For those who care.
The prologue is from a Tolkien fan fiction story that I started writing... *thinks* more than three years ago. It's not yet complete, I'm afraid. I finally decided to release it in public. (Har Har, as public as my blog can be.) It is tentatively titled 'Flight of the Shadow'.
The story is a companion piece to The Hobbit, in fact the first paragraph in the prologue is from it. It is an attempt to explain the whereabouts and the activities of Gandalf, between when he separates himself from the Fourteen, and when he meets up with Bilbo again among the Silvan folk.
From what I was able to piece together from the Unfinished Tales, the appendices to the Lord of the Rings and whatever else I could lay my hands on, Gandalf took leave of the dwarves and their treasure-hunter and went to a meeting of the White Council. Once there, he was finally able to move the rest, including Saruman, into action and drove out the elusive figure of the Necromancer from Dol Guldur. The knowledge of how this was done has gone undocumented.
Until now. :)
My portrayal of the characters of this story, the Elven lords and the Istari, is heavily influenced by fan fics. For those who might feel that the way the Elven lords speak to each other is unreal - note that there are no true sources for it. The Silmarillion is more of a history book rather than a story, the others even more so, and in the LoTR apart from the formal setting of the Council of Elrond (which my vision of the White Council is heavily influenced by,) few are the insights that can be gained into elven conversations. The LoTR is filled with samples of elvish interactions with hobbits and men, who look on the immortals with a great deal of reverence or at least wariness, which can really change the manner of conversations.
This is still a work in progress, and I don't really know how everything is going to end. I haven't figured it all out yet. Patience, my good reader, is a virtue when someone else needs to possess it. In this case, that someone else is you.
To all who think that I'm definitely off my rocker, obsessed with Tolkien and everything - I have no comeback. You may all be right.
Recommended prerequisites - The LoTR, The Hobbit.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Prologue
“Good-bye then, and really good-bye!” he said, and turned his horse and rode down into the west. But he could not resist the temptation of having the last word. Before he had passed quite out of hearing he turned and put his hands to his mouth and called to them: “Good-bye! Be good; take care of yourselves – and DON’T LEAVE THE PATH!”
He could almost hear them grunting miserably, getting angry because he was leaving them when their journey was getting really dangerous. Little did they know that it was he who would be in peril now. But not right away, for it was a safe three-day journey to his destination, and he was glad that it was still morning. His horse – well, not really his horse but the one he had borrowed, was young and strong, and being well trained was able to bear him across till the river at half-gallop. There both the rider and the horse rested, to help the horse regain her strength and for the rider to think of what lay ahead of him.
He knew that his objective now was different, and by far the deadlier compared to the one he was previously assisting, and he knew that it was up to him to give thought to everything. He would have to convince others, and quickly too – for in his heart he knew that it was already too late.
An hour later, he got up, mounted his horse and continued riding like the wind. He passed the Carrock early in the evening and continued till dusk.
The first half of the next day was quite uneventful; he crossed the Old Ford with ease. As the evening drew closer, he turned west. South, far ahead of him lay the gladden river. There was a small ford, the only passage across the river in these troubled days, just ere the river came out of the Misty Mountains, and that was what he was making for.
Before long he realized that he should have turned from the banks of the Anduin quite some time before, for all paths that lay before him were serpentine, and he was able to just manage to find a way through the marsh and briar. He knew that he wouldn’t make it to the ford before nightfall. He took shelter in a small grove for the night.
The sun dawned for the third time since he had left the company of those who were going eastward, and he knew that the journey would end today. Such was the life of our rider, very precise was he in his time-keeping, and so he was all the more furious for being late. For late he was, at least by five days, his only hope was that the others would have been delayed too.
With an hour's ride, he approached the ford. The descent was quite tricky, but our rider being who he was, coaxed the beast down with ease. Only after he had reached the water did he realize that something there was not altogether right.
For the past quarter of an hour, he had been fully and justly occupied with the matter at hand – guiding the horse down. Now that his thoughts were not so burdened with something so laborious, he felt that peculiar prickly feeling at the back of his head. He was being watched. Where from? The very air seemed to be spying on him, oh why hadn’t he noticed this before, but he could not see a single face, not a single eye gleaming in the shadows. Orcs? He did not think so, for it was after dawn now, the sun was in the sky, even if still quite low. He felt something else, something more powerful, and something more…evil.
