“My entire real-world relationship with Samantha only lasted for one week, Aech,” I said. “That week we all spent together at the Morrows’ replica of Rivendell. She loved being there, and she loved geeking out about Middle-earth. I think Samantha loves Tolkien just as much as Kira did—maybe even more.”
I gave Aech a guilty look.
“Samantha found out I’d never finished reading The Silmarillion that week,” I said. “And she gave me an enormous amount of shit about it. I was planning to give it another go, but then—we broke up. And I’ve avoided Tolkien since. It was just too painful.”
Aech gave me a sympathetic smile. Then she leaned over in her saddle to punch me softly in the shoulder.
“Z,” she said, “maybe there’s a reason why the last two shards are hidden here, on a planet Arty knows better than you. Fate wants her to be here.”
“Arty isn’t available to help us at the moment, remember?” I replied. “And we agreed to maintain radio silence until we have the last two shards. We have to stick to the plan.”
Aech nodded and was silent for a moment.
“At least send her a text message,” Aech said. “And let her know where we are and what we’re up against.”
I nodded and tapped the messaging icon on my HUD. I kept the note short and sweet:
Dear Arty
The clue on the Fifth Shard says “the last two shards are set in Morgoth’s Crown.” We’re on Arda and are headed to Angband right now, but we could really use your help. Shoto is gone. It’s just me and Aech now. If you can’t do anything to help us from where you are, we understand. We’ll do our best without you.
MTFBWYA,
Z & Aech
I showed the message to Aech. She nodded her approval and I hit Send.
“Why do you think Kira was so nuts about Middle-earth?” Aech asked me as we continued to gallop through the dark forest.
“Pure, uncut escapism,” I said. “Tolkien’s work directly inspired the creation of Dungeons & Dragons. And then D&D, in turn, inspired the first generation of videogame designers, who tried to re-create the experience of playing D&D on a computer. Kira, Og, and Halliday—they all grew up playing D&D and the videogames inspired by it. And that inspired all of them to make computer role-playing games. That’s how we got the Anorak’s Quest series, and eventually, the OASIS. If it weren’t for Tolkien, all of us nerds would’ve had a lot less fun during the last ninety years.”
“Ah,” Aech said. “So he’s partly to blame for all this?” She flashed her Cheshire grin at me again, to let me know that she was kidding.
As we sped onward, I found myself gazing in wonderment at my surroundings. Even now, I couldn’t help but be awed by the scope and detail of Tolkien’s imagination. After almost a century, artists and storytellers and programmers were still drawing inspiration from his creation.
When we emerged from the forest’s northern border, our horses came to an abrupt halt, and Aech and I found ourselves staring out across a charred and desolate wasteland, which stretched out ahead of us as far as the eye could see. It looked like several hundred atomic bombs had been detonated here, all within the past few months. In the distance, the Iron Mountains stretched across the entire northern horizon. And near their very center, straight ahead of us, three enormous, impossibly tall black volcanoes rose up from the mountain range, looming over its peaks and stretching up into the thick black clouds that were roiling in the sky above.
I was tired of checking my map every few minutes to find out what I was looking at, so I did something that most self-respecting gunters would never do—I turned on my OASIS Tour Guide captions and activated my image-recognition software. When I took another look at the wasteland stretching out ahead of us, a caption appeared on my HUD, informing me that I was staring at the barren dunes of Anfauglith, a desolate hellscape created by Morgoth when he scorched the once-green plains of Ard-galen black with the fires of Thangorodrim, which was the name of the three volcanic peaks looming high above the horizon ahead.
“One does not simply walk into Dor Daedeloth,” I said, assuming that Aech wouldn’t get the joke. She didn’t.
“Dor what?” she replied.
“Dor Daedeloth,” I said, motioning to the scorched landscape around us. “The land of Morgoth. The Dark Lord himself.”
“Yeah, I meant to ask you about that,” Aech said. “In all three of those extremely long Hobbit movies you made me watch, wasn’t some dude named Sauron the ‘Dark Lord of Middle-earth’？”