The storm had hit them with its full force as soon as they had gained the heights.
The bitter cold threatened to consume them, seeping into their very core. Snow flurried against their chapped faces and before their feet, making the narrow way almost impossible to traverse. Carnthardlee Pass was proving very difficut to surpass. It was if the very storm itself was aimed at them.
“It’s as if the very storm itself is aimed at us,” muttered Halfullion to himself. He threw away the apple he had been eating with disgust, cold seemed to have seeped into its very core.
“We’re in dire straits now!” shouted Etceteron. He led the way with his broad shoulders, an odd gait, even for him, but even he was being defeated by the unending onslaught of wind, snow and ice and other rather maligned elements of mountain-top weather.
“We are in a bit of a jam,” confirmed Pimpi. “I hear the clash of our doom upon us.”
“Living on The Edge,” muttered Merisuwyniel. There were groans and moans out there in the storm.
“You too?” asked Halfullion, right behind her, spending much of his time teetering on the edge of the abyss. His sword, which dangled over the edge of the cliff, had chosen this inopportune moment to become the biggest size it could, and it took all of Halfullion’s strength to keep it from dragging him down.
“Yes, in excess danger!” replied Merisuwyniel, at the top of her lungs.
“In excess?” questioned Halfullion. “This is suicide, blonde.” He seemed all shaken up.
“Halfie, I need you tonight,” pleaded Merisuwyniel. “Please come together.”
Ahead of them, they saw Pettygast shouldering through the drifts back towards them. “Here come ol’ flat-top!” said Halfullion. “Come as you are!” he shouted to the by now thoroughly grungy wizard.
“A rolling stone gathers no moss,” said the wizard, somehow clearly audible above the deafening roar of the winds. The wind picked up and it seemed they would be lifted from the precipice like beetles swept from a log. The others looked at Pettygast, puzzled.
“All we need is a shove!” cried Pettygast. “Shove is all we need.” He pointed to the side of the cliff face, where a nick in the rock revealed a cave beyond. Merisuwyniel saw the possibility of hiding from the wuthering heights, better cover than a bush, and better by far than running up that hill.
“Come together!” she called. “Right now. We need to get into that house, before the rising sun shows our enemies precisely where we are.” They began to squeeze through the gap, one by one.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
When they were all inside, they took stock of their surroundings. Pettygast created a flame from his staff, allowing them to see further into the recesses of the cave. There was a warm, fetid smell, but they were all too relieved to be inside, away from the storm to notice.
“Nevermind that it’s not nirvana,” said Pettygast. “I think we are just relieved to be out of the storm. It would seem that there are suspicious minds and cunning eyes out there, who would wish harm upon us…”
“What do we have to eat?” asked Pimpi, immediately. “I think I have some pumpkins saved in my pack.”
“So we are to spend all night smashing pumpkins, eh?” asked Halfullion, tetchily, but he participated in the meal when it was served.
“We should wait out the storm here,” said Merisuwyniel, wiping pumpkin juice from her chin. They heard strange wails from outside the cave. The wind still streamed in, threatening to have them all dancing on the ceiling. “We need to block the entrance better.”
“And we are surrounded by riders in the storm!” cried Etceteron in great terror. “This could be The End!”
“Look, will someone just get the doors?” pleaded Merisuwyniel. Etceteron, Orogarn Two and Halfullion strode heroically towards the appointed openings. “It won’t take three of you!” she shouted, exasperated.
Halfullion turned back towards her, his most charming smile lighting up his face. “Yet you, fair Merisuwyniel, are once, twice, three times a lady.”
Thus mollified, she watched them get to work on the loose stones at the entrance, piling them into a barricade against the wind and snow.
“Snow keeps falling at my feet,” complained Etceteron.
“Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you,” remarked Orogarn Two, dryly. “It’s something of a crowded house in here.”
He was not far wrong. The Multiple Choice Questors, their bags and their mounts crowded the part of the cave that was lit by Pettygast’s staff. The air was rather clammy with their breath. As the rocks slid into place in the entrance a more permanent darkness set up camp around the area lit by the wizard’s staff.
“Halfie, sweet, please tell us a story,” said Merisuwyniel. “To take our minds off whatever is outside.”