To assume that fear clouded his judgment would be a very foolish thing to do, for he did not fear easily. Yes, caution and prudence did creep into his action, for he knew that he had to move on quickly, flee rather than fight. He knew that he would be strong enough to defeat whatever evil that lurked here, if it did show itself, but in doing so he would first give himself away. More importantly, he would be delayed – and our wanderer had wandered enough.
He crossed the river, looking straight ahead and with the air of someone who did not know that anything was amiss. He did not risk a look back till he reached the southern bank. He felt contempt for doing things this way, for no coward was he, but he accepted the situation the way it was. The ascent here was by far the easier. His spurred the beast on and the horse sprang out of the gully and started racing past the Gladden Fields. The evil he lost behind him.
The day grew older, and finally he could see the first trees of the realm he was seeking. A low mist loomed in front of him – the enchanted veil over the realm of Dwimordene drew closer to him by the minute. He did not fear it, for fear of this he thought, was absurd.
The horse was apprehensive of it, there was some sorcery there that it did not comprehend, and hence could not like. The rider patted its neck and spoke a few soft words in a strange, sonorous tongue and the beast relaxed. The rider changed the pace to a quick trot, and the distance to the woods was covered in no time. As they reached the wood, they could see a pale figure climbing down one of the boughs, cloaked in white and grey.
“Mithrandir! Welcome. You are long expected. Her ladyship was not worried but the lord was quite so,” said the figure, who could now be discerned as an elf, with a bow slung on his shoulder.
“Greetings, Emeldil! And well met. A wizard is never late, though I confess that I had the care of many other matters in my hand. I have come as fast as I possibly could in haste, and will tarry no more. Come! Let us be off to the city.”
And so the wizard and the elf set out on foot, the horse led by the elf on the path heading for Caras Galadhon, the City of Trees.
----------
Disclaimer: Tolkien is Eru, Iluvatar, owner-of-all. I am not doing this to make any money. Like anyone will pay me for this. All characters belong to him except for the ones I have taken the liberty of creating.
He could almost hear them grunting miserably, getting angry because he was leaving them when their journey was getting really dangerous. Little did they know that it was he who would be in peril now. But not right away, for it was a safe three-day journey to his destination, and he was glad that it was still morning. His horse – well, not really his horse but the one he had borrowed, was young and strong, and being well trained was able to bear him across till the river at half-gallop. There both the rider and the horse rested, to help the horse regain her strength and for the rider to think of what lay ahead of him.
He knew that his objective now was different, and by far the deadlier compared to the one he was previously assisting, and he knew that it was up to him to give thought to everything. He would have to convince others, and quickly too – for in his heart he knew that it was already too late.
An hour later, he got up, mounted his horse and continued riding like the wind. He passed the Carrock early in the evening and continued till dusk.
The first half of the next day was quite uneventful; he crossed the Old Ford with ease. As the evening drew closer, he turned west. South, far ahead of him lay the gladden river. There was a small ford, the only passage across the river in these troubled days, just ere the river came out of the Misty Mountains, and that was what he was making for.
Before long he realized that he should have turned from the banks of the Anduin quite some time before, for all paths that lay before him were serpentine, and he was able to just manage to find a way through the marsh and briar. He knew that he wouldn’t make it to the ford before nightfall. He took shelter in a small grove for the night.
The sun dawned for the third time since he had left the company of those who were going eastward, and he knew that the journey would end today. Such was the life of our rider, very precise was he in his time-keeping, and so he was all the more furious for being late. For late he was, at least by five days, his only hope was that the others would have been delayed too.
With an hour's ride, he approached the ford. The descent was quite tricky, but our rider being who he was, coaxed the beast down with ease. Only after he had reached the water did he realize that something there was not altogether right.
For the past quarter of an hour, he had been fully and justly occupied with the matter at hand – guiding the horse down. Now that his thoughts were not so burdened with something so laborious, he felt that peculiar prickly feeling at the back of his head. He was being watched. Where from? The very air seemed to be spying on him, oh why hadn’t he noticed this before, but he could not see a single face, not a single eye gleaming in the shadows. Orcs? He did not think so, for it was after dawn now, the sun was in the sky, even if still quite low. He felt something else, something more powerful, and something more…evil.
