Many thanks to @BeaconHill and @GlassGirlCeci for betareading.
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The vehicle turned out to be a green pickup truck, beaten and worn through years of use. We flagged it down with raised arms from the side of the road, and it pulled over, slowing to a stop beside us, tires crunching on the unpaved dust.
The driver's window lowered slowly and erratically as it was manually cranked down. When it fell it revealed a very old man. His hair and beard were tangled and unkempt. His heavily wrinkled skin had a leathery texture, splotched here and there with moles and sunspots. His eyes were a dark brown, almost black, and they lingered on me momentarily as he studied us.
"Hello there," he said, and despite his apparent age, his voice was clear and unwavering, a deep baritone. His accent was difficult to place—perhaps a hint of an English lilt beneath the country twang? "You're a bit off the usual trails."
"Yes," I said with a slight smile, studying him. There was something about his eyes that drew my attention, like a hand waving from a crowd, but when I looked, I saw nothing familiar. Only the sense that I was missing something. "We got a little lost, I'm afraid. We were hoping you might be able to give us a ride, or directions?"
His beard twitched slightly as he smiled. "Sure, so long as it's not too far," he said. "Where're you headed?"
"I don't know the names of streets or anything," I admitted. "We're navigating by landmarks. Is there an easy way to get closer to the geyser fields?"
"Yeah, there's an old road through the forest. Stops at an old lumber mill, not too far from the park entrance. It's not far from here," he said. "Hop in. I'd offer you the bed, but I've got wood in there."
"Thank you," I said, and the others echoed me. "We really appreciate it.
"No trouble at all," he replied.
We quickly boarded the truck. I sat in front with the old man. Sophia and Emma piled into the back seat, uncomfortably leaning against opposite windows and trying to ignore the sudden enclosure.
"So," the old man asked me as the truck started up again. "What brings you out to Montana? Just hiking around Yellowstone?"
"We're looking for something," I said. "Geocaching, I guess, or something like it."
He nodded, his eyes on the road ahead. "That's what, a worldwide scavenger hunt, right?"
"Basically," I said. I'd never done it, but I'd heard about it at some point when I was younger. It was as good a cover as any. "I'm sorry, we haven't introduced ourselves. I'm Taylor. They're Sophia and Emma."
"Taylor, Sophia, Emma," said the man slowly, glancing back at the other two over his shoulder. "Pleasure. I'm Mark Anglin."
I nodded. "Thanks again for the ride, Mark," I said. "We, uh, underestimated the distance we were supposed to cover today. Only realized it this morning."
"It happens," Mark shrugged. "I've lived here a long time, and even I sometimes forget how long it takes to get places." He shot me a grin. "Not this time, though. Fifteen more minutes, tops."
I smiled back. "Much appreciated." I studied him in silence for a moment. The same sense, that I was missing something, still plagued me. "How long have you lived here?"
"Most of my life," said Mark immediately. "Moved here from out west when I was just a kid. Been here since before the whole 'capes' thing started." He snorted. "You know, a few years after Behemoth showed up, they put out PSAs encouraging people to move away from the caldera? Said it was a prime target for him."
"They're not wrong," said Sophia from the back.
Mark made a derisive sound in the back of his throat, somewhere between a hiss and a growl. "Ol' Yellowstone hasn't erupted in a
real long time," he said. "Behemoth's not gonna change that. I'll believe it when I see it."
Sophia hummed but didn't reply. I kept watching Mark closely.
"What about you all?" he said, looking my way through the corner of his eye. "Where you from?"
"Back east," I said. "Our hometown's been in the news lately, actually. Recently had a pretty bad gang war. Brockton Bay?"
"Heard about that," said Mark, his voice even. "Some new hero showed up and started messing around with the status quo."
I chuckled. "You could say that, yeah. It got a little too hectic for us."
"I get that," said Mark. "Sometimes you just wanna find somewhere safe and quiet."
"Yeah," I agreed, tearing my eyes from him and looking at the road ahead. "Yeah."
There was a pause for a few minutes as I let myself sink into the tattered leather seat. It was a warm day, but not a hot one, and the afternoon sun streaked in through the window, casting a blanket of warm light across me.
"I think I'm glad she showed up, though," said Mark suddenly.
Somehow, I wasn't surprised he had veered back onto the topic. "Yeah?"
"Mm. Status quo needed shaking up. Too much broken. Too many old things lingering in a world that doesn't work the way it used to."
"You sound like a millennial," I said dryly.
He laughed aloud. "I'm a little older than that."
A few minutes later, we emerged from the wood into an unkempt lot. Weeds had grown over much of the unpaved earth that once must have been able to accommodate wheeled traffic, although I wouldn't have been surprised to learn that the derelict mill a few dozen yards away hadn't been used since the nineteenth century. The wood was rotting in places, and whatever remained of the wheel saws had long since rusted away. The trees grew thin beyond us, and past them I could see the sapphire-blue waters and garnet-red earth of the Yellowstone geyser fields.
I could feel Mark's eyes on my back as I stared out the window. After a minute or two, he cleared his throat. "So. You know where you're headed from here?"
I swallowed once to ensure I had control of my voice. "Yes," I said. "We'll head down from here and I can find what we're looking for at the base of the hills."
