

Heart hammering, I schooled my face to utter blankness. "Nothing."

"'Nothing'? This 'ass hoe' means 'nothing?'

No reply from me.

He sneered at me and started onwards, with the most vicious yank yet, and I stumbled forward. "It is not Martz who is 'nothing'. We will soon see who is 'nothing'."

Indeed.

*****

A couple of minutes later, we turned off the stairs into a doorway, and proceeded forward into a large, round chamber.

It was decorated with carvings and pillars; torches flickered in wall-sconces.

My heart sank further. Definitely a wizard's demesne.

Martz let go of my arm, but just so he could give me a hearty shove forward. I stumbled forward and regained my balance, not even bothering to shoot the vicious look I had ready at the Uruk, instead reserving it for the instigator of all this, the Istar before me, seated on the chair on the dais--

The shaper of modern Isengard, next to whom was standing a somewhat familiar figure.

What happened next might have been amusing, had it occurred in some other circumstance. Both of us muttered "You?!" at about the same moment, out of pure surprise.

It was Radagast the Brown, his own staff in hand, standing there next to a bemused Saruman.

"This is the human you drew here yesterday?" the Brown Wizard asked, blinking.

"Yes. Yet you appear to have met each other before..." The Master of Isengard was relaxed, unperturbed...but keen gaze flicking between the both of us.

For a few moments, Radagast stared at me without expression.

And then that bastard ratted me out.

*****

Saruman was highly amused. "At the Council of Elrond, you say? 'Brought across' by someone there, as I have done here? Offered them counsel from the book?" He leaned forward slightly to peer at me, eyes bright. "I understand better now your reticence!" He sat back again. "But it is to no avail - I have already been made aware of the Fellowships' plans."

At his use of the plural, I looked at him sharply, and he nodded. "I know of their deception - who goes, whence they plan to go...and with which group travels the true Ringbearer." He nodded aside at the Istar next to him. "My colleague here has made a wise choice of allies. Unlike some." Radagast was staring at me, still expressionless.

And I felt the rage building in me. Now the meaning behind that chapter title I'd seen - 'The Betrayal' - was all too clear. But all I did at the moment was to look over at Radagast where he stood. "You son of a bi--"

It was Radagast, not Saruman, who lifted a hand in a sharp gesture, face suddenly stormy. An invisible, giant hand plucked me up off the floor several feet, then released me. I crashed back down in a heap and lay, half-stunned, not daring to move for the moment.

I heard Saruman chuckle. "Your temper grows shorter as the years pass, my friend."

Radagast's voice was taught with anger. "She named you an enemy to all of Middle Earth before the Council in Imladris. Impudent from the first that I met her."

I continued to lie on the floor and thought dully: Sorry, Temeril... But it appears that I was right... and you were wrong. He really doesn't like me.

Saruman, apparently flattered by Radagast's righteous indignation on his behalf, began to wax poetic. "It is those of you who oppose the unification of Arda who are the true traitors. You will be swept away by the new order that is to come..."

I closed my eyes and started to wish I'd been knocked unconscious when Radagast had thrown me.

So I struck back with the only weapon I had.

Words.

"It doesn't matter how much you change the story, you know - you won't win," I said in a conversational tone. I opened my eyes again and stared up at the ceiling. "You didn't get the Ring in the very beginning, before anyone even knew you were trying...and you won't get it now." No rage from me now. Just calm confidence. My words felt true, felt right...even in the face of the present situation.

Plus, something I remembered thinking about several days ago in Imladris had returned to me. "My coming here originally wasn't an accident." I pushed myself to a sitting position to stare across the chamber at Saruman...the better to watch him make the obvious connections.

The present struggle on Arda had not gone unnoticed. And Saruman's 'coup' of discovering the 'future' in a story... had been countered - and negated.

He would not be allowed that blatant an unfair advantage.

The Master of Isengard sat on his seat, sunk deep in thought. Radagast remained standing next to him, calmly now, his expression unreadable.

"You're simply not destined to win."

Saruman slowly raised his head, and I flinched under his baleful gaze, regretting that last goad.

Too late; too late.

When he got to his feet and descended from his chair, still staring at me, a sudden fear seized me, a desperation to escape so instinctual that, sore as I was, I scrambled to my feet and looked wildly about for some way out.

But there was nowhere to go.

I turned back from the brace of Uruk-Hai who blocked the doorway to the outside, to look at their Master.

"Come here."

That's not the sort of invitation you accept.

You run.

And so I did.

I got about 5 yards before a pair of Uruks snagged me and dragged me over to where their Master stood.

"There is something you must see," he told me, dark eyes glittering. "Only then will you finally understand. " I caught a glimpse of Radagast where he stood nearby. He did not look happy.

I did not puzzle over that at the time, though. I was much too busy being concerned for myself, as my guards wrenched me around and I found myself blinking at a sudden flutter of fabric being drawn away from a glass sphere in whose depth vague, murky shapes roiled...

By the time I realized what I was gazing at... I was already caught.

*****

I stood frozen, my mind automatically straining to see what churned within the depths of the Palantir, and abruptly I was elsewhere--

--on a darkling plain, a waste of stone cracked with fissures, graced by nothing living, not even the simplest of vegetation.

I reeled, caught my balance, then froze--

The Presence from my 'dream' of home. It was here, it knew I was here.

I knew what it was, now, what was coming. The Eye.

There is a terror so complete... so all-encompassing... so obscene...that surely you will die of it.

Except that you don't.

I could not run, I could not move, could only to drop to my knees, throwing up my arms in a futile warding gesture. And scream - not aloud, but with every fiber of my being.

The 'Cat' had arrived.

A baleful, red flickering light pounded past my squeezed-shut eyes; a sensation of power akin to the radiation from the hottest fire, yet at the same time not heat, pulsed in continuous, raging waves off the Presence before me. Surely it would scorch away my very being...

My mental scream did not stop. Truly, I could not stop - it was my instinctive aversion to this Being who was before me, poised to reach a delicate tendril into my mind and know all that I knew, all that I was--

A hand suddenly, impossibly grabbed my right arm from behind, and I jerked as it pulled, slid to clasp my own hand. I tottered to my feet, the shock of this connection interrupting my anguish so that even through the waves of scorching intent, I somehow heard the voice calling out to me.

The Terror abated just enough for me to turn my head to look.

Temeril stood behind me, his right hand flung out, clasping mine, his own face twisted in horror of the Thing before us.

But his grip did not falter.

The next instant, two figures appeared behind him in quick succession, just 'popping' into being; incredibly, impossibly, I saw Arwen Evenstar, and behind her, her father, she grasping Temeril's free hand, Elrond, hers, creating a sudden chain of support--

--both their faces intent with concentration, both radiating their own energy, adding it to Temeril's, all of it combining and flowing over our group like a cool balm, then, barely glimpsed, a fourth figure behind them abruptly joining our chain--

Then something WRENCHED, and I knew nothing more.

~End Part 17~