To assume that fear clouded his judgment would be a very foolish thing to do, for he did not fear easily. Yes, caution and prudence did creep into his action, for he knew that he had to move on quickly, flee rather than fight. He knew that he would be strong enough to defeat whatever evil that lurked here, if it did show itself, but in doing so he would first give himself away. More importantly, he would be delayed – and our wanderer had wandered enough.
He crossed the river, looking straight ahead and with the air of someone who did not know that anything was amiss. He did not risk a look back till he reached the southern bank. He felt contempt for doing things this way, for no coward was he, but he accepted the situation the way it was. The ascent here was by far the easier. His spurred the beast on and the horse sprang out of the gully and started racing past the Gladden Fields. The evil he lost behind him.
The day grew older, and finally he could see the first trees of the realm he was seeking. A low mist loomed in front of him – the enchanted veil over the realm of Dwimordene drew closer to him by the minute. He did not fear it, for fear of this he thought, was absurd.
The horse was apprehensive of it, there was some sorcery there that it did not comprehend, and hence could not like. The rider patted its neck and spoke a few soft words in a strange, sonorous tongue and the beast relaxed. The rider changed the pace to a quick trot, and the distance to the woods was covered in no time. As they reached the wood, they could see a pale figure climbing down one of the boughs, cloaked in white and grey.
“Mithrandir! Welcome. You are long expected. Her ladyship was not worried but the lord was quite so,” said the figure, who could now be discerned as an elf, with a bow slung on his shoulder.
“Greetings, Emeldil! And well met. A wizard is never late, though I confess that I had the care of many other matters in my hand. I have come as fast as I possibly could in haste, and will tarry no more. Come! Let us be off to the city.”
And so the wizard and the elf set out on foot, the horse led by the elf on the path heading for Caras Galadhon, the City of Trees.
----------
Disclaimer: Tolkien is Eru, Iluvatar, owner-of-all. I am not doing this to make any money. Like anyone will pay me for this. All characters belong to him except for the ones I have taken the liberty of creating.
Friday, September 7, 2007
A month, a year, a moment in time.
A new post is in order, I think. At least so as to push down that ghastly poem of mine.
Another month, gone. September seems to have crept in, catching most of us napping. Big plans I had. For August. And for life in general. I almost never make resolutions, but I had so many aims that were nearly those.
To start the laborious process of applying to graduate schools. To start off with my thesis project. To do some justice to the ones I have left incomplete. To try and do some of the extra work I had the gall to take on. To go cycling to Mahabs. To go out into the city, and not just to the railway station when I'm heading home. To blog at least once a week. To read more, to write more and to sleep a little less. To be happy. To be content. (Hah!) To dream more. Literally, at that. (I don't get dreams everyday, and I feel well rested and content with sleep only when I do.) To write poetry again. Preferably in class. To at least finish a novel when I am there. To learn to draw again. To eat healthy food. Even when I'm not at Subway. And eat a little less. To exercise everyday. To be more aware of what goes on around me. To go home more often. To do more when I am there. To live life in every breath. To complain a little less. To not worry as much. To be nicer to people. To sing, to dance, to run amok. To be carefree, even if only for a while.
Grand plans I seem to have. And ambitious dreams. But I end up doing not all that much.
Another month, gone. September seems to have crept in, catching most of us napping. Big plans I had. For August. And for life in general. I almost never make resolutions, but I had so many aims that were nearly those.
To start the laborious process of applying to graduate schools. To start off with my thesis project. To do some justice to the ones I have left incomplete. To try and do some of the extra work I had the gall to take on. To go cycling to Mahabs. To go out into the city, and not just to the railway station when I'm heading home. To blog at least once a week. To read more, to write more and to sleep a little less. To be happy. To be content. (Hah!) To dream more. Literally, at that. (I don't get dreams everyday, and I feel well rested and content with sleep only when I do.) To write poetry again. Preferably in class. To at least finish a novel when I am there. To learn to draw again. To eat healthy food. Even when I'm not at Subway. And eat a little less. To exercise everyday. To be more aware of what goes on around me. To go home more often. To do more when I am there. To live life in every breath. To complain a little less. To not worry as much. To be nicer to people. To sing, to dance, to run amok. To be carefree, even if only for a while.
Grand plans I seem to have. And ambitious dreams. But I end up doing not all that much.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
A kiss of death.
Ok, so it was more like a peck. So shoot me. A peck more than you've had, I'm betting.
