I nodded and she immediately took several steps backward too. Once she was clear, I spoke the activation words.
“Felaróf!” I shouted. “Shadowfax!”
Both figurines instantly grew and morphed into a pair of full-size horses, which abruptly came to life, snorting and whinnying as they reared back on their mighty hind legs. They were stunningly beautiful creatures, with nearly identical silver-gray coats. They were both decked out in Mithril plate armor that I’d purchased for them, along with custom-made saddles carved from dark-green Elven wood, inlaid with bands of gold that were engraved with their names in F?anorian script.
“These are the two fastest land animals ever to roam Middle-earth,” I said. “I obtained them by completing quests on Arda III, but they should have the same speed and abilities here. Just make sure to hold on tight. They can really move, OK?”
Aech nodded and powered down her Adidas. Then she put one of them in Felaróf’s stirrups and swung herself up into the saddle on his back. I walked over to Shadowfax and patted him gently on the neck and told him it was good to see him again in Sindarin. Then I pulled myself up into his saddle and moved him alongside Aech and Felaróf.
I removed two magic swords that I’d acquired on Arda III from my inventory. One was the ithilnaur broadsword named Glamdring wielded by Gandalf during the War of the Ring, and I equipped it in the scabbard on my avatar’s back. The other was a two-handed sword, and I took hold of it by its blade and held it out to Aech, hilt-first.
“Here,” I said. “You’re gonna need this. Andúril, the Flame of the West. Reforged from the shards of Narsil by—”
Aech waved the sword away.
“No thanks, Z,” Aech said. “I’ve already got plenty of swords of my own.”
I continued to hold the sword out to her.
“Take it,” I said. “Only magical weapons forged by the Elves of Middle-earth can affect the servants of Morgoth, OK? I do know one or two things about this place.”
Aech relented and took the sword, then she equipped it in its scabbard at her side.
“Happy now?” she asked.
“I’ll be happy once we’ve got the last two shards,” I said. “We’re almost to the end. You ready, Aech?”
She flashed her Cheshire grin at me. Then, doing her best Jack Burton impression, she said, “Z, I was born ready.”
I laughed, and together, we both spurred our horses forward.
Shadowfax and Felaróf launched us north with the speed of loosed arrows. Their hooves thundered against the ground beneath us, like the steady beat of war drums, as they carried us away from Tarn Aeluin, across the moonlit highlands, toward the increasingly dark clouds looming on the horizon.
* * *
We raced our magical steeds at top speed across the heather-covered hills and plains of Dorthonion. When we reached a dense forest of pines along its northern border called Taur-nu-Fuin, our mounts were forced to slow their pace slightly as they weaved their way through it. But they still raced through, around, and under the trees at such blinding speed that I kept imagining myself as a doomed Stormtrooper on a speeder bike. But our steeds were magical creatures known as Mearas, who had the ability to glide across the landscape at incredible speed, regardless of the terrain beneath their hooves.
I heard Aech ride up behind me. When I glanced over at her, she was staring at me aghast. I didn’t understand why, until her eyes shifted to the browser window I still had open in front of me, displaying the Gunterpedia entry about Angband. I’d forgotten to change my privacy settings, so any browser windows I opened were still automatically visible to my fellow clan members.
“You don’t have any idea what we’re supposed to do when we get there, do you?” she said. “You were looking it up! I just saw you looking it up!”
“I was just refreshing my memory, Aech. That’s all.”
“OK,” Aech replied. “Then tell me, what do we do when we get there? How do we get inside his fortress? And how the fuck are we supposed to get the shards out of Morgoth’s Crown? You said the dude was invincible.”
She continued to stare over at me as we both bounced up and down in our saddles, awaiting my answer.
“I’m not sure yet,” I admitted. “I know that Beren and Lúthien were able to ‘cast down’ Morgoth and steal one of the jewels from his crown, but I don’t know how they did it. I think that story is in The Silmarillion, and I never finished reading that. But I’ll skim the CliffsNotes on our way to Angband, OK? I’ll figure out what we need to do, I promise!”