Aiwendil turned in appreciation and smiled at Gilli who was playing a sprightly fiddle tune. The old man would have liked to stop and dance, but there was no time for that. A more serious business called. Eerie noises still drifted from the carrels above, as glimmers of light flashed and beckoned from inside the pages of books. These tiny sparks glowed for an instant and, if no one picked up on them, quietly faded into darkness. There seemed to be quite a bit of fading going on in the dusty recesses of the stacks.
Aiwendil’s eyes traveled warily from one end of the wall to the other and then inched upward towards the domed ceiling. He could sense no real animosity or evil here, only hearts filled with mischief or resignation. Whatever live bodies or spirits inhabited these particular halls, they were unlikely to be the ones he had come to find. And yet Aiwendil could not throw off the feeling that the dangers Hedwig had described were somewhere close by, close enough that the creatures in question could actually see the things he was doing.
The old man sat down uneasily in front of the terminal screen and pulled out a long sheet of rumpled paper from his back pocket. It was a simple scribbled list that anyone except Aiwendil would have a hard time deciphering. The original listing had been even longer than this, but a number of the other sites had gone out of business after the uproar over the films died down. Even so, it would take him some time if he was going to try and visit every site appearing on the sheet.
http://www.lotrplaza-we'rethebiggest!com
http://www.councilofelrondandarwen.com
http://www.planet-tolkienandlewis.com
http://www.minastirithrising up.com
www.writersofrohanandtheshire.com
http://www.theonering.net/rumourmill. html
http://www.khazaddumonlyforthefoolhardy.com
http://www.glyphweb/wikicombined.com
http://ardalmabion for the brave
www.mythsocforthestuffy.org
www.tolkiensociety-we're the best!.org
www.forum.barrowdowns.com
In his haste to get something down on paper, Aiwendil was sure that he had overlooked a number of important sites. But the old man did not have the time or patience to do any more research, and he was hopeful that at least one of the names on the list would yield something interesting. Hedwig had sworn he had overheard whispered conversations between several of the nighttime beasts about strange and potentially perilous goings on. One fruit bat had even hinted that on the eve of Samhain some of the more powerful shadow creatures would claw a terrible rent in the fabric of the veil and threaten to overwhelm the world of man.
Aiwendil sincerely hoped that he would find Hedwig had been wrong about these rumors. In the old, old days he had left such headaches to Gandalf as he had no special love for untangling other people’s problems. But alas, after Gandalf sailed west, he sometimes had to exert himself, since no one more appropriate was left to deal with these matters. Once in a hundred years the
istar might receive a reassuring dream from Manwe or his own beloved Yavanna to let him know he had not been totally forgotten. But he could not remember the last time he had received such a message of hope.
Aiwendil sat down at the terminal crossing his fingers that the electronic beast would behave and allow him to get on these various sites. The old man had a limited understanding of computers and, if anything went wrong, he was never sure how to fix them. In that one respect, luck was with him. He quickly logged on and began pulling up the various sites. His actual search results, however, were far from encouraging. He had hoped to find some mention of the goings on that Hedwig referred to. Fans of the professor were quite good at digging up rumors and passing them on, even if they misunderstood many key elements of the legendarium to an even greater degree than Master Tolkien had done.
In the first place, one or two of the sites were filled with off-topic conversations that were totally useless for Aiwendil’s purposes. The quality of the posting was definitely going down. Many of the other sites contained endless gibberish about a few, fixed questions: Balrog wings, speculation on where the Lady Ents had gone, and lively debates on who Tom Bombadil actually was. Aiwendil could have settled each of these problems for the mortal posters. Someday, he would take the time to do a post and tell them what the real answers were, but tonight he did not have that luxury. He pushed on to some of the more serious sites, the ones that dealt with languages and books and provided short reference articles. Surely, these learned people would have picked up on any serious threat to the health and happiness of 7th Age Arda. Again, he met with disappointment. The old fellow was getting desperate since he was down to the last name on the list:
http://www.barrowdowns.com. It was a rather smallish website with an odd color scheme of black, green and orange. Aiwendil ruefully concluded that this must be the Barrow-wight’s idea of a bad joke. Despite the dreadful color scheme, the site did seem like an appropriate place for creatures of the night to gather.
This time at least, there was a large Books forum. Aiwendil carefully read over all the recent posts but could not find anything beyond the usual references to Balrog wings. He clicked on another link and was taken to a spot where people were playing games about werewolves. For one moment, the
istar considered the possibility that the threat to the peace of Arda might actually be an invasion by werewolves. But this did not seem probable, and he could get no sense that any real peril motivated the light hearted if gruesome words of these particular posters. About to give up and wander back to his cottage in the woods, the
istar impulsively clicked on a link that took him to a series of role playing games. He was shocked and dismayed to skim over one story that totally misrepresented his own character and actions. If he ever got hold of that “Child”, he would give her a scolding in no uncertain terms! Still he could see nothing that reminded him of what Hedwig had spoken.
In desperation, Aiwendil went further down the screen to “Elvenhome”, apparently the cemetery for games that had died. Surely, if the dark creatures had posted a notice of their intent this would be the appropriate place. He clicked through a list of games, most of them finished but a few half done, and then worked his way back to the very oldest ones. It was on the last page that he saw it. With excitement glowing in his eye, the old man called over to Jack, “Come here! Take a look at this. Do you think this means anything?” Aiwendil pointed to the first post in a half done story. It was apparently from the very old days of the RPG forums before the moderator Piosenniel and her sidekick Child managed to bring order to the chaos. It was a time when magical weapons and chat discussions abounded; the games could and did center on some very strange topics…...