~ Middle Earth Reclaimed ~
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An Alternate Universe fic, though it's probably more of a post-LotR :). I've been told the ideas here might be disturbing, but it is written with great respect for Tolkien's works. All the characters belong to JRR Tolkien, naturally. Thanks for reading.
Genre: Mystery/Drama
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Night in the tropics was humid, stifling. The young man's health had always been somewhat poor, and now he struggled to fill his lungs as they pushed past waxy green leaves and clinging vines.
"Look here..." He stopped, bent forward and hugged his chest to catch his breath. "Did we have to come this way...?"
His companion regarded him with the same sad expression that never varied, and nodded. "Yes, this is the only way. Come now - you were more eager when we started our journey." As always, there was something archaic about his speech, but it was not an accent or tone that could be put on in pretence.
"Of course I'm eager. If what you've been telling me - " the young man looked up in sudden suspicion " - is the truth."
They stood there for a long moment. The first of the two men had dark hair and pale skin, his eyes grey and narrowed with uncertainty. The other had golden hair, tied back with a leather strip. His blue eyes seemed almost colourless in the artificial beam of their torchlights, and his face carried no lines, but whether he was younger or older was difficult to say. At last he made this reply: "It is not in my nature to lie, Adan."
"Stop bloody calling me that. Let's just get to the place, alright?"
They continued through the dense vegetation, the golden-haired man leading the way.
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He was an enigma really, a man who had suddenly turned up on the archaeological dig claiming to have personal interests in the site. The Professor and the senior graduate students - pushy people as they were - had shown surprisingly little backbone in the face of this intrusion. They probably hadn't even asked for credentials or papers or anything. They'd just let this stranger with his bizarrely mournful gaze walk into the dig, with free access to scan through all the finds.
Faramir had at first assumed him to be a sponsor. Or a representative of the powers-that-be in the university or the museum or somesuch. But over the week he had mentioned nothing to give away his background, while the archaeological team was still unconsciously treating him like a higher being.
And where did Faramir fit into this? Well, he was just an undergraduate student who'd been let onto the team as a favour to his elder brother. It didn't really matter that he actually had a great talent for drawing the finds, or that he had a memory better than any field catalogue. It didn't even matter that he was practically the most enthusiastic worker in the department. At the end of the day it was the word from Brian which secured his position.
"You are Faramir." The stranger had approached him on Day 21. Faramir had looked up from the pottery shards then, taking off his work-spectacles in order to see him better. For some reason, the stranger had seemed wrong standing under the green plastic rainshield; it was as if he had been cut out from an old painting and crudely pasted into a modern setting.
"That's right." There was a long pause, which Faramir took to be bemusement. "My mother liked Tolkien and had a sense of humour, hence the name. Can I... er... help you?"
"We did not have a chance to meet, the first time."
The first time?
"But yes, you can help me." He reached into his sleeve and drew out a blackened object, wrapped in plastic. To an untrained eye it was nothing more than a burnt leaf; Faramir recognised it as an ornament of oxidised silver, fragile and incredibly precious. "They tell me you found this yesterday morning. Tell me where, exactly."
So Faramir had shown him the square in the orange-string grid, and had told him at what depth, in what manner, and at what time the specimen had been uncovered.
The man appeared to be orientating himself according to Faramir's information, and finally looked over into the wall of dense, uncleared jungle. "I see. Of course, the land has shifted since those times, and all is now in disarray."
"Sure, magnetic north has wandered a little bit," said Faramir tactfully. "I hope you weren't thinking about continental drift, though. Archaeologists don't deal with that kind of thing." He can't possibly be from the university, then, he absently added to himself.
"Do you know exactly what people, what culture you are studying?"
"That's still being debated, which is what makes this site so interesting. It ought to be no earlier than South Asian Bronze Age, but we're seeing some external influences here which are really puzzling the Prof. It might be contamination from overlying layers. I hope we'll get a sedimentologist down here soon to tell us how likely that is." Faramir began polishing his glasses on his shirtfront, and chuckled. "Maybe the Celts teleported themselves here. I don't know what to make of it myself, so I'll keep an open mind."
The stranger looked thoughtful, carefully placing the silver leaf upon a makeshift worktable. "You have searched the ground in three places. But you have missed its centre. You have not looked in the East."
