When Fate Strikes

Chapter 5

The once pristine, white mountain landscape turned into one of sheer cliff and grey, dirty mist. We can't even see the snow anymore. But it's still cold. I wish we had left the cold behind and kept the snow. I would be much happier. I would even trade the Elvish gift of light footsteps if I could have the gift of eternal warmness.

"Frodo, come and help an old man." Gandalf said. This is out of character, Gandalf has always been independent. I perk my ears up to listen in and Eryn and I exchange looks. We stay silent and just observe.

"How's your shoulder?" Gandalf asked as he started to lean on Frodo.

"Better than it was." Frodo replied.

"And the Ring?" They stopped in the middle of the path and Gandalf looked down at Frodo. "You feel its power growing don't you. I've felt it too. We must be careful now. Evil will be drawn to it from outside the Fellowship and, I fear from within. " Boromir pushed past us and gave us a strange look as we both started to suddenly look through my medicine bag.

"Who then do I trust?" Frodo asked.

"You must trust yourself, trust your own strengths."

"What do you mean?"

"Frodo, there are many powers in this world for good and for evil. Some are greater than I am and against some I have not yet been tested." Gimli stepped up next to me and gasped.

"The walls of Moria." He pointed and I followed his finger to see a giant face of sheer brown-grey cliff.

*****

"Dwarf doors are invisible when closed." Gimli experimentally tapped the wall with his axe, as if the door would magically appear if he did so. Gimli had been chattering to us three Elves the entire way to Moria, telling us tales of the Dwarf city and loudly boasting about the wealth of the mines.

"Yes Gimli, their own Masters cannot find them. If their secrets are forgotten." Nothing shouts Dwarfish nature as much as a door that is so secret and magical that it is almost impossible to find.

"Why doesn't that surprise me." Said Legolas, looking unimpressed. Gimli growled and I had to distract him from plotting ways to slowly kill Legolas.

"Have you ever been to Moria before?" I asked. Gimli looked at me.

"It is a trip I have never forgotten," he answers. "My cousin Balin invited me to come for a little visit, quite a while ago. Of course I accepted and off I went, excited to see the wonders of Moria with my own eyes. It was quite an experience, I assure you."

Gandalf had reached a spot of wall in between two trees that seemed to be half growing in the gravel ground and half in the cliff itself. He touched the wall and found lines carved into the wall and started to push soot and dirt out of them.

"Itidin" Gandalf muttered to himself, "It mirrors only starlight and moonlight." He looked up to the sky. I looked as well, just to see a cloud move away from the moon, emitting bright light. Slowly, the lines that were carved onto the wall lit up in gold. The carving made up a decorated door picture.

"It reads, 'the door of Durin, Lord of Moria. Speak, friend, and enter.'" Gandalf interpreted while tracing the words with his staff.

"What do you suppose that means?" Asked Merry.

"Oh it's quite simple," explained Gandalf, confidently. "If you are a friend, you speak the password and the doors will open." Gandalf placed his staff on a star on the door and chanted in incanting words.

"Annon edhellen, edro hi ammen!" Pippin smiled up at me and looked at the doors expectantly. His face fell a little bit when they didn't budge. He must've gotten the wrong password. Gandalf removed his staff and stared up at the words. He started to go through different spells.