Walking into Darkness by Aiwen

A Quest Impossible

We left at sunset on the next day. Saying farewell to Orodreth, Finduilas, Ereinion, Meril and to the friends that had become close as family over the years was hard. Guilin in particular would not look me in the eye, while Gwindor looked torn and miserable. What was worse was that Celegorm and Curufin came to see me off, and wished me well with their tongues while their hearts wished the very opposite, and I had to pretend for the sake of peace that I did not know. Finally, we escaped the farewells and walked off into the hills, heading North.

We traveled quietly and did not sing or speak much; there seemed little to take joy in. When we spoke it was often planning, for such things as could be planned. Little eventful happened in all the long travelling through the realm, apart from a problem at the fords of the Narog, which were somewhat deeper than usual from the first rains at the beginning of autumn. Earion lost his footing and fell in. Edrahil fished him out quickly enough, but except for the lembas, the food in his pack was ruined.

We stopped once at an outpost near the borders to take on more supplies, but otherwise we avoided settlements. The fewer who saw us and knew or wondered who we were, the better. At that one guard post though, things got interesting.

We were challenged correctly as we walked up to the gate, and I gave the answer. They let us in, and asked who we were, and I introduced us all by our mother-names and gave them the request-for-assistance forms I had drawn up back in Nargothrond. Everything went smoothly until the garrison captain saw Edrahil. He blinked, "Lord Edrahil?" he asked incredulously. "What are you doing here? We were only audited last year, and I know everything was clean." He turned to study the rest of us, and promptly spotted me. "King Finrod?! Could someone please explain what is going on?"

"We are incognito. For the moment, I am Ingold, and our mutual friend here is Arellon. You have not seen anyone you recognise, and you see no reason to mention this particular group of travellers to anyone."

He shook his head. "If you say so, Ingold." He was obviously curious, but wasn't about to ask uninvited, or tell anyone else. Good. I would have to do something about our appearance before entering the more dangerous areas - we were obviously too recogniseable. At times like these having Vanyar colouring is distinctly dangerous.

Shortly thereafter, we left the guard post and headed beyond it into the lands that had once been under my rule but were no longer. At this point, I stopped them. "While we cannot shift into orc form before meeting any orcs, we are too obvious as we are, and I do not want Beren, Edrahil or myself to be recognised if we are captured."

"That sounds like an excellent idea," Beren agreed. "How do you intend to do this?"

"Illusion. Earion, I would like you to help me with this. What I want to do is create something that will not go down if one of us is incapacitated, that will change our appearances enough so that we will not be recognized, and that is inconspicuous."

"Certainly. What changes do you want to make? Just facial features?"

"Those, hair color in my case, and race in Beren's. A group of twelve elves will cause less questions than eleven elves and one human."

Earion frowned. "Will cause... have you forseen that we will be taken captive?"

"It is certainly a possibility, and one I would like to reduce. There is also the possibility that we could be taken prisoner but be deemed unimportant so that we are illguarded, achieve the quest and escape. If Beren or I is recognised that will not happen."

Earion and I argued for a while over the mechanics, and then we began. Softly we sang, first myself and then both of us in fifths, eyes closed, weaving the illusion into being with our minds and voices. It might not have taken long in real time, but while we sang time ceased to matter to us. I opened my eyes as I sang the final chord. Nobody was recognizable as anyone I knew, and my hair was now black. Which one was Beren?

The elf and the end of the row shook his head and looked down at his hands with an expression of astonishment. "Well, I never pictured myself as an elf, but you seem to have managed to quite handily," he said, then looked somewhat startled as his voice had shifted in tone and pitch.

"Ah, we are not all that different," I said. " Trying to make elves look like orcs, now that is a challenge."

"Considerably harder will be getting us to act like orcs", Edrahil added. " I believe you have observed the orcs more closely than we have, Beren, so we're going to be relying on your advice."

"I've certainly seen enough of them to know how they act." said Beren. "We're going to have to practice once we are in orc form. How do you plan to do that, by the way? More illusions?"

"Yes, but with something as different as an orc I need to have actual orcs," I explained. "The more we can do that is real and not illusion, the better it will hold up to inspection by the enemy and the easier it will be to hold what is illusion. We are going to have to find some orcs and take their clothes for disguise."

"That makes sense," said Beren. "I take it that elvish magic works according to rules like the physical world? This is fascinating to watch and nobody ever explains what they are doing."

"Yes, it has rules. If we get out of this, I'll explain it in as much detail as your heart can desire and possibly more."

"I'd like that," said Beren, and smiled. "Luthien never did explain how she causes the flowers to spring to life at her touch."

"You'd do better asking her that. I'm not particularly good with plants and I'm not sure how she does it."

"I will do that then, someday."

The land became much wilder as we continued north. There was still signs of settlement, but they were almost all abandoned. Half-charred empty villages, farmhouses where the fields had gone wild and were full of weeds. The uncultivated areas were in better shape, but even here the signs of the occupation were visible in the form of trees cut and left to rot and random burned areas. Orcs. What those foul things had done to this beautiful area... I felt sick. And there would be far worse to come.

Three days later, we found a crew of orcs suitable for our purposes. It was somewhat larger than ideal, being more than twice as large as our group at thirty orcs to twelve people. Still, with the advantage of surprise it should do. We trailed them until they made camp a couple of hours before dawn. They had chosen a dark dell, and there lit fires, over which they began to cook a meal. We spread out, each one of us behind a separate tree, bent our bows and drew the strings. The orcs did not hear us.

"Utulie'n aure!" I cried, and we shot. I dropped my bow and drew my sword to attack the nearest orc. It screeched, and threw the pointed stick it had been cooking some meat on at me before trying to draw its weapon. It was too slow and I ran it through, then turned to meet the sword of the orc that had come up behind me. Beren stabbed that orc in the back, before chasing down the one with the cooking pot. Within three minutes, the orcs were dead and the fight was over. None had escaped.

Now began the gruesome part: picking through the bodies and stripping them of their clothing and their gear. Nothing fit, of course, and everything stank. Well, at least we'd smell like orcs. We re-assembled in our foul, ill-fitting, clothing with hanks of orc hair spread over our own. Now that we were as much like orcs as we could be without magic, we were ready for the addition of the illusions. This would be tricky, but at least I wouldn't be trying to coordinate my song with that of another. Working alone was so much simpler than group magic. I fixed the image in my mind of what I wanted, and began to sing of ugliness: of sharp fangs, of bowed legs, of yellow eyes thet see in the dark but fear the sunlight, of black blood, of crooked shape and scowling mien, of harsh voices that never sing in tune. As I did this, I could hear my own voice harshen and I knew that the change was complete. I sang the spell closed, and opened my eyes.

We were orcs.