The Lord Gormlessar returned to the circle of friends, and sat cross-legged. “I will tell you of my first love, and how we were parted,” he said. “A tale of sadness for such a time.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“She was working as a waitress in a cocktail Inn, when I met her. Her name was Lolathiel, and she was a showgirl, but that was many years ago, when there used to be a show. ‘Twas the Copa, Copa-Cobana, an Inn in downtown Edoras, and the hottest spot north of Gondor. Music and passion were always the fashion at the Copa. We were in love. Some called it just puppy love, but to us it was full-grown. We lived like wild horses, running through the night, from party to adventure. Ah, those were the days.”
Merisuwyniel frowned and shifted uncomfortably.
“But it soon, ended as all these things do… She finally snapped…”
Quote:
LOLATHIEL: Look, now go! Walk out the door now.
She shouts shrilly after him. He half turns, tears upon his noble visage.
LOLA: Don’t turn around now, because you’re not welcome any more. I should have changed those stupid locks, I should have thrown away the key, if I’d known for just one second, you’d be back to bother me.
The young Halfullion turns to the audience. His face is drawn with anguish as he launches into his soliloquy.
HALFULLION: Oh, mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head. He pauses. And I know it’s over, but still I cling. I don’t know where else I can go. Over, it’s over, it’s over. I know it’s over – and it never really began; but in my heart it was so real.
LOLA who has crept up behind him and sees his hurt, but whose face is still embittered) : If you’re so funny then why are you on your own tonight? And if you’re so clever, why are you on your own tonight? If you’re so very entertaining, why are you on your own tonight? If you’re so terribly good-looking, then why do you sleep alone tonight? Because tonight is just like any other night. With your triumphs and your charms, while they are in each other’s arms…
HALF (breaking in) : Stop your crying, it’s not helping. Listen to your heart. Everybody hurts, sometimes. So hold on, just hold on. You can lean on me, I just wanna hold your hand. His voice breaks with emotion. Everytime you go away, you take a little piece of me away. Stop crying your heart out, please…
LOLA: It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to. Don’t go breaking my heart, I implore you.
|
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Lord Gormlessar’s voice tailed off into the darkness, and those listening found they could draw breath again. His finely chiselled features revealed a deep-anguish. Merisuwyniel went to him and murmured into his ear.
“We are just talking heads,” she said. “Now stop whispering about your subterranean homesick blues and let’s find a way to get out of this place.”
He nodded heroically, and stood, casting off his dysphoria as one would discard sodden underwear. It appeared as though someone or something had adroitly blocked the entrance to the cave with several boulders and rocks, cunningly put together. There was no exit that way. Grabbing Pettygast’s flaming wand, he ventured towards the dark back passage.
“We’ll have to go the back way,” he whispered. Heroically taking the lead, he strode forth, towards the rear of the cave, shrouded in darkness, like something really dark. The flickering light revealed glimpses of what was beyond. However, the light was clearly failing and Halfullion turned to Pettygast, who shuffled his feet a little shamefacedly.
“What now, bearded one?” enquired Halfullion, trying not to bristle.
Pettygast took the implied scorn on the chin but replied in a not particularly dignified squeak. “It’s not my fault! I can make it go brighter…but…the colour is always off.”
Merisuwyniel laughed, a sound that even the most irascible of oysters would confess was pearl-like. “Dear Pettygast! We care not for the colour of your staff, just what it shows us!”
“Very well then,” said the wizard. “But I warn you…” He closed his eyes and concentrated. Presently the wand in Halfullion’s grasp began to glow, a bright…pink. A particularly shocking pink. A pink that would cause even the straightest of dies to give a skewed roll. A pink that shook the very foundations of morality. A pink later outlawed in Hyaborn Elassar’s Anti-Pink Act of the early Fourth Age.
“Wow,” said Orogarn Two. “That’s…revolting.”
“I rather like it,” said Halfullion and turned back to the rear of the cave, now illuminated, pinkly, by the wizard’s staff. He gasped. The rear of the cave held no wall, but instead a curtain of water, falling from some unseen ledge above, to a pool someway below and through the curtain. The coloured light created a quite exquisite rainbow of purples and pinks in the sheer sheen of the waterfall.
“Purple rain,” breathed Halfullion. “That’s a princely sight.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Behind the mask of water, a passage descended fiercely, but smoothly, carved, spiralling down towards the foot of the mountain and the plains beyond. There they would strike camp. Canthardlee Pass had defeated them.
[ January 21, 2003: Message edited by: Rimbaud ]