It was such a long time ago that now I am almost nostalgic about it. You know what, go ahead and remove the 'almost' from there. Yes dammit, I want to reminisce about the time when I nearly croaked. There.
It reminds that there was this one time when I was really out there, living life on the edge. Quite literally, as it so happened.
Now, my good Constant Readers (All hail Stephen King!), a few of you were there... and you know what happened. You will be able to tell that I'm not indulging in poetic excesses or exaggerations of any kind. Mild distortion thanks to one heavily adrenaline-influenced memory is quite acceptable though.
This was... 2 summers ago. June some time. We were all itching to go on our near-ritualistic annual trek and waiting for them juniors to finish their numerous exams so that we could get the numbers to go trapessing some new patch of wilderness. So much so that there were only three from my batch and more than double from theirs. Anyhou.
Pramod was our guide then, and Srinidhi his erm... assistant, though he was one of them juniors. He's one of the reasons I'm typing this today, so I'll shut up.
And we wanted to scale Kumara Parvat. The peak which had the top few hundred feet of sheer rock, sloping, wet and slippery. The peak that was always veiled by the mists, that we never got a close look at. The peak that we paid in sweat and blood to climb (for there were leeches, yes preciousss). The peak that looked so ridiculously miniscule when viewed in a pic taken from the village below.
I was bringing up the rear then. (Stop sniggering, you pervs.) So there was this one stretch. We were already some 10 feet up a rock face. Another 15 something before one could really stop. Lots of tiny footholds and handholds, and little else. Wet. The kind of stretch where if you got your first couple of steps right, the sheer momentum could propel you to the top. All the others had gone up, and it was my turn. I began.
My second step slips.
To counter that, I tried stepping onto another spot.
Slips again.
I was wearing the crappiest shoes ever. Reebok, yes, but over three years old then and smooth as a surfboard. And probably affording me just as much grip. Three years of playing football on mud and stones can do that to a shoe. And being a many time veteran of treks may be a good thing for someone, but not for their shoe. My school leather shoes would have done a better job. Heck, those Safari shoes they forced us to wear in school would have served better. To think that Arnie and I used to bicker every time one of us wore a pair of those shoes. Over who bought his pair first and the other copied. 'Nuff said about the shoes. I'm still stuck on that rock face, in case you'd forgotten.
I grabbed hold of some grass sticking up above me. They came loose.
Panic.
There I am, stuck in a Spidey-like pose (think more on the lines of an insect on a wall, to remove any illusions of grandeur from that previous statement,) with a hideously large backpack on me as well, holding on with the tips of my fingers and toes. Below me was a drop that vanished into the fog, so I have no idea how far I could have fallen that day. I'm stuck there, with no real purchase for my hands or my legs, unable to move up and unwilling to move down.
Hyelp. Please.
I'm so freakin' petrified that I don't curse even once. (And that was something I was quite proficient in back then.) My squiggling had not gone unnoticed though. Srinidhi got someone to lower him, and he stuck his leg out from above for me to catch. A foot too far. He extended himself lower, and I managed to grab on to the edge of his boot.
He almost comes free.
Meanwhile, Pramod who was much further ahead, scuttled back. Came up to the ledge above, and lowered Srinidhi even further down. I grabbed on, and nearly clawed my way to the ledge above.
All this must've lasted some thirty seconds. It felt like eternity.
So that was that trek.
Almost slipping and falling into the infinite abyss. Leeches. Nilgiris' sugar coated jellybeans. Getting a sugar rush thanks to just a couple of eclairs, and running reckless through Rohan country as if we were going orc hunting. Wingfoots we were. Hiding from rogue bulls. Sweating like horses. More leeches. One which found it's way into our tent and on to Jay's cheek. Swapping crazy school stories on the way back, all inhibition lost. Throwing away blood stained socks and shoes in the 4th block bus stand. Feeling giddy that I was alive. Stinking up the house like crazy on return and being ordered into the bathroom. Telling others (including parents, mind) this story and watching some jaws drop. And have some eyebrows disappear into hairlines. Bliss.
It was such a long time ago that now I am almost nostalgic about it. You know what, go ahead and remove the 'almost' from there. Yes dammit, I want to reminisce about the time when I nearly croaked. There.
It reminds that there was this one time when I was really out there, living life on the edge. Quite literally, as it so happened.