"Sounds good."
I blinked hard to clear my eyes and turned back to him. "Thank you again for your help, Mark," I said. "We really appreciate it."
"No worries," he said, with an odd smile on his face. "Always good to meet interesting strangers."
We vacated the truck and Sophia and I waved as Mark drove away. Emma was perfectly still, staring after the truck. Sophia glanced at her. "What's up?" she asked. "Something about that guy trip your power?"
"No," Emma said quietly. "That's the odd thing." She looked my way. "I think he might be a Trump? I couldn't get much out of him."
I nodded, a little relieved. Maybe that was all I'd been sensing. "That's possible. We'll keep an eye out, just in case some locals have an ambush or something planned."
As it happened, we needn't have worried. We cleared the trees with just a few minutes of walking and emerged into the sunlight. I took a deep breath of the air, tainted with a hint of sulfur. My eyes slid shut as I reveled in the feeling of sunlight on my skin.
"So, where to?" Emma asked.
In answer, I began to hum under my breath. The Song I had sung so long ago still tied me to this place, and it to me. As I began to murmur the bars of the ancient verses anew, I felt the land respond.
My feet moved. One step, then another. Slow at first, then faster, until I was walking briskly, then jogging in the direction of a grove a few hundred meters away.
We passed between the trees. In the center of the copse we found a small formation of black rock, about twice the height of a man but still dwarfed by the trees around us. My Song tapered off slowly as I stared at it.
Much had changed, but I would recognize this in any shape.
I reached out and pushed a single boulder aside, revealing an opening that seemed too large to have been hidden so simply. We would have to walk single file to pass in, but even I would barely need to crouch. "This is it," I murmured.
Emma audibly swallowed. "I can hear it," she whispered. "The hammer on the anvil, the hissing steam."
"Echoes," I said quietly. "One sour note can color a whole Song. Or herald a key change."
Sophia slipped her hand into mine and squeezed. "We'll follow your lead," she said.
I swallowed. One step, then another, and I led them down into the Cracks of Doom.
The darkness swallowed us up quickly, but a snap of my fingers and a brief scrap of Song gave me a gentle flame in my palm to light the way. The path was winding and twisted, littered with narrow side-passages and invitingly wide forks. I ignored them all. The labyrinth was new, but the obstacle itself was not, and my own forge would never refuse entrance to its master.
The cave led us downward for what felt like hours. Occasionally Emma or Sophia would start a soft conversation in the dark. I would even participate sometimes. But inevitably the silence closed back in. The air around us was thick with tension, nerves, anticipation. And it wasn't all ours.
The master of Amon Amarth was home. The mountain waited, with bated breath, to see what he would require.
I stopped suddenly, staring at the flame in my hand.
… What
she would require.
Sophia touched my shoulder gently. "Taylor?" she murmured.
I took a shuddering breath. "Don't let me forget," I said softly. It was already out before I realized I was begging. "Don't let me forget that."
"Forget what?"
"That my name is
Taylor." I stared around at the darkness. "I am Taylor," I whispered. Then, louder, "I am
Taylor!"
Dead silence greeted me. The darkness did not recede. Why should it? Sauron had Sung these caves into existence at the apex of his might. This was
his darkness—
my darkness, yes, but written into this place with the kind of harsh Discord I hoped never to wield again. It wasn't that it refused to obey me—it was that it didn't know how. How should this place, trained to heel beneath the boot of Sauron, respond to the gentle touch of Mairë?
But something had shifted in me. I was no longer being
pulled to my old forge; I was
pushing on towards it. It was
my forge, I was not
its smith.
Sophia took my hand. "I won't let you forget," she murmured in my ear. "Never. I promise."
I squeezed her hand back, and we carried on downward.
The cold dark slowly became warm, then hot. "Really starting to feel like we're descending into a volcano," Sophia said after a long drink of water.
"I'll set up a cool room for us to make camp near the forge," I promised, glancing around at the walls. Red light was reflected in the rock, darker and duller than the flickering orange of the flame in my palm. "We're getting close."
The heat built as we followed the tunnels. Soon it was hotter than the worst July days in Brockton Bay. Emma and Sophia were panting behind me, periodically wiping the damp hair from their sweaty brows.
Another turn, and there it was. A wall of blistering heat struck us as we stared over the cavernous opening. The walls of the wide maw of Orodruin were lit blood-red from below. A narrow spit of rock extended out past the cave over the pit.
I stepped out. The other two followed hesitantly, staring over the edge at the rumbling lava below.
"Is this it?" asked Sophia, barely audible over the rumbling of liquid fire.
"Yes," Emma answered, just as quietly. Their voices echoed in my head, as though they came from a long way off.
There was a lump of dark stone near the center of the rocky outcrop. My eyes fixed on it as I strode forward. I clenched my fist as I approached, and brought it down hard when I was within reach. The stone split and shattered, and in its place was revealed a dark anvil, emerging from the rock as though it had grown there.
The fire roared below me. Smoke billowed all around. My hair whipped about my face. I stared down at the anvil, the same black iron where once I had forged my greatest and most terrible treasures.
"
Mordor-ishi amal burguul akh," I whispered, my voice lost in the noise.
In Mordor, where the shadows are.
It was time to close the circle.
