[Undómë]

‘Daisy, yes?’ Jack smiled toward the Hobbits as they came out from their hiding place. ‘Best you not go into the Library. The wights and wraiths who guard the book barrow have some business to be about this night. He motioned for them to follow along with his companions. ‘Did you not see the torogs and yrchs.....goblins and trolls?’ He gave them no time to answer, but picked up the pace as they exited the tunnel and headed toward the door of the little book repository they found themselves in.

‘Ssshhh!’ Jack whispered, finger to his lips as they slipped out into the shadows that ran along the side of the building. Once clear of building and in the cover of a small coppice of beech and low growing bushes, Jack halted the little group and spoke low to them. ‘You can make your way back to the alleyway and the warehouse if you head across the field there,’ he said pointing to the stubbly acre which lay between them and the two-lane track back into the little commerce district of New Ford.

His eyes glittered in the pale moonlight, what stars there were tracking in tiny bursts across the greyed orbs as he turned his head to look back toward the library. ‘I, for one, am off to see what mischief the dark ones have done. And if I might lend a hand somehow,’ he added as an afterthought.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Jack could feel the others of his companions, or at least some of them, following along behind him as he made his swift, quiet way to the library’s main entrance. Nearing the little pathway that led up to the marbled steps, he ducked down behind the pedestal holding one of the stone bears that greeted visitors entering the library grounds. Less friendly they seemed to him tonight as he looked up at the one he stood beneath. Was that a gleam of tooth he saw catching the lamplight from the street corner? Did his eyes betray him – were the lips drawn back in a menacing way? Did the hair bristle along the nape of its neck?

His ears caught the sound of softly beaten drums; hand drums he thought. Like a heartbeat in the night. And then he saw them....

It was the ones that Gilli had spoken of. There in a half ring about the base broad steps leading up to the front door was a group of twenty or so people. Some wore their hair long in dark braids tied with pieces of red twine or short - the salt and pepper locks spiked up in an uneven thatch. Faded jeans and flannel shirts hugged their bodies, lean or generous in their proportions. Upon their feet were soft leather slippers, dusty with dirt from those places which they’d passed. And those feet were planted firm upon the stone of the walkway and on the grass and soil which bordered it.

A number of hands held the small drums he’d heard, their insistent beat thumping along in the darkness. From their mouths came a low, keening sound, at times like the yip of those nocturnal beasts that stalked the wilder outlands of the city.

It was their faces, though, that held the Elf’s attention. Like those trick mirrors at some traveling carnival attraction they changed, first one thing then another.....a young man’s face to hawk visage.....and on another that of an antlered stag. Fox and bear, fish and marten, wolf.....and others not seen save in those lands west of west, graced their swaying bodies. ‘I know these ones,’ Jack spoke, almost to himself. ‘From across the great sea they came in older days, even as our folk crossed to their lands.’ He marveled at them. ‘Though I have not seen them gathered in such number before.’

The great doors to the library were open, he could see. Those Orcs and Trolls who had not already passed within tried desperately to escape the shadows which seethed just beyond the entryway. But they could not. Held by the steady intensity of the drums and voices they were driven back mercilessly toward the waiting doom.

In the end, he could not say if it were long or brief – that space of time within which the spectacle played out. When the last Orc vanished into the library, the great doors swung closed. The drumming, the hum of voices stopped, too. And all was silent, within and without, until the familiar sounds of a New Ford night came flooding back in upon the senses.

In twos and threes and such the group before the stairs began to leave; some talking quietly to each other as they walked along, others with a look and half smile of a thing yet again well done. A few there were who stopped as they passed the stone bear where the companions were yet hiding. They nodded in a knowing way toward the group, their ordinary faces set with smiles. All hints of wildness gone for the moment.

One turned back as they passed where Jack stood, a cunning, playful look gracing her features.....an otter’s face at first, dark eyes regarding the Elf and then in a moment a face familiar to him.....the librarian.....

‘Those three little books,’ she said, pointing a slender finger at the pocket in which he’d hidden them away. ‘Remember as always, my dear, due back, and promptly, next Hallows’ Eve.’

‘No tears, no dog-eared corners, no creasing the spines unduly either. And, oh, yes, no writing of notes in the margins, no underlining,’ he called out to her as she turned away and hurried off into the welcoming shadows beyond the library grounds.

Jack shoved his hands in his coat pockets and looked round to his own companions. ‘Well, shall we be getting back?’ he asked, lifting his chin in the direction from which they’d started out. He glanced briefly back at the once again quiet library; its windows softly dark as if what lay within were now resting. ‘Seems as if all is taken care of, don’t you think? At least for now.....’