Faramir raised an eyebrow, not knowing why he suddenly felt persuaded to agree with the man. "In... the East? Is that where we should dig? What would we find there?"
There was no answer, only a long gaze as if the man was willing Faramir to remember the lines from a book read long ago.
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The site would have to be closed. The monsoon season was coming, the trenches had to be meticulously covered with waterproof sheets before then. It was inevitable that some flooding would occur, but unless they cleared out now there would be nothing left for next year's excavations.
On the last day, after all the hard work had been finished, after artefacts, figures and notes had been stashed away in the vans, the Professor had driven to the city to sleep in a proper hotel - that is, in a real bed - for the last night. The post-grads had hit the nearest small town's bar, and Faramir heard their slurred cheering as they staggered back into camp in the wee hours.
He himself had lain awake, unable to push away the nagging feelings of waste. Some of the finds were incredibly beautiful, but that was not what made him regret having to leave. It was just that their like had never been seen before, not here, not anyhere that he could recall. One could not even begin to place them in an age or civilisation, though the others had made plenty of attempts. Plus there was the odd way in which some artefacts were badly corroded (like the silver leaf) while some delicate chain links - which seemed also to be made of silver - were plucked from the ground in near perfect condition.
Questions, questions, questions. It was unbearably hot in the tent, and punching the pillow did not help. So he pulled off the cotton shirt and rolled onto his side, thinking of the silver leaf. And soon he was inexplicably deep in dreams.
He was standing on the edge of an island, standing on the polished creamy sands of the beach. Far in the distance was a line of white foam above the jewel-blue seawaters. It grew, speeding closer and closer, growing clearer and taller in his sight, yet perfectly silent. Faramir found himself running inland, up marble stairways and past ivory lattices, but even as he climbed upward the immense wave was higher still, always higher, noiselessly rising over the walls and towers, till there was no sky but a blue crystal ceiling of water, and....
"Adan. Adan."
Faramir groaned as he awoke, and reflexively pushed away the figure that was shaking him by the shoulders. He rubbed his face with his hands, the sleep in eyes making the world even blurrier than it usually was.
"Adan. We must go to it tonight."
"Why are you calling me that?" Faramir knew at once who it was in his tent. The stranger crouched before him, his golden head brushing the low-hanging canvas.
"I call you Adan because that is what you are. Now we must go." In his palm rested a leaf, the twin of the leaf that Faramir had found. Except that this was whole and unblemished, as lifelike and supple as a real leaf from a tree, yet metallically radiant in the darkness. At its tip was a cluster of three stones; one red, one green and one blue.
Faramir's mouth went dry. "I don't understand."
"I shall take you to where this was made. At the centre. Now do you understand?"
"I think I do." The young archaeologist frowned, struggling with the buttons of his shirt. "But... where?"
"East of here," smiled the man, yet his smile was pale. "You shall see."
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Just when Faramir thought their traverse would prove endless, his companion stopped and swung round to face him. There was nothing to indicate that the place was special, at first, yet an expression of unspeakable longing had appeared on the man's face. Suddenly Faramir realised that he did not know his name.
"It is here," he murmured. "Here I lived for an age, when it was similarly hidden from the eyes of the world. And here I stayed awhile, when they had all gone over-sea. I should like to see it again, Faramir. I should like to find the grave of Asfaloth, and of Tarninque before him. But I must also find out why I have been called here. Perhaps it calls to you also. Can you not hear it?"
Faramir found himself trembling, but it was not simple fear. Deep inside the ground he could feel something which resonated, and within himself was a cord that vibrated to it. Slowly he knelt, placed his palms to the ground, and with his fingers began to push away the thick red clayey soil; but no, what he sought was buried too far below to be reached through such clumsy digging.
"How shall we come to it?" asked Faramir, knowing that he sounded desperate. "I don't want to be here - but at the same time I can't be anywhere else. What is this place?"
"Karningul in Westron speech," answered the other man gravely. "But you have heard its other name, many ages before today. This was Imladris."
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End of Chapter 1
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AlexeCinz
Rating: PG for violence -_-;;
To be continued....?
July 2001
http://www.btinternet.com/~reitaira/izumi.htm