Now, my good Constant Readers (All hail Stephen King!), a few of you were there... and you know what happened. You will be able to tell that I'm not indulging in poetic excesses or exaggerations of any kind. Mild distortion thanks to one heavily adrenaline-influenced memory is quite acceptable though.
This was... 2 summers ago. June some time. We were all itching to go on our near-ritualistic annual trek and waiting for them juniors to finish their numerous exams so that we could get the numbers to go trapessing some new patch of wilderness. So much so that there were only three from my batch and more than double from theirs. Anyhou.
Pramod was our guide then, and Srinidhi his erm... assistant, though he was one of them juniors. He's one of the reasons I'm typing this today, so I'll shut up.
And we wanted to scale Kumara Parvat. The peak which had the top few hundred feet of sheer rock, sloping, wet and slippery. The peak that was always veiled by the mists, that we never got a close look at. The peak that we paid in sweat and blood to climb (for there were leeches, yes preciousss). The peak that looked so ridiculously miniscule when viewed in a pic taken from the village below.
I was bringing up the rear then. (Stop sniggering, you pervs.) So there was this one stretch. We were already some 10 feet up a rock face. Another 15 something before one could really stop. Lots of tiny footholds and handholds, and little else. Wet. The kind of stretch where if you got your first couple of steps right, the sheer momentum could propel you to the top. All the others had gone up, and it was my turn. I began.
My second step slips.
To counter that, I tried stepping onto another spot.
Slips again.
I was wearing the crappiest shoes ever. Reebok, yes, but over three years old then and smooth as a surfboard. And probably affording me just as much grip. Three years of playing football on mud and stones can do that to a shoe. And being a many time veteran of treks may be a good thing for someone, but not for their shoe. My school leather shoes would have done a better job. Heck, those Safari shoes they forced us to wear in school would have served better. To think that Arnie and I used to bicker every time one of us wore a pair of those shoes. Over who bought his pair first and the other copied. 'Nuff said about the shoes. I'm still stuck on that rock face, in case you'd forgotten.
I grabbed hold of some grass sticking up above me. They came loose.
Panic.
There I am, stuck in a Spidey-like pose (think more on the lines of an insect on a wall, to remove any illusions of grandeur from that previous statement,) with a hideously large backpack on me as well, holding on with the tips of my fingers and toes. Below me was a drop that vanished into the fog, so I have no idea how far I could have fallen that day. I'm stuck there, with no real purchase for my hands or my legs, unable to move up and unwilling to move down.
Hyelp. Please.
I'm so freakin' petrified that I don't curse even once. (And that was something I was quite proficient in back then.) My squiggling had not gone unnoticed though. Srinidhi got someone to lower him, and he stuck his leg out from above for me to catch. A foot too far. He extended himself lower, and I managed to grab on to the edge of his boot.
He almost comes free.
Meanwhile, Pramod who was much further ahead, scuttled back. Came up to the ledge above, and lowered Srinidhi even further down. I grabbed on, and nearly clawed my way to the ledge above.
All this must've lasted some thirty seconds. It felt like eternity.
So that was that trek.
Almost slipping and falling into the infinite abyss. Leeches. Nilgiris' sugar coated jellybeans. Getting a sugar rush thanks to just a couple of eclairs, and running reckless through Rohan country as if we were going orc hunting. Wingfoots we were. Hiding from rogue bulls. Sweating like horses. More leeches. One which found it's way into our tent and on to Jay's cheek. Swapping crazy school stories on the way back, all inhibition lost. Throwing away blood stained socks and shoes in the 4th block bus stand. Feeling giddy that I was alive. Stinking up the house like crazy on return and being ordered into the bathroom. Telling others (including parents, mind) this story and watching some jaws drop. And have some eyebrows disappear into hairlines. Bliss.
Friday, August 3, 2007
The Flower Duet
I have this tune stuck in my head. It's the British Airways theme song. The one they play when they show their silly-looking air safety video.
It's the refrain from the song Viens, Mallika... (or The Flower Duet) from the opera Lakmé by Léo Delibes.
As songs stuck in heads go, this one is not bad at all. I still remember when The Call of the Ktulu used to get stuck in there for weeks. *shudder*
It's the refrain from the song Viens, Mallika... (or The Flower Duet) from the opera Lakmé by Léo Delibes.
As songs stuck in heads go, this one is not bad at all. I still remember when The Call of the Ktulu used to get stuck in there for weeks. *shudder*
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