Into Darkness

Journal of Rowana, daughter of Rowetha
17 / 02 / 2120 of the Fourth Age

I'm not an archaeologist, but I can dig a trench.

Two feet by six feet of of soil and volcanic ash brought me to the flat top of the structure, and my entrenching tool cleared off well-cut and well-laid stone blocks laid together without mortar. There was, probably, a doorway if I could find out which side it was on and wanted to dig down another six feet or so. Instead, I cleared enough space to reveal an entire block, about four feet long, and then Azzie lowered the ground-penetrating radar down.

It was a snug fit, me and the machine, but as I plugged it into my neural jack, I was in luck—the radar showed nothing but a complete void below. So this wasn't a road or a solid mass. It was a chamber.

The sun burned low in the afternoon as I worked the crowbar into the tight seam between stones. Azzie fed down the hook and line from the Pathfinder's winch. The engine whirred, the block rose...

I don't know what I expected, when the stone was upright and I stopped the winch. The sun was too low to shine into the hole, much less to the void beneath. There was no breath of stale, poisoned air, no wights that came crawling out of some ancient barrow tomb. I'd tied a rope into a rappelling harness about me and double-checked my Great Eagle on my hip. Azzie paced and watched. It was everything I could do to keep her from crawling down that hole herself, but I was insistent.

"No idea what's down there. I have steel-toed boots, low-light vision, a flashlight, and tunnel experience. You wait up here, until I know it's safe."

That was how, as the sky turned pink and purple and seemed to light the clouds on fire around the edges, I descended into the darkness.

I kept the flashlight off as my boots crunched on a smooth stone floor. One hand on the grip of my weapon as my eyes adjusted to the low-light. The room was small, mostly bare of furniture. I noticed a small furnace at the far end of the room, which was oriented North towards Mt. Doom. The door was behind me, and had been sealed off with dirt and rubble. Two stone shelves ran the length of the room, and there was a small anvil near the furnace.

Breathe slowly, shallowly, I told myself. Still alert for any scuttling scorpion or slithering snake. Take it all in.

It was several degrees cooler down here. No smell or sign of damp, but then this was the northern side of the property, on the highest elevation, away from the creek, so the water table would be lower. There were no markings, no trash, no insects. It had obviously been a forge or workshop once, but whoever had left didn't leave any tools behind except the anvil, which was probably too heavy to carry, and—

Something glimmered on the anvil. Small. I stepped forward, deeper into the darkness.

On the flat of the anvil was a tiny band of metal. A ring. I picked it up. A small thing, almost crudely made. I turned it over and over in my hand. Heavy for the size. Could it actually be gold? Maybe gilded bronze. There was something written on the inner surface, but in this light...

"Find anything?" Azzie called down. Her voice didn't echo, but suddenly it seemed much further away than the few steps I'd taken indicated. I turned back, toward the light. The ring slipped into a pocket as I climbed, hand-over-hand, back up the rope.

By the light of the flashlight, Azzie examined our find. One hand tugged at the stones that blocked the doorway. They were packed tight, but if we dug down on the other side, we could attack it from both ends with the entrenching tool.

"I'm thinking: root cellar," I said. "If there are some steps on the other side of that door—heck, maybe I can make some—we can put the house down right on top of it, and then we'll have a nice, cool, dark place to store stuff. Heck, might be a good place to retreat to during an earthquake. This stonework has lasted centuries."

Azzie nodded. She had ceased to examine the room and now squinted at the ring. Held it right up close to the flashlight. Her lips moved as she tried to decipher the script.

"It's Black Speech. Old. These words...Ash nazg..."

"That's your name!" I said, a little shocked.

She nodded, slowly. Deep in thought. Or maybe lost in memory. I'd come to recognize that far-away look.

"I never asked," I said. "But what does it mean in Westron?"

Azzie's eyes left the ring for a moment. They were big and wide in the dark. Night was settling in, and our new root cellar was becoming downright chilly.

"Precious."

My grin stretched my face so far and hard it hurt.

"Well, Precious. If you want the ring, it's yours. Since it's got your name on it and all."

I was covered with the dust, sweat, and grime of a full day of digging. Yet Azzie's hug nearly crushed the wind out of me. We stood there a long time in the cold and dark, and for a moment it was like the outside world didn't exist. As if we were somewhere else, some other space. The gift of the ring was such a little thing, and yet it meant so much to her. Like when I'd given her the clothes. It struck me once again how she had nothing to her name. How much it meant to her.

A part of me wondered if she realized how much it meant to me, to be able to save someone.