I followed her down the adjacent corridor a short distance. Then she stopped and pressed her palm gently against a nondescript section of the corridor wall. With a grinding of stone, that section of the wall slid back, revealing the entrance to a secret passageway. Art3mis stepped into it, then motioned for me to follow. Once I was by her side, she pressed her hand to the wall again and the stone slid shut. After only a few minutes, we emerged from another secret door, just yards from Morgoth’s throne room.
Art3mis threw back the hood of her cloak. “OK, Z,” she said. “Here’s the plan. Normal magic doesn’t work on Morgoth, but I’m hoping a Middle-earth song spell should knock him out, just like it did Carcharoth. I’ve got a ninety-ninth-level one that should be impossible for him to resist. Let’s just hope my Quenya pronunciation is up to it.”
Then she strode forward, walking boldly through the open doors of Morgoth’s throne room as if she were visiting royalty, while I remained in the form of a wolf, trotting close by her heel.
The Nethermost Hall was a large, cavernous chamber, with a floor made of polished bronze. Torture racks and iron maidens lined the walls, along with statues of writhing black serpents. A massive iron throne dominated the other end of the hall, and a dark giant sat upon it. Morgoth was even more terrifying than I’d imagined. He was a towering demonic figure covered in black plate armor who looked like he belonged on the cover of every hardcore heavy-metal album ever made. His only fashion accessory was a seven-foot-long melee weapon laid across his lap, which, my HUD helpfully informed me, was named Grond, the Hammer of the Underworld, and was capable of killing any avatar with a single blow.
The moment we laid eyes on Morgoth, Art3mis began to sing. Her voice echoed off the black chamber walls, and as she finished her song, all of the Orcs, Balrogs, and other fearsome creatures that stood guard in Morgoth’s court were lulled to sleep. A few terrifying seconds later, Morgoth himself tipped forward out of his throne, unconscious, and crashed face-first onto the bronze floor with a thundering clang that sounded like an avalanche of iron. His crown rolled off his head and came to rest on the floor directly in front of me, with three shining Silmarils set into the band of black iron.
When I glanced over at Morgoth’s face, all I saw was a whirling mass of formless darkness. It was utterly terrifying, so I averted my eyes. That was when I noticed that both his hands were covered in scar tissue, as if they had been badly burned, and that part of his massive right foot was missing, as if it had been hacked off in battle.
Art3mis motioned me forward, toward the crown, as she began to sing the same song spell again. She’d have to keep casting it continuously to keep everyone asleep.
I removed the Wolf-hame and transformed back into my human form. Then I drew Angrist and used it to pry one of the glowing Silmarils free of its setting in Morgoth’s iron crown. But when I took the glowing jewel in my hand, nothing happened. No burst of light, no flashback. No transformation into the Sixth Shard. It was still just a Silmaril.
The Silmaril was emanating a great deal of light, like a shining beacon, so I stored it in my inventory. Then I looked back at the crown. I was tempted to pry a second jewel loose from it. And a third, too, just for the hell of it. They were right there in front of me! But with great effort, I heeded Arty’s warning, hoping she was right. If this was indeed the jewel we needed, maybe it would transform into the shard once we’d escaped the confines of Angband.
Once she saw that I had obtained our prize, Art3mis stopped singing. Then we both donned our magical disguises once again and headed for the surface, following the same secret route by which we’d come in.
* * *
When we reached the top of the stairs and spied the great iron gates, we found our way blocked once again. The giant wolf Carcharoth had awoken from his slumber.
In this same moment, the Silmaril suddenly appeared in my right hand. I tried to store it back in my inventory, but found that I couldn’t. The jewel was stuck to the palm of my right hand. I couldn’t let go of it.
“If you try to get past Carcharoth, he’ll bite off your hand and swallow it along with the Silmaril,” Art3mis said. “Just like he did to Beren. And if that happens, the Silmaril will burn Carcharoth from the inside and drive him mad with pain, and he’ll go tearing across the countryside. We’ll have to chase him down, and that would cost us even more time. Time we no longer have to spare.”
“OK,” I said. “Then why don’t you just put him to sleep again?”