The Forging of the Ring by Uvatha the Horseman

March 22 – The Rehearsal

The day of the first dry run.

March 22 The Rehearsal

Mairon woke in his tent on the slopes of Orodruin. It was chilly on the mountainside, and the wind blew unceasingly. The servants must be up already. The smell of campfire smoke and freshly brewed tea made its way through the ever present sulfur fumes. He dressed quickly and joined the others around the campfire.

He stood on a rock and addressed his people. The volcano made a roaring sound like a river about to flood it banks, and he had to shout to be heard over it.

"Today is a rehearsal, but let's make it as real as we can." he said.

He led the way to the door of the Sammath Naur. They assembled at the back of the chamber where it was cooler. He put his notebook on the corner of a workbench and assigned two workers to guard it, then turned to address his people. "Let us begin."

Protective clothing was laid out in rows on a bench: long sleeved leather gloves and thick soled boots, piles of heat resistant clothing, and for those working closest to the crack, leather hoods with goggles of mica to protect their eyes.

He had never worked in protective gear before. Like any blacksmith, he usually wore a linen shirt and wool leggings, covered by a heavy leather apron and heavy boots. He tied back his hair, but he didn't wear gloves.

It was time to suit up. He put on a padded leather tunic over his shirt and pulled the thick leather leggings over his woolen hose. The boots were taller than he usually wore, and hard to walk in. The gloves were rigid gauntlets that reached to the elbow. He put the hood on last. It limited his vision. He could only see what was directly in front of him, and that was dark and distorted by the mica.

There were complaints from the smiths. The gloves would make them clumsy. They couldn't see through the mica. He was endangering the success of the project. Mairon ignored them.

A helper gave each of them a script describing what he needed to do in the first phase of the procedure. Mairon checked his script against the master timeline on the workbench. The two versions of the procedure agreed.

He walked up to an anvil mounted on a slab of granite at the edge of the crack. In the Sammath Naur, they couldn't attach it to a block of wood, it would burn.

"I'll raise the molten rock to the floor of the chamber and hold it there, to make sure I can do it tomorrow."

When he willed it, the yellow-orange magma rose almost to his feet. The heat increased into a new order, and the others backed away, leaving him alone at the crack. He rehearsed the motions he would go through tomorrow while his assistants watched from eight or ten feet away.

He completed a sequence and prepared to begin the next one. He motioned for the scribe to bring him the script, but while he was reading it beside the edge, the paper burst into flames. All the scripts would have to be rewritten on parchment before the Forging.

After he completed the next sequence, he joined the others in the back of the chamber where it was cooler. He set the tongs down on the workbench and started to pull off his hood. The tongs hit the floor with a crash and made him jump. He bent down and put them back on the workbench, avoiding the eyes of the others.

"Don't mind me, I meant to do that." he said.

His people were right. The gauntlets made his hands clumsy. The mask was uncomfortable, and he couldn't see well through the eye slits. He pulled it off and tossed it aside, then returned to the edge. He smelled something pungent, which he assumed was fumes from the pit below.

"Your hair is on fire!" an apprentice yelled.

He dropped his hammer. The apprentice grabbed his hair in a gloved fist to smother the flames. When he let go, Mairon pulled off his own glove and touched his hair. It felt brittle and wiry, and crumpled in his hand.

They finished up after dark. He gathered the group together and made the announcement.

"The rehearsal was a success. Tomorrow at dawn, we will begin the Forging."

He heard murmurings of excitement. They walked back to camp in a group, where they crowded around the water barrels, then went off to change into less sweaty clothes.

-o-o-o-o-o-

They sat around the campfire that night, perched on barrels and saddles and convenient boulders. Mairon was bone weary, but deeply satisfied with how the day had gone.

The cook ladled food onto tin plates and passed them around, while a servant filled tin cups from a wine skin. They talked about every single thing that happened during the rehearsal, discussing what had worked well and what could be changed.

"Chief, one suggestion. Why don't we put a line of sandbags along the edge of the crack, and move the anvil back a foot or two? I'm just thinking, what if something gets dropped? You wouldn't want it to roll into the crack." said his Chief Assistant.

Mairon bristled. "Are you implying I'm clumsy?"

"No, no, not at all. But accidents do happen."

Mairon set his plate down on a rock and made a sweeping gesture.

"Oh really? When have you ever seen me .. "

His hand struck the edge of the plate and sent it flying. It landed face-down in the cinders.

"Umm … You said sandbags? Fine, whatever." said Mairon.