"Augh, we're wasting our time!"
Legolas looked back at his friend with a fond smile. "The White Lady doesn't think so. Prince Faramir doesn't think so."
"Well, what do they know?" Gimli hauled himself over another boulder with a grunt. "All this talk of stars moving and falling - this is for the likes of elves, not dwarves and men." He grinned at Legolas' affronted expression. "No offence."
"My people have noticed it too," Legolas said. He glanced down the rocky slope towards the woods of Ithilien, as if he could see the Silvan folk who now called them home - and perhaps he could, even at that distance. "Each night a new star crosses the sky, passing by the moon twice every two hours. And the fire that fell from above-"
"Just more of the Fiery Mountain's rumblings," Grimli grumbled. "Expecting an elf to recognise the workings of the earth is like asking a dwarf about-"
"- stars?" Legolas stopped abruptly, cocking his head. "Something draws near," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "And we are right on the cusp of Imlad Morgul..."
Gimli unslung his axe from his back and gripped it tightly. "Whatever comes out of there," he whispered back, "we can handle it."
Legolas had an arrow nocked, his gaze slowly sweeping the boulder-field. "There," he murmured, "beside the river. I see a hand... yes, show yourself." Suddenly he straightened up, lowering his bow and staring.
"What?" Gimli squinted into the distance. "Tell me what you see!"
"A woman," Legolas said, his voice tinged with bewilderment. "Mortal, by her face. Her hair is fair, and her clothes are strange..." He shook off his confusion and leapt up onto the boulder in front of him, then darted off.
Gimli watched his friend leap from rock to rock, seeming almost to fly between them. "Elves!" he grunted, and set off after him.
~
Gimli trudged along behind Legolas, his head filled with suspicious thoughts. The woman was strange indeed - she seemed to speak no known tongue, and had neither pack nor weapon, even on the edge of the Morgul vale. By the time Gimli caught up, she had already convinced Legolas - by way of hand gestures - to accompany her back towards the ruined nightmare city, and none of Gimli's protests could sway the elf.
"She is in need of assistance," Legolas insisted. "I do not take her for a phantom of the Enemy, if such things even still walk this earth; she is, I feel sure, precisely as she seems."
"That's what I'm worried about." But with no concrete concerns, Gimli had no choice but to follow - after all, he reasoned, someone had to protect the elf when his good nature got him into trouble.
At least the woman seemed to have no intention of taking them directly to the fallen city: the party swung south, heading deeper into the haunted valley. As they travelled, Gimli began to notice something: the twisted trees which grew in the Morgul vale seemed to be almost scorched, as if a great fire had swept over them. He was about to say something to Legolas when they came to the ridge.
Before them, the land dropped sharply away, into a great bowl carved out of the loam of Ithilien. This was no natural depression: the earth had been blasted apart by fires far greater than those employed by Saruman at the Hornburg. The plants all around were thrown flat to the ground, tree trunks splintered and broken. At the base of the hollow Gimli saw bare rock - and something that lay crumpled upon it.
It could almost have been a house, toppled onto its side - if, as Gimli noted later, one were entirely blind. The structure was made of metal, and from its four sides great butresses in red and yellow sprung out. But even without knowing its nature, it was clearly damaged - one of the butresses lay twisted and broken on the ground, and the gleaming metal of the central structure was pitted and scarred.
Legolas and Gimli stared at it for a long time, as their guide waited impatiently beside them. Finally, Gimli broke the silence. "I take it all back," he said, looking up at his friend. "This... is not from the fiery mountain."
~
The structure contained only more mysteries: metal chairs, doors that had neither hinge nor handle, a statue of crystal and iron in the shape of a man. And there was another mortal, injured and unconscious. From the way the woman fussed over him, it was clear they were close.
Legolas did his best to tend the man's wounds. "If we can bear him to Emyn Arnen, the White Lady could do more," he mused. "But will his companion permit it?"
"She will if she wants him to live," Gimli said. "You've seen her face - she knows how grievous his wounds are. It must have been the need for assistance that led her onto our path."
Legolas nodded. "And yet... if I could but speak to her!" He reached out and touched the metal wall beside him. "I do not claim to understand this, but I think it is like the ship of Earendil - a star-traveller, brought here by mischance." He shook his head slowly. "If I am right, it is hardly a mystery that she speaks no tongue of Middle-earth."
Gimli opened his mouth to speak - and then froze, staring out through the great window that made up one wall of the metal room. "Legolas," he said, his voice hoarse. "There... there is a star, falling..."
The new light burned in the sky, casting harsh shadows across the valley. It grew brighter than the moon, bright enough that Gimli had to avert his gaze. A roaring sound, as of tumbling waters in the deep places of Khazad-Dum, filled his ears.
The noise stopped. The light faded. And out in the scoured-clean hollow, where there had been only rock and earth, something new stood: a great tower, as red as blood, its side carved with vast white runes in some unfamiliar curving script.
Gimli swallowed, his throat dry and tight. "I think," he said, "we may be in over our heads."
~
hS